Brilight, Shining City by the Sea

[Generated Demographics]

Community Size: Metropolis
Population: ~85,000
Races:
- Human (49,648)
- Halfling (8,667)
- Elf (5,259)
- Dwarf (3,555)
- Gnome (2,703)
- Half Elf (7,851)
- Half Orc (3,851)
- Tiefling (2,813)
- Other (851)

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Brilight

The gods are real, the world is wild, and our civilization is poised on the brink of destruction.

Welcome to Bright-Light-on-the-Water, or "Brilight" as the locals are wont to call the sprawling walled city. An ancient jewel founded by the Niaven sea, the city has been a rich and important trading port since its establishment hundreds of years ago. Walls were erected when the encroaching wilderness coveted the riches and supplies of the city and those walls advanced outward as the city grew, climbing ever higher. Today Brilight is the biggest metropolis south of the capital, run by a convoluted bureaucracy which sends reports by heavily guarded pony post to a distant northern king.

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Sun District

Though the city itself is rich, however, its people overwhelmingly are not. The massive city walls cast shade over shacks and hovels, with the finest and richest dwellings reserved for the bright center of the city where sunlight touches everything. This "Sun District" in the heart of the city is bright and clean and shining, a pearl polished by surrounding grit, while the other three districts in the city (Northside, Westside, and Southside) are sprawling slums filled with poverty, thievery, and neglect.

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Temple

On the edge of the Sun District lies the Temple, a beautiful compound containing buildings dedicated to the 9 Gods and 9 Goddesses which are most popular in the city. Smaller buildings dot the edges of the compound in service to other lesser known gods, but every Brilight citizen knows of the Blessed Eighteen. [A longer post on alignments, gods, and the afterlife is here.]

- Boccob, god of magic, arcane knowledge, balance, and foresight. [agender]
- Ehlonna, goddess of forests, woodlands, flora, and fauna.
- Fharlanghn, god of land horizons, distance, travel, and roads.
- Heironeous, god of chivalry, justice, honor, war, daring, and valor.
- Istus, goddess of fate, destiny, divination, future, and honesty.
- Kord, god of athletics, sports, brawling, strength, and courage.
- Lastai, goddess of pleasure, love, and passion.
- Lirr, goddess of prose, poetry, literature, and art. [genderqueer]
- Moradin, god of metal, forges, and hearths.
- Nerull, god of death, darkness, murder, and the underworld.
- Obad-Hai, god of nature, freedom, hunting, and beasts.
- Olidammara, god of music, revels, wine, rogues, humor, and tricks. [genderqueer]
- Osprem, goddess of sea voyages, ships and sailors.
- Pelor, god of sun, light, strength and healing.
- Sehanine, goddess of illusion, love, and the moon.
- Umberlee, goddess of anger, wrath, storms and tidal waves.
- Wee Jas, goddess of magic, death, vanity, and law.
- Yondalla, goddess of protection, fertility, and family. [agender]

The Blessed Eighteen watch over and protect the city as living gods. Because Brilight is a port town, Osprem and Umberlee are worshiped with special fervor by sailors, fishers, and others who make their living from the sea. The two goddesses are popularly thought by the Brilight people to be sisters, and fountains in the city are often decorated with the two women: a study in contrast between the smiling Osprem and the frowning Umberlee.

[Note 1: Classes, Races, and Alignments are not restricted to specific deities. In theory, any character can worship any god listed here. Your character is not required to have a patron god, but it is socially standard to prefer a god/dess over the others and your PC will be considered unusual if they do not select a patron.]

[Note 2: The Brilight temple has buildings for gods other than the Blessed Eighteen; those are the "big" members of the pantheon, yes, but there are numerous "little" gods who have followers, altars, etc. Those "little" gods may have larger followings elsewhere in the world, and the "Blessed Eighteen" may be understood to have different natures elsewhere in the world. In other words, while the gods are Objectively Real, the way mortals understand them and interact with them is still cultural and varied.]

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Marketplace

The Marketplace is part of the Northside district. Though goods can be bought and sold anywhere in the city--including fresh off the ships in Redport and in the black market at Nightdock--the Marketplace is the area where most citizens go when they wish to buy something. Farmers and ranchers from outside the city bring their foodstuffs to sell: vegetables and grains, and meats, milk, and cheese. Armor and weapons are available to buy and sell, and spell components for all lower-level spells are available to buy in the magic shops.

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Redport

Redport is the throbbing heart of the city, the crown jewel in a thick network of trading ports and travel hubs. Hardly a ship travels the Niaven sea without stopping in the Redport harbor of Brilight to drop off a visiting dignitary, deliver a shipment of goods, or at the very least make port for repairs after a storm. Every ware destined for the Marketplace (or sold at the docks, in some rare cases) is taxed by the city here, the tax-collectors known about the docks by the silver sashes they wear. Fisherfolk pay the tax on their hauls here too, before taking their catch to market. This is the place to go if looking for honest dock work, passage on a ship, or rumors about the latest pirate menace.

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Nightdock

Though some pirates boldly make port at the Redport harbor under false colors of a merchant ship, most do their docking at Nightport under the safe cover of darkness. Here pirate ships can be unloaded of their stolen goods and their crews can slip into the crowds to seek the pleasures of shore leave. Ships in need of long-term docking for repairs or crew recruitment are hidden in ocean caverns and warrens south of town, a maze of natural sea caves carved by the ocean under dark jagged cliffs.

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Feytower

An imposing stone keep soars over the city, its tall towers reaching for the gray sky in flagrant disregard of the ocean storms which regularly beset them. Here is where the wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks of the city congregate and work, sharing their knowledge and power in ivory halls which peer with indifference onto the slums below. Many of these magic-users live within this massive structure--a veritable city-within-a-city--though a few have not entirely forsaken their Brilight families. The Feytower is where anyone seeking magical help must go, and magical laboratory workers deep within the stone structure toil day and night in search of a cure for the mysterious plague.

Government

The government of Brilight is a thick and tangled bureaucracy created to slooooowly handle complex trade disputes between rich private parties whilst nickel-and-dime'ing (or copper-and-silvering) the participants for harbor fees while the dispute plays out in the courts. In some ways, this thick bureaucracy is a good thing; outside of total revolution, there is little likelihood of a demagogue sweeping into power and declaring a race war on, say, gnomes. In other ways, the bureaucracy is a detriment to the city; it is, for instance, very bad at responding quickly to a crisis.

Both within the government itself and outside it, corruption is rife. Bribes are normal, as are deals for power and prestige worked out "under the table" between politicians and rich merchant families. Advancement in the city is very much about who you know--and who knows you--which is one reason why surnames are such a big deal. [A longer post on surnames is here.]

It would be impossible for most citizens to understand the labyrinthine political structure of Brilight, but here are the higher positions which people do know.

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Ruler: King Eldan. The king dwells far to the north in the capital city, Jewel-Nestled-Between-Two-Mountains, colloquially known as Jewelness. A trip by land to the capital takes several weeks and is extraordinarily dangerous; a trip by sea takes almost as long and involves multiple change-overs onto progressively smaller and less comfortable boats which traverse a long river. Most inhabitants of Brilight have never seen the king and think of him as distantly as they would a minor god.

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Council: The council of elders is comprised of over 200 members who are selected by a complicated process of voting for some and appointment for others. This council is the ultimate power in the city, answering only to the king (to whom they send their reports by regular post) and to the laws which they themselves write and vote to pass.

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Commissioners: Each of the city districts has its own commissioner who is appointed to the post by the council and who is, as part of their duties as commissioner, granted a seat among the council. The commissioner is, in theory, the head of their district and the final authority regarding the governance of that district. In reality, the power of the commissioner's office varies by district.

- Feytower. The Feytower commissioner position is the strongest of the commissioner offices, in part because the magical Feytower where the wizards live and work is so crucial to the life of the city. The office is currently held by a man named Luther Rivvers, a powerful man from an old and connected family. He is the final word on what happens in the magic district, and though he is not a magic user himself even wizards fear him. His temper is legendary and his enemies tend to meet lethal accidents soon after offending him.

- Redport. The Redport commissioner position is the weakest of the commissioner offices, but the one with the most potential to accrue wealth (by skimming off the port taxes) and to dole out political favors. The post is currently unoccupied and several politicians are bucking for appointment. The deputy commissioner is in charge until a new one is chosen by the council.

- Sun District. The Sun District commissioner position is the most comfortable of the commissioner offices, and represents the will of the rich citizens living in the Sun District and the Temple workers who dwell in their district boundaries. The position is traditionally given to someone who has renounced worship of the gods, so as to not show favoritism in temple administration matters.

- Northside District. The Northside District commissioner position is one of little power and no prestige. The office holder tends to be focused on the wants of the wealthy merchants whose shops line the massive multi-street Marketplace, as well as on the needs of the less-wealthy-but-still-vital-to-the-economy farmers and ranchers outside the city walls.

- Westside District. The Westside District commissioner position has no power and no prestige. Westside being the worst of the city slums, the position used to be held by idealists trying to stamp out poverty and crime but in the past few generations has now been held by various heads of crime families fighting it out for control of the slums. The position has changed hands seventeen times in the last twenty years, usually after the previous holder died in office.

- Southside District. The Southside District commissioner position has no power or prestige on the books, but a savvy politician who is willing to deal with the denizens of Nightdock and the black market therein can make a comfortable living whilst pretending to be a lowly servant of the state. The position has been held for the last five years by a half-elf named Haseid Squalltide and he is rumored to have no interest in giving up the post.

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Other Offices: There are thousands of little political positions in Brilight, trickling down from deputy commissioner to nightwatch captain to district postmaster to animal control. For all the city's occasional lawlessness, there is a very great deal of law to work in and around and between and under, and quite a few authorities are often within reach of the average citizen. Whether those authorities will help, however, or make the situation worse is anyone's guess. Those with privilege (such as the Sun District residents) tend to assume the law will be on their side; those without privilege often know it won't be and avoid its agents accordingly.

Other Setting Details

Here are a few more "setting details" that I don't know where else to fit.

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Magic and Technology: Brilight is a sprawling medieval-esque fantasy metropolis of a highly varying technology level depending on class and wealth. The rich have marble floors and tapestries which provide a combination of decoration and heat insulation; the poor have dirt floors and thatched roofs.

If a thing can be carved from wood or stone or marble, it probably exists. If a thing can be smelted or hammered or forged, it probably exists. If it requires complex cogwork or machinery or interlocking parts... outside of a few gnome novelties, it probably doesn't exist in high supply.

Indoor plumbing exists: there are toilets with running water that washes away waste. There are spouts of clean running water which fill buckets and baths. Bath water can be heated through magic spells (get the Prestidigitation cantrip if you can, trust me) or through magical items which are easy for the rich to obtain and out-of-reach luxuries for the poor to dream about. (The poor keep clean through city baths, which are heated by city-employed mages.)

The city is boxed in on all sides with massive stone walls that tower above the nearby slums and plunge them into shade for much of the day. These miracles of engineering are defended by a standing army which is well trained and capable of fending off threats from the outside wilderness. These soldiers are also a big part of the city economy: innkeepers feed them, sex workers please them, healers do what they can with the injuries they sustain as part of their usual duties.

Magic is relatively common in the city; even if a person doesn't know magic themselves, they will have seen someone use a wand or scroll at least a few times in even the most sheltered life. People in the slums will know of at least one wizard in their extended family or friend-circle, speaking of "Martha's boy" who was so good with books he was offered a spot in the Feytower, or or "Jarek's niece" who manifested sorcery powers. Rich families will usually send one child to clerical or wizardry school as a valid "younger sibling" alternative to merchanting or politics.

Outside the city, magic is even more common and far more dangerous. There are farms slumped up against the outside walls which are safe enough to visit, but going more than a few miles out of town is a gamble where a losing roll means bandits, goblins, or worse.

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Races:
- Human (58%)
- Halfling (10%)
- Elf (6%)
- Dwarf (4%)
- Gnome (3%)
- Half Elf (9%)
- Half Orc (4.5%)
- Tiefling (3%)
- Other (1%)

Humans are a majority race in Brilight and are accordingly have social privilege, but legally-speaking they have the same rights as all other citizens. [There are probably non-citizen rights too, but until we need to deal with them because someone summoned a rare entity from the Monster Manual, I'm not going to try to tease out the differences.]

Languages are differentiated from race with the addition of either "ish" or "-lam" which roughly means "tongue" or "language" in elvish. So halflings speak halfling-lam, elves speak elvish, dwarves speak dwarvish, gnomes speak gnomish, goblins speak goblin-lam, and humans speak human-lam. Some people (mostly humans) call human-lam "common" and people know what that means in context, but a poor elf from an elvish section of the slums who has only ever spoken elvish isn't going to consider human-lam a "common" language for himself. Furthermore, while halflings are a minority race by number (10%), they represent a large number of merchants in the Marketplace, so a great deal of business is done in halfling-lam, which makes it 'common' without being "common". When in doubt, call the language what it is.

Note on "Half-" Breeds: Most of the Brilight races can breed together and mixed-race families are not uncommon or remarkable. People with, say, human+halfling heritage will usually just call themselves a tall halfling or a short human rather than call themselves "half-halfling" or "half-human". There are three notable "half" breed cases, however, where identity is more complicated.

In the case of tieflings, their appearance is based on a magical essence that courses through their bloodline. Their children come out as full tieflings, not as visually "mixed" races. For this reason and because of social stigma against their "infernal taint", they tend to marry their own or their non-tiefling mates come to live in tiefling communities with them.

[TW: Sexual Assault] In the case of elves, their "half-" status was set apart as a separate racial category long ago when the first Brilight elves settled in the city and formed an isolationist policy from the other races. During those first few centuries, half-elves tended to come from rape or poverty-driven sex work. Though the isolationist policies between elves and other races have since been abandoned and most half-elves are now products of consensual unions, their race is still counted separately on Brilight census forms.

[TW: cont.] In the case of orcs, there are very few full orcs in Brilight city. Their cultures tend to be brutish and violent, and few are even inclined to move to a city with labyrinthine laws about who you can and can't punch at the end of a long day. There is, however, a healthy half-orc community. Where do they come from? A tiny percentage of half-orcs come from sexual assault in the countryside; orc raids will occasionally leave behind a pregnant victim. However, the vast majority of half-orcs in the city are born from people who deliberately sought out orc sex workers and paid them for their services. Though orcs are rare in the city, they are stereotyped as "exotic" lovers and fetishized for their larger-than-average size, so male orcs who are amenable to the work are able to make a good living as a stud for hire.

[TW: cont.] [DM Note: So if you're playing a half-elf or a half-orc, you really really do not have to give them a rape origin story unless you want to. And if your characters meet a half-elf or a half-orc on campaign, they should not assume they have a rape origin story; most don't. Okay, that's enough "fixing canon to be less squick" for now.]

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Services: Almost anything is available to buy and trade within the markets of Brilight.

Legally, mundane and magical goods are available if you have enough coin. Sex work is legal and not systemically stigmatized; while families and cultures may have conservative views around sex and sexuality, as far as the government is concerned a sex worker has all the same rights and privileges under the law as a carpenter. (The in-universe terms are more likely to be "companion" or "courtesan" to "sex worker", however.) Alcohol and recreational drugs are technically legal, but availability varies heavily due to supply line hiccups and piracy.

Slavery is not legal, but indentured servitude exists and it is possible to buy the debt of an indentured servant from their master. Servants have roughly the same citizen rights as non-servants; they're in debt, but can't be legally abused. A master may be compelled by the government to sell their servant under certain legal circumstances. These circumstances revolve around the settling of the debt (which the master is supposed to be working towards since perpetual chattel slavery is illegal), with the prospective buyer offering higher wages for more skilled work, or offering the settlement of the debt through the forging of a new family connection such as marriage or guardianship. In these cases when a master can be compelled to sell, the servant must consent to the change in ownership.

[Note: So in other words, if Jassan offers to buy Kyleth's debt from her master because he wants to either marry her, adopt her, or offer her better paying work so that her debt will burn down faster, and if Kyleth agrees to this offer, then her master can be forced to sell to Jassan since it's what Kyleth wants and what the master should want. His priority, as master, should be to have the debt settled as quickly as possible.]

Illegally, the black market provides access to stolen goods (magical, mundane, and consumable) and to services which are not legally allowed, such as thievery (for when your neighbor has something you covet), assassinations (for when you're tired of being stolen from by your neighbor), and weapons which a citizen might want to purchase with discretion rather than leaving behind a paper-trail.

Your average thief or pirate, however, is more free-spirited entrepreneur than hardened assassin; a good many pirates joined their crews for a higher cut of profit than is given on government and merchant vessels, or because they were blacklisted from reputable vessels for reasons which they will insist were unfair or politically motivated. Youngsters from the slums romanticize pirates, and a few famous ones are known and beloved by name, such as Thea Starguide a human woman of middle class birth who worked her way up the merchant navy as a navigator, was awarded her own commission, and then left to turn pirate for reasons unknown. She's popularly valorized in the slums as fiercely beautiful, and half the young women in the city claim to be in love with her. Her most noteworthy feature is a chipped tooth which is always included on her wanted posters.

[TW: Sexual Assault, Drug Use] Having said that, the black market at the Nightdocks isn't all free will and clean chaotic fun. Rumors fly of drug dens where addicted users waste away and callous dealers continue to supply them past the point of safety, rather than take them to a cleric for help. Those with degenerate tastes can find "courtesans" who are imprisoned against their will, slaves in all but name and invisible to the legal system. Spell components of the sort which cannot be acquired legally--body parts, for example--are available for unscrupulous wizards to purchase.

In short: much of what the black market has for sale is good and tame, but much is not. Venture into the Nightdocks with care, lest you become tomorrow's goods for sale.

Calendar

Brilight uses the calendar of Harptos [page 33 in the DMG]. The months are listed below, or can be viewed on this pretty wheel-of-the-year image here.