Louvain

Celereine Fashion Houses
The city of Louvain is the epicenter of chic fashion and design. Upscale neighborhoods surrounding the palace glitter with celerine-run boutiques and studios. They display this season’s daring new look in their front windows. Electric colors and otherworldly patterns characterize the Louvain look, inspired by garments worn by the brethren when they appeared from the Broken World. Even in the lower-class outer districts, people make a living designing affordable outfits that sport these aesthetics.

Fascination with the Dungeon and its delvers has inspired some of the latest looks. These days, any Louvain fashion show features an ostentatious take on a practical adventurer’s outfit. More experimental designs even evoke the anatomy and movement of the monsters below.

Library of the Gate
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Night District
When the Bull’s Eye spins out of the sky and the Pale Lantern rises, the Night District of Louvain saunters out to dance in moonlight. Every traveler has their own story about carousing in the dance halls and lounges of Allemance’s capital. The heart of the district blazes with the light of Soda Lamps, an alchemical marvel invented in a subterranean Louvain laboratory.

The Night District is happy to meet the needs of delver caravans (particularly the “fat-pursed hunks” who ride in them, as they’re called by the dancing girls of the Two Pillows Inn). Unique attractions and shady delights abound in the gaudy, bawdy parlors of the Night District. Its back alley swap shops offer illegal goods and the services of organized crime, if a crew can pay the price.

Questionable morals and fake smiles aren’t everything in the Night District. Bards who aspire to fame get their start here. One might stumble into a third-floor bar expecting a watered-down beer and a con man fast-talking in their face, and instead find a musician performing a one-night show pouring out their soul in a life-changing performance.

Louvain Palace
The Palace of the Lupine Throne is a monument to the Allemagnian monarchy that overlooks the domain from the peninsula. The Crown Guard patrols the outer ramparts to keep the nobility sheltered from threats. Fruit trees blossom in its outer grove, which the Queen offers freely to her subjects every summer. Newlyweds from the farthest reaches of Her Majesty’s domain visit the gardens surrounding the grove; a kiss shared within brings good fortune and lasting love.

The Queen’s keep is past the gate, where the Alley nobility sets policy and decides the course of the kingdom. Tall stained-glass windows depict past monarchs with eyes trained down on subjects walking the halls.

On the third Saturday of each month, Queen Sophia holds open court in the Moonpool Sanctum. Her throne sits high in this open-air garden, and petitioners wait in a gallery along the wall. When called, they cross a stone footbridge to a tiny island in the center of a pond to make their petition to the monarch Herself.}}

Veteran Union
Eavesdroppers in Louvain inevitably hear the Veteran Union mentioned in conversation. The Thieves’ Army operates more openly in Louvain than in most other cities. Any member of the public can find them by walking straight into the Veteran Union building. The Thieves’ Army claims to serve the city’s people, but one might wonder if petitioners end up serving them, instead.

Olive Quaronette’s Tea House
The tall window of this lavish tea house is etched with adepiction of the rabbit fashionista Olive Quaronette. The shutters and roof shingles are painted white with a faint blush of pink. To announce your presence when the door swings open, a piston blows a serene tone through a wooden pipe while chimes ring a quiet melody. The tea house patrons dress in that particular way, as if they spent several hours before dawn to reach perfect stylish nonchalance. A young rabbit scratches in a sketchbook in one corner. His golden hair hides one eye, and his sweater has Broken World script across the chest. Elsewhere, a trio of wolves chatter in hushed conversation at a table in the middle of the room.

Who's Here

Twisted Whiskers
The Night District of Louvain is lousy with burlesque parlors just like Twisted Whiskers; there are two others are in the same back alley. This particular parlor has two things the others don’t: a draconic proprietor, and a first-two-free drinks special for delvers.

You walk through a heavy black door inlaid with swirls of gold leaf. Soda lamps along the bottom of the wall fill the smoky establishment with lurid red light. A few rows of seats surround a stage past the crowded bar. Most of them are already full, but there are enough left for you to watch the show. Just as the bouncer stops you for the 1 silver door fee, the crowd quiets down.

A dark green terror steps onto the stage. He is eight feet tall and built to kill. The dragon’s eyes are narrow and his face is twisted into a murderous scowl. Despite his expression, this chromatic monster’s voice is calm and inviting. “Welcome to Twisted Whiskers, my friends. Please take your seats, as the show will begin in five minutes.”