Travelers_Guide_to_New_Dunhaven

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The Tines The Tines:

The Tower of Ambition

Marvels of engineering made possible through alchemy, The Tower of Constellations

the Tines consist of thirteen skyscraping towers that The Tower of Dusk

collectively form the Crown of New Dunhaven. The The Tower of Gold

Tines were commissioned by Regent Augustus I during The Tower of Hope

a period of unrivaled prosperity and growth for the city. The Tower of Lords

Each of the towers was entrusted to a different cabal of The Tower of Memory

architects, engineers, alchemists, and financiers whose The Tower of the Moon

companies retain ownership of the towers to this day. The Tower of Prosperity

Most of the Tines rise out of the merchant districts, The Tower of Shadows

though it wasn’t always that way. The original plan for The Tower of Sorrow

the Crown of New Dunhaven called for the buildings to The Tower of Sunrise

be constructed in a variety of districts, including some The Tower of War

that were little more than a collection of foundations

and vacant lots. Over time, however, the financial power

and influence of the trade consortiums and government offices occupying

the Tines drew more and more wealth to those districts, and in modern

times most of the districts where the towers stand are now thriving

merchant districts. Still, vestiges remain of the areas before the Tines were

constructed: a historic building preserved by Crown decree, poorly sealed

entrances to the Old City, canal extensions bricked over to make wider

streets but through which water still flows, and so forth.

Construction

The Tines each reach twenty or more stories above street level, standing
out along the city’s skyline so they can be seen even from great distances.
Stairwells ascend through the structure, and the architects of the
buildings had the foresight to construct open shafts down the center that
allow for elevator systems controlled by elaborate contraptions of gears,
alchemically reinforced ropes, and delicately balanced weights. Some, but
not all, also have double-sized service elevators that allow for large, heavy
freight to be carried to the upper floors.

The Tines all utilize pressurized running water, which flows through
alchemically treated pipes from cisterns on the roofs of the buildings.
Rainwater naturally fills these cisterns, augmented by alchemical
condensers that draw more water from the air during periods of low
rainfall. The water passes through alchemical filters on its way to
the floors below.

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Occupants

No single trade consortium or organization occupies an entire tower.
Though the Tines’ owners demand that their tenants rent an entire floor
of the building, the Tines each host a dozen or more independent groups.
Even the Crown rents bureaucratic offices from the owners of the Tines.

The Dunhaven Bay Trading Company maintains a presence in multiple
towers of the Tines, since the company’s power and influence requires
that it be spread across multiple buildings. In these towers, the company
takes control of building security from the owners, installs private guards,
and improves the building’s defenses (both traditional and alchemical) by
a significant margin. Criminals find the Tines occupied by the Dunhaven
Bay Trading Company to be far more difficult to infiltrate and operate
within, and any such villains caught in the act wind up in holding areas
on floors set aside for such purposes.

Thief Signs: Private Security Holding Areas

If there’s one place you don’t want to find yourself, it’s in the floors of the Tines that the Dunhaven Bay
Trading Company sets aside for their security forces. The Right Kind of People are not treated well there.
These security floors are isolated and difficult to get to, and the Crown has very little visibility into what
goes on there, emboldening the Company’s security goons to dole out punishment for any perceived
crimes without fear of admonition or rebuke. Worse, they’re hard to escape from; even if you get out of your
holding cell, you’ve got to pass through floor upon floor to find a way out. They’re a trap you don’t want
to get caught in.

—Edmund Gallows, Gravedigger thief

Cartel Presence in the Tines

The Family, the Vespers, and the Red Lotus Society maintain a presence
in the Tines. The top floor of the Tower of Dusk is a private gambling
club operated by the Vespers, though to outward appearances it appears
to be a legitimate establishment. The Family controls several legitimate
mercantile endeavors, some of which have offices in the Tines. Even
without a direct presence in those buildings, the Family possesses enough
influence to gain periodic access for the cartel’s agents. In the Tower of
the Moon located in Little Taona, the Red Lotus Society controls several
floors through its legitimate front, the Taonan Trade Company. The
foundations of most of the Tines extend down into the Old City, and
some of the Forgotten have found ways to enter the buildings' deepest
sublevels from the subterranean realm.

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ILsolnagnhdarbor

One of the only parts of the city truly safe for the Right Kind of
People, Longharbor Island is the large island that rests in the middle of
Dunhaven Bay. The City Watch has effectively abandoned any attempt to
police Longharbor Island, allowing the island’s districts to descend into
almost complete anarchy.

In any other part of the city, the districts of Longharbor Island would
be considered slums. Little money flows through the island, and the
buildings and infrastructure continue a slow decline into crumbling decay.
Though not everyone on the island is a criminal, only the desperate and
destitute among the law-abiding continue to live here. Despite this, the
lawful Dunhaveners who live on Longharbor Island have so little to lose
that they do not need to fear predation from the Right Kind of People,
and a tenuous peace exists between the criminals and the law-abiding.

Criminals flee to Longharbor Island to lie low for a while, safe from
both the threat of arrest and the benefits of the Crown’s investment in the
city. Here, the penniless live a meager existence in tenements controlled
by slum lords. On the island, the Arrangement is simultaneously at its
strongest and at its weakest.

Turfless Control

Longharbor Island is largely considered unclaimed turf for the eight
cartels that abide by the Arrangement. All the cartels maintain a presence
here, and by mutual agreement no one cartel tries to completely dominate
any given district on the island. Outside of the Old City, Longharbor
Island contains the highest concentration of Forgotten cartel members,
since their street gangs have more freedom to carve out territories without
the interference of the City Watch or the other cartels.

Such a density of criminals creates an ideal recipe for conflict, and
Longharbor Island can be a dangerous place for any cartel member.
With such a broad swath of unclaimed turf, no one cartel has the kind
of control that allows them to grant absolute safety to their members.
Some of the most vicious infighting between the cartels takes place here,
and more than a few old grudges have been settled in its debris-strewn
alleys. As a lawless zone, the island lacks the deterrents that exist on the
mainland to curb violent clashes, and cartel members sometimes wind up
dead, or at least badly beaten by rivals.

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[INSERT ART: LONGHARBOR ISLAND]

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The Bridges

Two bridges grant access to Longharbor Island: Eastbridge, which spans
the narrow strip of water between the eastern shore of the mainland
and the island, and the Castle Bridge, which extends from the northern
end of Longharbor Island to the area not far from the city’s notorious
prison, the Castle.

These two bridges are heavily guarded on the mainland side by the City
Watch. Large checkpoints, staffed with dozens of officers, ensure that
the riffraff from the island do not make their way back to the rest of the
city too easily. The Watch maintains a musketeer regiment on each of the
bridges and has been known to gun down anyone trying to sneak past the
security checkpoints.

Of course, law-abiding people do live on Longharbor Island, and as
such the Crown must allow people to come and go from its districts as
they wish. Anyone wishing to leave Longharbor Island via the bridges
undergoes intense scrutiny and questioning. At the guardhouses, massive
record books have wanted posters from all over the city pasted into them,
and the faces of criminals notorious enough to warrant such a poster are
well known to the guards on all shifts. Most members of the cartels know
better than to attempt to pass this way, and though a few foolhardy false-
facers have managed to smooth talk their way past the guards, the Castle
is riddled with overconfident criminals who thought they were good
enough to just walk across the bridges. Those leaving the mainland and
traveling to Longharbor Island receive no such scrutiny.

Thief Signs: Getting Off the Island

If you find yourself needing to leave Longharbor Island, you’ve got a couple of options. Neither of them is
a sure thing. The Red Lotus Society graciously offers to ferry those who abide by the Arrangement back to
the mainland via fishing vessels, for a small fee. Of course, I would be lying if I said that this option was
perfectly safe; smuggling someone off of the island by boat is a risky business, since the City Watch patrols
the waters around the island in their own vessels, and such a trip only truly stands any chance of success at
night. The other alternative, if you are absolutely mad, is to climb through the steel support structures on
the undersides of the bridges. Steel girders and wooden support beams offer a poor surface for traversing
the long way between the island and the mainland, and you spend more time climbing and twisting
yourself around support structures than walking. The Wardens of the Night sometimes serve as guides along
the undersides of the bridges, and they’ll do it for free, too—but only if they like you.

—Adam Hong, Red Lotus Society mastermind

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The Crumbling Tower

Easily the most visible landmark on Longharbor Island, the Crumbling
Tower (as it is known to the Right Kind of People) was originally
intended to be the fourteenth and final of the Tines, the Tower of Light.
It was to serve not only as a monument to Dunhavener ingenuity, but
would also eventually be the tallest lighthouse in the world. However,
before construction could be completed, the mercantile consortium
responsible for funding its construction was revealed to be a front for the
Wraiths, one of the cartels that predated the Arrangement. The Crown
broke up the consortium and seized its assets, immediately halting any
further work on the building.

The City Watch abandoned Longharbor Island, and the barely half-
finished tower fell into decay alongside the other buildings on the
island. The upper floors, which were only just begun, eroded quickly in
the salty sea air, but the more structurally sound lower floors kept the
tower upright. Young troublemakers climb up the rickety structure to
the skeletal upper floors, a foolhardy activity undertaken as a display
of bravado, though admittedly the view of New Dunhaven from the
highest points in the tower is spectacular. These days, the Right Kind of
People occasionally gather in the shadowed lower floors of the abandoned
building to discuss their schemes or hold clandestine meetings, but the
island’s other inhabitants stay well clear of the place. The Crumbling
Tower is the perfect symbol for Longharbor Island: a decaying reflection
of the prosperity of the mainland, abandoned to criminals and slowly
rotting until it collapses.

The Scorpion

One of the most chilling rumors to persistently haunt Longharbor Island
concerns the Scorpion. According to tales whispered in the island’s public
houses, the Scorpion is a serial murderer who preys upon the people of
Longharbor using poison as her weapon of choice. Though her identity
varies from tale to tale, most people agree on a few details: the Scorpion is
a woman, she lives somewhere on the island, and she preys mostly upon
criminals who have a significant amount of power within the criminal
underworld. Though cartel leaders dismiss rumors of the Scorpion as
fearmongering, they can barely hide their concerns. The leading theory
claims she is a member of the Spiders planted on the island to weaken the
cartels, though some believe her to be a Blooded agent who takes cruel
pleasure in her victims’ slow, painful deaths.

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The Reserves

Comprised of nearly a dozen forested parks scattered throughout the city,
the Reserves cover an area comparable in size to some entire districts.
These walled areas consist of protected land that, by tradition, belongs
to the Regent. Off-limits to law-abiding citizens except by special
permission of the Crown, the Reserves are also the home and turf of the
Wardens of the Night, who take advantage of the relative isolation they
provide in an otherwise-bustling city of several million people.

A stone wall surrounds each Reserve, standing between ten and fifteen
feet tall and topped with wrought-iron spikes. Inside the walls, the
Reserves feature dense forests with occasional clearings. Unlike the rest of
the city, the Reserves were not leveled off during the rebuilding after the
fire that devastated Dunhaven. Instead, they retain the natural features of
the land, including hills, streams, and small lakes.

Ostensibly, the Reserves preserve some of the natural beauty of the land
and provide the Regent and the Royal Family with private retreats. In
reality, the Regent and the Royal Family rarely make use of the Reserves.
From time to time, a member of the Royal Family leads an expedition
into the Reserves to hunt the birds, small animals, or deer that live within
them, but few royals have any desire to abandon the comforts available to
them at the Royal Palace for extended periods.

Squads of the City Watch guard the walls of the Reserves and
infrequently patrol the exterior of the districts. Guards posted at the gated
entrances deter entrance, though the walls do such a sufficient job that
such duties are seen as dull punishment for members of the Watch who
have earned disfavor.

Wardens of the Night Turf

The quiet solitude of the Reserves makes them an appealing home for the
Wardens of the Night. Since the Royal Family rarely makes use of them,
and most law-abiding citizens respect the sanctity of the area, the City
Watch has little reason to enter the Reserves. Within, the Wardens live
in temporary camps, their tents and belongings ready to be taken down
and moved in a matter of minutes. Occasionally, the City Watch receives
word about the presence of outlaws in a Reserve and stages a raid, but the
Wardens keep scouts posted around their encampments to provide plenty
of advanced warning.

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The Old City

The original city of Dunhaven burned to the ground centuries ago
and the new city was built atop its remains. The Old City still exists
as a subterranean network of passageways and chambers that forms an
underground metropolis beneath New Dunhaven.

When the great fire tore through the city two centuries ago, very little
of the infrastructure remained intact, yet it was not totally devastated. The
Crown funded a rebuilding effort that called for significant engineering
projects, including a completely redrawn canal system and a leveling of
the hills on which much of the original city had been constructed. As a
part of this effort, portions of the city that remained intact were used as
foundations on which to rebuild. Whole stretches of the original city still
lie buried beneath the streets of New Dunhaven.

The Second City

Some parts of the Old City are remarkably well preserved, consisting of
passageways that were once streets with sidewalks and building fronts still
lining either side. When properly illuminated, parts of the underground
look like they could easily belong in the aboveground city, and only the
stone overhead in lieu of open sky makes the distinction clear. Though
streets were filled in to form the foundation of New Dunhaven, unbroken
paths (circuitous though they may be) still travel between every region of
the city. Some of the original canals run through the Old City, though
their dark waters are still and tepid, and even members of the Forgotten
refer to them as the Shadow Canals.

Other areas are not as well preserved, making the Old City extremely
dangerous. Passages threaten to collapse under the threat of too much
noise. The number of closed-off pathways makes the Old City positively
labyrinthine, and non-Forgotten who wander into the Old City run the
very real risk of becoming lost and dying of starvation. Some reaches
of the Old City near the coastline have flooded, or flood when the tide
comes in, with chambers full of water separated from the rest of the Old
City only by slowly eroding stone walls. Anyone who travels the Old City
uninvited might end up as victims of the Forgotten cartel’s most feral
members, those who fled the surface world and have become reclusive to
the point of losing their humanity.

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Forgotten Turf

Though the Forgotten operate both in unclaimed territory and in the
territories of other cartels, they do have one area of New Dunhaven that
can truly be considered their turf: the Old City.

The people who dwell in the Old City constitute a degenerate lot.
Most fled to the underground city to escape the authority of the Crown,
beggars and criminals so desperate that they sought haven below ground.
Many do not come to the surface or see sunshine for weeks at a time,
subsisting only on the vermin they catch in the subterranean corridors or
scraps of still-edible refuse that fall underground. These dwellers in the
perpetual night of the Old City are often mentally disturbed and have
become so bereft of normal socialization that they react like wild animals
when encountering a surface-dweller.

As a result, only the Forgotten can safely traverse the Old City. Anyone
else who enters the Old City without a Forgotten guide is never heard
from again, either falling prey to those who live in the city below or to
one of the innumerable structural hazards. By the same token, Forgotten
guides in the Old City navigate the crumbling corridors and forgotten
buildings like the Wardens of the Night move across rooftops. The
Forgotten are the rangers of the subterranean realm.

Thief Signs: What Denizens Lurk Beneath

Trust ol’Tommy, you don’t want to know what lives in the places that light hasn’t touched for two hundred
years. I’m not just talking about the degenerates who once lived in the sunlight but retreated into the Old
City to escape the long arm of the Crown; I mean things that are born, live, and die in the darkness without
ever coming up to the surface. I’ve seen things that I don’t think my worst nightmares could have conjured
up, half-glimpsed in the lantern light. Those high and mighty nobles and Senators say there’s no such thing
as monsters, but I’ll tell you: they’re wrong, and I’ve seen‘em. I saw a thing that looked like a crocodile
covered in giant blisters, and in those blisters clouds of gas were swirling around. I saw a man that looked
like his skin was covered in yellow scales, and his eyes looked like a snake’s, just before he squeezed through
a grate so narrow a cat couldn’t get through. Where do they all come from? I got some theories. You know
all those alchemists in the city, the ones so damn proud of the wonders they concoct? Well, they’re just
like anybody else, they got waste and junk they make that don’t work. What do you think they do with it?
Gettin’rid of that stuff costs a shiny coin, so I’d bet a bunch of them just dump it down the drains. Don’t
even get me started on those reckless fools playing with sorcery; you know that goes wrong all the time.

—Tommy Stink-Eye, Forgotten sharpshooter

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MThoeuSnutaniknesn

Well off the coast of New Dunhaven lies the island chain known as
the Sunken Mountains. On a clear day, this island chain is visible from
the city, though it doesn’t take much fog or haze to hide the islands
from easy view.

The island chain gets its name from the tall, conical peak at the center
of each island. If the chain’s origin was volcanic, it went dormant long
ago, and now thick vegetation covers the islands and provides a home to
diverse flora and fauna.

Pirates

One of the few enemies shared by the cartels and the City Watch, the
pirates who plague the waters off the coast of New Dunhaven make their
lairs in the hundreds of secret coves and hidden inlets throughout the
Sunken Mountains. These pirates earn the ire of the Crown by robbing,
hijacking, and burning trading vessels traveling to New Dunhaven from
Elderland and Taona. They earn the enmity of the cartels by preying upon
cartel-owned (or cartel-friendly) smuggling ships, bringing in contraband
from those same destinations.

The Crown maintains a navy that, ostensibly, is responsible for
protecting ships from these pirates. In practice, the islands sit too far apart
and the shipping lanes are too numerous for the Royal Navy to effectively
stop piracy. The wealthier and more powerful trade consortiums invest
in their own escort ships, arm them with cannons, and staff them with
soldiers. The Dunhaven Bay Trading Company maintains an entire fleet
of escort ships, which protect flotillas traveling to and from distant lands.
Other, smaller companies frequently pay to have their ships included in
these protected flotillas, further financing the company’s naval efforts.

Among the cartels, only the Red Lotus Society maintains a significant
naval presence, and their dragon ships are as formidable as any Dunhaven
Bay Trading Company escort vessel. The Society takes a somewhat
different tactic with the pirates of the Sunken Mountains. Instead of
simply protecting smuggling vessels, the Society actively hunts pirates
and brings the fight to them. Raids against pirate strongholds provide
a constant source of wealth and barroom boasting for the Red Lotus
Society’s members.

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Thief Signs: Sea Monsters

One time I got brought into an all-Society crew, dropped down on a dragon ship for a real secret
assignment. No broker, just one of the high muckety mucks of the Striking Cobra school who also happened
to be the captain of the ship. No details up front, but when they told me the pay, how could I say no? They
were going hunting out among the Sunken Mountains, so I figure they’re after pirates, or maybe to go hijack
one of the big whaling vessels as it weaves through the islands. Well, we get out there, and it’s nothing
but day after day of sailing in circles, all in a fog so thick you can barely see your hand in front of your face.
Then one day around sunset, the whole ship lurches like we ran aground, and the bosun yells for me to
get on deck and earn my pay. I get topside and see nothing. We’re still cruising along, and now I’m baffled.
Just under the surface I see a shadow that looks to be twice as long as the ship I’m on, and I’m thinking,
“Are those tentacles? Fins? What in the name of the Judge is this?”That’s when it hits me: this monster that
just about broke the ship in half is what we’re hunting. It’s pissed off or hungry or something, because it’s
chasing us. I’ve seen whales before. I’ve even seen the giant squid they pull up in the nets. That wasn’t this.
This was something . . . unholy. I’m going to need another drink.

—Andres Zao, Red Lotus Society dragon

The Forbidden Island

Separated from the rest of the Sunken Mountains so as to almost appear
to belong to a different chain, the Forbidden Island is usually considered
to be a part of New Dunhaven, despite being several miles offshore. The
land was ceded to representatives of several Taonan governments as part
of a peaceful trade agreement and now falls under their rule of law. Vessels
wishing to dock here need special permission from those governments.

In truth, the Forbidden Island falls under the control of the Red Lotus
Society, which long ago seized the island through a combination of
bribery and intimidation. Now, only members of the Society inhabit the
island. The Society rarely grants safe harbor to any vessels besides their
own, earning the island its name.

The Society uses the Forbidden Island as a remote base of operations,
as well as a safe haven for Red Lotus members for whom the heat of the
Crown’s pursuit has grown too intense. Before the Society took over, the
Taonan inhabitants of the island constructed beautiful stone structures,
almost temple-like in their artistry, all around the island at various
elevations. The Society’s schools claimed these buildings and use them as
training grounds for younger members.

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Outside the City

The influence of New Dunhaven’s ever-growing urban sprawl stretches
for dozens of miles beyond its accepted border. Part of the reason for
this is purely economic: New Dunhaven has the most robust economy of
any city in the entire world, and that wealth not only spills over into the
surrounding area, but demands support from it as well.

Client Villages

Scattered across the land around the city, hundreds of smaller towns
and villages constitute New Dunhaven’s client villages. These small
pockets of civilization, nestled between vast tracts of farmland, benefit
greatly from being a day or two away from the city by horse. Peddlers
from New Dunhaven make rounds between the client villages, ensuring
that the people who live in these settlements have access to imported
goods from around the world. If someone in one of the client villages
needs something from the city, they either make the trip there or send
a message via post to someone in the city who purchases and sends the
desired item to them.

Though the client villages benefit greatly from their proximity to the
city, New Dunhaven needs these nearby settlements to function. The
people who live in the client villages work to support the farms that
surround them, and the vast majority of the city’s food supply passes
through here. More than just foodstuffs, the villages also supply nearly
every other raw good that can be grown or raised and export large yields
of cattle, tobacco, cannabis, and cotton to the city. Client villages maintain
grain silos and warehouses where crops from multiple surrounding farms
are brought and stored; merchants from the city then purchase these
crops and transport them by caravan to New Dunhaven. This lucrative
partnership provides big city profits, money that goes a long way in quiet
little villages.

New Dunhaven’s trade companies partially or wholly own some of the
client villages. These companies own the rights to the land, which they
lease to farmers who work the fields and fill that company’s warehouses
with the seasonal harvest. The company also owns the homes and
buildings in these towns and rents them to farmers and other working
residents. Life in these client villages is usually good, although the
demands of the trade company that owns the inhabitants’ livelihoods
always looms in the background.

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Raiders and Highwaymen

With so much of New Dunhaven’s economy depending on harvests
shipped from the client villages, these villages offer tempting targets for
bandits, who can hold much-needed goods for ransom. Foreign powers
and trade companies have even been known to hire raiders to act as
privateers, targeting specific client villages and destroying their crops as
an act of sabotage against the city or a particular trade company. The
Hanged, a band of organized outlaws, largely wait to target merchant
caravans once they depart the client villages and head to the city,
minimizing the chances of harming the people of the villages.

Labor Camps

Mostly located to the north of the city, dozens of quarries, mines, and
logging operations operate as a part of the Crown’s justice system. In
these labor camps, convicts from New Dunhaven work off a portion of
their sentences. Most labor camps belong to one of the trade companies
from the city, which are contracted by the Crown to oversee the work
done by prisoners sent here.

Conditions in these labor camps tend to be dreadful, and the prisoners
working here describe it more as slavery than as a legitimate form of
rehabilitation. These labor camps serve as a means for the companies
that own them to acquire cheap labor, extracting raw stone, metals, and
lumber at great profit. Since the workers are all convicted criminals, the
companies that operate these camps provide only stark living conditions
that barely keep the workers alive and healthy enough to toil away
for another day.

Thief Signs: Military Presence

Those of us who reside in this fair city think not of New Dunhaven as a military power. From day to day the
average Dunhavener sees no soldiers and hears of no battles. Yet out in the wilds surrounding the city, the
Regent’s Army performs its greatest works. The garrison is almost a day’s ride south from the city because
the army is charged with protecting the client villages from attackers, seeing that the roads remain safe
all the way to the end of the Regent’s reach, and patrolling the countryside looking for signs of criminal or
foreign influence. Where the Right Kind of People inside the city keep eyes open for the City Watch, those
operating in the rolling hills and plains beyond be most wary of the Regent’s Army.

—Dante Cutter, Warden of the Night thief

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Life in the
Dusk City

In a city as large and as full of possibilities as New Dunhaven, there’s no
typical example of life in the city to draw upon. People who have lived
their entire lives here will describe wildly different experiences. Some
common touchstones stand out among the differences, however.

✦✦ Anything is Here: You want Taonan food? Or to visit a museum
exhibit on precollapse Vladov Empire artwork? Or to attend a
play by a hot new playwright? Maybe you’re looking to learn more
about alchemical architecture, or visit historical sites where the first
Elderlanders settled on the continent. All these things and more
can be found in New Dunhaven. No other place in the world packs
as many new experiences and variety of goods and services into
such a concentrated geographical footprint.

✦✦ Everyone Has a Place: Dunhaveners take great pride in the fact
that their city is full of people from all over the world. The city
embraces the fact that its inhabitants come from many nations,
seeing the diversity as something that sets New Dunhaven apart
from the more culturally homogeneous nations of Elderland.

✦✦ Everything is For Sale: A lot of coin flows through New
Dunhaven, and wealth is power. The hopelessly corrupt politicians,
the merchants who play dice with the livelihoods of commoners,
and nobles with so much wealth at their disposal that even
monarchs of other nations think twice before giving offense all set a
high price for their services and patronage.

The Calendar

The people of New Dunhaven use the same calendar accepted as standard the world over, with a ten-day
week and twelve months in the year. Though other languages bestow different names on them, the number
of days in a week and months in a year remain the same.
Days of the Week: Market Day, Master’s Day, Tithe Day, Waxing Day, Midweek, Waning Day, Fasting
Day, Bath Day, Holy Day, Resting Day
Months: Darkest, Torrents, Tilling, Sowing, Flowering, Midsummer, Brightest, Harvest, Bargaining,
Redleaf, Hoarding, Midwinter

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Culture

To say that New Dunhaven has a culture is not entirely true; it has
dozens of cultures that live side by side and intermingle to become one
big, multifaceted metaculture. After the fire that destroyed Dunhaven,
with the city in ashes and tens of thousands of people without homes, the
city faced a crisis. During those tumultuous days the Crown transitioned
to the regency, installed the Senate to represent the commoners, and
formally established the egalitarian policies and formal declarations of
rights for all citizens that drew the nobility and the common people
closer together.

While the Crown was doing its best to organize the rebuilding effort,
the people of New Dunhaven made a change that would echo down
through the centuries. It was not a conscious decision, but something
happening in the background of the rebuilding effort. The people of New
Dunhaven knew that to survive the catastrophe and rebuild, they needed
to band together. This meant casting aside old prejudices and seeing
the people helping to rebuild homes and communities as neighbors to
be valued, not outsiders to be feared. From these roots grew one of the
defining cultural notes of the city: Dunhaveners come from cultures the
world over, and they work hand-in-hand to make New Dunhaven the
greatest city in the entire world.

Now, the fact that Dunhaveners have a wide variety of traditions and
cultural heritages isn’t just accepted, it’s a point of pride for most people
in the city. Dunhaveners revel in the benefits of welcoming many cultures
into the city, from the influences on art and theater from across the world,
to the spectacular variety of food drawn from the cooking traditions of
other nations. In the eyes of most Dunhaveners, people from around the
world should come to the city to live, bringing with them the variety that
makes life more interesting for everyone.

Gender Relations

During the rebuilding of the city, the egalitarian new laws and cultural
shift included equalizing men and women. With several centuries of
tradition behind them, men and women alike now occupy positions of
power and influence at every level in the city. Dunhaveners also developed
a laissez-faire attitude toward sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender
identification, accepting whatever identity people present to the world,
treating all relationships with equal respect and legality, and dealing with
66 people based on their words and actions.

Speaking the Language

The Right Kind of People use these common slang terms, which are sometimes also known to the average
citizen of New Dunhaven.
• Angler: A corpse found in the canals; usually disposed of there by the cartels
• Bravo: A foolhardy noble with a sword and more confidence than sense, prone to dueling
• Crown Cravat: A noose
• Goodman/Goodwoman: Polite form of address for a commoner
• In-Laws: A pair of matching weapons
• Knuckle Games: Fistfighting, especially intentionally nonlethal fighting between criminals
• Mother’s/Father’s Kiss: A firearm
• New Dunhaven’s Finest, or Tinmen: Members of the City Watch
• Onions: Undercover members of the City Watch
• The Game: Crime, or the life of crime led by cartel members
• Whalebones: Dice, especially loaded dice

Class Tensions
Despite the city’s liberal and accepting attitudes toward different cultures

and genders, one great source of bias and conflict still remains: class. With

two distinct social classes in the city (commoners and nobles), and with

laws that clearly define the distinction between those classes, resentment

builds between the two groups, and each group sees themselves as

maligned by the other. Commoners see nobles as being privileged for no

good reason, believing them to be lazy and exploitative. The nobility sees

commoners as poorly educated, slow-witted, and prone to irresponsibly

blowing their livelihoods on fleeting pleasures.

Between the two groups stand the merchants. Technically commoners

in the eyes of the law, merchants prove that the true source of class

tension isn’t legal status, but wealth. Some commoners resent merchants

for their success, seeing them as either sycophants trying to curry favor

with the nobility, or unscrupulous exploiters who gained their wealth by

taking advantage of the members of their own social class. Yet deep down,

the hearts of many commoners harbor a seed of envy for the merchants;

many believe that, but for a twist of fate or a different decision in their

lives, they could be wealthy merchants, too.

Members of the nobility more readily accept merchants into their

social circles, as long as the merchants don’t make any claim to being the

nobles’ equals. Even members of the most minor noble house look down

upon the wealthiest and most powerful merchants, and welcoming those

merchants into polite society is seen as an act of charity toward lessers

who are trying to better themselves. 67

Food and Drink

One of New Dunhaven’s greatest logistical challenges involves feeding
the millions of people who live here. Raw foodstuffs (grain, vegetables,
fish, and fresh cuts of meat) are available in open-air markets and shops
in commoners’ districts on a daily basis. Meals prepared in the home
include raw ingredients bought from commoner markets that received
their stock from traders (both overland and through the port). Some
commoners raise small livestock (chickens and rabbits) or grow vegetables
in small gardens. By far, though, most food in the city originates in the
surrounding client villages. During the winter when no fresh food comes
into the city, markets receive stock from warehouses inside the city.
The owners buy up excess food and preserve it, sometimes alchemically
(which allows for the preservation of foodstuffs that would otherwise
spoil very quickly).

Taverns and Inns

In the commoners’ districts, locals frequent taverns and inns for meals not
cooked on their own hearths. Typically, a tavern kitchen prepares a small
selection of items at each meal. A tavern that offers patrons a greater
choice of meals is considered posh for a commoners’ district.

Cafés and Bodegas

In merchant districts in the city, anyone looking for a quick bite seeks
out small cafés or bodegas, where customers purchase snacks and small
meals to accompany wine, tea, or coffee. These shops are usually owned
and operated by the same individual, who purchases their wares from the
various culinary guilds spread throughout the city. Like taverns and inns,
they offer a limited selection, though their offerings are geared toward
merchants looking for a quick meal between business meetings. Some
cafés specialize in a particular fare: coffee shops, tea shops, and meat pie
bakeries are among the most common.

Supper Clubs

Supper clubs are not just restaurants; most are clubs in the truest sense.
To dine in one of the supper clubs found in noble districts, you must
be a member in good standing with that club and must also have an
appointment for dinner on a given evening. Some supper clubs are more
exclusive than others, and the ones with the most stringent membership
requirements and outrageous fees are also the most sought-after and
the most prestigious. Since the city’s aristocracy pays handsomely for
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membership in these supper clubs, the clubs can afford the most elegant
and fashionable decor, the most talented musicians and entertainment,
and the most experienced and talented representatives from the various
culinary guilds. These guild representatives work shoulder to shoulder—
just about the only time they cooperate with one another—to prepare
meals of such lavish decadence that partaking in even one such meal
would be an event a commoner would talk about for the rest of her life.

The Culinary Guilds

Though the trade organizations in merchant districts are focused on
commerce, the members of the city’s culinary guilds consider themselves
artisans first and businesspeople second. Each guild consists of chefs who
specialize in the creation of one form of food or
drink, an art that they constantly experiment
with and hone. The guilds create
their specialties and see to their
distribution throughout the
city. Examples of the culinary
guilds include the Charcutiers
League (specializing in cooked
meats), the Honorable Order of
Cheesemongers (cheese and
dairy products), and the
Vintner’s Cooperative
(winemakers). The
culinary guilds jealously
guard their secrets and
consider their chosen
craft to be the guild’s sole
domain; they turn a blind
eye to commoners who
operate small shops, but
anyone foolish enough to
try to peddle food or drinks
considered the domain of
another guild in a merchant
or noble district faces
intimidation, vandalism,
and even violence
from that guild.

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Water

New Dunhaven enjoys an abundant supply of fresh water, though it is still
a carefully monitored resource. The bulk of the city’s fresh water comes
from rainwater and from the river that feeds into the canal system.

Buildings taller than two stories have running water. Water basins on
the roof of the building collect rainwater and use the pressure generated
by the water’s weight to push fresh water into the various rooms of the
building through metal pipes. Alchemical filters freshen and clean the
water so it is suitable for drinking (though as often it is used for cleaning,
bathing, and sewage disposal). In the larger buildings like the Tines or
some of the buildings in merchant districts, the pipes leading down into
the building are as big around as a large man, to allow sufficient pressure
to push water throughout the entire structure.

In the commoners’ districts, the slums, on the docks, and in parts
of Little Taona, most homes and businesses draw their water from
communal wells. These wells connect to large, underground cisterns
built during the reconstruction of New Dunhaven after the great fire.
Rainwater funnels to these cisterns through pipes that run down the sides
of buildings directly to the cisterns, passing through alchemical filters that
remove debris or contaminants. Anyone in the city can use these wells,
which are attentively guarded by the City Watch. Tampering with these
communal wells is considered a serious offense, since each water supply
serves the people of an entire district.

Collection and Storage

Though the temperate climate of New Dunhaven means that a large
portion of the city’s fresh water derives from rainwater, each district
maintains a reserve supply of water on hand for dry spells.

Cisterns

Most districts, and many individual buildings, use cisterns built beneath
them as the primary storage for fresh water. Such cisterns have a capacity
far greater than what is needed during even the lengthiest drought. These
subterranean cisterns are ostensibly sealed off from the rest of the Old
City, though in reality the Forgotten have found underground routes to
most of them, with the exception of the cisterns beneath noble estates
that predate the Old City.

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Water Towers

Some merchant districts include tall iron structures with massive water
basins on top. These structures collect rainwater just as those on top of
buildings do. The water towers connect to nearby buildings via pipes, and
sometimes refill empty cisterns during dry seasons.

Water Wagons

Water wagons are the primary means of moving fresh water from the
river that feeds the city’s canals to the water storage structures throughout
the city. These water wagons consist of large, wooden barrels on wheels
(larger than most nobles’ coaches). They collect that water upstream,
before the river runs into the debris-littered canal system. Each water
wagon can be pulled by a team of four horses when fully laden, or two
when the barrel is empty. These water wagons are typically owned
by a merchant company, contracted by the Crown or the owners of
privately held buildings to ensure that the reserve water supply remains
at full capacity.

Thief Signs: The Mountain Water Scam

We typically like to keep the details of elaborate cons quiet; the fewer people who know about them, the
less the chance that the mark will be tipped off to the scheme. The mountain water scam is one exception,
and frankly it has taken on a life of its own. Some fifteen years ago, the Vespers convinced one of the elder
houses that the water they had been drinking was, not to put too fine a point on it,“commoners’water.”The
rainwater and diverted river water was good enough for the common folk, but it was“used and recycled”
and not pure enough to touch the lips of the nobility. We convinced the head of the house to purchase
mountain water: supposedly pure, untouched water collected from the mountains to the north as snow and
ice, which slowly melted as it was transported by caravan to the city. Of course, such an extensive process
is expensive to maintain, and our cartel convinced the nobles to pay a price for this mountain water that
exceeds that of some fine wines. We even fabricated a water importing mercantile group and painted up
water wagons in its colors. In reality, this water came from the river that feeds the canal system just like
everyone else’s. But then something unexpected happened: other noble houses began demanding access to
mountain water. The con grew, and within a few years the Icicle Mountain Water Traders company not only
had a fleet of water wagons, but also a semi-legitimate trade company, with dozens of employees who are
not themselves the Right Kind of People. Now, a decade and a half later, nearly all the noble estates have
their water reserves stocked by this Vesper-run company, which gives our members access to those estates
and provides cover for the cartel’s more elaborate operations.

—Mattis Mora, Vesper grifter

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Dealing with Fire

The city’s private fire brigades directly (and sometimes violently) compete
with one another for coin that the Crown pays to extinguish fires. Fire
brigades resemble street gangs; they operate within a portion of a single
district, demand loyalty of their members, fight against other brigades
(sometimes with words, other times with fists), and actively sabotage
their rivals’ equipment and ability to respond to fires. Each fire brigade
maintains a guild house to store their equipment, house their horses,
and await calls. These guild houses frequently become the targets of rival
saboteurs, and the brigade members within remain constantly wary of
any who approach.

Fire Response Timelines

The times below indicate the time since the fire was noticed and a cry of alarm is raised.
5 Minutes: City Watch cordons off the area to prevent injuries.
10 Minutes: Fire brigade team arrives on the scene. The brigade’s officer evaluates the fire and
sends for backup.
1–8 Hours: Fire is extinguished.
1–8 Hours: Investigators arrive and begin a thorough analysis of the fire to determine if any criminal
activity was involved.
24–72 Hours: Cleanup crews clear away the debris.
24 Hours: Counting house agents determine if recompense is warranted.

Firefighting Methods

The typical fire brigade response team consists of an officer, six brigade
members, and a runner. After the officer evaluates the state and scope of
the fire, he or she directs the other brigade members and sends the runner
to retrieve equipment or assistance.

The most basic firefighting technique uses a line of brigade members
to draw water from a well and pass buckets to the site of the fire. Fire
brigades claim these (ostensibly public) wells as a part of their turf, and
street brawls break out when a brigade tries to use a well controlled by a
rival brigade. Several of the city’s criminal cartels sponsor or otherwise
support individual fire brigades as a method of extorting businesses; don’t
pay your protection money, and a fire might just break out in your shop
while the local fire brigade sits by watching.

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Barrel Wagons

Fire brigades own flatbed wagons that can carry eight to ten large oak
barrels full of water. When a fire grows too extensive for a bucket line
to handle, the officer sends a runner to call out the barrel wagon. It
arrives pulled by two draft horses and under heavy guard (usually four
to six additional brigade members), since such carts are frequently
targeted by rival brigades. These barrel wagons are similar to the water
wagons that top off buildings’ water supplies, though they feature a
hand-pump mechanism that allows a two-person team to push water
through canvas hoses.

Preemptive Destruction

If a fire gets out of control, the brigade officer recommends the
preemptive destruction of portions of nearby buildings to keep the
fire from spreading. This requires approval from an appointed Crown
investigator. Once approved, the brigade calls upon a local alchemist with
whom they have an agreement to execute the controlled destruction using
alchemical acids or the application of explosive force.

Alchemical Methods

Districts in which the aristocracy lives and conducts business pay their
fire brigades more handsomely, allowing them to afford the services of
alchemists. Such fire brigades have access to alchemical means of dowsing
fires, including powders that extinguish flames, gels that absorb and
harmlessly diffuse heat, and stones that draw in smoke to clear the air in a
burning building.

Exceptionally wealthy or influential nobles enhance their estates and
businesses with flame-resistant materials created through alchemy. One
common technique uses an alchemical sealant to coat wooden floorboards,
beams, and walls. The sealant becomes gaseous when exposed to heat,
turning into a heavy vapor that smothers fires.

Cleanup Crews

After a fire is fully extinguished, a deputy investigator rounds up day-
laborers to clear the debris from the site. These day-laborers consist of
commoners recruited from alehouses and boarding houses near the site
of the fire. The laborers use axes and hammers to dismantle the debris
and carry it to carts lined up on the street near the building. Once full,
the carts transport the debris to the nearest canal, offloading onto cargo
gondolas for transfer to refuse scows in the harbor. The crew is required to
turn over any intact valuables they recover to the deputy.

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Lighting the Dark

Oil lamps hang from iron-banded wooden lamp posts to illuminate major
city streets and passenger canals. Lamplighters in the Crown’s employ
ignite the lamps each evening at dusk. In private areas, lighting in the
dark of night depends on the wealth of the resident. The nobility and
wealthy merchants employ oil lamps throughout their homes, and even
the stoops of their front and back doors are graced by a steady-burning oil
flame. Commoners might possess a single oil lamp to use on nights when
the family gathers for a special occasion; otherwise, they use candles for
light for a short time before retiring to bed within a few hours of nightfall
so as not to waste precious hours of candle wax.

The Oil Trade

Lamp oil is big business in New Dunhaven; the nobles demand it,
merchants treat it as a status symbol, and the Crown purchases it for
public lighting in astonishing quantities. Though some trade companies
(for example, the Dunhaven Trading Company) deal in oil, the oil trade
is primarily conducted by companies whose sole business revolves around
the production, sale, and distribution of oil. These companies include the
Royal Light Trade Company, the East Dunhaven Illumination Coster,
and the Coastal Light Conglomerate.

Whaling Navies

A significant portion of the city’s lamp oil comes from the blubber of the
whales that live in the waters to the north of the city. Oil companies fund
fleets of whaling ships, most of which are merchant- or noble-owned
and contracted to the fleet. Naval skirmishes between competing whaling
fleets break out occasionally, so oil companies also contract privateers to
escort their whaling fleets through the cold sea to drive off competitors.

Refineries

Oil refineries take in raw material and use chemical (and alchemical)
processes to produce the refined oil used in the city’s lamps. Whale oil
refineries are located near the docks, while manufactories that produce
paraffin oil (derived from crude oil) and white naphtha (derived from
coal) can be found in the southern districts of the city, near the gates
through which trade caravans arrive bearing loads of raw material.
Because of the volatile nature of the refining process, these refineries are
heavily guarded and frequently inspected by agents of the Crown.

Paraffin wax, a byproduct of the process of refining paraffin oil, is a
74

highly sought-after contraband item. Chandlers consider paraffin wax
to be extremely valuable, and paraffin candles sell for five times as much
as traditional wax tapers. However, the oil companies that produce the
paraffin oil do everything they can to keep the wax out of chandlers’
hands, since paraffin candles are a direct competitor to the oil light
trade. Criminals steal the wax byproduct from refineries and sell it to
chandlers on the sly for a tidy profit, which the oil companies go to great
lengths to prevent.

Oil Wagons

Flatbed oil wagons pulled by a team of four horses deliver oil throughout
the city. An oversized iron-banded barrel permanently affixed to the bed
of the wagon holds hundreds of gallons of oil at a time. These wagons
move methodically throughout the city to deliver oil and their presence,
while necessary, makes people a bit nervous. After all, such a large amount
of flammable liquid in one place cannot help but conjure thoughts of an
uncontrolled fire spreading throughout the district.

Reservoirs

Many nobles and wealthy merchants devote a portion of their cellars to
oil reservoirs. Made of stone and big enough to hold four large barrels,
each reservoir allows space for a several-month supply of a household’s
lamp oil. Metal piping leads from the ground floor exterior of the
building directly into the reservoir (allowing it to be refilled by an oil
wagon crew from the outside). Pump-pressurized piping delivers the oil
to each floor of the building’s interior, allowing the staff to refill lanterns
without making trips to the cellar to reach the reservoir.

Link Boys/Link Girls

When night falls, the street corners of wealthier areas of the city fill with
link boys and link girls—youths who carry oil lamps and, for a few coins,
provide a lighted escort for anyone traveling the streets. Though some
of these youths are commoners earning an honest living, many are the
youngest members of Forgotten street gangs who take the opportunity to
pickpocket unwary customers or lead their charges into the waiting hands
of a band of thieves. Savvy nobles know this and keep a sharp eye on the
link boys and link girls they hire.

75

Sickness and Injury

When denizens of the city fall ill or are injured, they seek out a physicker.
Physickers are trained professionals who ostensibly have the most cutting-
edge training in the workings of the human body. Practically, however, the
skill level of physickers varies widely, and while some are accomplished
chirurgeons who can reattach severed limbs and cure diseases that would
otherwise be fatal, others are little more than herbalists with a surgical kit
and unnerving overconfidence.

When a merchant, noble, or otherwise wealthy or influential person
becomes sick, they summon a physicker who receives a stipend to be
on-call at all hours. For commoners, sometimes a house call is warranted,
but more often than not they must seek out a physicker in his or her shop,
or visit a ward house and see one of the physickers on staff there. Private
physickers tend to be the most skilled, and as such New Dunhaven’s
wealthy receive much better medical care.

Ward Houses

Ward houses provide facilities where large numbers of sick or injured
individuals can be housed during their convalescence. Clean and well-
funded ward houses serve the merchant districts, while ramshackle
facilities of questionable hygiene service the slums. Merchants own ward
houses as investments, providing funds for their upkeep based on the
clients they serve. Some physickers refuse to work in ward houses, largely

76

because they do not wish to be beholden to merchants when making
decisions about their patients’ treatment.

Ward houses stand three to five stories tall, square, blocky structures
that prioritize squeezing the most patients into the building. They feature
hallway upon hallway of rooms filled with patients; in the slums, these
hallways resemble prison cell blocks more than places of healing.

Plague

Aside from fire, plague presents the greatest threat to the safety of the
city. At the least hint of a plague outbreak, the Crown-sponsored ward
houses dispatch plague doctors to investigate the situation. If they find a
real threat, they have the authority to quarantine entire districts until the
plague runs its course, a process which takes days or even weeks.

Plague Ships

When a ship approaches port flying a yellow flag, this indicates a crew
suffering from a contagious disease and requiring treatment. Plague ships
are carefully escorted to quarantine slips where plague doctors treat the
afflicted. Port authorities accommodate plague ships, fearing that if they
turned them away, other plague-bearing ships might stop announcing
themselves, bringing their disease-ridden crews into port anyway.

Thief Signs: Poison

Among the cartels, a skilled few practitioners combine herbs, minerals, metals, and animal extracts
to produce poisons so finely tuned that they produce exactly the desired results with few side effects.
Poison use is like alchemy, but for the human body, and indeed many compounds in the poisoner’s kit
are alchemical in nature. Most poisoners are closer to physickers than alchemists, since knowledge of the
human body and mind plays the biggest part in the concoction of poisons.

A dagger or crossbow bolt can kill someone, but poison’s nonlethal applications make it a valuable tool
for the cartels. Poisons can target specific parts of the body, leaving the rest unharmed. Poisons can affect
not only bodily functions, but also the victim’s state of mind. A poison can induce or suppress emotions,
overwhelm senses, or produce phantom sensations (including pain, pleasure, irritation, and everything
in between). Poisons can mimic the effects of inebriation, stripping away inhibitions and common sense,
or suppress certain functions of the brain, such as social filters or impulse control. Poisons can dull tactile
sensitivity, reflexes, and perception while leaving the victim otherwise unaffected.

Some of the tinctures a poisoner creates can also be used for positive effects; a valued poisoner can
provide her crew with doses of elixirs to allow them to go without sleep for long stretches, or give snipers
potions that calm the nerves and reduce unwanted motion in the hands and arms.

—Gideon Mao, Red Lotus Society poisoner

77

Weddings

Weddings in New Dunhaven vary widely in the level of their
extravagance, but all share a few common elements. By tradition,
commoners hold weddings at cathedrals of the Silver Judge, even if
the couple being married is not particularly pious. An old superstition
proclaims that being married in a cathedral puts the couple on balanced
scales, ensuring that they support each other and enjoy an equal marriage.
Members of the nobility host their weddings on their own estates
or in private venues with spectacular decor, amazing views, or other
exceptional elements.

While the wedding ceremonies follow a predictable course, the real
excitement happens during the parties that follow a wedding. Every
culture and class holds to different traditions. Commoners typically
gather in a rented tavern or a public park, and guests bring food or drinks
instead of wedding presents. Nobles throw elaborate balls at their estate,
with dancing and fine drinks served well into the evening. In Little
Taona, wedding celebrations turn into street festivals, with restaurants and
vendors serving their wares from carts at deeply discounted prices.

Thief Signs: The Right Kind of Wedding

Weddings are one of the few places outside of a Mummers’tavern where the Arrangement is so strictly
enforced that two feuding cartels won’t even look at each other crosswise. When one of the Right Kind
of People get married, it’s tradition for each cartel to send one or two members as representatives to pay
respects to the happy couple. Depending on the cartels involved, you might even see the city’s rich and
powerful: a few nobles at a Vesper wedding, or a merchant prince at a Family wedding. Of course, they
might not know they are at a wedding for criminals, just that they are attending the wedding of someone
with whom they do occasionally shady business. It’s a little gauche, but some crooks even use a fellow
criminal’s wedding as cover for their own schemes.

Another tradition is less well known: if the parents of one of the people getting married are also cartel
members, any of the Right Kind of People attending the wedding can ask one favor of those parents and, as
a sign of goodwill toward the Arrangement, the parents must grant that favor as long as it isn’t dangerous
or ludicrously expensive. Most of the time, the favors promote the greater peace between the cartels, like
forgiving a debt or laying to rest an argument, but sometimes those favors end up being part of some
scheme a crew is running.

—Savan Silver, Vesper mole

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Funerals

When someone dies, their surviving loved ones take the body to a
mortuary to be prepared for a funeral service. There, the body is cleaned
and embalmed, and then sent to a funeral parlor. The funeral parlor offers
a viewing of the body and loved ones gather to pay their last respects. This
takes varying forms depending on the culture of the deceased; people
of Taonan descent hold all-night wakes that resemble farewell parties,
whereas native Dunhavener commoners prefer short, somber affairs where
the attendees console one another for a time.

After the viewing, however, what happens next depends the culture of
the deceased, how devout the family is, and how much wealth they spend
on the disposition of the body. For example, a pious family might move
the body first to a cathedral of the Silver Judge to receive formal funereal
rites in accordance with those outlined in the Word of Peace.

Since land is at a premium in the city, obtaining a plot in one of the
city’s cemeteries is an expensive affair, and only wealthy merchants can
afford such accommodations; commoners are
cremated or buried outside the city. The
nobility, on the other hand, build ornate
mausoleums to inter their ancestors,
typically located on a plot of land owned
by the noble house.

79

Entertainment

After water, food, and shelter, people in New Dunhaven have an essential
need for entertainment. Performers fill the city, making their livings by
providing a temporary escape from life’s daily drudgery. Whether it takes
the form of music to provide a pleasant atmosphere, tumblers on a street
corner, or an elaborate production by one of the city’s theater troupes,
entertainment is never in short supply.

Street Performers

The Crown licenses performing troupes with the right to ply their trade
on street corners, in public squares, and in parks throughout the city.
These troupes feature jugglers, tumblers, acrobats, puppeteers, and more
exotic entertainers such as fire-eaters, knife-throwers, and animal trainers.
Some performing troupes even put on small plays wherever space permits,
though their performances usually consist of snippets from a larger piece.

Street performers have a not-totally-undeserved reputation for being
thieves and con artists. An extremely high number of the city’s street
performers are Mummers, and they use their performances as cover
for picking pockets and running small-time scams. Street performers
also provide great distractions, drawing eyes away from elsewhere and
reducing the number of witnesses to a crime.

Musicians and Bards

Almost every tavern in the city employs a musician or two, playing
the common room and often drowned out by the din of conversation.
Some inns hire storytellers to keep the crowd entertained. Musicians
contribute to the ambiance and they also serve as excellent sources for
information, since they spend all their days in public listening to people
share secrets once they get too deep in their cups. They overhear every
rumor that comes through the district and know the faces of people that
they see every day.

Bards are a different matter. Highly educated, masters of multiple
instruments, filled with tales from around the world and gifted with the
charisma to enchant people with their telling, bards single-handedly keep
rooms full of people with discerning tastes entranced for hours. Noble
houses frequently employ bards for their courts and to entertain at their
high-society soirées. Bards tend to be skilled political manipulators and
sly masters of intrigue as a result.

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Theaters

One of the only forms of entertainment in the city where members of all
social classes enjoy the same performance, the theater provides a pleasant
diversion as one of the most respected art forms in New Dunhaven. Good
theater troupes build favorable reputations, and individual performers
become celebrities who are treated with the awe and respect accorded
to the nobility.

The open-air theaters in the merchant districts draw the largest and
most diverse crowds. These theaters are laid out in a circle, with the
stage and backstage areas at one end. Facing the stage, a few rows of
benches referred to as geezer rows (since they tend to be occupied by
older attendees who need to sit or to be up close) separate the performing
area from the wide-open space where attendees pack together tightly
and stand through each performance. A balcony rings the viewing area,
divided into sections with individual seats for wealthy patrons (usually
merchants). Some particularly high-end theaters feature a third tier above
the balcony, consisting of a dozen or so private boxes reserved for nobility.

Each theater sponsors one or sometimes two theater troupes. These
house troupes are contracted to provide the performances that draw
in crowds week after week. Competition between theater troupes is
absolutely savage, and troupes spend almost as much time trying to figure
out how to outdo one another as they do performing. Some troupes
try to stage the greatest spectacles, using alchemical devices to create
special effects. Others seek to perform the bloodiest tragedies or the
most entertaining comedies by attracting the greatest playwrights in the
city. Talent poaching, foul rumor spreading, and prop sabotaging occurs
regularly between troupes.

In noble districts, opera houses and auditoriums supplant open-air
theaters. These grand, elaborate, fully enclosed structures (the nobility
bends its schedule to no mere rainstorm, of course) feature luxuriously
appointed interiors lit by softly glowing oil lamps on wall sconces
and ornate crystal chandeliers that cast scintillating lights. Instead of
theater troupes, these buildings play host to performing companies
from the world over. These arenas offer only one or two performances
a week, making them the scenes of social events rather than everyday
entertainments.

81

Gambling

Fools and their money are soon parted, and nowhere does that adage
hold more true than in the city’s gambling establishments. Gambling is
highly regulated in New Dunhaven, and the Crown keeps a tight rein on
establishments where betting provides a major form of entertainment.
Though the City Watch is unlikely to break up a high-stakes poker game
in a merchant’s manor house or make arrests in a dockside tavern over
a game of dice, any unsanctioned gambling is technically illegal. The
law not only protects people from unscrupulous casino owners, but also
ensures that the Crown gets its cut of the house take.

Tavern Gambling

While drinking and socializing entertain some people, others turn to
games of chance to pass the time. It is not uncommon to find people
playing at casual games of dice or cards throughout the common room
of most taverns. Moreover, such games offer open invitations for other
people to join, providing an easy opportunity for social interaction.

Pairs

A popular drinking game, pairs uses a deck of cards numbered from
one to ten. This unique game ends with a single loser as all the other
players win. The loser traditionally buys the next round of drinks at
the table, though sometimes coins are exchanged. Since the game
encourages pushing your luck, it leads to lots of goading and needling
around the table.

Six Gems

The most popular dice game in New Dunhaven taverns, six gems has
players toss six dice, each of a different color. Before tossing the dice,
players make wagers on which dice will come up with the same symbol,
and the thrower’s wager is placed against all spectators.

Wager Houses

Off-track betting is a big part of the horse racing scene in New
Dunhaven. At wager houses scattered throughout the city, bookmakers
take bets on horse races occurring at various tracks in the city. These
wager houses are appointed much like social clubs, and the gambling
takes place quietly in the background as the bettors socialize with one
another and wait for runners to arrive with race results.

82

Casinos and Gambling Halls

The casinos of New Dunhaven more closely resemble private clubs than
gaudy circuses. They are upscale, opulently appointed, and designed to
draw in a more refined crowd. The Vespers sink their barbs deep into the
owners of the upscale gambling halls frequented by the nobility, and the
Family has people on the take planted in just about every other gambling
establishment in the city.

Chariot

One of the more popular spectacle games found in most casinos, chariot
is a game of random chance that plays out like a race. Players choose five
numbers out of a hundred, and the more they choose correctly, the faster
their playing piece moves around the table. Spectators place wagers on
which of the racers will cross the finish line and in what place, and the
winning racers get a cut of the prize.

Grand Melee

A popular card-based table game where players wager both against
one another and against the house, grand melee involves not only
managing probabilities, but also reading the other players at the table
and goading them into taking ill-advised chances, all while avoiding the
predatory house player.

King’s Hand

With complex and esoteric rules, expensive playing pieces, and a cultural
association with the nobility, the game of king’s hand predates the
founding of Dunhaven. The game uses carved wooden tiles lacquered
with different color patterns and textures. A team of two cooperates to
manipulate opponents and watch for their tells. For an added element of
intrigue, teammates must work together while each has a different goal
and winning condition. King’s hand is a favored game of the nobility,
who learn its complicated rules (including a myriad of exceptions)
from a young age.

Windmill

Another game of spectacle, windmill involves a large wooden wheel
resembling a spoked wagon wheel lying on its side. The wheel spins, and
colored marbles drop into a reservoir at the center of the wheel before
traveling down furrows on the spokes to pockets around the outer edge of
the wheel. Spectators wager on how many of each color will end up in a
particular pocket, with long-shot bets paying big returns.

83

NToabraccoctoicasnd

Recreational drug use is not uncommon in New Dunhaven, some of it
even allowed by law. Like both alcohol and tobacco, cannabis is legal in
New Dunhaven, if highly regulated. A business must be licensed to sell
these indulgences, and those licenses carry hefty fees, meaning that only
certain shops can afford to deal in such luxuries.

Pleasure Houses

While most people looking to relax with a little inebriation are content to
visit the taverns and ale houses in the city, some choose to partake in more
narcotic pleasures.

Pleasure houses allow customers to indulge in a variety of legal vices.
They operate under one simple principle: if you seek decadence, escape,
or pleasure, you never need to leave the premises. Pleasure houses occupy
sprawling structures with interiors divided to best provide a particular
service. They include bars serving ale and liquors, smoking rooms for
tobacco and cannabis consumption, private rooms for prostitution,
and even supper club-worthy kitchens
that provide meals to rival
those served in elite dining
establishments. A few even
cater to gamblers, though
casinos and card dens
dislike the competition,
and pleasure house
owners rarely want to
make such enemies.

84

Though pleasure houses are legal businesses, they still carry an aura of
disrepute. Few members of high society would admit to visiting a pleasure
house, except when full of bravado and boasting of debauchery to their
peers. For respected community members, such as a Senator or an officer
of the City Watch, being identified as a customer of a pleasure house
would be scandalous. Of course, this stigma does little to dissuade officials
from visiting pleasure houses; they simply do so with a higher degree of
discretion. Since the Vespers control most pleasure houses in the city, or
at least have people on the take among their staffs, these establishments
provide a key part of the economy of secrets to the Right Kind of People.

Poppy Dens

For some, the inebriants peddled in pleasure houses are too tame for their
tastes. Those seeking a greater escape from reality find recourse in the
highly illegal and incredibly seedy poppy dens. Poppy dens deal in opium
smuggled into the city by both land and sea, and they are exclusively
operated by the criminal organizations of the city (the cartels of the
Arrangement and the Blooded). Though the Vespers lay claim to most
vice in the city (and operate the majority of poppy dens), other cartels
also partake in the business. The Red Lotus Society runs the next largest
number of poppy dens, largely because they control all the seaborne
smuggling that brings opium into the city. The Society’s poppy dens are
confined to their own turf, and they supply the Vespers with much of the
opium peddled in their establishments.

Poppy dens are always hidden in the back rooms or basements of
legitimate establishments, accessed by secret passages or through locked
and guarded doors. The Right Kind of People learned long ago that the
City Watch takes a greater interest in people coming and going from
abandoned buildings than in those patronizing a legitimate business. The
cartels either own those legitimate fronts or pay a handsome “rent” (more
hush money than anything else) to their owners. Thief Signs indicate the
presence of a poppy den and might also include instructions concerning
the secret knocks or passwords needed to access the hidden rooms.

Inside the poppy den, patrons find none of the opulence of a pleasure
house. The rooms are dim to the point of being almost dark, and those
partaking in opium lie about haphazardly on the floor in their catatonic
state. Finery has no place where most patrons are unconscious.

85

Hookah Cafes

Less ubiquitous than pleasure houses and far less elaborate, hookah
cafés rent the use of hookahs to smoke cannabis and related substances.
Hookah cafés have outdoor seating areas, and during the warm
season people gather in these cafés to enjoy the pleasant weather and
socialize over a hookah.

Smoking cannabis or hookah grass (a blend of cannabis extract and
tobacco) is a social activity in a hookah café. A half-dozen people might
sit around a hookah, talking amiably while partaking in the recreational
drug. For some, this serves as a legitimate way to catch up with friends
and share the latest gossip rather than crowding around a table at a
public house or bellying up to the bar in a tavern. Hookah cafés offer
light refreshments as well, though usually no alcohol; tea is the drink
of choice here.

Hookah cafés can be found in the territories controlled by the Family
and the Red Lotus Society. Though cannabis is legal, any vice draws the
attention of the Right Kind of People, and those two cartels encourage
the operation of and provide protection for hookah cafés. The Family in
particular appreciates hookah cafés and frequently holds cartel and crew
meetings in them, shutting down a location for hours at a time for a
“private engagement.”

The Alchemy of Hookah Grass

Though the cannabis smoked through a hookah is a relatively harmless
narcotic, the blend that makes up hookah grass provides an opportunity
for alchemical dabbling. Some hookah cafés pay alchemists to provide
them with alchemically enhanced substances that can be mixed into the
hookah grass for additional effects, such as the following:

✦✦ Smoke that has a particular flavor, like peaches, chocolate, or bacon
✦✦ Smoke that changes color as it is exhaled
✦✦ Greatly increased duration of the intoxicating effect
✦✦ Drastically shorter duration of the intoxicating effect (favored by

merchants who wish to visit a hookah café during a lunch break)
Tinkering with narcotics can be a dangerous proposition, and adding
alchemy to the mix makes it all the more so. Poisoners among the Right
Kind of People sometimes use alchemically enhanced hookah grass as
a delivery vehicle for their poisons. The normal intoxicating effects of
the hookah provide the perfect cover for poisons that alter emotions
or mental states.

86

Tobacco Parlors

People from all walks of life, from the poorest commoner through the
most refined noble, enjoy a little tobacco from time to time. While the
average commoner might drop a few copper bits to buy cheap cigarros
for a quick, easy fix, those who partake in tobacco see smoking a pipe as
a leisurely activity to be savored and enjoyed at a slower pace. Tobacco
parlors (also called smoke rooms in rougher parts of the city) specialize in
pipe tobacco while providing comfortable sitting areas where customers
partake in the tobacco purchased in the shop. In merchant and noble
districts, tobacco parlors tend to be quiet, peaceful shops with plush
armchairs, dim lighting, and, in the winter, a lit fireplace. They also
offer shelves with books to be perused, game boards for a few friendly
rounds of competitive strategy, and a selection of liquors to accompany a
good pipe. In less wealthy districts, the smoke rooms mirror the tobacco
parlors, though the amenities are fewer and the tobacco selection smaller.

Thief Signs: The Very Best Cigars

You can buy cheap cigarros in any tobacco shop, but if you want the very best, buy tobacco from the
Westport Cigar Company. Never heard of them? That’s because their wares are illegal in New Dunhaven.
The whole reason behind it is a mess, something to do with a conflict between them and the Dunhaven
Bay Trading Company. Some Senators got bribed, an embargo put into place, and now the people of the
city resort to smoking the weak leaf that grows outside the city, or imports from Taona so dried out they
hardly have any taste left. For the Right Kind of People, anything stamped with the Westport Cigar Company
logo is worth its weight in gold on the black market. The Wardens of the Night help the Hanged smuggle
some over land into the city, and the Red Lotus Society brings some in by ship, but once it’s in the city
people continue to fight over it. I was once on a crew for a Job where the score was a box of Westport
Cigar Company cigars, stolen from the house of a merchant who had smuggled them in himself. The most
appalling Job I heard about was one where the broker hired a crew to burn up a noble’s humidor, destroying
one of the largest collections of Westport Cigar Company tobacco in the city as an act of petty revenge on
the head of that noble house. Sound crazy? Rarity makes even something as mundane as good tobacco
valuable, and making it illegal turns a trade good into contraband. When something is outlawed, the Right
Kind of People are always involved.
—Aldrin Teladar, Vesper assassin

87

Horse Racing

Much like theater, horse racing brings New Dunhaven’s social classes
together. A horse race invites commoners, merchants, and nobles alike to
gather and enjoy a day of sport and spectacle, bringing them into closer
contact with one another than at any time outside of the Regent’s Feast.

A few horse racing tracks are scattered throughout the city, most of
them in merchant’s districts. Each track has its own shape and unique
traits, hosting events on a strict schedule. On any given day, at least one of
New Dunhaven’s horse tracks is hosting an event, though fewer races take
place on Holy Day when the city’s faithful crowd into the cathedrals.

Horse tracks have a large, open standing area right up against the rail
that affords a fantastic view of the home stretch but makes it difficult to
see the rest of the track. Commoners in attendance stand in this area and
it tends to be loud, crowded, and muddy, but cheap admission and servers
carrying trays of ale to the track’s side make it more appealing.

Rows of stadium-style seats stretch back behind the standing area and
provide an increasingly better view of the entire track. Merchants and
minor nobles occupy these seats. At the top of the seating area, well-
appointed private boxes staffed by an army of servants cater to the needs
of the powerful and wealthy nobles who reserve these seats.

The Aeon Oval

Possibly the grandest and most well-known horse racing track in the
city, the Aeon Oval hosts New Dunhaven’s most famous sporting event,
the steeplechase known as the Prince’s Chase. In addition to its racing
facilities, the exceptional Aeon Oval includes a gambling hall, supper club,
and wine bar underneath the stadium seating. Moreover, the Aeon Oval
boasts one of the largest betting facilities in the city, handling wagers not
only on races at the Oval but also at the other tracks throughout New
Dunhaven. A series of tunnels runs underneath the track to a massive
vault, where the day’s earnings are stored. The Oval also has its own stable
facility, equine physickers and hospital, and a second, smaller warm-
up track, making it an all-in-one locale that draws competitors from
around the world.

88

Racehorse Stables

Locked down with security almost as formidable as a counting house,
the stables that house racehorses serve as vaults for the valuable beasts.
Each racehorse represents an investment, owned either by a noble house
(training racehorses is a popular hobby for the nobility) or a merchant
looking to appear worthy of the trappings of high society. As such, stables
housing racehorses are well-defended complexes closed to the public.

Were someone with unscrupulous intentions sneak inside and gain
access to a horse’s stall, they could sabotage a race by weakening or
sickening a horse, or pump a horse full of energizing chemicals to give
it an unfair advantage in a race. Of course, interfering with a horse
constitutes a crime with thousands of gold crowns at stake, and as such
the private security forces that guard these stables occasionally take a
more violent approach to deterrence than might otherwise be warranted.
A surprising number of would-be prowlers suffer fatal “accidents”
during a break-in.

Wagering on the Ponies

Despite the beautiful environs, fine food and drink, and the thundering
hooves of spectacular sportsmanship, gambling stands out as the main
draw of the horse racing tracks. Here, nearly any wager is accepted,
and the bets range from simply picking a winner to extremely complex
combinations of horses, placement, and finishing times. The more
complex the wager, the higher the payout, but also a greater likelihood
that the coin ends up in the track owner’s coffers.

Bookmakers wander the viewing areas, making themselves available
to take wagers. The bookmaker marks each wager in a tome-like record
book, and the person placing the bet receives a wooden token with a
symbol on it that matches the line their wager is written on. These
wooden tokens feature complex identification symbols which are painted
on each race day and then alchemically sealed to protect them against
being burned or altered. After a token is cashed in for a winning bet,
it is destroyed.

Two large, muscular attendants accompany each bookmaker and carry
an iron-banded chest between them. A sturdy lock seals the heavy chest,
the key to which is in the bookmaker’s possession. The coin from wagers
goes into this chest at the time the wager is placed, and the muscle-bound
attendants guard the chest against tampering and theft by wielding metal
rods as thick as a person’s wrist.

89

Other Illicit
Entertainment

In a city the size of New Dunhaven, someone looking for entertainment
that falls outside the confines of the law can find plenty of options.

Urban Racing

Impromptu races can spring up at any time throughout the city, most
commonly among foolhardy youths and the reckless sons and daughters
of the nobility. The City Watch remains on guard against this illicit
activity, since it puts both the racers and innocent civilians at risk. These
races nonetheless draw eager participants, bettors, and spectators.

Rooftop Dashes

These races require participants to get from one location to another
before their opponents do. The caveat? No one is allowed to set
foot on any street. Reckless young racers leap across gaps between
buildings, charge across rooftops, and swing off pipes in a mad dash to
the finish line.

Street Horse Racing

Thundering through the streets with no regard for pedestrians in their
way, illegal horse races use the streets and alleys of New Dunhaven as a
twisting, winding obstacle course. A half dozen riders mount up at one
end of an agreed-upon course, then engage in a breakneck race through
the streets with no rules beyond the route.

Thief Signs: Harder Narcotics

For most folks looking to lose their minds for a while, cannabis and poppy do the trick just fine. I’m not
going to deny that they’re not enough for some people, especially people who’re particularly desperate and
lost. Mostly, the cartels that bend knee to the Black Council won’t traffic in anything that does permanent
damage, but that doesn’t stop it from getting into the city anyways. A large amount of the narcotics run
through the city by the Blooded are of the harder variety, the kind that end up putting a lot of people into
ward houses—or into the ground. The cartels of the Arrangement don’t mess with that kind of thing, and
every now and then when we catch word of shipment of the hard stuff coming into the city, some broker
puts together a Job to interrupt the smuggling and destroy the merchandise.

—Yuriey Andreyvich Ivanov, Circle mastermind

90

Fighting Rings

Everyone loves the thrill of competition, but some people enjoy a little
more blood in their sport. While dueling is legal, sanctioned duels are
more about settling grievances and less about entertaining spectators. For
something more primal, people seek out the underground fighting rings
run by the Right Kind of People. These clandestine fights take place in
abandoned warehouses, hidden basements, and the secret back rooms of
seedy taverns in the slums. They pit brutal, desperate, cruel, and half-
crazed men and women against one another in savage combat. Most
fights require the combatants to be unarmed, but occasionally a fighting
ring features a knife fight as added spectacle.

The draw of these fighting rings goes beyond the bloodsport to the
stories that emerge from it. One guy beats another one bloody, and
now the defeated man carries a grudge against the winner. Two thieves
cross paths out on the streets and build up bad blood that can only be
settled in the fighting ring. Hundreds of conflicts simmer outside of the
fighting rings, from jilted lovers and betrayed spouses to old grudges over
imagined slights and bitter betrayals that irrevocably ruined friendships.
When conflicts arise between members of cartels of the Arrangement,
the Black Council allows them to settle their feud in the fighting ring—a
brutal, bloody mirror to the way the Crown allows nobles to duel
with one another.

Gambling also plays a big part in the fighting rings. Bookmakers are
always on hand to take wagers on not only who will win, but how long
the fight will last. A favorite topic for gossip among the Right Kind
of People concerns the skill and fitness of underground fighters, and
enthusiasts of the sport develop strong opinions about favorite fighters
and despised opponents. This devotion invests the wagering audience in
each fight on a personal level.

Indentured Fighters

While most underground fighting rings are run by the Right Kind of
People, a few are sponsored by wealthy nobles and merchants. These
underground fighting rings are frowned upon by the cartels, largely
because the fighters that they engage are deeply indebted to the wealthy
organizers of the ring. These rich individuals, who treat the fighters they
“sponsor” more like prized racehorses than people, take the debt owed to
them by their fighters and see it paid in blood, pain, and violence.

91

The Crown
and The Law

New Dunhaven’s government is a democratic oligarchy, with Regent
Olivia I standing as the ultimate authority in the city and a democratically
elected Senate (whose members are all commoners) acting as a
counterbalance to the Regent’s power.

The Royal Family

The Royal Family consists of the hereditary line of the Regents and is
almost identical to the monarchies of the Elderland nations from which
Kalat Wadun’s original residents emigrated. A direct line of succession
can be traced through the Regent’s family, though numerous branches are
the result of marriages or second- and third-born children who never had
the chance to act as Regent.

In many respects, the Royal Family are simply nobles. Other than the
Regent and her immediate family members (her widowed mother and
two younger brothers), most royals have no chance of ever ascending to
the throne as Regent. Many are spoiled, petulant aristocrats who enjoy the
protections and privileges of the nobility; being a member of the Royal
Family elevates one’s status even above the eldest noble families.

Bureaucratic Offices

Though authority ultimately rests with the Regent and the Senate, the
day-to-day governing happens in the halls of the myriad of bureaucratic
offices scattered throughout the city. New Dunhaven’s legal code is
quite mature, and its bureaucratic offices have changed little in hundreds
of years, meaning that it has been business-as-usual for a long time.
Bureaucratic offices oversee almost every aspect of governing, from the
Office of Tax Enumeration and Government Solvency, to the Office of
Foreign Trade, and even the Office of Water and Sanitation Oversight.
Each has responsibilities and an area of authority that it guards like
a small fiefdom.

This stability has been good for business, but it has also allowed
corruption and inefficiency to seep into the process. Senators offer cushy
bureaucratic positions with high pay as bribes to nobles and merchants,
who return the favor in goods or concessions. Every office contains plenty
of clerks and functionaries who are more than willing to accept coin
under the table for services or information.

92

[INSERT ART: CROWN AND THE LAW CHAPTER]

93

The Senate

An elected individual represents each city district in the Senate. Senators
must be commoners (nobles and members of the Royal Family are
forbidden to be Senators). They are chosen to serve for three-year terms,
with different districts holding elections in different years to maintain
some semblance of continuity while also allowing for annual turnover in
the Senate membership.

The Senate represents the interests of the commoner class in the
halls of government and acts as a check on the power of the Regent.
Every Senator bears responsibility for acting on behalf of the district
that elected them, bringing the concerns of their constituents before
the city’s governing bodies. Of course, not all Senators hold as tightly to
these ideals as they publicly claim, and many take positions that benefit
trade companies, wealthy merchants, and members of the nobility. Some
Senators accept payment from the Right Kind of People and occasionally
use their political influence to benefit the cartels. The Family actively
pursues opportunities for bribery, claiming to have more than a dozen
Senators under their thumbs at any given time.

On the surface, most Senators seem to be magnanimous representatives,
charismatic leaders who champion the needs of individuals. They are
well liked and respected by their constituents, and many (especially
those from districts with a lot of wealth flowing through them) wield
individual power that rivals the heads of some noble houses. Senators
have considerable influence with the magistrates who pass judgment in
their districts and are well known to the owners of local businesses; an
appearance by a district’s Senator is much akin to the appearance of a
celebrity or local hero.

Money in Politics

Because Senators are elected by citizen vote, significant amounts of coin
and effort are spent winning over the hearts and minds of the people they
hope to represent. Wealthy individuals and organizations essentially buy a
Senate election by flooding the district with propaganda endorsing their
favored candidate. Once elected, those Senators are frequently reminded
of the fact that they owe their continued presence in the halls of power to
the people who spent the coin. Thus, most Senators must master the art
of acting on behalf of special interests, while making it appear that they
work for the commoners.

94

Powerful Enemies

While some Senators are on the take from the cartels, others (especially
a few zealous idealists elected through the support of the Endless Dawn)
make life miserable for the Right Kind of People. Senators can put
pressure on the City Watch to crack down on crime in their districts,
threatening to withhold funding or promotions if the Watch doesn’t obey.
They can convince magistrates to impose extraordinarily harsh sentences
on convicted cartel members and ensure that convicts rot in the Castle
for years longer than if the Senator had not intervened. Most Senators
are wealthy, if not in their own holdings then in the coin they can call
upon from supporters, and they have been known to hire bounty hunters,
Dredgers, and even assassins to eliminate anyone who interferes with
their machinations.

The Dome of Commons

When the Senate convenes, it does so in a grand structure known as the
Dome of Commons. This building features a tiered, circular auditorium
with a speaking platform at its center, the lowest point in the chamber.
From this platform, Senators address their fellows who watch on from
all sides, the acoustics of the room projecting the speaker’s voice so
that everyone in the chamber can easily
hear the presenter.

When the Senate is in session, they
engage in debates over policies, propose
new laws and statutes, argue over
proclamations, and discuss the actions
of the Regent and other agents of the
Crown to determine whether Senate
intervention is required. In
general, the Senate rarely
takes action to counter the
Regent; given the influence
that nobles and merchants
have over the Senators, it is
rare that the branches of the
government do not align
on a particular matter.

95

PLauwnissahnmdents

The legal code and statutes in New Dunhaven are wordy, complex, and
full of loopholes easily exploited by solicitors and interpreted by magis-
trates. Still, some aspects of the law and their punishments receive univer-
sal recognition across the breadth of New Dunhaven. While New Dun-
haven is largely egalitarian, offering protections for all citizens regardless
of their cultural origins, lifestyle, or heritage, a person’s class remains the
great divide between citizens in the eyes of the law. The nobility and
members of the Royal Family fall under the same legal code as everyone
else, but they receive more lenient sentences, are more likely to be par-
doned or have charges dropped, and as the victims of a crime, ensure that
the criminals are more harshly prosecuted.

High Crimes

High crimes are punishable by the most severe penalties, including
draconian holdovers from the frontier days of the city’s founding.

Arson

Deliberately starting a destructive fire within the bounds of the city is
punishable by imprisonment in the Castle for a minimum of ten years
up to a sentence of lifetime imprisonment, depending on the size of the
fire. If the burned building belonged to a business or merchant and the
criminal is a commoner, that merchant can petition the magistrate to have
the criminal sent to one of the hard labor camps outside the city to work
off the cost of the destroyed property.

Assault

A crime is labeled assault only if the victim is helpless, defenseless,
severely outnumbered, or at a serious disadvantage, or if the assault
results in maiming, severe scarring, or other life-threatening injuries. Fair
fights are prosecuted as minor crimes, if at all. Assault is punishable by
imprisonment in the Castle for one to five years, or up to twenty years if
the victim is a noble or an agent of the Crown.

Fraud

Using lies, deceit, and trickery to convince someone to turn over any
portion of their wealth or belongings counts as fraud and is punishable
with hefty fines and up to ten years in the Castle.

96

Gunpowder/Firearm Possession or Use

Only agents of the Crown and specially designated individuals (for

example, members of the Dredger Detective Agency) are allowed

to possess a firearm inside the city. Illegal possession of a firearm is

punishable by up to five years in the Castle; that sentence doubles if

the firearm is discharged, or if the person owning it had clear intent to

sell the weapon.

Kidnapping

Unlawfully detaining a person (including holding someone hostage

with weapons, physically restraining someone or barricading them in a

location, or preventing someone from coming and going of their own

free will by threat of force) is a crime punishable by up to ten years in

the Castle. That sentence doubles if the victim is a child or otherwise

physically disadvantaged individual, and can become a life sentence if the

victim is a noble.

Manslaughter

Causing the accidental death of another person through carelessness,

inattention, lack of restraint or control, or in the heat of passion (such as

in a fight, but without forethought or intent) all count as manslaughter

and are punishable by imprisonment in the Castle for between ten years

and a life sentence. If the victim is a noble, Crown barristers can request

death by firing squad, though magistrates rarely impose this punishment

unless the circumstances surrounding the crime are extreme.

Murder

Intentionally causing the death of another person, either by direct action

or by inaction, counts as murder. Additionally, in New Dunhaven,

all accomplices and conspirators in the murder are considered to

be equally as guilty as the person who committed the murder and

receive punishments corresponding to a direct hand in the crime. The

punishment for murder is a minimum of twenty years in the Castle, up to

a life sentence. Magistrates frequently grant a barrister’s request of a death

by hanging, executioner, or firing squad for perpetrators of murder, and

if the victim is a noble the sentence is death by starvation and thirst in a

gibbet hung off of the Castle walls.

Narcotics Possession/Distribution

Though technically a high crime, possession or distribution of illegal

narcotics carries with it a sentence of merely one year to up to ten years in

the Castle, though extreme sentencing is rare. 97

Sorcery

The use of sorcery is not only a crime, it is also considered heresy, and
is the only crime for which a person can be detained by anyone other
than the City Watch. Anyone convicted of the use of sorcery, promoting
the use of sorcery, or spreading occult lore can be sentenced to between
fifteen years and a life sentence in the Castle. If the use of sorcery has
long-lasting effects, or if it also involves other offenses (for example, the
destruction of property, manslaughter, and so on) the magistrate can
automatically choose to assign the maximum sentence.

Theft

Taking someone else’s money or property, whether by burglary, mugging,
or any other means is punishable by between five and ten years in the
Castle, depending on the value of the items taken. It is also customary
to impose a fine, paid by the perpetrator to the victim. Additionally,
destruction of property is tried as a theft, and if that destruction also
endangered the victim or other bystanders the punishments can be
doubled. If the victim of the crime is a member of the nobility, those
sentences can be up to three times as long.

Treason

Seditious acts undermine the authority and security of the Crown,
especially when those acts weaken the government’s position in relation
to a foreign power. The punishment for selling Crown secrets to a foreign
nation or power is the same as committing an act of sabotage, and both
are punishable by between twenty years and a life sentence in the Castle.
If the treason resulted in the deaths of Dunhaveners or agents of the
Crown, the Crown pushes for death by gibbet.

Thief Signs: The World’s Oldest Profession

It would almost be better for us if the Crown were to outlaw prostitution, but what we have in its place—
an unhealthy amount of shame and secrecy—is almost as good. If most people didn’t see such a vice
as being both uncouth and disreputable, cartels like the Vespers would not be able to use it as blackmail
against those who patronize the pleasure houses of the city. Perhaps if the good, upstanding citizens of the
city didn’t treat prostitution like something to be hidden away and scorned, our patrons wouldn’t feel the
need to visit our secret dens of iniquity and expose themselves to our predation. It’s hard to rob someone in
broad daylight, but when they deliver themselves to our shadowed doorstep, aren’t they really asking for us
to take advantage of them?

—Genevieve le Croix, Vesper thief

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