Baile Copair (Copper Town)
Copper Town is an old hill fort on the banks of the Abhainn Quintus (Quintus River) which in turn flows down from the Beanntan Iydra (Hydra Mountains). The town is on top of a steep sided hill surrounded by a stout wall of wood and stone. On the palisade are half a dozen stone built towers and entrance to the town is via a solid cobbled ramp that leads up to the town gates. These ornate gates are made of copper sheeting on solid oak and are both practical and impressive.
The old stones houses of the town make an intricate network of twisting and turning alleys as they flow down to the Market of the Smiths. In and around this cobbled square are forges, shrines and a wide range of general traders keen to sell their wares in exchange for the copper, silver and turquoise of the town. The square is home to the workshops of the many redsmiths and to the numerous merchants of the town and resonates with the sounds of the hammering of the smiths and the bellowing of hawkers. It also bustles with slaves loading and unloading food and metals under the watchful eyes of their masters and overseers. There are scribes and bookkeepers offering their service along with a wide range of charlatans offering maps to mines of unfathomable wealth for a small reasonable fee.
The Barastaros Hall is a substantial but sombre looking building that was here before the copper rush made the settlement in to a boom town. It is home to the Barastaros tribal ruler , Avric the Halt, and the king’s representative, Korevades the Tonsrieve (pictured right). There are also several impressive modern villas in the town belonging to wealthy merchants and mine owners. There are a hundred of the King’s guards based in the town to protect his interest as part of the half century protection agreement with the Barastaros. They are based in the Royal Hall of Law, Tribute and Protection which is a building of traditional design that has become heavily influenced in fixtures and fittings by the Lunar style, that is most common in Kingdom’s capital. The king’s tax accountant creatively serves the royal treasury from the hall and is in turn well-guarded from the vengeful locals. Lastly the Ordo Explorator, the Lunar office of explorers and cartographers, is based here and offer generous pay for local guides who can help them map the Hydra Hills.
There are three temples in the town. The Temple of Gustbran, the smith god, is a squat mountain of stone and metal with steep sides decorated in ornate copper. A copper statue of the god straddles the temple entrance within which the smith-priestess constantly work away at the anvil, fire and bellows. They are skilled in copper, silver and even iron. The Temple of Asrelia is a simple brown stone cube shaped building with no decoration. Within the re-enforced copper doors the surrounding are one of total opulence as the treasures of the earth are laid out to see. These treasurers are really seen save on Asrelia’s holy days when they are paraded around the town as part of the festivities. Also within the Temple is a shrine to Ernalda All Mother, the greater earth goddess. The Temple of Aselia and Torkal is a square building within open sides held up by rudely cut columns. The roof is made by a pair of green copper domes and under that are statues to Aselia Protectress of Miners and her son, Torkal the miner. From an impressive lacquered beam network the Nine Bells of the Copper Herd hang which are played every evening to mark the end of the working day.
The Eastern Alehouse was once a chieftain’s longhouse and still has a fierce savage character about it compared to many of the newer Imperial style villas of the town. It serves good strong ales, poor food and offers even poorer rooms that leave no guest unbitten by fleas. The clientele are surly smiths, miners, labourers and warriors with a good mix of seedy blackguards looking for a free drink. Following complaints from traders and merchants the Western Alehouse was built as a step up from its eastern rival. It offers clean rooms, decent food and a range of imported wines and spirits. The patrons are of a better sort and a hearty welcome and civilised conversation can be had at a hearty price. The friendly innkeeper is even a merchant of Etyries, the Lunar deity of Trade and Communication, with a tasty range of cooked meats and rare delicacies as his claim to fame.
The Copper Bottom is an inexpensive brothel established to serve the large numbers of men working in and around the town. It is run by Mistress Baimeishen, a woman from the land of Dorastor over the mountains to the west. She purchases comely young women from the slave pens to work as prostitutes or directly from desperate families to be part of her ‘extended family’; either way the young women work long hours with any and all paying clients. The Copper Bottom is purely a business and Uleria, the love goddess, is not worshipped there. It is not the only source of carnal pleasure as given the great disparity in wealth in the town it is not surprising that the ‘oldest profession’ is thriving. Many a vice may be satisfied for a price.
The impoverished and needy are cared for, to a degree, at the Teelo Norri (the Lunar goddess of orphans and charity) Poor House. This well-built building was once well funded but now relies on the generosity of the better off residents of the town and as such is totally underfunded and now looks very tired and dilapidated. The orphans of dead miners and labourers end up here after their parents have perished in the mines. Their daily bowl of soup and piece of bread barely enough to sustain them leading to many to turn to petty theft and other unsavoury practices.