Week 12, Hex 11
Ymyl Clogwn (aka Cliff's Edge) (all Welsh mistakes are my own)
This hex is over 75% a single tall mountain, with a sloping plateau circling around it from top to bottom. The plateau expands anywhere from a half mile to a mile in width. (The inspiration for this was Mont St. Michel, the island in France - but became much more). Every so often as you wend your way down the plateau there's a cliff that cuts across it. The inhabitants have solved the up and down of the cliffs in both mechanical and magical ways.
At the peak of the mountain is
Brig Goron (aka Crown Point) - a soaring/hulking gothic cathedral/bureau of administration and the seat of power in the hex. The hex is ruled by a harengon named Janu. She rules with an iron hand - there are practically more military, para-military, and police force members than regular citizens. Most folks are lawful, or at least act that way.
The populace is an even mix of black dragonborn, harengon, and hobgoblins. There is no "racial essentialism". While every individual acknowledges another's biology, culturally most everyone is a "Ymyl" through and through.
From Brig Goron there is a river that comes out of the cathedral. That river runs down the spiralling plateau all the way to the bottom, where you'll find the port town of
Tref Harbor (Harbor Town). If there's any seedy underbelly to be found, it'll be here - but good luck finding it haha.
The upgate also happens to be in the city with the most military presence. And in fact the "guardian" is literally the military industrial bureaucracy: a series of interminable nonsensical interviews followed by form-filling, then more interviews and more forms. Finally you get to a small windowless office with what appears to be a tertiary functionary who hits you with a riddle. If you answer, they boredly open a non-descript door, on the other side of which is the gate.
Up to the north, near one of the branches, there's a steady influx of immigrants/refugees into the hastily erected shelter city of Blessed Valley. I'll find out more about what's happening in that hex in a couple of weeks. To the southwest is the gate to the other branch - trade is robust between that branch and this; but there's still plenty of customs and other types of police presence on this side.
From a terrain and climate standpoint, there are soaring cliffs, deciduous and evergreen pine forests. It rains pretty incessantly, but the farmers can farm - there's enough sun, sometimes.
Oh yeah, and there's an airship factory, so you'll see airships large and small flying about here and there. Because who doesn't love airships?!?
Questions:
- Are there competitors to Draig Ffatri (Dragon Factory - the airship manufacturer)?
- What will the result of the tensions around immigration be?
- Where and who will rise up in the face of faceless bureaucratic and active police oppression?
- What does Janu fear most?