The Fisherman's Quarter

The Fisherman’s Quarter is a heimin-dominated portion of the city, forming the main population center on the western side of the Bay of Drowned Honor. Large in area and densely populated, this district teems with life and activity at all times of the day, and the light of the sun is often partially obscured by the smoke of limitless charcoal cooking fires. Samurai are rarely found within this area, preferring to send heimin servants to see to it that fresh fish are brought for their needs. The whole quarter is extremely cramped by samurai standards, with buildings packed close together but seldom exceeding two stories in height (since they are made from basic and flimsy materials). Innumerable heimin sailors, fishermen, trade workers, and day laborers crowd the narrows roads, with many of the smaller walkways having barely enough room for two to walk abreast and countless tiny alleyways where only a single person can pass. With all these heimin (and the occasional ronin) shoving past each other, any samurai is bound to feel extremely uncomfortable anywhere but in the main thoroughfares. As if all that were not enough, the whole district is permeated with the smells of fish guts, charcoal smoke, and cheap sake. The Fisherman’s Quarter is loosely divided into three regions in the lexicon of the local inhabitants: the Crab Caves, the Loops and the North Rim. The latter region is arguably the best maintained in the district, with the deepest of the docks found on the sandy western side of the bay, and generally has the best (or perhaps the leastbad) reputation of the entirety of the Fisherman’s Quarter. The fish and other cargoes here (typically lumber and rice, along with other foodstuffs) are generally carried across the Moment’s Edge Bridge to the rest of the city for storage. The Loops run between the Caves and Rim, and comprise the shorter and less prosperous docks; the reek of fresh and decaying fish is particularly strong in this area, as it is less of a trade-stop like the North Rim and the shallower waters are suitable only for fishing vessels. The Crab Caves gained their name for being the locations of the many dens of ill-repute that ruined the Crab occupying army’s discipline in the seventh century; prior to the establishment of the Licensed Quarter on Teardrop Island, theis southern portion of the Fisherman’s Quarter served as the city’s unofficial neighborhood for dens of ill repute and other vice-oriented businesses. Since the establishment of the Licensed Quarter, the Crab Caves have become known as the place for the most seedy and disgusting of vice operations, those unwilling to accept Teardrop Island’s standards. This is the dumping ground for human refuse who cannot find work or patronage for their vice-peddling elsewhere in the city, and is perhaps the most disreputable place in Ryoko Owari.