Below Town and Environs

Below Town

The settlement, sprawls across a wide but narrow strip of sand half-shaded by Carroways. A sprawling shanty town of beach shacks, shabeens, rough-thatched cantinas and rude-looking camps of unwashed men . Stalls sell exotic looking liquors and brews. Parrots and tame monkapes caper. Hawkers sell fish snacks and brightly coloured potions. Men , and fewer women laugh, fight, and lounge about. You note humans, disreputable-looking Masquani, even the occasional Half-Ugak and Kehanna in the throng.

The Rocks. Beyond the Beach. Small farms, grazing 'gruffs' (antelope- or goat-like animals) and stone cottages which occupy the steadily rising land beyond the settlement.

The Bazaar:  a chaotic marketplace near the rear of the settlement. Its centrepiece is an old Ugak totem pole rumoured to be cursed. The heart of the town.

The workshops. A cluster of factory-workshops which occupy a semi-stockaded compound close by the bazaar. Run by a scurrilion, Tobias. They carry out work- weaving linen, creating ceramics, even some weapon-smithing - useful to the wealthy Atani. Working there gives good daily pay, and meals are thrown in. But Tobias is a harsh task master and selects only the cleverest looking fellows from a queue that forms outside each dawn.

Shop Street.Wending its eccentric way through the shacks, a kind of street which includes some almost respectable looking workshops and stores: a chandler, some grocers, a smithy, a tailor and an apothecary amongst others.

Thethree 'good' taverns in Below Town. Two on the beach (The Beachcomber and the Nightswimmer) and one up on the Rocks (The Aerie). All three are made of good timber or stone, have comfortable beds for guests and a selection of non-gut-rotting beers and liquor.