Halerifan is a large city – though not necessary great. Its splendor is long past and the city is falling apart. Not just its walls and roads, but its society and people as well. The city is naturally divided into a northern and southern part by a ridge; the area upon the hills is called the Upper City and the area below it is called the Lower City. This division in the past is solely for administrative purpose, but now it is going to be all too real. The people of the Lower City demands to be independent and that the two areas be two independent parts. Guilds, merchant houses and the upper classes are embroiled in the conflict.
- Surrounding the Lower City are fertile farmlands, vineyards and orchards, and the people there engage mainly in industry. They sell their wares to travelling merchants and thus earn their living. The Upper City is next to a river, which used to be part of a trade route. But about a dozen years ago, a new route was found and trade in the Upper City declined. The people there end up jobless, homeless and idle. Yet dwellers of the city both pay the same taxes and recently, for repairs of the city wall, the folks of the Lower City has to come up with much more gold than the Upper City. Could there be a way to resolve this problem before it really comes to the blow, or would the players gain from if there is actually trouble?
- The city used to be two small towns which grow outwards eventually till they almost meet each other at the ridge. The Lower City consists a river which is part of a well-used trade route while the Upper City is a mining settlement. Recently, the mines have run dried and the people of the Lower City, being merchants, find it undesirable to be in an alliance with the Upper City anymore. They have cut off supply to the Upper City, which they usually give to trade for the metals. Now there are words that those in the Upper City, unhappy with the treatment, are considering violence as their mines run dry and their one-time allies are forsaking them.
- Religious difference is the heart of the divide here. A new religion, though some refers to it as a cult, has enter the city, splitting it into half. Some still follow the old gods where temples housing them are mainly on the Upper City; many follow the new one, which promised prosperity and good fortune without the usual costly sacrifices and oaths of duty. The questions are many: is the new religion harmless? Is there a need for hostility? Or are the priests of the old gods stirring up trouble for some ambitions of their own?
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Singapore License.
