Gendor
Situated on
the Jard Peninsula, Gendor is the Southernmost town in Shardar and it is the
only community of any real size on the entire peninsula.
With a population of slightly under 2,000 adults, Gendor is just smaller
than River Run although it appears to be much less populated because it is a
much more spread out community. The
town is spread across the natural harbour that it has been built on and, with
good fertile land all around, there was no need to keep the houses close
together.
The only part of Gendor that shows any
signs of crowding is immediately around the main harbour point, but that area
more than makes up for the rest of the town.
It is densely crowded with the less desirable elements of the town and
the narrow cobbled streets are barely enough to separate the buildings that
huddle together on the Waterfront.
For most travelers, Gendor is the
Waterfront, but the residents know that this is simply not true, that there is
far more to the town than the bustling, dangerous, dirty area. The
majority of the town is open, friendly, clean and pleasant.
With virtually all of its residents employed in either fishing or farming
the dark, rich soils around the town, Gendor is relatively prosperous and on
many occasions, concentrated efforts have been made to clear up the Waterfront,
but each time this effort has ended in failure.
One of the main trade routes between
Camber and Shandow is down Sindar’s Tears, through River Run and then down the
deep rivers and round the coast to the port town.
Although this route is many times longer, it is relatively safer, apart
from the Privateers on Sindar’s Tears, and many merchants choose to take this
route instead. Some goods do not travel well over land and this is another
reason for the regular water journeys between the two communities.
Whatever the reasons for the trips, many
of the vessels that make the journey stop off in Gendor and, as everyone knows,
when sailors are in port they like to enjoy themselves.
This has led to a huge number of inns and taverns around the Waterfront
and a surprisingly large number of the less welcome elements in any town being
resident. Whores, pimps, thieves,
killers for pay, drunkards, deserters and bandits are all to be found in the
Waterfront and they make it very difficult indeed for the normal citizens of
Gendor to have any pride in their homes.
Every night, revelers can be heard making
their way through the various harbour dives in search of good times and cheap
women, and the number of violent attacks and even deaths is very high.
The Lord of Gendor, Harrick Dalson, makes sure that his militia keep a
tight rein on the Waterfront, but with the war in Dargoth, many of his troops
have been called away and now he is fighting a loosing battle.
To try to compensate for their drop in numbers, the town militia have
become far harsher, far more violent and now they will deal with any incident
that breaks the peace with heavy wooden clubs, or even cold steel in the more
extreme events. This is a situation
that few people are happy with, but there is an element, a quickly growing
element, of the good towns folk that believe that this harsh approach is the
best way, the only way to deal with trouble makers.
Some of the younger residents of Gendor
have taken matters into their own hands and groups of young vigilantes can be
found wandering the streets of the Waterfront on certain nights.
These vigilantes, or thugs, depending on your viewpoint, are just as
violent as the town militia and they pull no punches when they deal with
troublemakers. Unfortunately, many
of them do not wait for trouble to happen, they seek out potential trouble
makers and deal out rough justice before anything happens.
Lord Dalson’s official policy on the vigilantes is one of disapproval,
but it has been noted that he does nothing to try to stop these gangs.
Whether this is because of fear of them, lack of resources or even that
he privately approves of their actions is not known.
With the war in Dargoth, a new trade has
hit Gendor – ship building. Previously,
Shandow was the only community that constructed ships on any real sort of scale,
but they simply cannot deal with the High Lord’s demands and Calloway has had
to look to other places for his vessels. The
merchants and craftsmen of Gendor were not slow to jump onto the bandwagon and
now there is now a small but growing ship building industry in the town.
As yet, this has not attracted many people to the town, but it is almost
certain that as the industry grows, the town will attract more people and this
is likely to increase the problems at the Waterfront.
The most infamous, or perhaps notorious is
the correct term, tavern on the Waterfront is the Singing Dolphin, a dirty,
small, crowded place run by Alliar Varosteck.
In the Dolphin, it is possible to purchase anything that you can think
of, for a price. Whores, drugs,
weapons, information, death – everything can be found in the Dolphin if you
are prepared to pay the price. Outsiders
and strangers are less than welcome, to say the least, when they enter the
tavern and one of the most common sports of the regulars is to insult strangers
and see just how far they can be pushed. More
than one visitor to the town in search of a good time has been found lying in
the alley behind the Dolphin with empty pouches and their skulls caved in by a
well placed cosh blow.
Alliar Varosteck himself is much of a
mystery. He is a huge man, well
over six and a half feet tall and heavily muscled.
He has amass of thick, black hair that he wears tied back form his face
and he is always meticulously clean shaven.
He arrived in Gendor one day, about ten years ago, and started to take
over the Waterfront with a mixture of both money, threats and quick wits.
In a period of months he was the main player in the Waterfront and a well
respected, if greatly feared, member of that odious community.
No one knows where he comes from or where he got the money that he used
to set up the Dolphin, but there are very few people who would dare to cross him
and those that have, have a tendency to be found floating in the harbour with
the other debris of the town.