Hey all, Ian here again, and wow - it’s been two weeks and two days since we went public with Fantasticide! Feels like approximately five years. Time moves slow when exciting stuff is happening 🎉

(By the way, if you haven’t yet, be sure to check out Episode 1 of HNEW: Questions. It’s live now on Youtube, and you’ll want to have the context for the exciting stuff we have coming up on Episode 2, streaming literally tonight! I’ll throw it in at the bottom of the post so it’s nice and convenient 😉 - And don’t forget to subscribe so you get to see future shows!)

Anyway, it’s time to jump into another World Lore Wednesday! This time, focusing on the player’s starting country of Marròs - a land of contrasts, of intrigue, of tension, and - of course - the home of our adventurers in HNEW!

Marròs is an… interesting country - to say the least. They have two major cities, Aquilla and En Cerolle (pronounced “ah-quill-ah” and “en seh-roll” respectively) and both come with their fair share of quirks - standing in firm contrast to each-other even as they dwell within the same culture and share many of the same norms and mindsets. Likewise, the Marren populace stands out as particularly laid back, even as their government encroaches on foreign land - provoking complaints and protestation from their pacifist, communal Qunnen neighbors to the north. This stands in stark contrast to the Ravnens to the south, who take pride in their hard work, their sense of duty, and their tendency to keep to themselves politically-speaking.

There’s far too much in my notes to cover here (just my notes on the Marren towns & countryside cover ~20 pages, and that’s ignoring racial settlements & the Marren culture) so I’ll keep this focused on the high-level. I’ll also split it into 2 parts, one focusing primarily on Aquilla, and the other focusing on the rest of Marròs & it’s culture. When we release our lore book early 2020, I’ll be sure to go into more detail!

Aquilla

Aquilla stands as the busiest city in Marròs. Packed to the gills (hah ^[1] ) with trade and the resulting industries (taverns, dockyards, shipwrights, etc) you'd have a hard time calling the city anything but thriving. Yet, at the same time, the city comes with its fair share of problems: Desparate poverty permiates the city - contained within the districts of the Mugre (Moo-Gray) and the Ruggine (Ru-Gene-yeh).

Likewise, the government - the Council of 17 - stalled to a halt in recent years, causing disfunction to reign throughout the city. Problems go unaddressed, city services go unmaintained and unfunded, legal issues go unresolved, and everyone's lives is just hard enough where radical reform is on everyone's minds, but hasn't quite percolated to the point where anyone might act on it yet.

Districts

Throughout the city, you'll find 8 distinct districts

Wethook: The district around which the Aquillan economy revolves. Warehouses fill most of this district, along with offices, and - of course Deep Harbor. The depiction above is incorrect, in that “the Catfoot Docks” are really “The Catfoot Shipyards” and located off the Redwood District. This is what I get for making maps in pen ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Brinestone: Sitting on the south edge of the city, east of Wethook, an overabundance of taverns, bawdyhouses, and dens of ill repute characterize this district. The streets often smell like a latrine (as Lysta will never let you forget ^[2] ) and passed out sailors and their accompanying waste litter the streets. Suffice to say, not a good place for children.
Alloren (al-low-ren): A quiet distrct, in stark contrasat to Brinestone to the south. A low-to-middle-class workforce make their home here - commuting to their jobs in Wethook and Brinestone. You'll also find the workers of various stores, chapels, clinics, and so forth dotting the area, although - ironically - those workers tend live in Vallisalle.
Ledarre (leh-darr-ray): Home of the Council of 17 - the city's governing body - as well as most of the governmental apparatus and many of the town's most influential citizens.
Mugre: As mentioned above, the lower classes and those out of work tend to live here - although, unlike the Ruggine, those living here tend to be "old poor". They all tend to know eachother and treat eachother with a bit of a code - never stealing from eachother, looking the other way if one of their own happens to lift a wallet off a passerby, and so on. Suffice to say, it's a very safe neighborhood for long-time residents and their guests, not so much for others - although as long as you don't flaunt your wealth, you'll probably be left alone.
The Ruggine: The slums for the nouveau-poor. Those who come to the city now-days tend to accumulate outside the city walls, leading to a thick ring of destitution insulating the city from the outside world. This makes travel to and fron the city fairly unpleasant for those unacquainted with the lower classes, and among the middle and upper classes permeates an unspoken belief that traveling outside the walls will inevitably lead to getting mugged, assaulted, or worse. This, of course, isn't strictly true - crime is a bit higher in the Ruggine, but not drastically. Try telling them that, though...
The Redwood District: Here you'll (actually) find the Catfoot Shipyards. Home to many shipwrights and their apprentices and associates, many of the city's upper classes made or make their coin in the area. Overall, a relatively respectable neighborhood, although you'd have no reason to visit unless employed in the area.
Vallisalle (valley-sale): One of the three truly upper-class neighborhoods of Aquilla, and likely the heaviest with coin. Characterized by artisanal restaurants, high-end chapels, high-end jewelry and crafts merchants, money flows like water all throughout the streets of Vallisalle.

Famous Sites

That was a lot, but districts do not a city make. What else does Aquilla have to offer?

Well, I won’t go over everything here, but there’s a lot to see and do in Aquilla:

The Chromatic Markets: Open for only a few days of the year, The Chromatic Markets (located in the Redwood district, and one of the few reasons anyone might travel there without planning to purchase or make a boat) represent the heart and soul of the Festival of Color (covered in part 2). Of course, many citizens, desensitized to the sights and sounds, and tired of the oppressive hustle and bustle and overwhelming level of sensory overload, dismiss the markets as a gaudy tourist attraction. Despite that, you’ll still find many families from both in- and out-of-town, as well as tourists, travelers, and so on visiting the markets after the long winter months finally break.
The Catfoot Shipyards: If you want to find the finest dockhands and shipwrights, you go to The Catfoot Shipyards. So named because Catfoot herself crafted her flagship over the course of a year back in the day, the city has upgraded the shipyards significantly over the years. They now stretch for miles along the southern coast, and produce and repair all sorts - from the dinkiest dinghy to the grandest galley.
The Aftercrypts : Many died in the aftermath of the Wild Wars - quelling horrid sea-beasts unleashed by one of The Old Gods in her final throes, putting down the thread posed by Hortus, stopping the raids from Ark’Bruun’s Ghost tribes, and so on. The Aftercrypts take up a vast swath of space underneath the ground of Aquilla, holding many of the victims of this bloody period.

What else?

Well, what else is worth knowing about Aquilla?

First, a few fun facts:

Morrel Malliman, a local shopkeep and owner of the chain “Mailliman’s Magnificant Merchandise” appears to run each of his stores simultaneously - with a visit to any invariably bringing you face-to-face with Malliman himself. He refuses to acknowledge the phenomenon, but many have tried (and failed) to prove that he uses magic or other trickery to apparently run each of his 15 stores at once.
While all Marrens keep religion pretty far down on their priority list, the city takes it a step further - with most chapels refusing to dedicate themselves to any particular god. Instead, polytheistic chapels with no particular denomination or affiliation dot the city. We’ll cover the gods in a future World Lore Wednesday.
A local millionaire, Lalique, leads an apparent secret life - disappearing for days on end, only to reappear with bruises, scars, and broken bones. Rumors abound over the cause behind her disappearances, ranging from twisted magical experiments gone wrong, to bear fighting, to base vigilantism, to her just putting a show on to distract everyone from the real problems of Aquilla. But, while everyone has their pet theories, only she knows the truth of the matter…

And also, a few not-so-fun facts:

Madame Zilstra runs “Zilstra’s Home for the Wayward Youth” - doing it largely out of the kindness of her heart given the city’s paltry grants. But, while the city knows her as a kindly woman operating on her own sense of justice - turning a blind eye to the petty pilfering of her children from local merchants, while punishing harshly those who steal or hurt anyone under her care - many have noticed that some under her care go missing more often than natural, even as the source of funds keeping the orphanage open aren’t quite clear…
The city government struggles to complete even the most basic of obligations these days, and so the Tarrinous came into being - serving the role of a police force for hire. Each one comes with their own flavor - from the Yakuza-esque Twilight Cudgel to the straight-laced government contractors in The Silver Gavel. Likewise, each keep to their own areas, especially the Big 4 - preferring to avoid any direct confrontation between their members. Yet still, they each maintain a similar structure, and serve an unfortunately integral role in keeping the peace of Aquilla these days.
Shining Fish spends her days shouting long-winded rants on her soapbox. Protesting the injustice inflicted by the cruel Marren government on Nit-Qu, she spins tales in rough Marren about how the government pushed her village out of the southlands, and into the harsh wastes of central Nit-Qu. She stands as a divisive figure in the city - with many of the poorer elements sympathizing with her plight and keeping her fed and clothed, even as the wealthier in the town complain constantly of her disruptive nature and implacability.

Anyway, there’s so much more to say on the topic (so be on the lookout for our book!) but this post has already ran quite long. So, join us next week where we go over En Cerolle, the rest of Marros, as well as the Marren culture, and until then - keep it schwifty^[3]!

^[1] Maybe a poor choice of words considering the first episode 😁

^[2] taking bets on if/when she sees this down in the comments

^[3] Recognizing this reference is ridiculously out of date by this point, despite only being a season and a half ago *cries in rick-and-morty*