Warehouse District; Points of Interest

W1. The Vault: In the middle of the Warehouse District, sitting alone with no other buildings alongside, is a large stone warehouse that boasts better security and locks than anywhere else in Freeport outside the Sea Lord’s Palace. This is the Vault, the safest place in town to store just about anything, assuming you have the money to keep up your payments. Traders and merchants—not to mention pirates and thieves—store their most valuable merchandise here for safekeeping.

History
The Vault is one of the oldest buildings in the Warehouse District; it was built in the time of the first Sea Lord, when Freeport was even more lawless and thief-plagued than it is today. Financed by a consortium of merchants and traders, the Vault was built to be impregnable by the standards of the day. Two centuries later, the building has withstood every intrusion attempt—including a cannon barrage by one particularly determined group of pirates a few decades back.

Vault rates are calculated on a monthly basis and based on the size of the storage unit; the smallest units are well within the means of Freeport’s middle classes. The fee gets the renter a personal unit inside the massive building, to which only he and the management possess a key. At the Vault, having the key to a unit is considered to imply ownership of the unit; no questions are asked as long as the proper fees are paid. Renters are advised to keep a tight grip on their key. The only items forbidden to be stored in the Vault are obviously dangerous devices, such as explosives or demonic relics; anything else is permitted. Magically locked and warded units are also available at ten times the standard price. Samarka Joliet, the owner, casts and maintains the spells protecting these units. Arrangements to access a magically locked unit must be made a day in advance, so Joliet can be on hand personally to bypass the lock.

All storage units can be accessed freely from sunup to sundown. Getting access to the Vault’s storage units after dark is extremely difficult, not to mention dangerous. Every night Joliet locks the Vault down and protects it with a variety of spells and wards that can keep out, trap, or even kill intruders. The Vault also employs three hulking half-orc brothers as security guards. Barca, Sim, and Lug Gomark aren’t very bright, but they have a distinct talent for intimidating people—and for hurting people when intimidation fails to do the job. Rental payments are due on the first day of every month. Standard Vault policy is to hold a client’s belongings for one month following delinquency; the nature of sea travel and trade makes it inevitable that some clients have difficulties getting back to Freeport in a timely fashion. As long as the account is brought up to date, Joliet is willing to be generous. However, if even a single extra day passes, a delinquent client’s goods end up at the Municipal Auction House and the Vault collects a share of the public auction price.

Description
The Vault is a sprawling two-story stone building that covers a full quarter of a city block, and is distinguished by the fact it has no windows on its exterior. The only external door is made from heavy stone reinforced with iron, and bears a number of extremely good locks. The interior of the building is a maze of corridors lined with vaults, ranging from tiny coffin-sized units up to rooms large enough to hold an entire mansion’s worth of belongings. All the walls are constructed of sturdy stone, ranging in thickness from one foot for interior walls to a rumored three feet for exterior ones. Some have joked the place could withstand an assault almost as well as the walls of the Old City.

Prominent NPCs

Samarka Joliet: (female human) The albino wizard Samarka Joliet has run the Vault for as long as anyone remembers—perhaps even back to the time of the first Sea Lord. Joliet, who wears his long white hair in a single braid down his back, has connections in all parts of the city. He doesn’t flaunt them, and likes to maintain a very low profile. The Harbormaster and Joliet know each other well, for instance, and have occasionally been seen together in the darker corners of Scurvytown.

W2. The Block And Tackle: It takes a lot of muscle power to ensure all the cargo that passes through the district makes it where it needs to go, and it takes a lot of rotgut ale to fuel that muscle. One of the most popular purveyors of low-grade firewater is the Block and Tackle. This fetid watering hole and eatery is a favorite haunt of the longshoremen that work the docks and warehouses of Freeport.

History
Garl Longtooth, a thug turned longshoreman turned entrepreneur, and his partner Gizella founded the Block and Tackle ten years ago. Garl supplied the muscle, Gizella the brains, and between the two of them, they purchases a ramshackle building near the waterfront of the Warehouse District and opened a tavern. The Block and Tackle quickly became a hangout for Garl’s former colleagues, the longshoremen.

A few years ago, the inn became a popular hangout for slumming aristocrats, led by Mendor Maeorgan. Rumors circulated about their real motives, and eventually Garl turned up dead. In any case, Maeorgan and the Joy Boys scared off the locals, and business declined until the Joy Boys disbanded after seven of their number were lost fighting the Great Green Fire. Since then, things have picked up again, and the Block and Tackle is once again among the most popular hangouts among the warehouses.

Description
Literacy rates being low among longshoremen, the Block and Tackle advertises itself with… a block and tackle, hung over the doors of a two-story wooden building that once saw service as a warehouse. The wide doors are flanked by long windows with wooden shutters rather than glass. Locals can often be found drinking and sitting around on benches or stools in front of the tavern. A sharp-eyed observer might realize that some of these patrons do very little drinking, and spend much more of their time watching passers-by and having whispered conversations with their fellows.

Inside, the tavern is grimy, close, and poorly lit, smelling of cheap booze and bad food. And that’s pretty much the way the patrons like it. Drink prices are discounted for Longshoreman’s Union members, and most nights the place is crowded with them. It’s a rowdy joint, and woe to anyone who says the wrong thing in front of this crowd. Fights are common and expected, and everyone takes them with good cheer as long as the only weapons involved are fists and feet.
The top half of the Block and Tackle contains Gizella’s quarters, Autumn Divers’ office, and a number of private rooms for assignations, deals, and storage of stolen goods. Windows provide convenient access to nearby rooftops or the alleyway behind the tavern.

Prominent NPCs

Gizella: The owner of the Block and Tackle. She is a dour, bitter old woman, who remembers every detail of the losses she has suffered over the last few years. Despite that, she manages to keep her spirits up enough to keep things running, and has become something of a local institution.

W3. Municipal Auction House: Many goods pass through Freeport and not all of them end up with their proper owners. When property is captured from thieves, confiscated from prisoners, or remains unclaimed for too long in places like the Vault, it’s remanded to the custody of the Municipal Auction House. Citizens and traders can also put goods up for auction, if they can’t find a private buyer.

History
In a town as mercantile (and mercenary) as Freeport, some kind of system had to be developed to convert excess booty into cold hard cash. Rather than mess around with marketplaces and the like, the second Sea Lord founded the Municipal Auction House as a way of clearing his coffers of unnecessary goods while making a profit. Decades later, the Auction House has become a pivotal part of Freeport’s economic turnaround; it may not generate enormous profits, but it keeps goods circulating and generating wealth rather than languishing in a warehouse or in yet another chest with yet another sixteen dead men sitting on it.

Auctions are held once a month and have much the air of a flea market or estate sale. Representatives from the merchant houses are always in attendance, as are the general populace. In a remarkable fit of even-handedness, everyone is given equal access to the auction, no matter their stature or influence. The auctioneer, the man in charge of the whole operation, is appointed by and answerable only to the Sea Lord himself. Everything at the auctions is sold “as is,” and crates and packages not clearly labeled are sold as “grab bag” items. No peeking inside ahead of time! The list of odd items that have been purchased in these mystery lots ranges from enchanted swords to dead bodies to giant stone eggs to, well, pretty much anything else.

Description
The Auction House squats in the center of the Warehouse District, a low bunker-like building surrounded by a twenty-foot wall topped with spikes. It’s not a prison, though it looks like one. Guards are visible outside at auction time, while they keep a lower profile the rest of the month. The interior of the Auction House is almost as austere and simple as the outside. The main room houses chairs and tables lined up in front of the auctioneer’s dais and display stage. A second room is used to store the items and lots coming up for auction. When items are held at the Vault, they are normally transferred to the Auction House as soon as their owners miss two payment dates in a row. Security at the Auction House is tight. Six members of the Watch are stationed here around the clock, while the Wizards’ Guild can be alerted to trouble via an amulet carried by the highest-ranking officer on each shift. The wizards are notoriously cranky though, so the Watch tries to deal with any problems on their own.

Prominent NPCs

Crask: (male dwarf) The current auctioneer, Crask is as tightfisted and officious a dwarf as ever walked Skull Island. While he is incorruptible, the wizened old red-headed dwarf is also extremely unpleasant, foul tempered, and parsimonious to a fault. Not that these are necessarily negative traits in his position. Having spent years in the role of auctioneer, Tolberg is very good at his job—and very, very lonely. He’s not susceptible to offers of money or power, but for love….

W4. Office Of Public Records: The pirates who originally founded Freeport would flip over in their watery graves if they knew the amount of paperwork that the municipal functioning of their little settlement now generates. All the shipping manifests, tax documents, city planning maps, deeds of ownership, building permits, and court records have to go someplace if there is any hope of keeping track of things. The designated resting place for all such papers is the Office of Public Records, located on Sandbar Street in the heart of the Warehouse District.

History
When Freeport was founded, no one gave much thought to things like record keeping, receipts, deeds, or indeed much besides collecting booty and stabbing enemies. It wasn’t until Captain Drac turned Freeport into a true city-state—until there was government—that the city had a need to track things like that. After several years of details going missing, inconvenient fires, and dozens (if not hundreds) of forgery attempts, the Sea Lord declared one central office would hereafter track and control all records. Initially, the Office was housed in the Sea Lord’s Palace and controlled directly by the Captains’ Council, but the merchants and traders of the city protested—they never directly accused the Council of tampering with records for their own ends, but the implication was certainly there (as was the tampering). Similarly, suggestions to make the record-keeping a private concern, or house the files in the Merchant District, were shot down by the Council. In the end the creation of the Office in the Warehouse District was a compromise, and no one expected it to last—but more than a century later it’s still there—as are many of the original documents stored there, now lost under decades of dust and disinterest.

Description
The Office of Public Works operates out of an old two-story storehouse. It’s sturdy enough, but not in the best condition; occasionally the Council contemplates moving the Office into more modern premises, but frankly no one cares enough. A sign beside the front door declares the building’s purpose. During the day, merchants, functionaries, sailors, and others come and go to the Office, looking to deposit paperwork or view old records. Anyone expecting the interior of the Office to boast well-organized shelves stacked with carefully filed and categorized piles of papers hasn’t been in Freeport very long. A wide variety of rickety shelving and boxes, no two alike (most salvaged from old ships or unwanted furnishings), are crammed with papers and documents. No visitor can hope to make sense of the filing “system,” and may find a century-old manifest lodged in a old beer keg alongside a map of the sewers under the Freeport Institute and the catering bill from last week’s meeting of the Captains’ Council. The lighting in the building isn’t great, so visitors often need to bring a torch or lantern as they explore; fortunately, the building and its contents are protected from fire by enchantments supplied by the Wizards’ Guild. Still, one should be careful—even a small fire could inflict untold damage on the smooth running of the city.

Prominent NPCs

Old Reed: (male human) The only person who can make sense of the files is the cantankerous caretaker of the office, a craggy ex-ship’s cook named Old Reed. He seems to have an unerring sense of where things are in the massive collection of paper. Reed has been caretaker of the Office for several decades now, and spends most of his days searching through files to settle disputes or gather information. It seems like a thankless job, but in truth, Reed enjoys it; he’s well paid, quite comfortable, and frankly he was never cut out for the life of a ship’s cook. That doesn’t stop him grousing about his work to anyone who’ll listen, though, and anyone who actually listens to his complaints may find him very cooperative. Reed lives in one corner of the Office, which boasts a hammock, a kitchen, and privy.

W5. Freland Shipyard: Other than the warehouses and storage buildings, the biggest industry in the Warehouse District is shipbuilding. Occupying a large chunk of the shoreline near the border of the Merchant District, Freland Shipping employs almost a hundred workmen in its twin dry docks and other smaller workshops.

History
Silas Freland is the proprietor of the shipyard, and has dominated the boat-building trade in town for decades. The only other shipyard in Freeport went out of business thirty years ago, after a fire consumed three ships under construction in a single night. The owner of the shipyard, a southerner named T’giri, had neglected to renew his fire insurance, and Silas picked up the assets of the charred shipyard for a song. T’giri was ruined, and disappeared soon afterward; most people assumed the despondent man threw himself into Freeport Harbor and drowned. While rumors persisted that the fires were deliberately set, no one could prove anything—and given Silas’ known ties to the crime lord Finn, no one really tried to prove anything. Freland is the largest single customer of the Lumber Consortium, and reputedly has a deal with them to be the only person on the Island they sell timber suitable for shipbuilding. Since the ancient forests in the center of Skull Island have some spectacular trees, Freland is able to make ships of a quality no-one else can match. For decades the Freland Shipyard enjoyed a shipbuilding monopoly in town, and for all Silas’ shadiness, he’s never taken advantage of this to cut corners. The shipyard turns out about three or four large sailing ships a year and every single one is snapped up by someone almost as soon as it is out of dry-dock. The shipyard also turns out a variety of smaller craft, from rowboats to small fishing vessels. The Freland Shipyard makes good ships and captains from all over the region came to Freeport to buy them—and pay up to fifty percent more than the usual market price for such craft.

Or, at least, they did. The Freland Shipyard no longer has a stranglehold on the local market, and Silas has to actually compete for the first time in decades. T’Giri, Freland’s rival of old, is back in the area—and he has set up a rival shipyard over in Sasserine. The new shipyard is smaller than Freland’s, but T’Giri is an even better shipwright than Silas, and he sells his ships for a much lower price than Freland’s inflated rates. Over the last two years, demand for Freland’s ships has dropped sharply. Silas is scrambling to bring customers back, but it may be too little, too late. He’s had to lay off some of his staff due to the dip in the market, and the remaining workers won’t stand for a drop in wages. Freland’s coffers are emptying fast, and if something doesn’t go Silas’ way soon, the shipyard could end up out of business sooner rather than later.

Description
The Freland Shipyard takes up a wide section of the waterfront. Piers lead up to two dry docks, each containing ships under construction. Small storage sheds, warehouses, offices, and other outbuildings are spaced around the docks. A wooden fence with two large doors surrounds the whole compound; the fence is sturdy, but a skilled thief could easily get over it.
Inside the fence, dockworkers, carpenters, and ship-builders work by day assembling large and small ships. There are fewer workers than there used to be, and the remaining staff have to work a little more for the same pay; it’s common to hear them grumbling to each over lunch. At night, four watchmen patrol the grounds, keeping an eye on the wall and the waterline for intruders.

Prominent NPCs
Silas Freland: (male human) Silas isn’t accustomed to being the low-status member in a business deal, and he doesn’t like it. The seventy-year-old patriarch of the Freland family has had his own way for thirty years, ever since T’Giri’s unfortunate “accident,” and damnit, the southerner should have had the good grace to drown himself like everyone thought. Silas is on the losing end of competition now, and he’s not coping with it—or prepared to accept it. The Freland Shipyard will control the market again, no matter what he has to do to make it happen.

W6. Freeport Pilots Guild: The sand bars and reefs off the coast of Freeport are treacherous and ever changing. Captains that are away from Freeport for any significant length of time can never be sure if the clear channel that they embarked from remains the same when they return. Approaching the port can be a slow and deliberate affair, sometimes taking an entire day from the sighting of the city to final docking. Enter the Pilots’ Guild, which monitors and charts the ever-changing sea approaches to Freeport’s harbor, and sells that information from its guildhouse in the Warehouse District.

History
The Pilots’ Guild was established more than a hundred years ago to counteract the increasing dangers of the shifting sea topography. A fleet of ten small ships constantly sails around the city, checking for shifted reefs and sandbars, and greeting any ship that approaches the city. The Pilots’ Guild maintains a private pier in the Warehouse District for its survey and patrol vessels. For a relatively small fee, a guild navigator will come on board and pilot a customer’s ship quickly and safely into the docks of Freeport. The guild also offers current charts of the waters around the city for sale—but only on shore. These precious charts are quite expensive and rarely remain accurate for more than six months. The Pilots’ Guild doesn’t take any offense to those refusing their services—they don’t need to. The treacherous barrier reef surrounding the Serpent’s Teeth ensures business is always brisk. Sailors making Freeport a regular port of call know better than to refuse the “reasonably priced” services of the Pilots’ Guild. The best they can expect without it is a slow approach to shore. The worst is a big hole in their ship’s hull. Some wonder why the Captains’ Council and the Sea Lord allow the Pilots’ Guild to operate what is essentially an elaborate shakedown operation. The answer lies within the tall tower of the guild’s compound. The Pilots’ Guild maintains an observatory, providing the best data on tides and weather that one can get in Freeport. This information is posted and disseminated throughout the city on a daily basis.

Description
The walled compound of the Pilots’ Guild is one of the few distinctive places in the sea of blocky buildings that make up the Warehouse District. The facility is easily identified by the large observatory tower jutting into Freeport’s skyline. It is the tallest free-standing structure in the city, dwarfed only by the walls of the Old City on the hill above.
Inside the compound’s low stone wall, located around the observatory tower, are a number of other buildings. These include offices, living quarters, workshops, and meeting places. While the Pilots’ Guild is hardly as luxurious as the Merchants’ Guild House, many captains find it a very pleasant place to come for a drink or eight in the evening. Outside the observatory tower is a large board, on which tide and weather information is chalked several times per day.

Prominent NPCs

Captain Lars Manistee: (male human) The current head of the Pilot’s Guild, Captain Lars is a former privateer brought low by a nasty and venomous leg wound that went gangrenous. His left leg had to be amputated from the hip down. Captain Manistee will not speak of whatever it was that took his leg. Lars has made the best of his disability, using his experience, knowledge, and solid instincts to rise to the head of the Pilot’s Guild. Lars could easily have a seat on the Captains’ Council if he wanted it, but he has a great love of the seas—and no love at all for politics.

W7. Crocker's Brick And Mortar: Located on the border of the Warehouse and Merchant Districts, Crocker’s Brick and Mortar is one of Freeport’s most advanced industrial facilities. Advanced steam-and-clockwork equipment is used to crush rocks and stone, creating the raw materials for building many of the newer houses and stores in the city.

History
A stonemason named Crocker founded this masonry factory and stonework business nearly twenty years ago. At first it was a conventional operation, where workers used sledgehammers and picks to break apart rocks. Crocker found it hard to keep good workers; most able-bodied men preferred to work the Docks or warehouses rather than take up such backbreaking labor. Looking for a way to meet demand with fewer workers, Crocker hit upon the idea of using machinery for the crushing. Such inventions were in their infancy (and are still a work in progress), but the savants of the Wizards’ and Craftsmen’s Guilds had made a number of devices that could be useful. Over several years, Crocker was able to install more and more inventions in his factory—steam-powered hammers, clockwork sorting beds, alchemical boilers, and more. The guilds used his factory as a test bed for ideas, keeping the machines that worked and wincing at the explosive failures. The crowning achievement for the factory was the Rock Crusher, a millhouse poised over a massive pit, filled with machinery that could crush large stones into powder. With this at the center of the operation, Crocker was able to finally meet the demand for masonry in the city—especially the constant need for stone to make the Freeport Lighthouse.

Description
A high stone wall with one large gate surrounds the masonry factory; the top of the millhouse can be seen from the street outside. Clouds of steam and smoke often emerge from within the compound (to the constant annoyance of the neighbors). Inside the wall, the two-story millhouse dominates the area, while several other workshops are scattered around it. Carts run on rail lines from the millhouse to piles containing bricks or rocks of various sizes. The millhouse’s bottom level has no floor; the carts spill rocks down the mouth of a pit into a massive hopper. When the operator in the control booth above the pit activates the machinery, huge teeth and gears grind together beneath the hopper, which slowly rotates to drop its load into the gears. Doors and hatches in the hopper and beneath the gears lead to more rail lines, allowing workers to haul away the crushed stone. Excess rubble and detritus is sluiced away into the sewers. The gears of the mill can chew apart solid stone; unsurprisingly, they have little problems crushing human beings as well.

Prominent NPCs
Edward: (male human) The manager of Crocker’s Brick and Mortar. Crocker is always inconveniently absent these days, but fortunately he signed control over to Edward before vanishing. Edward is a skilled manager, and the brickworks generates a substantial income.

W8. Freeport Orphanage: This ramshackle building used to be a cheap hostel for sailors, longshoremen, and itinerants. But after the Succession Riots, a wealthy philanthropist bought the building and converted into a home for the orphans of Freeport. Here young children have a roof over their heads, a hammock to sleep in, regular meals, and a chance to learn a trade.

History
Originally this building was known as the Hammocks, a hostel run by an ex-sailor named Tyler. It didn’t have individual rooms or even beds; instead, tenants slept in hammocks strung throughout every level of the building. While inexpensive, the Hammocks was generally popular only with sailors, who were more comfortable than landlubbers with the notion of sleeping in a sack thirty feet above the floor. In the wake of the Succession Crisis, Tyler found that he simply couldn’t afford to run the place any longer and gratefully sold it.

Description
The Freeport Orphanage is a typical (if slightly rundown) warehouse from the outside. The streets and alleyways around the building are constantly full of children using them as a playground, running with messages, or practicing their roguish skills. Strings of laundry line the roof, coincidentally hiding anyone on the rooftops from the view of the neighbors.
Almost the entire interior of the Orphanage is one massive open room, with thick timbers running from floor to roof. Strung between these pillars are a series of hammocks, reaching all the way up to the ceiling. Sets of pegs in the pillars form a rough ladder on each one reaching up into the rafters. Ropes also dangle from the ceiling at various points, and planks in the rafters allow easy movement for those with a good sense of balance. Visitors to the Orphanage may be shocked by the sleeping arrangement, but the managers solemnly explain they simply haven’t got the money for proper bedding. Children who aren’t old or strong enough to climb into hammocks sleep on pallets on the floor, which is also where meals are served; those adults living in the Orphanage either sleep in hammocks or in one of the building’s small rooms.

Prominent NPCs
Father Morris: (male human) The mumbling manager of the Freeport Orphanage. This enigmatic character is actually a priest, although no one really knows which god he worships. But his prayers seem as effective as those of any other priest, and so the staff tolerates him. Morris is dour and truculent, speaking only in mumbles. He communicates mostly with nods, grunts, and significant eye movements, and seems to be wearily depressed with life in general.

Cripps: (male human) Mumble’s assistant in the running of the Orphanage, Cricket appears to share his boss' general depression. He works with the children, trying to teach them basic life skills and some literacy, but only occasionally shows real enthusiasm for the task. Some of the older children in the establishment say that he used to be more lively; however, evidence of this claim is pretty thin.