Low Market

Sprawling across a swath of hard-packed earth (or cloying mud depending on the season) Low Market is a hodgepodge of stalls, handcart vendors and wandering pedlars. Here Languard’s unwashed masses come to browse, shop and gossip.

Unsurprisingly, thievery is rife in Low Market, and the Watch maintains a strong presence. Unfortunately, due to the sheer crush of people in the market during the day, their efforts are often sadly unsuccessful. By local ordinance, all business in the market must be concluded by dusk; thus once night has fallen the place is seemingly empty. However, not all is as it seems for many clandestine meetings are convened here at night; some come to drink, others are merely passing through while some tented stalls host prostitutes; others become the temporary home of beggars and outcasts.

The stalls filling the Low Market almost uniformly deal with the mundane things in life—food, drink, household wares, cheap cloth and so on. Little of actual value can be found here, except—perhaps—among the bric-a-brac stalls whereon desperate folk sell whatever they can to make ends meet. Sometimes, unbeknownst to these folk, valuable items come into their possession which they pass on for a pittance. Thus, adventurers can often be found idly browsing such stalls—stories (perhaps spread by the vendors)—are rife of lucky adventurers buying magic items here for a pittance from clueless sellers.

Notable Folk

Many people work or visit Low Market on a daily basis. Most are nothing more than ordinary, albeit well-off, folk going about their business. Others are more notable; such folk include:

• Riku Eerola (LN male human): Riku has just purchased a rug for his home, but stupidly neglected to get the merchant to include delivery in the price. Thus, now dangerously low on funds, he is forced to try to carry it home on his own. The rug is long and unwieldy; his passage through the crowds presages a chorus of shouting and swearing. Riku is angry—both with himself and the merchant who sold him the rug. He’s desperate for help, but can’t pay anything. He can, however, introduce any PCs helping him to his sister, Armi, a skilled, but minor, wizard.
• Asta Ojanen (N female human thief 2): Asta ostensibly sells weak wine to thirsty shoppers from the handcart she trundles through the crowds. She doesn’t ply her thievish skills in the market—it’s hard to make a quick getaway with a wheelbarrow. Instead, she deals in rumours, and for an extra silver, she can tell customers of minor events of local import. For gold, she might be able to relate other, more interesting, whispers.

Hooks

Low Market is a place rife with adventuring opportunities. Perhaps, a PC is pickpocketed or witnesses and intervenes in a crime. Alternatively, the PCs could purchase a fragment of a treasure map or the diary of adventurer which describes several of her delves into Gloamhold.

Languard

Languard is the capital city of Ashlar and closest settlement of note to Gloamhold’s benighted halls. This is a first look at the location, which will appear in its final form in Town Backdrop: Languard which will be published by Raging Swan Press in early 2018.

For more Languard, check out the city’s main page!