Hojhagn

The great market city and capital of Guldflosen, Hojhagn rests on the shore of the Dykuma River at Sangari Sound straddling a low hill on the narrow strip of land backed by the Geltin River. Symbolically the city functions as the center of the Gold Coast culturally. The borders of the city have moved a number of times in its recovery from war and disaster, but the mouth of the Dykuma has always been part of the sprawl. Also known disparagingly as the Marsh Haven by many nobles of the region for the wetlands it sits amongst.   While the waters of the great rivers and The Bite offer some protection, the huge population of Hojhagn has often been its greatest defense. The low hills known as the Gilded Reef that stand between the mouths of the Dykuma and Geltin offer the only foundation naturally resistant to settling under the weight of stone walls and other fortifications, and are where the nobility have built their manors and most offices of state.   The first disaster known to have reshaped where the people of the peninsula lived, and led to the formation of the city were the fires of the Wars of Liberation. Denied their greatest weaving and shamed by the humani ability to more quickly adapt, the high ogres attempted to scour the villages of their former servants from the lands, but the freed humani suppressed the fires with a rain of sticky swamp mud and sucked the aquaphobic masters into the depths of the marshes. Greater than the slow rise of any natural flood, the waters unleashed far inland by the dwarves in defense against Vahistam swept away, docks, tenements, and warehouses in old Piletown when they reached Hojhagn. After the recovery construction of new jetties began to protect the newer more upscale Piletown from both the river and the sea.   Efforts to replace or reposition the capital have been made many times, often after a disaster of some kind has swept away part of the city. The position of Hojhagn has however drawn the wealth of trade to its sinking docks at the confluence of so many trade routes after every attempt. No merchant lord or noble can ignore the power of the wealth flowing through its markets, and on the backs of the legions that move it.