P O R T ☆ H E R I T A G E

A massive city-state and Naval power, Port Heritage is the largest port of commerce in the Godsea. The city towers on the horizon in raised tiers, supported by wooden platforms and legs, each platform expanded and tacked-on over the course of centuries in thousands of architectural and cultural styles.

Heritage Cove

This sparkling cerulean lagoon is the only entrance and exit to Port Heritage. Every morning at 6am and evening at 10pm, the Sapphire Gates -- massive white marble dragons with sapphire eyes -- are raised or lowered by Moon devouts, allowing passage. Travel and trade permits can then be awarded on-site.

Because Heritage Cove is so easily defensible, and because there is no back access to the city, Port Heritage remains highly protected from attack. Accessing the city itself is difficult, and siege would be costly.

Thieves' Cove

Heritage Cove conceals a secret entrance to the Floating Markets: the center of Heritage’s criminal underworld.

Not everyone can find their way. You either need to receive directions, or read thieves cant, the language of blackguards and rogues, to follow the breadcrumb trail of puzzles and riddles hidden in plain sight throughout the city.

One tiny, specific patch of the lagoon, hidden by a rocky outcropping, is actually illusory. If you lay anchor there, your ship will descend into Thieves’ Cove. The ceiling is in fact the underside of the sea, made of rippling water; the entire cove is cast in wavery blue light. Water drips from above. The city is littered with tiny, hidden entrances and exists that descend to the Cove, and violence in the Cove is strictly relegated to monitored blood sports.

In the center are the Floating Markets, small vessels and platforms lashed together by rope, where hooded merchants hawk unsavory black market products and services. Criminal ships often dock here.

The Navy remains unaware of this criminal headquarters, and everyone knows that Admiral Hylaine would do almost anything to ascertain its location.

The Docks

This lively district is crowded with taverns, inns, and small prayer shrines for those in too much of a hurry to make their way to Heritage Plaza. They are a major point of travel and commerce for Port Heritage—but activity tends to reduce at sundown, for the Docks are the most haunted area in all of Port Heritage. Ghosts walk the piers at twilight, and the wailing and unseen footsteps can be heard for blocks. Luckily, the lingering spirits of the dead are benign... mostly.

The Rattles (district)

Some of Port Heritage’s wooden tiers are in better shape than others, rotted by water and weathered by time. The worst area is the Rattles. High tide shakes this neighborhood so much that belongings and furniture have to be nailed down.

Suffice it to say: the Rattles houses the most impoverished and vulnerable populations of Port Heritage. Due to the proliferation of illiteracy and the lack of money to hire a Goldhand, causing them to resort to disreputable scribes for contracts, they are often exploited by the higher class. It should be no surprise that disease is more common here, among a population that is less likely to have the gold to afford medicine. For this reason, a terrible necromantic disease was even named after the district: rattles.

Moon missionaries are often found here, searching for rattles victims to soothe and convert.

Heritage Plaza

Heritage Plaza is a middle-high tier of Port Heritage, with bustling market stalls overflowing with saffron, herring, exotic fruits, dyed wool, perfumes, candle wax, fried honey, stewed octopus, curried bananas, and more.

Though the stalls shift frequently, there are brick-and-mortar stores ringing the plaza and lining the adjourning streets. These are tailors, artisan's guilds, physicians, and more -- all members of the Goldhands, as is almost every significant Port Heritage merchant.

Staircases branch off from Heritage Plaza and lead to the six Temples of the gods. There is, of course, also a seventh staircase -- though it only leads to a pile of marble rubble.

Naval District

If in Port Heritage, you find the streets shaping up into orderly grids, the leaning, ramshackle houses and towers straightening into row-houses, you have found the Naval District. The Navy (and city guard) are recruited, trained, and housed here. There are some weaponry shops, a few well-regulated, clean-nosed boxing rings, and more pubs per capita than any other district.

Located here also is the Naval Academy. Naval school is grueling, with more hazing than they publicize. If you’re lucky, ruthless, and loyal to High Hall, you could rise through the ranks.

Spellster's Lane

Buyer beware in these magic-based establishments! There are plenty of legitimate, powerful individuals with magical skill here, offering expensive enchantments to the highest bidder—but others are not quite so truthful, selling false charms, claiming that bottles of ink are tinctures for curing rattles…

This area is populated by an excess of sprays, to the extent that at night, you can see as well as day—although instead of the golden light of the sun, you have hazy, silvery spraylight. Sprays float through the air like clouds of undulating fireflies. It's become an eye-rolling cliche for young couples to stroll here.

The Magisterium

Adapted from an old monastery, the Wizards' Magisterium retains a regal, philosophical atmosphere from a bygone age. Its gorgeous pillars and stone corridors lead to magnificent libraries, mysterious crystal chambers, and trainees' lecture halls and dormitories. The layout is so confusing that popular humor says that 15% of Port Heritage's missing persons cases lead back to it. The Guard has not denied this.

Skygardens

The Skygardens lord high above the city of Port Heritage. With the strongest beams and platforms, this topmost city tier is also lodged into the cliffside, making it the sturdiest sector. On the backside, waterfalls gush down into an endless pit -- not the edge of the world, but close.

The most elite reaches of Skygardens are floating islands with dangling roots, casting shadows over the city-state. A safe, polished, and crime-free gated community for the most wealthy merchants and nobles, this area of Skygardens requires a letter of entry.

High Hall

High Hall lies in the very peak of Skygardens. Here, laws are passed. Judgments are given. Orders are conveyed. On this floating island, surrounded by shining marble pillars, Admiral Hylaine "the Dragon" rules all of the city-state and, as an extent, much of the entire Godsea.