Curst, Gatetown to Caerceri
Curst is a pissy little blighter of a place. Everyone in this town is a backstabbing wrench blaming everyone else on the face of the planes for every reason they can think of for why they’re staying in the accursed little place. Most of the bergers here are here because they’ve got an axe to grind with someone else and they refuse to leave until they exact their revenge. In the process of course, they trap themselves in this nasty little town and don’t have anyone to blame but themselves for that, not that any of them are willing to take the blame for anything. Given my druthers it’s not a place I’ll ever be visiting again. Ever.
The land around the city is red clay, dry and barren. Scrubby trees, and patchy grass surround the city and a single road leads out from it towards the Spire. There is very little around the city otherwise, and the Guard have made a point of clearing out any trees or brush within five hundred yards of the walls, leaving only the red dirt itself. The walls themselves are tall, with spikes pointed outward and inward. They’re covered with razorvine inside and out too just in case they weren’t intimidating enough as it was. Regular patrols of the City Guard along the tops of the walls make sure that no one comes or goes without permission, at least not easily. If they could figure out a good way to secure the air above the town they probably would.
The town is arranged in a series of rings, one inside the other and all centered on the Gate to Curst itself. There are five rings, which divide the populace of the town in terms of relative misery and power. The center ring nearest the gate is where the power of the city resides, and the outermost ring is where the worst of the downtrodden berks scratch out a living.
Within the first ring road is the gate to Carceri itself. This area of the town is overrun with the razorvine that forms the Gate. It is pruned back daily by hired or forced labor to maintain passage to the gate, and prevent it from spreading into the second ring. This area of the city also makes for a great place to dispose of enemies and looting the occasional corpse is a perk for the hired mans who trim it back.
Within the second ring road may be found the grand bloods of Curst. Here are the rich, and therefore powerful, as well as the leader of the town, Torvus Giljaf and many of his armed thugs. The buildings here are mini-fortresses themselves, built solidly of stone with iron barred windows and doors with heavy locks. The bloods of Curst have little more to do than think of themselves as above all the rest, using the town as a mere headquarters on the way to bigger and better things, so this ring isn’t much known for a social life. Those who live here tend towards the paranoid and they stay behind locked doors for the most part, so their servants are more often seen than they are.
Within the third ring are the warehouses and the merchants who own them. This area of town is dedicated to commerce, mostly the import of supplies to the bloods in the second ring that use them to supply their forces or in other plots to gain position or leverage in the planes. The merchants also import alcohol and other raw supplies for themselves and the common man in the town. There’s very little export of goods from Carceri though considering its nature as a prison plane – so outside of fulfilling the needs of the town itself, Curst is merely a waypoint for the transport of goods to other places and other towns. The warehouses are wooden structures, cheaply built and just as cheaply taken down because their owners don’t care to invest much in the town - but they do tend to be very well guarded against sabotage. Only the main warehouse of the PTC is built with any long term plans in mind and it stands out from the others for its stone walls and tin roof.
The fourth ring contains the town’s ‘honest working man’ or as close to it as Curst can get. This is the area of craftsmen and workshops, brewers, blacksmiths and other folks whose trade is based on making goods for others. This ring also contains the homes of most of the craftsmen in the city, usually found above or behind their shop. Most of the buildings here are very crowded for space, leaving small tangled streets between them that are occasionally strewn with the trash produced from the shops. The buildings on either side overhang these streets leaving them dimly lit and ideal for ambushes. Again, iron bars and locks are commonly seen here since none of the show owners care to be robbed in the middle of the night.
The fifth ring, which is the first one that any traveler coming to the town sees, is full of the city trash, in both a literal and figurative way. The city dumps are found here, along with the majority of the city poor, and the most violent bars. Mercenaries, beggars, thugs and Anarchists, amongst other scum, can be easily found in the ramshackle bub-joints in this ring of the city. The buildings here are unplanned and rundown structures, vulnerable to arson or the occasional bubber thrown out the window.
Outside of the fifth ring there is a wide clear area of hard-packed clay leading up to the walls of the city. This clear area is maintained by the City Guard which views it as just another aspect of the civil defense. If nothing else it prevents the citizenry from assaulting them as they perform their duties. It also makes it difficult to slip out of the city without being noticed and intercepted, by the Guard.
The Guards are paid and led by Torvus Giljaf, a two-bit thug of Curst who worked his way up through brutality and ruthlessness to leadership of the town. Few are willing to challenge his orders or his laws because no one else in town has anything approximating his small army of strongmen. Direct challengers to Torvus’s power tend to show up tangled in razorvine in the center of town. There is little concern in town for laws or regulations, and where it doesn’t impact on Torvus one way or the other he tends to ignore any trouble. A wise cutter would be advised to keep his blade with him when visiting this place and have one friend watching over his shoulder at all times – Torvus won’t be of much help if you get into trouble unless you give him reason, aka jink, to think it worth his time.
Torvus has given standing orders to his guard on the walls. They are to keep the citizenry of Curst in – unless they have a darned good reason to leave the city. So, in order to leave the city one must convince the guard that you have a good reason and just wanting to doesn’t count. You have to have pressing business, a contract that needs to be signed, a business to run outside of the city, or a court summons to attend to. Something ‘important’. Of course, bribery probably helps too.
Torvus himself is a githzerai wizard of some rank, and an ex-Athar at that. This leads to a lot of speculation about what he’s in Curst to do. It is nearly unheard of for any of the citizenry of Curst to be interested in getting something done actually in the city, so his attentions likely lie elsewhere as much as anyone else’s. In the past, rumors held that he had an axe to grind against the Athar for kicking him out, or failing to live up to his expectations depending on which bubber you got drunk to tell you the story. Grander tales, usually even more besotted, spoke of gods to be killed and Titans to be freed. Of late though, the rumors have gotten quiet and few can be paid enough to speak. In part because the looser tongued found themselves tossed into a patch of razorvine – and in part because the Athar are now to be found cowering under the skirts of the Spire. Torvus himself has gotten real quiet in his activities, leading to rumors that whatever he has planned, it’s almost complete and he may just be ready to skip town.
Other important people in town or at least those who think they’re important include the Anarchists, who area actively trying to prevent any single authority or structure from taking over the city. Unfortunately since this is something of a ‘home base’ for them after Faction War – they are even more factionalized than before. After all, they themselves could be thought of as an authority or structure. The constant bickering over what to do and how to do it has dissolved the faction in the city into groups so small as to be little more than personal vendettas. Without any outside force to fight against, the Anarchists are fighting each other. One would think they would organize against Torvus, but then that would require organization. It probably doesn’t help that he’s well aware of their presence in town and willing to encourage their in-fighting while he works on his personal projects.
This all may change soon though, as rumors hold that an enclave of the Daughters of Light may have recently set up kip in town. The location of their base can’t be had for any price of jink though, an unusual advantage in a city where nearly anything is on sell for the right price of coin or betrayal. The only sign of their activities is the recent rash of murders of known Anarchist members (and a few unknown). Generally the bodies are found ritually flayed as if by a scapel or razorvine and arranged in the street, sometimes missing critical parts – an unusually violent approach for an enclave of the Daughters of Light.
There are a few other important folks in town. For one, Torvus’s loyal second in command, Petirth, a ex-Blood War recruit who managed through luck and stubbornness to survive his required three tours and ‘retire’ from working the baatazu side. Petirth has a tendency to show up personally when baatazu troops make their way through town, but rarely does he make their lives any easier when they’re around. He seems to have some sort of resentment built up. Petirth of late has been spreading his jink around, making it known he’s jockeying for a higher position but doesn’t seem about to turn on his master’s hand, which only leads to more speculation as Torvus doesn’t appear to have any problem with his activities.
Another blood is Ser Diovani de la Terra, the local merchant in charge of the Planar Trade consortium’s interests. He makes his kip right inside the PTC’s warehouse, and regularly patrols the place with a set of three large dogs procured from some connections with the Celestial Bureaucracy. These dogs are fairly intelligent, tan and curly tailed with large bear-like heads and a nasty tendency to drag intruders by whatever limb is available directly to Diovani’s feet. As far as anyone can tell, Diovani’s only concern in town is for the PTC’s interests. He’s close mouthed beyond that, and viciously aggressive to any who try to investigate the contents of his warehouses. It is known that not all of his shipments come labeled with the insignia of the PTC.
And then there’s Silvana. She’s a cleric, and a fairly high up one at that in the church of Ares, head of the temple in Curst. A quiet, beautiful, and coldly powerful woman, she holds her rank in town through her services and advice. The guards come to her for their defenses, the sick come to her for her potions, the powerful come to her for her seership, and the weak come to her to spill their troubles. Silvana takes them all in, offering them food and comfort and sometimes remarkably perceptive advice that generally turns out well for her goals in the end. As many people seeking her cross her doorstep, she knows almost everything there is to know in town. Incurring her wrath is an ill advised action, and may result in her sigil appearing on the victims doorstep – a sure sign that unless apologies and compensation are close at hand, within a week the offender will be dead.
Of the Anarchist factions in the city a few stand out in the public eye. Cory is a passionately outspoken young woman who believes that the faction should be open with itself and with the city it is attempting to sway. She has her sights on Torvus as the source of evil in the area – fortunately for her, her position has yet to gain enough force to give him any cause for worry. Most of her activities are limited to handing out pamphlets and lecturing in beerhalls – but given the right audience she may make an impression. She has been requesting an audience with Ser Diovani for nearly a month now.
Davir Soth, one of the Anarchist who firmly believes the very idea of the Anarchist cause is a problem. He actively works to tear down the efforts of the faction – compromising rival cells, corrupting members of other cells to prevent them from gaining any foothold. Ironically he sees nothing wrong with holding his own cell together, so he may have something of an ulterior motive in his actions. Davir has been arrested multiple times by Torvus’s guard but always somehow manages to be freed by the next day.
The last public figure of the Anarchist factions is a loner. His faction mostly consists of himself and whatever group of bubbers and thugs he’s managed to recruit or pay for the day. The Rat as he is called, prefers to keep his name secret but walks around town wearing the tanned hide of a were rat, pulled up to cover his face. The Rat actively encourages public disobedience, illegal fighting rings, mid-day assaults on the walls by the poor and destitute, tainting of food in public restaurants, vandalism, graffiti, harassment of guards and other forms of disruption of the city and of Torvus’s activities. He spends much of his time hidden somewhere in the city dumps, and has proven to be particularly difficult to apprehend. Those interested in sneaking their way out of or into the city may want to try to contact him – as he is most likely to know of any weak spots in the walls. Unfortunately his may not always charge for his services in gold, and the unlucky may find themselves recruited for the day’s risky ‘activities’ before they are shown the way out – assuming they survive.
Important Sites
Torvus's Kip
The Torvus house is a tightly contained and secured complex settled right on the edge of the inner ring, overlooking the razorvine field. It is surrounded by high iron and stone walls covered in razorvine, and features barred windows and heavy reinforced doors. Inside the high walls the stone building features large glass windows and balconies perfect for taking evening dinners on – excepting that throughout they are visibly barred and magically warded. Rarely if ever does Torvus step outside of his protections without an armed escort usually consisting of two or more physical body guards and a mage, as well as his own magics.
Abutting the walls is a long windowless building of stone. While the building is a break in the high razorvine walls of the place – it is no weaker in defense since this is where the thugs and enforcers of Torvus make their kip. The insides of the place are accommodating, with sections of the building assigned to personal luxuries for the Curst elite guard.
Temple of Ares
The temple of Ares is almost exactly opposite to Torvus’s home, though within the same wing. It is a fairly spare building, interested in pragmatics more than in fancy and wasteful appearances, built out of stone in straight lines with an eye to defense. This temple-fortress has a front gate of iron that is usually open to the public allowing worshippers and those seeking Silvania to pass. The inner courtyard is fully equipped as a training ground for swordwork, and Silvania herself can sometimes be found giving lessons.
Thory Paths Inn
Barely within the fifth ring is a sprawling inn, Thorny Paths, one of the best in the town – which is to say, one of the only inns. This particular place caters to adventurers, merchants, and the well-to-do who aren’t quite well-enough to afford their own place to rent for a stay. Blood War recruiters and recruits are common here, as are any number of other pleasures to be had.
The Quartered Man
Near the outermost ring, and upwind (thankfully) of the city dumps can be found the Quartered Man bar. This particular hangout is disreputable even for the disreputable part of town, and the young or defenseless are not encouraged to go there. This bar has a remarkably high number of room clearing fights, but rumors hold that someone who can show up, handle himself well, and pay enough for the most expensive drink in the house may be able to get themselves escorted to the back room for a little bit of gambling, and a lot of crosstrade talk about the Blood War. If one were interested in such things.
Guard Posts
There are guard posts through out the city, centered mostly on each of the ring roads. The vast majority of the guard is stationed on the outer walls, with a smaller contingent on the inner walls of the second ring protecting the powerful and rich from the rest of the town. Guard stations are regularly arranged, and generally constructed of iron and stone and covered with razorvine.
City Dump
The city dump is a mass of mostly burned out timbers, old furniture, bottles, containers, rags and other waste that the residents of town can’t find some other use for. Understandably this is not the healthiest of places to hang around in, and wounds received from the junk in the dump tend to get infected swiftly. It is not unusual to see some of the beggars in town, those who’ve lost everything else to the intrigues of the place, picking through the garbage here for some lost item that can be sold just to make a stinger or two. Those wandering through the dump should be careful as the junk is often unstable and may settle underneath the unwary foot trapping one under a pile of garbage, or worse dropping you into one of the long forgotten pits below the dump.
Sewers
The city does have a set of underground sewers, which are mostly used by those in the inner rings since they were constructed when the city was smaller – and under the control of someone who cared to develop such infrastructure. Unfortunately, under Torvus’s rule, they’ve fallen into disrepair except for the parts of the sewer that service his house and his barracks. Within those areas of the sewer he has installed numerous iron gates, grills and other things to prevent any attack from below. The rest of the system is a tangled mess and few are willing to venture into it to find out what may be hidden within. Occasionally, a group of creatures from the Outlands, or hoardlings will be found wandering their way out of the sewers, so it is possible that the tunnels there lead outside of the city walls, or to portals elsewhere.