Living ENWorld:Gotian

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Gotian

Gotian is a small town that traditionally has lived of fishing and being on the sea route travel to Orussus. As such, all the town revolves around the port.

Geography, climate and architecture

Gotian's location is a plains with little height over the sea level. The port wraps around a bay with the form of a crescent moon. The port is the town's focus, and Gotian thus is also crescent-moon shaped.

The climate is generally warm, with long summers and relatively benign winters. Very rarely can snow be seen in Gotian, thanks to the influence of the sea and the dominant western wind; when it isn't blowing, then the easter, dry wind from the inland takes it's place. Most of the raining happens in spring and fall.

Relatively recently the port itself was just a beach. The ships anchored in the middle of the bay and the goods and passengers were then ferried to the beach by rowboat. Now there are stone wharfs and piers where ships of great size can moor. Around the port there's a row of warehouses and other buildings that deal with the trade and fishing business. Beyond that row starts the richest part of the town; beyond that point live the mass of workers and then there's another layer with the seediest and poorest part of Gotian. The town is then enclosed by a wall.

Notable points are Market place, around which you can find the temples and mansions of the richest merchants in the city, and the city guards' barracks. The barracks are actually a small fort with three towers.

Most of the houses are made of stone; they tend to be low and squat (mostly are two stories high, at most), with flat roofs. On most of them there's little ornamentation to the building's exterior, but the biggest ones have a highly decorated small courtyard; if possible, the courtyard has a fountain or a well. Many of the buildings next to the port have a slim and tall tower: from there, watchers spy the incoming ships.

Recent History

Unlike Orussus, trade has concentrated into the hands of a few "prince merchants" who controlled most of Gotian's economic life and government. Since they were able to dictaet the laws that suited them most, they monopolized the trade and local businesses forcing them to join guilds dominated by them, and used the local guard to crush any opposition. This lead to economic decline and stagnation; also, most of the non-human population (except the half orcs, who were and are present in higher than normal quantities) and many qualified traders and artisans emigrated, most of them to Orussus.

One of the city council members, called Etan, had not enough and planned to increase his riches stealing from his neighbors. He bribed the city guard captain, Idrag, and through him they formed a bandit crew. The plan was to attack the lighthouse located in the peninsula north of Gotian and substitute it for a false one that would lead the unsuspecting ships near the shore. The pirated would then loot the ships, kill any survivors, and send the loot using a local tribe of lizardmen (who were paid with metal weapons and tools) to transport the goods through the marshes to the captain guard. He then secretly moved the loot back to Gotian.

The plan worked well until four adventurers (Eroin, Wilhelm, Hulgyr and Roddick) and were hired to investigate the missing ships. They discovered the pirate's hideout and killed them all. Soon after, the lizardmen were dealt with and the lighthouse restored.

Seeing that his plot failed, Etan thought of another plan. He would steal from the warehouses in the city, using the now non-existent local thieves' guild as cover. Before that, however, other local merchants suspected foul play and decided to hire more adventurers at Orussus. The adventurers (Banion, Beamer and Draig) arrived at Gotian in time to fight the local city guard, disguised as thieves, when they attacked one of the warehouses. Looked like Etan and Idrag were going to be tried and probably executed, but the council's hold on the guard was weaker than they thought. The substitute captain was killed and what was intended as a trial became a massacre when the guard started killing everyone. The adventurers jumped through a window and immediately left the city. Without impediment, Etan and Idrag put new council members that do what they say and hold Gotian with an iron fist.