Tyrephene

(TY-re-FEEN) is the hub of the Serpentine Coast, on a perfect natural harbour where the Graybrindle River widens before it flows into the Roamean Sea.

Here the merchant class rules, and the town's most powerful men are the dragonborn Portmaster Gramm Forthwind, and the human Mayor Artold Goldscale.

Godwin Pinchcoddle the halfling merchant is the richest individual for many hundreds of miles, and many aspire to wealth at the hub of trade in the Serpentine Coast. There are around 1800 souls in residence and a floating population of merchants, sailors and travellers usually numbering another 500 or so.

The big town has a civility to many parts of it.

The Acropolis of Ioun is isolated on a area of hills in the south-east part of Tyrephene.  It has a large library and a 100 or so scholarly clerics in dormitories, abbeys and formal gardens there.

There is also a town hall, records and public libraries in the financial district.  The Captain of the Guards Fortian Hardacre runs things with an iron fist, and has a well-staffed guardpost in the district. As a result both the Permanent Fine Bank of the Serpentine Coast; and the Right Royal Mercantile Bank of Tyrephene and the Vales do a roaring trade.

Northeast of the financial district the well-to-do can find nice shops and markets.  Hatters, milliners, and purveyors of fine boots and tweeds, are to be found there. Those in the select group of the modestly wealthy - mostly merchants, public officials, retired sea-captains and the like, also live in the new parts of town up the valley from the financial and administrative heart.

But there is a seedy side to the bustling town. In the south-west – the wharves, the warehouses and the markets nearby are not safe at nights.  In the area known as "the shanties" disreputable inns, and rooming houses sprawl in tenements built on the cascading precipitous ruins of the ancient city that once stood there, and dark narrow streets are home to all manner of unsavoury types. 

Legend has it that ancient races originally lived in what is now Tyrephene - men and dwarves - and that they had built many grand glories, temples and halls now fallen; but also subterrenean passages, storerooms and bolt-holes from which to mount defense against marauding armies of fell creatures from the hills. Allegedly these passages wind through many parts of the city.

Certainly along the ridge paralleling the south wall of Tyrephene, the crumbling foundations of some ancient temples serve as rooms for doubtful fortune tellers, apothecaries, and counsellors. There merchants of remedies for everything from gout to an impoverished love life have set up tatty shops and stalls along the Temple Heights as the strip is called.

On the north side of town, over the Graybrindle Bridge, is a more savoury but nonetheless vibrant part of town.  The fisheries are to be found here - wharves and the adjacent fishmarket usually loud and somewhat fragrant.  From the fisheries district, a road which soon becomes a narrow and treacherous track leads West around the hillside to the Sentinel.  A little further East from the fisheries, up the river, are trades of all kinds - some in smart warehouses, smithies, and shops; others operating from carts and stalls.  Wrights, and coopers; ironworkers, weaponsmiths, makers of nails, horseshoes and much else besides.  Also in this district are a number of shipyards, sailmakers and chandleries selling nets and ropes.

Perched on the hillside above all this, and looking out across the harbour, but also back up the valley is the barracks and main guardpost.  Above this again are the mayoral home and offices, and the towns treasury surrounded by stout pallisade and naturally protected by its precipitous access road.  The guard house has a signal light that it uses to communicate with the sentinel post nearly a mile to the east.  The sentinel is a lofty outcropping of rock, some say was an colossus of stone made by now fallen civilizations; which remains overlooking the harbour.  Three guards are posted at all hours on top of the Sentinel and they can signal if forces arrive by sea, or by road from the north.  Also they can relay signals from the two lighthouses at the opening to the outer harbour, and ensure the lights there are lit at night.

The road up from the North Vale climbs steeply to reach Tyrephene, making a charge from the North much more difficult.  So to the north there is no wall or guard post as such, although Winsome Barrafin, the Eldarin market overseer keeps a roster of watchmen over the markets, stables and stockyards that cluster around the North Road.  A signal fire can be lit there to call out the barracks if needs be.

At the South end however a naturally welcoming valley receives the South Vale Road, and so there is a fortified gate there manned by six of Hardacre's most keen-eyed guardsmen.  Nonetheless, smugglers, ne'er-do-wells, ilicit traders, blackguards, and all-manner of traffic pour into and out of Tyrephene by other routes - some around the South Wall and in via the Temple Heights; others by sea; and maybe a few more by tunnels or routes around the walls. 

On the weekdays the Wharves, Inns and Markets near where the South Vale Road meets The Wharf Street are teeming with sailors, traders, youths looking to find their fortune at sea, grizzled mariners returning to spend their fortunes or tell tales of how they lost theirs.  Humans, Dragonborn, Tiefling and Half-elves and a few the other races shoulder each other in a odorous but colorful melee of general enterprise and adventure.

At other times the actiivty is to be found in the markets on the North side of town where famers from the country, join vendors of various kinds, horse traders and mule sellers in jostling for a spot around the market square.