New Hope

New Hope is an ironically-named city of 22,000 souls, located along a desert coast. To the north of the city is an area of shifting dunes, but bordering the city in the other direction is rock, gravel, and sparse, scrub vegetation. The city has a magnificent harbor that was underused until recently.

The city itself lies within fortifications that would withstand an attack by a large force. However, all towers face inwards. For fifty years, the city was an open-air prison. Captives were expected to build their own shelters and govern themselves, under the supervision of the guards standing watch. The government that ran the prison collapsed, however, so it was up to the guards (and the most co-operative prisoners) to make things work. Their descendants, mostly humans and elves, still live there 75 years later.

New Hope is ruled (if you can call it that) by a freely elected mayor, a dwarf named Billings Hammerfast. His father was mayor before him, and his uncle before that. For some reason, possibly attributable to the ‘purely hypothetical’ crime lords that truly run the city, only Hammerfasts ever run for mayor. The mayor supervises the fee collection for the market stalls and also the room tax for the inns throughout the city. The money collected pays most of the city guard’s salaries, but no one really likes to ask about where the rest of the required coin comes from. Some might even wonder what, exactly, the guards are paid for, as the few guards that do roam the streets do little to discourage any but the most violent crimes.

Outside the walls is The Squalor, a recently built shanty town of shacks and crude shelters. It lies between the graveyard barrows and the city’s main gate. The people living there are eager to please and help anyone - that is, until someone with more money comes along. In contrast, on the opposite side of New Hope, is a single shack whose owner shuns almost all contact. No one is quite sure why this figure chooses not to participate in the usual practises of The Squalor, or even why he is there at all, but are happy enough to leave him alone.

Within the city are the usual districts: the docks, where the ships and their cargo come and go and the taverns are bright and expensive; the walled and guarded market district, where one can buy and sell most things; The Craftmoot, where artisans create their various items; and lastly, there are The Soundings, a slum that backs up against the city wall, opposite the main gate. At the center of The Soundings is The Golden Baths, a building in stark contrast to its surroundings. It has built a reputation as a safe meeting point for anyone. It is also rumored that beneath these walls there are cells and corridors where prisoners were kept in isolation and secrets were buried.

Two years ago, gold was discovered in the mountains some three days outside the city proper. Prospectors arrived to investigate, by both land and sea, and continue to do so. Some wait for their moment in The Squalor or The Soundings, some got in quick and are already planning their trip home with their fortune. In any case, New Hope knows that visitors mean money, and so are happy to play host to any and all.