(population 67,000) Often called "the City of Thieves," Stormhaven is a bustling seaport, with a rather unsavory reputation. It is the second largest city in the Kingdom of Orel, and is located along the western shores of the Thannish Estuary, near the mouth of the Pale River.
Today, the so-called City of Thieves, is one of the most important and influential cities found not only in Orel, but perhaps in all of Corwyn. A truly marvelous cosmopolitan city of great culture which has attracted the most talented artisans, merchants, and scholars from across the known world. The city is also a vital commercial hub for various financial interests located throughout the Heartlands region.
Stormhaven is first and foremost, a city of trade. For all its culture and supposed splendor, its real value lies as a massive economic powerhouse which flourishes daily within its walls. It is a city of wealth and prosperity, a city where many of the wealthiest people in Orel gather to further enrich themselves, and a place where a massive concentration of fortunes has created a sort of critical economic mass which attracts merchants and adventurers from across the known world.
Stormhaven is currently ruled by Grand Duchess Inara Andradi, assisted by a sixteen-seat council of merchants and nobles who answer to her directly. As ruler, the Duchess has openly said her foremost priority is to allow unfettered trade within the city walls, and to protect the myriad of wealthy business interest found there. Consequently, both city taxes and regulation are extremely low.
Trade
The city of Stormhaven derives its wealth and power from trade, which comes overland from neighboring cities such as Ordana, Morathad, Ormath, and Ashara, or through its vast harbor, which at any time holds hundreds of merchant vessels hailing from ports across the known world. The city is accessible via the Stoneway, which connects it to Westgard Keep. There is also a ferry service that carries travelers to the Gwynnish city of Kholis, located on the eastern shores of the Estuary.
Culture
Due to its size and influence, Stormhaven is a cosmopolitan city with a diverse population of citizens. While humans comprise the vast majority of its populace, it is home to large minority population made up of elves, dwarves, halflings, and half-elves. Most citizens tend to be social, stalwart and outspoken people who maintain a somewhat enlightened perspective of other cultures throughout Corwyn. While most are proud of their city’s history, Stormhaven residents typically refrain from dismissing foreign cultures out of hand. Like many Orellians, the people of Stormhaven seek to improve their lives solely through the accumulation of wealth and self-importance, rather than military conquest. As a whole, most Orellians look unfavorably on military conquest and warfare, and most prefer to achieve success through commerce.
Stormhaven’s culture often uses clothing as an outward display of status. While all manner of dress can be seen on the city streets, guild members usually only don their livery when conducting official business or meetings, during important holidays or while ventures outside the city. Nobles usually display their crests or coat-of-arms only in subtle affectations, such as a signet ring or other understated jewelry, while their household servants often wear clothes fully emblazoned with their house heraldry. In contrast, wealthy women of Stormhaven are widely known to maintain a high sense of fashion, often wearing elegant silk gowns, exotic furs, and sparkling jewelry.
Religion
Stormhaven has such a huge variety of faiths, it’s easy to assume that if any deity is worshiped somewhere in Corwyn, he or she has a temple, shrine, or at the very least, a small group of followers gathering somewhere within the city walls. The largest temples in Stormhaven are dedicated to Ator; God of the Sun (C1), Enom; God of Life (C5), Myrival; the Goddess of the Sea (C3), and Atanavar; the God of Knowledge (C4). Smaller temples are dedicated to Aleyssia; Goddess of Healing ($66), Pharos; the God of Destiny ($21) and Ixion; Goddess of the Wind ($10). On a darker note, like many large cities across western Corwyn, Stormhaven houses several secret places of worship where devotees of dark powers exercise their secretive faiths. These evil faiths are forbidden from open worship by the city’s laws, and are therefore forced to conduct their ceremonies in secret.
Law and Order
Stormhaven maintains two separate armed forces: the Dragoons, which are part of Orel's military, and the Guardia, a police force commonly called “the Watch.” The current strength of the Army garrison is about 2,000 dragoons, and the Guardia has a force of about 750 members. The garrison serves as Stormhaven's soldiery and its members man the city gates, walls and towers, conduct road patrols, and man watch-posts. Many are assigned as guards to the Ducal palace.
The Guardia, or “Watch,” serve as the city’s police force, patrolling the city streets and alleyways within the city walls. Their most common duties include: capturing criminals, settling petty disputes, stopping tavern brawls, and using their very presence to deter street crimes against citizens. City Watch officers are easily identified by their red & blue striped sleeves, and black leather surcoats emblazoned with the city's coat of arms: a golden scale holding both a red fireball and a blue sapphire upon a sable field.
All serious crimes are thoroughly investigated by the Watch, who employ a veritable army of informants and spies, as well as a skilled team of criminal investigators led by Captain Barnabas; a renowned officer known throughout the city. Overall, the Watch is considered a highly-effective, professional police force and its officers are both feared and respected by the city's underworld figures.
Rulings regarding city legal matters are issued by various appointed Magistrates, whose duties include running both the civil and criminal courts and issuing sentences to those defendants found guilty of various criminal offenses. Those criminals convicted of sentences involving death or life imprisonment are allowed to make a final appeal before Duchess Inara Andradi.
Guilds
It has long been said that the Grand Duchess rules Stormhaven but does not truly run it. This adage is indeed true, because much of the city’s power lies in the hands of its various guilds. These powerful merchant and craft organizations control the life-blood of Stormhaven’s economy. There are more than 40 recognized guilds spread throughout the city, each with its own strict set of rules and regulations which govern its members. When disputes inevitably arise within the various guilds, they are hashed out in the Merchants’ Hall, a massive and impressive building located in the city center.
Nobility
The Nobility of Stormhaven is highly influential in both the city economy and politics. It consists of 84 families of varying degrees of power, most of whom can trace their lines back before the founding of the city itself. For a full list of the Noble Houses of Stormhaven, click here.
Merchants
Apart from the nobility, the city also has a thriving and wealthy class of merchants, made up of buyers and sellers in thousands of trades not controlled by the city’s Guilds. These include everything from massive caravan operators to the lowliest shopkeepers, who offer a countless variety of different goods.
City Districts
Castle Ward: predictably, is where the center of government happens. This ward includes Mount Seaforth and Castle Stormhaven. Castle Stormhaven is a nigh-unassailable fortress, protected by catapults and siege weapons ready to unleash their might on any foes who would threaten the city. The air in this neighborhood seemingly reeks with money, power, decadence, and outrageously-priced perfume. The various opulent manors, mansions, and estates that lie behind high walls and iron gates are home to the city elite—those who occupy the uppermost rungs of the social ladder beneath the Grand Duchess herself. Adventurers are seldom welcome here unless they have clandestine business with some member of the city nobility. Even then, they are usually admitted only through a rear gate where idle gossipers won’t easily observe them. The streets here are clean, well-lit by night, and are patrolled by both the city watch and hired private guards. Anyone tarrying too long here is quickly encouraged to move along and, if caught a second time, arrested.
The Castle Ward lies in the heart of Stormhaven, wrapping around the slopes of Mt Seaforth. This ward is home to most of the city’s administration and buildings of state. The ward’s most prominent landmarks include The King’s Tower (C79), Blackstaff Tower (C6), Castle Stormhaven (C76), the Ducal Palace (C75), the City Market, and Mirt’s Mansion (C52).
The City Market: The largest open space in the city is home to a massive open marketplace surrounded by stone buildings, many moneylenders and pawnshops among them, that enclose the maze of temporary stalls and carts that appear here day and night. The Market is the best place to haggle for the lowest prices on almost any trade good imaginable, although there’s no guarantee of finding anything worthwhile.
Mount Seaforth: The mountain on which the city is built is a bald, rough crag with a peak some 1,000 feet above sea level. Skyview Tower, a massive stone lookout, sits atop this mountain. On its seaward flanks are emplaced several gigantic catapults for hurling loads of rock and burning material out to sea against attacking ships. Several sea caves pierce the base of its western flank, connecting it to various caves underneath the city, which today, are used primarily for smuggling.
Sacred Order Academy: (C72) This prestigious school has long been a prominent center of education for Stormhaven’s wealthiest residents. It can be reached by means of a steep, treacherous pathway which runs along the western edge of Mount Seaforth and is constantly exposed to the sea winds and spray of the ocean below. A more pleasant path passes through a continual flame-lit tunnel dug through Mount Seaforth’s northern spur.
The Ducal Palace: (C75) Once the home of the city’s ruling family, this glistening, white marble fortress is commonly known as the Ducal Palace, is a shining symbol of the rule of House Andradi. Today, the Palace serves as the office for many city officials, such as the leaders of the Dragoons, the Guardia, the City Magistrates and Clerks, as well as the Order of Street Laborers and the Lamplighter Guild. The City Council meets in a large chamber on the second floor, just up the grand staircase from the echoing, open entry hall. There are also embassies here from many other countries and cities. The Palace also offers guest housing to various visiting dignitaries who do not have a separate embassy within the city.
Castle Stormhaven: (C76) Stormhaven’s greatest fortress is a thick-walled stronghold that broods over the Castle Ward. The City’s ebony and gold banners hang from its battlements and silver trumpets sound off from atop its walls to signal the commencement of various ceremonies. The great height of the castle walls makes it readily visible across the city. This grand fortress houses most of the city’s military garrison.
Dock Ward: Stormhaven’s most notorious and colorful ward is also the oldest. Traveler’s tales portray it as a lawless, brawling place of drunks, smugglers, roaming monsters, and fell magic, which is not all that far from the truth. The waterfront is where most trade occurs, and therefore is the busiest and seediest section of the city. The entire harbor district of Stormhaven has been described as smelly, clumsily built, dangerous, and “a riotous, perpetual brawl that covers the waterfront, interrupted only by rundown buildings, intermittent trade businesses, errant dogs, and a few brave watchmen, the whole lot wallowing in the stench of rotting fish." Trade with the outside world is the lifeblood of the city, because it is simply too large to provide for its own needs and its continued existence depends on the commodities it imports to feed and clothe its residents. The money collected from tariffs and taxes on exported goods to other lands helps fill the city coffers. The majority of this trade is centered on the many stone and wooden quays that line the city harbor. Throughout both day and night, the constant hum of commerce never ceases, as ships from half a hundred ports arrive and depart laden with various goods. Not all commerce along the docks is strictly legal, however. In the shadowy alleys between dilapidated warehouses and in the backrooms of wharf-front taverns, a more sinister clientele conducts its unsavory business. In the darkness, a skiff rowed silently across the dark, filthy waters of the harbor might just as easily be crewed by fishermen starting their day, smugglers secretly bringing their illicit cargoes ashore, or simply cutthroats depositing their latest victim beneath the murky waters.
The North Ward is where all the wealthy middle class merchant families live. Lesser nobles and the like hang around this Ward’s presumably cobblestone-and-gold-lined streets that aren’t constantly ablaze with brawls. But even the North Ward is looked down on by the inhabitants of the Sea Ward. The Sea Ward is the wealthiest ward in the city, home to actual noble families that have expansive estates. Here the elite of the city gather amongst the broad streets, wondrous statues, bright and expensive shops, and even the ward’s own arena.
The Southern Ward, sometimes called Caravan City, is where more regular work happens. This is where caravans are loaded and unloaded with goods and services. the City Watch patrols here regularly, for this part of the city teems with tourists and travelers, who are easy prey for the city thieves and pickpockets. What makes the Ward so busy is this area is where all commerce happens. This is the part of the city that never sleeps–candles, lanterns, and oil lamps, keep this part of the city lit all hours of the night
City History
Stormhaven has a history stretching back thousands of years. Its first settlers were a people known as the Vilshi. Little is known of them other than their seamanship and a penchant for worshipping Dark Gods. The only remnant of Vilshi culture is the series of ancient temples located in a series of damp caves, east of the city walls. Known today as the "Forbidden Temples." These antediluvian structures of glossy dark stone and weathered pale rock were built long ago and the city founders beheld them with a mixture of profound respect and abject fear. Some say the city founders breached one of the temples and discovered the actual resting place of the Dark Gods of Corwyn. What eldritch bargains may have been struck in the mists of history will likely never be known, but the city and the eldritch fanes have dwelled in uneasy cohabitation ever since.
The region that would later be called Stormhaven was originally a trading stop utilized by local Vilshi tribes and traveling merchants from all along the coast. Some accounts claims permanent farms were established in the surrounding area as early as the late Second Age.
The actual name "Stormhaven" was first used circa the mid-Third Age by sea captains to refer to the warlord-controlled town at whose port they docked. It did not become a true city until the Year 570 of the Third Age, when Agaron Red-Axe became the first Lord of Stormhaven. His official coronation is the date from which the Stormhaven calendar begins.
Over the next three centuries, the size and population of the city grew at a tremendous pace. By the late Third Age, most of Stormhaven’s famous guilds had taken root in the city and construction of the massive sea gates had begun. Stormhaven's guild-masters seized control of the city shortly after, in the year 1230/3, beginning an era of great turmoil and political conflict referred to as “the Reckoning.” This dark period ended after a few decades, and the more modern form of governance was put in place in the “Year of Shattered Swords.”
As the city grew, people from all across what is now the nation of Orel and beyond traveled to Stormhaven to take their chance at earning wealth and renown. They were afforded their chances by the city's stable and fair system of government, its stalwart City Guard and mostly honest government. By the end of the Third Age, Stormhaven had earned its reputation as a place of tolerance for the myriads of different cultures, lifestyles, and religions associated with the Thannish people. In the late Third Age, the city rulers joined with four other neighboring cities to create the legendary Orem Confederacy, a gigantic mercantile power unlike anything ever seen before on Corwyn.
When the Time of Troubles came to the city, Stormhaven became a battleground, but its rulers’ keen abilities in diplomacy assured its survival. Stormhaven did not face ruin as some other cities did when Valden the Conqueror invaded the region. The city was saved from destruction because its rulers wisely opened the city gates to Valden’s armies and negotiated a favorable peace treaty which has endured to this very day.
Points of Interest
The Jagged Caverns: located below the city streets are a vast network of natural caverns and expertly carved passages. Whether these dungeons were dug by the Vilshi, or some subterranean race in unknown. Today, they serve as hideouts for thieves, dark cults, and smugglers.
Map of the City
