JesseLowe/ScarletFortress
Scarlet Fortress is the easternmost city on the Cherak coast. Though it has no river, it is still an important port due to its superb harbor and military importance.
Historically, Scarlet Fortress was originally a Shogunate naval town whose name has been lost to history. Its populace was wholly consumed by the GreatContagion, but the city and -- especially -- the harbor remained intact. It was claimed by the ancestors of House Ferem in RY 103, who promptly named the city the Scarlet Fortress in honor of the Empress.
Since its reclamation, Scarlet Fortress has remained a naval outpost. There is always a squadron of Cherak triremes stationed there, and it is often used as a waystation by the Realm's Air and Merchant Fleets.
Though not the tourist attraction that Firespring is, Scarlet Fortress is often visited by Dynasts and patricians looking for a more quiet getaway. Situated in poor farming country, the nearby lands have a certain gray and desolate beauty, and inspired a small book of poetry by Tepet Solon, who sojourned here in RY 505-509 before vanishing into the north. A favorite hobby of the local elite is falconry, and Ferem Pearl, lady of Scarlet Fortress, is an avid falconer with a large aviary. She will go to great lengths to acquire a new bird, or interesting prey.
House Margard dominates trade in Scarlet Fortress, thanks to the city's dependence on the ocean for transport, and maintains a small warehouse complex here. The local factor is Bozak Terin Margard, a slow and meticulous man who rarely, if ever, overlooks a detail. His one weakness is a rivalry with the Guild, which has blossomed from professionalism to personal vendetta. As a result, the Guild usually works here through proxies -- when it cares at all. Scarlet Fortress isn't that important...
Physically, Scarlet Fortress is centered around a harbor carved out of the coastline by First Age sorcery, which also raised up the manse and the city walls. It nestles between a pair of low ridgelines that shield it from strong winds running east and west, but occasionally channel the north wind in vicious fashion. On the tip of each ridge, looking out over the sea, is a ruined tower that dates back to before the Usurpation. These towers, once watchtowers, are of the same gray stone that makes up the city walls, and stand a bare twenty feet high at present. Once, they might have been much taller. The locals avoid them entirely, and even most Dynasts stay away; they are at once uninteresting and unnerving, leading almost everyone to find better things to do than to explore them. A single road leads north from Scarlet Fortress, to the city of Volgosh.
The Scarlet Fortress (Level 2 Air Manse)
(Using the Manse Construction System)
Drawbacks
- Notoriety 3
- Maintenance 2
Powers
- Fortress (5 pts)
- Temple to the Elemental Dragon of Air (4 pts)
- Secret Doors and Passages (2 pts)
- Passwords (2 pts)
Harbor
The harbor is on the smelly side, with litter and debris drifting in the water. Seagulls crowd the sky and the wall, their raucous cries competing with the constant wind, the creaking of masts and hawsers, and the lapping of water against the harbor walls. The entrance to the harbor is wide enough for a squadron of triremes to pass through side by side, with room to spare.
All around the circumference of the harbor, ancient stone piers raised by Shogunate-era sorcery stick out, each long enough for three triremes to dock bow to stern. The space between each pier is two trireme lengths wide. The harbor wall itself rises above the piers some twenty feet, and wide stairs ascend it to the city proper. Makeshift ladders, ropes and hoists line the top of the wall, ready to lift or lower crews and cargo.
The piers are clearly divided by function. A sailor standing on the dock of his ship in the center of the harbor sees this as he turns clockwise from the harbor entrance:
First is the west tower, grim and gray. The flag of House Ferem flies above it. On the sparsely inhabited piers below, he sees a combination of small coasters and coastal traders, fishers and small merchants. All have a rough respectability about them. As his gaze turns north, he sees the squat shapes of warehouses and the bright colors of the market. On the piers south of the warehouse district, he sees the piers, more crowded now, and the domain of wealthy merchants. All these ships -- over a third of which fly House Margard's banner -- are coastal traders or larger, and are well maintained. More than a few have sailcutters or ballistae on their decks.
Just west of the merchant's district sits the shipyard, and here the piers are backed not by the wall but by a series of drydocks. Only a few ships are building at the moment, and our sailor can see the form of a half-built trireme draped in oiled canvas.
Farther west, the piers hold naval vessesl. At the moment, a Realm bireme squadron of the Merchant Fleet lies at rest, accompanied by a trio of Cherak triremes. Above them are the barracks and the armories, the workshops and the training yards of the local garrison. Towering over everything at the easternmost corner of the harbor is the Scarlet Fortress itself, an elemental manse aspected to Air. Above it flies House Ferem's flag.
From this easternmost point, the seawall juts out back to the west, enclosing the harbor. Along the seaward side squats a low, wide wall, upon which are mounted ballistae, sailcutters, and catapults on old First Age weapon mounts at 20-yard intervals. Below the wall, in the harbor, the ancient piers continue, but are now occupied solely by fishers and oceanic wanderers. By the filth and the disorder, this is the poor section of the docks, and a semi-permanent home for many fisherfolk. The seagulls are thickest here.
At last, the sailor's gaze returns to the harbor entrance, where a lighthouse faces the western tower. A fire lights its uppermost floor, refracted through Chiaroscuran glass. If our sailor is more observant than most, he sees a chain, each link as thick as a man's waist, embedded into the seawall below the lighthouse. It drops sharply into the water of the harbor entrance. Should he glance back toward the western tower, he will see the same chain rise up no more than a yard out of the water and vanish into a black hole beneath the tower.
Some other general notes:
- The harbor has a uniform depth of 20 feet, which extends out to the harbor entrance and a few yards beyond. The harbor floor is unnaturally level and is covered in a fine gravel, plus the accumulated detritus of the last seven hundred or so years. Past the entrance, and on the seaward side of the seawall, the ocean floor changes to the rocky tumble typical of the coast here, and begins dropping into the benthic depths.
Descriptions from Session 22:
From here, you have a good view of the city and the harbor. The harbor is clearly artificial, and probably carved out by magic. (Make an Int + Lore check to date the city's architecture, diff 2 from this distance.) A road leads north from the city's only large gate, vanishing into the distance. The walls themselves are squat, thick, and red. The city hugs the harbor, a crescent that matches the harbor's near-perfect arc. On the western end is a tall tower, perhaps a hundred feet high. On the eastern end, a citadel covers a sixth of the city. Even from here, you can tell that it's a manse, probably Air-aspected. Jutting out into the sea from the citadel is a seawall, at least thirty feet wide. A walkway runs along the top. The seawall heads WSW for about a quarter mile before turning due west for another eighth of a mile. At the end of it is a lighthouse, shorter than tower and manse. You can see the flames flickering from the top.
In the harbor, many ships are docked, and there is room for many more. The fishing fleet is probaly out to sea at the moment. What you do see are a squadron of triremes, a tender, a squadron of biremes, and around twenty or so small cargo vessels -- coasters and coastal traders, plus a few blue-water merchants and large merchant ships. Of course, there are also many, many small boats moving around the harbor.
Looking at the flags, you see that the triremes fly the House Ferem banner, while the tender and the biremes are Realm. Flying from the citadel are the banners of House Ferem (ruling house of Cherak) and, on near-equal footing, House Ragara and V'Neef. You also note that there are no Guild banners on the merchant ships -- rather, those that have a flag fly an unfamiliar symbol, of a golden chain around a white shield on a field of black. The fighting ships seem to be in good trim, and you see the expected activity for a ship at dock.
The tower on the northern edge of town has a battlement atop it. There are windows dotted all over the tower, though none lower than fifty feet that are man-size. You can't say for sure, but it looks like the windows are shuttered. The same seems to be true of the manse, but not the lighthouse, which looks like it was constructed more recently.
http://www.dichotomystudio.com/gaming/exalted/maps/scarletfortress.jpg
