Welcome to a Liar’s Gazetteer of Duskwall!

5 thoughts on “Welcome to a Liar’s Gazetteer of Duskwall!”

1. The Anvilworks is the informal name of the northern island of the Coalridge ward of the city and also its main area. As might be surmised from its name, it is the home and workplace of the metalworkers of Duskwall; hardworking and productive, they eke out a fairly decent living, though they tend to get mutilated by accidents over time. Here is where the rails are made to repair the railroads that link the Empire; here is where the hulls and struts of the great ships of the Leviathan Hunters are constructed and put into the water to go to the Docks. The large yard near the northwest end of the island is where products of the metalworkers’ hard labor are stored, in order to be transported to Gaddoc Rail Station for shipping, or to be placed on barges to be moved by canal and sea. A notable feature of the yard are the Servos, which move the heavy metal items with ease and slow grace. Servos are actually hulls – semi-humanoid automatons controlled by installed spirits. The spirits installed are always volunteers from the metalworker retirees who wish to continue on after the death of their bodies being of service to their fellows; as a result, Servos are sane for much longer periods than most, and always request to be released when they feel their hold on sanity slipping.

2. The Black Circle in Nightmarket is not so very old. When you check on the oldest architectural plans in the City Hall, it is not shown; but its appearance seems to dovetail with the building of the nearby Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh. Whatever the truth of the matter, the Circle itself is made of closely-fitted black marble tiles that arc around the central plaza of the ward – just wide enough for a single person to walk on, as if they were a path. Indeed, the guttersnipes taunt each other to ‘walk the Black Circle’… and needless to say, some of those who try, vanish. Of course, that is more of a comment on the lifespan of street urchins than any malignity of mere black tiles. In any event, the Black Circle is the meeting place for those who wish to rendezvous at a well-known landmark. The area is lit with dim yellow lamps, rather than electric light, and while it is prone to pickpockets, is otherwise a good place to meet. Interestingly, no buskers or cart-merchants will ever set up inside the perimeter of the Black Circle itself, muttering that it is ‘bad luck’ to do so.

3. Gaddoc Rail Station is the beating heart of Coalridge and truly, Duskwall itself; it brings in needed imports and takes out exports, moves people between the far-flung Cities of the Shattered Isles. Yet it does not look like the city that hosts it. Instead, its architecture is controlled, blocky, authoritarian and forbidding;  a thing of straight lines and strip-lights; the only curves to be found are gentle corners. This is right, you see, because it is also the Hand of the Emperor, stretched around His possession: the Empire of the Shattered Isles. Each City of the Empire shares a Rail Station in common, each named after some favorite of the Immortal Emperor – granted some of these have been dead for centuries, for the Emperor lives up to his name. Renfeld Gaddoc is one of those – no one can remember anything beyond his name; perhaps he was even from Duskwall, though none admit knowing of him. The Rail Station is a world unto itself; its Rail Jacks do venture forth from it, but overall it is a ‘company town’, in which its denizens must use its alternate currency and sleep in the company barracks. To walk in its environs is to walk in an all-seeing panopticon and be in the gaze of the station-master, who is always someone under the control of the Immortal Emperor Himself. Oddly, all Station-masters, whether of Duskwall or other cities, always has a prosthetic right eye of brass and blue crystal implanted in his head… which provokes other, darker whisperings, that the Emperor can look out of those artificial optics any time He chooses.

   [Liar’s Note: Gaddoc Rail Station should be considered a horrifying Dieselpunk Panopticon,  (viz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon) all done in polished brass, malachite and mirrors.]

4. Heartbreak Square is the plaza within the arc of the set of buildings in Charterhall that form the heart of the city’s bureaucracy. While the Lord Governor and his Council rule Duskwall… City Hall runs it. Which brings us to the square. It is so named because unless they have patronage from within the buildings, petitioners are not, by law, custom and tradition, allowed to wait indoors without an express invitation. No, they wait outdoors, in the weather and the rain. In Heartbreak Square. According to the laws savagely enforced by the Bluecoats, they are also not allowed to put up shelters of any kind. Really, their only recourse is to have an advocate scribe a writ of personal agency and hand it off to a trusted friend or associate while they go off to sleep. Of course, cart-merchants make a lot of money from selling to the hapless waiting in the square, who might wait, days, weeks months… and in some cases, years for their cases to be heard or moved through. Advocates able to move you up from the Square into the relevant building are very expensive in coin… though most are willing to assist in exchange for certain favors… never discussed out in the open.

5. The Undercross is an ancient catacomb of unknown origin found below the central square of the slum of Charhollow. The remnants of an old crossroads (the ‘cross’) marks its existence on the surface. Known primarily to mystics, the catacombs are singular in their privacy for quiet consultations – as scrying of any sort into the area always fails. The best-known access is found below The Old Rasp Tavern. Needless to say, the locals are prone to selling information on those who come and go to the catacombs for food or a bit of money.

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