Harlock's Rest
Located just beyond the horizon, Harlock's Rest is something of a nirvana for the aspiring pirate. A tavern on every street corner, cheap alcohol, a constant party atmosphere, and total freedom from the watchful eyes of the New World Trading Company. The fact that all this happens just a few nautical miles from the largest NWTC owned port, Delport, is a mystery to many. A darkness lies beneath the veneer of paradise that many a new pirate is woefully unaware of...
Come sundown however, it's another story entirely. Music starts up, taverns open, and every thieve, braggart and pirate comes out in open celebration in a wave of alcohol and debauchery. The stationed soldiers disappear and pirates are available to be unabashed in their ways. The exact reason for the lack of military supervision after sunset isn't truly known, and rumours swirl around. Maybe the guards stationed there are actually just militia in disguise, maybe the governer loans his wife to a Company Official, or maybe it's all a conspiracy by the NWTC to keep tabs on up and coming outlaws. Despite the unknown reason, most pirates are not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and so the island maintains a reputation as a refuge and paradise for rookie pirates, being one of the worst kept secrets in the pirate world.
The massive traffic of rookie pirates has massively impacted the culture of the island. Countless brothels, eateries, taverns and inns line the streets. The people that run these establishments are a tough breed, having to deal with an infamously rowdy clientelle. With no guards around, might makes right on the streets of Harlock's Rest.
Another common practice on Harlock's Rest is what is known as "Rookie Crushing". Many pirates find the New World to be far too dangerous and overwhelming to survive. Those pirates, tempered and bittered by the dangers of the New World, retire to Harlock's Rest. There, they lie in wait for starry eyed newbies, high off of the thrill of their first bounty poster, and seek to show them just how harsh the New World truly is. This manifests in several ways, from threats, intimidation, mugging and occassionally murder. Some former pirates even become career rookie crushers, making a living off of collecting the bounties of particularly promising rookies.
A Story of Two Islands
By day, Harlock's Rest appears much like any other NWTC occupied island. NWTC soliders patrol the streets. Pirate corpses hang from cliff faces as an example. Wanted posters litter the walls, and citizens keep their heads down and make sure not to attract undue attention.Come sundown however, it's another story entirely. Music starts up, taverns open, and every thieve, braggart and pirate comes out in open celebration in a wave of alcohol and debauchery. The stationed soldiers disappear and pirates are available to be unabashed in their ways. The exact reason for the lack of military supervision after sunset isn't truly known, and rumours swirl around. Maybe the guards stationed there are actually just militia in disguise, maybe the governer loans his wife to a Company Official, or maybe it's all a conspiracy by the NWTC to keep tabs on up and coming outlaws. Despite the unknown reason, most pirates are not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and so the island maintains a reputation as a refuge and paradise for rookie pirates, being one of the worst kept secrets in the pirate world.
The massive traffic of rookie pirates has massively impacted the culture of the island. Countless brothels, eateries, taverns and inns line the streets. The people that run these establishments are a tough breed, having to deal with an infamously rowdy clientelle. With no guards around, might makes right on the streets of Harlock's Rest.
Another common practice on Harlock's Rest is what is known as "Rookie Crushing". Many pirates find the New World to be far too dangerous and overwhelming to survive. Those pirates, tempered and bittered by the dangers of the New World, retire to Harlock's Rest. There, they lie in wait for starry eyed newbies, high off of the thrill of their first bounty poster, and seek to show them just how harsh the New World truly is. This manifests in several ways, from threats, intimidation, mugging and occassionally murder. Some former pirates even become career rookie crushers, making a living off of collecting the bounties of particularly promising rookies.
Demographics
Harlock's Rest is the true definition of a melting pot. Races and peoples from all over the Old World mix and mingle, alongside the occassional more exotic new world race, such as Firbolgs or Tabaxi.
One potential source of culture shock for a new arrival is the lack of a majority ancestry. Where many places in the Old World have a majority of say, humans, dwarves or elves, with other races representing at most 15% of a population. Almost every Old World race can be found here in equal measure, even more 'outsider' races not normally welcome in large settlements, such as orcs or goblins are found in abundance here, and are relatively welcome compared to trhe Old World, since they're far from the strangest things on these waters.
Government
The ruler of the island, Governer Liberty Swanson, does not simply allow piracy to take over by nightfall. Rather, he has orchestrated this ver circumstance himself. A former Admiral in the NWTC, he retired many years ago to Harlock's Rest, at the time a small island with only a few inhabitants and little to no natural resources. At the time, many raised eyebrows at an Admiral becoming governor of a tiny spit of land, known at the time only for the enormous volcano at its centre. Swanson reasoned that his fighting days are over, and as a tiefling, the concept of volcanic eruption is less of a threat to him than to others. Running a sunny island with a natural deterrent for old enemies coming after his head.
What the higher ups at the NWTC were not aware was Swanson's duplicitous nature. His tenure as Admiral caused him to call into question the beliefs instilled into him by the Company, and he wished to see what new age would lie beyond the current one. He wished to see the future that Edward Newgate had seen when he sailed to the ends of the earth. With that goal, he retired with his wife, former Archmage of Transmutation at Tharslemoor University and his children, with the goal of creating a safe haven for rookie pirates free from the NWTC's tyranny. He then set up every measure to ensure the ruse would not be discovered.
During the day, supplies come in from NWTC sources to keep the island alive. During this time there is a strict mandate to have the town appear as law abiding as possible, up to and including passing off local militia as NWTC troops. At night, pirates are allowed to roam free. Any citizen who breaks the peace during the day, no matter how slight, is punished severly. In order to keep NWTC troops from staying and poking their noses in too closely, Swanson's wife - Lady Daralis Swanson - uses her mastery of illusion magic to make the volcano rumble and smoke ominously, encouraging visiting officials to flee rather than stay the night. Lady Swanson's mastery of illusion is so advanced that it is unknown by almost anyone that her speciality is that at all, including her former colleagues at the University.
The only dock on the island is a tunnel that bores straight into the central mountain of the island, opening up into a large, water filled cavern. The entrance to the cavern is also obscured every night by a potent illusion cast by Lady Swanson.
Defences
Specialised alarms are rung when an unexpected naval vessel is spotted. People who call Harlock's Rest are well trained to quickly shift and hit their illicit business back into above borad looking abodes. The sheer number of pirates and outlaws living in Harlock's Rest vastly outnumbers the census data that Swanson sends to HQ, a discrepancy that would clue an investigator in, were it not for the appearance of the shipwreck town arounf the island that can be passed off as mere wreckages washed ashore from the many disasters that occur on the New World. Swanson has plenty of coin to his name, and using said coin, many investigators don't really look that closely at the island anyways.
In addition, in the case of more mundane threats, the island doesn't have much in the way of traditional military defence (aside from a few men here and there who's only job is to disguise themselves as NWTC troops). Instead, any attacks from sea creatures or pirates are warded off by the many denizens of the island. Despite having houses made from repurposed ships, a great number of them still have functioning cannons...
Architecture
The most striking feature of Harlock's Rest is the buildings. Most of the buildings appear to be the remains of ships. A tradition that has lasted since the island's discovery during the Age of Discovery, sailors that settle permanently on the island will cannabalise their old ships to turn into buildings. Whilst the first building were simply stone walls with longboats turned upside down as roofs, but over time, the size of the ships sailors use and settlers' creativity have yielded unusual results.
Some ships have been stacked on top of one another to form multi story buildings. Multiple masts support houses on stilts. Sails stitched together form enormous tents where feasts are heard. These ship houses grow more and more elaborate the closer to the island's center you get, as well as becoming more and more densely packed, with many ships piled atop on another connected by rigging and rope bridges to create a vast, multi leveled city. These ship mega structures say in a strong wind, and looked precariously placed, buy despite that, there hasn't been a major collapse in the last 70 years, despite the infamous rowdyness of the island's night crowd. Part of the reason for this is that being only a few nautical miles into the New World means the island doesn't see much of the New World's signature bizarre weather, and the closest sighting of The Kraken ever recorded was nearly 70 miles away.
Geography
The island in question forms a crescent moon shape of black volcanic rock, tapering up to a tall, conical volcano in the southern half of the island. Piled against the volcano, in almost haphazard fashion, is the shipwreck city that the island's residents call home. Very little vegetation exists on the small island, aside from a few palm trees and ferns. The inside curve of the crescent moon forms a bay, with a white sand beach. As idyllic as the bay looks, it is treacherous. A coral reef lurks just below the surface, ready to shred an unwitting ship's hull to pieces without a well versed navigator.
Natural Resources
There is very little in the way of natural resources on the island. It has no soil, simply black, craggy rock that sticks out at steep and awkward angles that make farming impossible. Few trees grow, but not enough to support a large community, and very little wildlife visits the island. As such, inhabitants of the island rely on the NWTC to provide food and other necessities. Paying for such services is never an issue thanks to the abundance of one natural resource in particular: gemstones.
The inside of the island's extinct volcano is dotted with all sorts of valueable minerals. Considerable efforts have been put into creating a mining operation to harvest the gems that are traded with the NWTC and other islands in exchange for other resources (and for the NWTC to not look at the island too closely).
Type
Large town
Location under
Owner/Ruler
Owning Organization
Characters in Location
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