Caer Rheged (kaɾ ˈɾɛɡɛd)

Nearly everyone in Caer Rheged is human, and of the Albannach ethnicity. Many of the buildings stand empty - three years ago, a plague ripped through the population when a Nachtkrapp escaped the Cully Dhorcha and spread its pestilence across the city. Almost no outsiders choose to settle in Caer Rheged, and visitors to the city tend to stay close to the docks.

Caer Rheged is considered the personal fiefdom of the crown and is officially ruled by King Aedan MacLachlan. By long tradition, the king appoints a Laird of Caer Rheged who handles the day-to-day administration of the city - the current laird is Domhnall mac Eachann. Laird Domhnall then appoints various officials to see to the city's needs, enforce the laws, collect taxes, and liaise with the other parts of the government, such as the Duffian Foresters.

Caer Rheged can be divided into three distinct districts. The first is centered around the royal castle, an ancient fortress that is built for defense rather than opulence. The second lies along the docks, and is frequented by merchants and sailors. The final district is less well-defined, and is usually just called "the city" - it includes all those areas of Caer Rheged not close enough to the castle to attract wealth, but not near enough to the docks to draw visitors.

The most expensive inn in the city (and perhaps the nation) is named the Deanntag Òrail, which translates to The Gilded Nettle. The sign for the inn features real gold foil and depicts a gilded nettle. It is located in the castle district, and is mostly frequented by those who have reason to visit the royal court but are not invited to stay within the castle walls. A little farther from the castle is an inn called The Stag which caters to merchants not rich enough to stay at The Gilded Nettle, but with aspirations to do so someday.

A more reasonably priced inn in Caer Rheged is named Na Trì Similearan, which translates to The Three Chimneys. The building does have three chimneys, and the inn's sign depicts an outline of the building with the chimneys clearly visible. The owner of Na Trì Similearan is a formidable woman named Moira. She is nearly six feet tall, and runs the inn like she is conducting an orchestra. She has taken in a number of young girls, mostly between the ages of ten and fourteen, who had lost their families in the plagues of recent years. Na Trì Similearan is located on the border of the docks district, and has a mix of locals who come to drink and visitors looking for someplace cleaner and quieter than most sailors' taverns.

A number of taverns are found in the city. One of them is called the An Sgiath Mheirgeach, which translates to The Rusty Shield. The name is from the tavern's sign - an old shield the tavernkeeper has hung over the door. It is frequented by members of the Royal Guard, and is considered a quiet place to do some serious drinking. There is also a lesser-known tavern known as Fìdhle that has a foul reputation - for filth, rats, and more vile things. It can be identified by the broken fiddle nailed over the door.

During the thousand years when the Clarati ruled Ynys, the land of Rheged was governed by Solis. Like the other Clarati sorcerers, she had come to Ynys to acquire a population of humans to experiment on, to learn the intricacies of the Egregoric Force, and how it could be manipulated. Her particular area of interest focused on how emotions interacted with the Force, and in Rheged, she selected fear as her experimental milieu.

She used her magic to seed a terror of the woods in the people of Rheged. Their fear inspired stories of monsters and dark gods. The Egregoric Force, which is the power of collective belief to shape reality, turned those stories into facts. Creatures began to manifest in the shadows between the trees. They emerged at night to play out the narratives prescribed for them in the tales that birthed them. And their excursions into the human communities fed those tales, and gave them more power. A vicious cycle began, and has persisted for nearly two thousand years.

Time passed, and so did the Clarati. Solis was slain by the Witch of Rheged, who sought to break the cycle of terror the sorceress had inflicted on her people. Caer Rheged was founded in the first years after Solis' death, as a sign of the new era to come. But the cycle of fear that Solis created did not end with her death.

For centuries, the Witch tried to break it. She taught ritual dances to the Duffian Foresters that would bind the monsters to the trees and the dark, and keep them from attacking - but a few always slipped through. In an act of desperation, she created the Stone of Destiny, which linked the ruler of Rheged to the land, hoping that it would provide leverage to end the cycle of fear. When the Stone instead destroyed one mind after another, while at the same time becoming integral to kingship, she gave up. Embittered, she withdrew into the forest and, for years, denied all who came to her door.

Throughout all this, Caer Rheged grew from a bright hope into an old and tattered dream that lingers between the river and the wood.