Welcome to Port Rediscovery
Somewhere to the northwest of Under-sea, perched precariously on a jutting piece of land that stretches out into the water like a rotting hand, is a ramshackle little town called Port Rediscovery. You probably haven’t heard about it – almost nobody has, because the miscreants and ne’er do wells that call Port Rediscovery their home don’t exactly advertise it as a vacation destination.
Living in a necropolis is a struggle at the best of times, but on top of that, Port Rediscovery is a waystation for smugglers, thieves, sellers of the worst sort of contraband, and necrologists working at odds with any sort of commonly-accepted ethical codes. In other words, Port Rediscovery is a haven for Black Marketeers of every stripe.
Despite the conflicting allegiances and general lack of any moral or ethical compass amongst the shady residents of Port Rediscovery, there is a sort of order here. The word of the Mayor, Chaz, is law – and it’s the only law that’s respected here. It’s widely believed amongst those who call the Port home that one or more (perhaps a council?) of the Black Market organizations are backing the Mayor, since breachers of those proclamations tend to end up suffering the sort of fates only spoken of in quiet murmurs in the back of a tavern.
Because, of course, there’s a tavern. The latest proclamations of the Mayor are kept recorded on a chalkboard in the port’s main drinking house, the Fishbones, where the bartender called Swordfish does their level best to keep control over a building full of oft-drunken criminals. While Swordfish keeps order inside, any too-public disturbances are usually handled by the closest thing the town has to law enforcement or a militia – an apparently self-appointed enforcer that just goes by ‘Jack’ and their gang of thugs, goons, and bullies that keep things from reaching open warfare in the streets and deal with any roaming zombies that stumble through the town’s affairs. And if people get too beat up, well, maybe their friends will drag them over to the town’s barber, Incisor Johnson.
The arrival of the Arbiters of the Bond has forced the locals to keep their activities more under the table than usual – the Arbiters are after a bigger fish than most of them, and don’t have time to sort through the chaff of common criminals. Strangely, nobody in town seems to know who ‘Doctor Barrows’ is, or what the giant hole dug down into the Mortis that has the Ossuary Society so agitated is for – the same sort of amnesia that often comes over shady sorts asked about criminal activities.
There’s a lot of hay to sort through for needles. And that’s where YOU, the PLAYERS, come in…
Next: What are… the MORTIS MINES?