Tradegate, Gatetown to Bytopia

Tradegate, Gatetown to Bytopia
Tradegate is actually one of the most commonly used towns for adventuring parties to hole up in. Nice and safe, without much to disrupt it, the town has plenty of cutters from Bytopia or the Indeps to trade with and not too much trouble. Lately though you may want to keep an eye out, Estavan’s Planar Trade Consortium has been making waves in the place.

As one might guess by the name, Tradegate is a city of trade, dominated by a grand bazaar in the center of the star-shaped city. The inhabitants hope to make their burg a mercantile center the equal, or the better, of Sigil itself, and they ain’t all that far from that goal. The merchants of Tradegate don’t believe in extending credit, either: a body pays for his purchases when he buys them. The burg even mints its own coins, but most of the town’s merchants accept barter as well as jink
it’s even rumored that a body can barter away his afterlife in Tradegate if he doesn’t have anything else to trade.

Tradegate is ruled by a Parliament, an informal council of merchants. To get on the Parliament, all a body’s got to do is come up with 500,000 gp. Technically, a Parliament member is also supposed to be of nonevil alignment, but that can be masked. That’s a hefty load of jink, but there are some cutters who’ve managed to get it together and buy seats on the Parliament. Currently, the Parliament has twenty-one members, but there’s always room for more, provided they have the jink. It should be noted that though the Parliament are the official leaders of the city, there also exists a so-called Merkhants’ Council composed of members of that faction that, despite its lack of official standing, rivals the Parliament in actual power.

The law in Tradegate ain’t as oppressive or judgmental as some people find it in Excelsior or Fortitude. For the most part, as long as a body doesn’t do anything obviously evil or harmful
murder, stealing, and the like
they won’t be bothered. The one thing, though, that the locals do get narky about is sloth. A berk who likes to loaf and take advantage of others instead of working ain’t going to make many friends here, and there are strict laws against vagrancy and loitering.

Like Reogi’s Stand, Tradegate is a walled city, but the walls are a whole lot less formidable. After all, the inhabitants of Tradegate want a lot of visitors to deal with, so they don’t want intimidating walls to scare them away. Tradegate’s walls are only 20 ft. high and some 3 ft. thick. The five gates, though guarded, are always left open except in the most extreme circumstances.

The burg’s divided into five districts, each occupying one “arm” of the star and devoted principally to a different aspect of city life. Roads lead out from the tip of each “arm”, one to the Hinterlands, one to Excelsior, one to Ecstasy, and two to areas nearer the Spire.

The Arms District
The Arms District is the part of the city containing the barracks, the armory, and pretty much everything else along those lines. Despite this, the Arms District isn’t really better patrolled, overall, than the rest of the city; the militia does a good job of covering the whole burg. A good deal of the Arms District is also devoted to shops, especially along the main road. There’s also some residential area, but because of the proximity to places like the barracks and the gymnasium this part of the city tends to be populated by those who are oriented toward combat, more so on the average than the rest of the city at least. The gate leading out of the Arms District is called the Gold Gate.

The High District
Maybe the most important place in the High District is the Parliament Building
at least, that’s no doubt what the Parliament would say is the most important place in it. A lot of lesser government agencies also have their headquarters here, and in addition it’s the High District that contains most of the temples and shrines in the city. The High District also is where a lot of the burg’s high-ups call kip, and many elaborate mansions lie at the edge of the district, near the wall that surrounds the town. Leading out of the city from the High District is the Lords’ Gate.

The Hospital District
No, the district didn’t get its name from having a lot of healers in it; actually, it comes from an older meaning of “hospital” that just means a place of lodging. The Hospital District contains most of the inns of Tradegate, as well as a lot of places that cater mostly to visitors from the city
it’s the easiest place to find a guide, a tout, or an escort. Most of the area in the district not taken up by inns is taken up by shops; there’s very little residential area in the Hospital District, though there are a few houses crowded at the edges near the outer walls. The gate in the Hospital District leading soupward from Tradegate is called the Gate of Bliss.

The Sages’ District
Just about anything is for sale in Tradegate, and that definitely includes information. Though the Sages’ District also contains some ordinary shops and residences, it’s here that a body’ll find the cases of most of the burg’s scholars and experts, any of whom will, of course, answer a visitor’s questions, for the appropriate fees. Other places related to knowledge and learning are also in the Sages’ District, including Tradegate’s library and University and several museums (all of which, of course, charge entry fees).

Allowing entrance to or egress from the Sages’ District is the Faerie Gate. No one’s really sure, though, exactly where the road from the Faerie Gate leads
or the road from the Lords’ Gate in the High District either, for that matter. Both roads extend far out into the Hinterlands, and if anyone’s ever followed them to their ends (if they even have ends), they haven’t come back to tell about it.

The Warehouse District
Any place there are shops, there’s probably somewhere the shopkeepers stow their goods, and in Tradegate the Warehouse District is the place. As the name implies, the Warehouse District contains most of the warehouses where the merchants of Tradegate keep the goods that won’t fit in their shops. A good deal of the district is also devoted to residences, though, and it also contains Tradegate’s mint and accounting house. At the tip of the Warehouse District is the Spire Gate.

The Grand Bazar
In the center of Tradegate is a huge open plaza, floored with gold and purple tiles laid in a checkerboard pattern (and frequently replaced as they wear down or break). Though there are no permanent structures in this plaza, nevertheless it’s always full, stuffed end to end with stalls and stands selling almost anything found throughout the planes. If there’s something a body can’t find in the Great Bazaar in Sigil, then Tradegate’s grand bazaar is a good place to look next. The bazaar is always crowded, though, even in the middle of the night; folks come from all over Outlands and the planes to look for bargains here.

Parliament
Adjacent to the grand bazaar, is where Tradegate’s Parliament meets. Parliament meetings take place once a week, and a new law can be ratified by a majority of Parliament members present. The Parliament building itself is a large and baroque edifice covered with filigrees and gargoyles, and it’s always well guarded. A berk who tries to break in during a meeting and mess with the Parliament had better have had his will drawn up.

The Barracks
Normally, Tradegate has no full-time guards or watchmen. It has only a volunteer standing militia of citizens who serve that duty above and beyond their everyday work. In practice, though, most of the “militia” are in the pocket of some merchant or another, and own a small interest in some other business merely for appearances’ sake; being a militia member is their main job. One might think that since most of the militia members are being paid off by merchants they’d be a corrupt and untrustworthy lot, but for two reasons that’s not the case. First of all, they’re all (or most, anyway) paid off by different merchants, so any conflicts of interest tend to cancel; if one militia member tends to pay extra attention to one business, then chances are there are others doing the same to different ones. Second, Tradegate is still a lawful and good place, and most of the militia members are of lawful and/or good alignment, so they’re not likely to try to bob anyone; they may work a little harder in the interests of whoever’s paying them, but they’ll do their best to do the right thing concerning others as well.

Anyway, the barracks are a place for militia members to stay if needed, and to store things while on duty; there’re also always a few militia members posted here, so if a body needs the militia’s help he can come here to get it instead of looking all over the city for a militia member. Most militia members just stay in their own homes, but there are two classes of militia members who do call the barracks kip. First of all are the militia leaders; the top ten or so bashers in the militia have quarters in the barracks, nice quarters in fact that would put some of the lesser merchants to shame. Second, there are some militia members who aren’t being paid off by merchants and really are doing this as volunteers, and some of them are too poor to afford their own cases and stay here (though in not nearly such nice accommodations; often they have to stay a dozen to a room or so).

The Armory
The city of Tradegate retains a fair-sized supply of weapons and armor for the militia’s use, and the armory is where it keeps ’em. All sorts of weapons and armor can be found here, including reportedly some magical (and maybe some other types of magic items besides weapons and armor too). ’Course, the armory is always well guarded, so a knight’d be barmy to think it’d be an easy job to just waltz in and grab a few choice items.

Besides the storage rooms, the armory also contains a large training hall where the militia hones its skills, and a series of forges where new arms and armor are made. There’re even a few resident spellcasters who work on enchanting the stuff forged here; the one in charge is a cutter named Theastus, a cleric of Hephaestus.

The Mint
As mentioned above, Tradegate mints its own coins; they’ve got a five-pointed star on one side and a portrait of Ilmater, god of endurance, on the other. As one might suspect, the Mint is heavily guarded; trying to make off with freshly minted jink ain’t a great idea. Currently in charge of the mint, as she has been for the last couple centuries, is the gnomish coinmistress Inanda the Wary. Inanda’s getting on in years, though, and it’s anyone’s guess how much longer she’ll be around.

The Accounting House
Where there’s trade, there’s accounting; a wise merchant knows the importance of keeping careful records of all transactions, and making sure the books balance like they ought to. The Accounting House is mostly devoted to maintaining the accounts of the city as a whole, but it also hires out experts to keep the accounts of individual merchants, too. Most of the real high-up merchants prefer to keep their accounts themselves, though, or hire their own personal accountants; they generally claim it’s because that way they’re sure their accounts can be trusted, but it may just as well be that that way they can get away easier with doctoring their books. The current head accountant is a hollyphant named Merry. What exactly a hollyphant is doing working as an accountant instead of serving a power is uncertain; stories say Merry’s patron power got himself lost somehow and Merry somehow survived the debacle, but no one really knows the dark of it and Merry ain’t talking.

The Moneychangers
One thing a body’ll find just about anywhere there’s a lot of trade is moneychangers. After all, there are a lot of kinds of jink on the planes, and not every merchant can be familiar with all of them. Even if he’s familiar with them, he may not want to deal in them. A cutter fresh from Baator with a bag full of blood coins probably will want to get them exchanged before doing business with a guardinal.

That’s where the moneychangers come in. It used to be there were a lot of moneychangers scattered all over the burg, but now one rich blood, Gorthion the Expressive has more or less set up a monopoly, run out of a large establishment in the Arms District. There are still some smaller independent moneychangers around, some of whom may even charge better rates than Gorthion for certain coins, but they’re a lot harder to find now than they used to be.

The College
Those who think of Tradegate as just a place to buy and sell goods are sometimes surprised to find that it’s actually also home to one of the best colleges on the planes. That may not be quite so surprising, though, if a body thinks about it. Knowledge is a valuable commodity, after all, and if everything is traded in Tradegate knowledge should be no exception. At any rate, Tradegate’s college, which is all it’s generally called, since no one’s ever gotten around to giving it an official name, may be very well respected, but it ain’t large; there are no more than about 1,200 students here at any given time. ’Course, that’s still more than a tenth the population of the city, so it’s nothing to sneeze at. Because of its small size and high reputation, the college is extremely exclusive; you’ve got to show you have both top-shelf worms and the drive to use ’em to get accepted, but if you can get through the program the prestige you’ll have as a graduate of the college should be worth it. The college grounds are pleasant and filled with greenery and fountains; most of the buildings are made of white marble, and the whole place has the feel of some ancient Arborean ruin that’s been fixed up.

The Library
Those who wonder at the presence of the college in Tradegate might find the library an even greater mystery. At least the college is a commercial venture, but the library doesn’t even make any money! Well, that’s not entirely true. First of all, the library is very harsh and strict with its fines for lost or overdue items. Also, though any berk can look at most of the books there for free, certain perks, including access to some special sections, do require a fee. Besides, there’s a little more to Tradegate’s library than most; though a body can find a book there on just about anything if he looks, some of the most library’s most popular holdings include the records of the town’s transactions, a copy of any accounting records more than thirty days old or so is archived in the library, though the original’s still kept in the accounting house, and its list of all the master merchants of Tradegate.

The library’s administered by an elderly noctral named Whisperwing, who apparently left Mount Celestia because of a superior’s disapproval of her faction affiliation. Though Whisperwing’s still officially a member of the Faithful, she hasn’t really worked directly for the faction’s goals in a while
at least not overtly.

The Museum
Actually, there are a number of museums in Tradegate’s Sage’s Quarter, but most of ’em are gleaming holes in the wall with a handful of exhibits. Whenever a Gateman talks about “the Museum”, it’s the Museum of Oblivion he’s referring to. The Museum contains exhibits pertaining to all sorts of largely forgotten or ill-understood arcana from the ancient past: the mysterious and apparently extinct hassitor of Acheron, long-vanished gate-towns of the Outlands, strange and terrible creatures called wodes that long ago roamed Pandemonium, the legendary “Sleeping Ones” who by some reports still exist frozen in the Paraelemental Plane of Ice, and much more. The name of the museum may sound a bit ominous, but the fact is that the owner and proprietor of the museum, a dust genasi named Raelinn is actually trying to save these things from oblivion; the money he makes from the entrance fee (5 sp, plus extra fees to see certain special exhibits) goes partially to purchase new exhibits and partially to try to research and fund methods of bringing back such long-lost items and creatures. ‘Course, there are those who’d say that a lot of the long-lost items and creatures Raelinn hopes to bring back are better off staying lost.

Temple to Garl Glittergold
This temple to the main gnomish god is the biggest temple in Tradegate
which shouldn’t be a surprise, really, given the number of gnomes in the burg. Granted, Tradegate’s gnomes are outnumbered by its humans, but not by much, and the humans divide their worship between all sorts of different gods whereas Garl Glittergold gets, if not quite a majority of gnomish worship (the other gnomish gods are worshipped in Tradegate as well, and some gnomes have turned to non-racial powers), at least a hefty plurality. ’Course, Tradegate contains a lot of other big temples too
there are also important temples in the burg to Ilmater, Tefnut, and Zilchus, among others
but the temple of Garl Glittergold is still the biggest.

Built just slightly larger than usual gnomish proportions, so a human would still have to stoop to pass through doorways but won’t feel totally uncomfortable (the gnomish worshippers of Garl Glittergold in Bytopia have expended some effort to make human converts, with some limited success), the temple is a building of simple but attractive architecture, its façade covered in fool’s gold. Instead of a single high priest, the temple is headed by a husband and wife team, Calafor Roughleg and Piri the Wise.

The Gymnasium
In the heart of the Arms District is a great gymnasium, where expert trainers help people to work out their muscles, hone their bodies, and learn new physical skills. The gymnasium contains all sorts of exercise equipment, much of it magical, and some of it so odd and esoteric that a body’s not likely to have any idea what it’s for or how to use it until one of the staff members explains it. The gymnasium is owned and operated by a bariaur Cipher named Olgen who’s supposedly single-handedly fought off a band of giants on Ysgard.

The gymnasium sees another use that is an open secret. In large underground arenas beneath the gymnasium gladiatorial combats take place, where a body can either pay an entrance fee and try to claim the prize for beating an established gladiator, or place a wager on some fight that’s already been set up. The types of fights vary, from well-armored combatants swinging maces at each other, to robed mages hurling spells, to stark naked brawlers trying to wrestle each other into unconsciousness. The fights are never to the death, though, and there are typically priests standing by just in case something goes wrong. It’s worth mentioning, too, that all the gladiators get a cut of the profits, and are doing what they do completely of their own free will; Gatemen loathe slavery in any form (unless maybe one counts figurative slavery via financial indebtedness).

The Golden Hound
If a body goes asking where in Tradegate is the best place to stay, about four bashers in five will recommend the Golden Hound. The proportion may be somewhat lower among actual guides and touts, but only because so many of them are paid off to recommend other inns. The Hound has many different types of rooms and suites for different tastes and moods, and a full-fledged restaurant downstairs with some of the best food in the Outlands. Staying there ain’t cheap, though; a body should expect to pay between 6 and 30 sp, depending on the accommodations, plus half that in meals if he’s planning to eat there. The outer wall of the Hound is actually plated with gold, though apparently some sort of enchantment prevents cross-traders from just scraping off the gold and making off with it.

The Dragon’s Son
The Golden Hound may have a reputation as the best inn in Tradegate, but the Dragon’s Son tries to give it a run for its money. No less a personage than Jeogi Gruuv, the head of the Merkhants’ Council, has a controlling interest in the Son, and he’s doing his level best to establish it, not the Hound, as Tradegate’s most popular and respected inn
so far without success. The Son’s still a decent place, though, and it certainly looks more luxurious than the Golden Hound, though those who’ve stayed at both say the beds at the Son aren’t quite as comfortable as those at the Hound, and the food’s not quite as good. Despite his investment in it, Gruuv has very little to do with the day-to-day operation of the inn; that he mostly leaves to an employee, Hesther Dearwater. The rates at the Son run from 1 to 3 gp a night for a room, and 5 sp to 2 gp a day for meals.

The Boil and Stubble
Though the Golden Hound and the Dragon’s Son are fine inns, some poor or penny-pinching sods might find them a little out of their price range. In that case, the Boil and Stubble may be the place to stay. Despite its ramshackle appearance and its somewhat unpleasant name, the Boil actually offers fairly good accommodations for a very reasonable price. Rooms cost about 5 sp a night, and meals 3 sp a day. The proprietor of the Boil is an unusual cutter, a goblin, Danx by name, who’s devoted himself to good.

The Gate
The gate of Tradegate is very unusual, and very difficult to find. It is actually a person, a bariaur known as the Master Trader. On making a deal with him, and while he’s a hard bargainer he is fair, one will immediately find themselves in Bytopia.