The road begins to descend from the Plains of Dalmora to the Dalmoran Low Country. As you top a small ridge, you can see far out into the west.
The Tomoe Highlands are now fully visible in the distance, splotched with gray rock and verdant grass. They tower over the wooded Low Country, which is dominated by a vast expanse of shining blue, Lake Labhrann (La-bhrann).
The lake is a wide crescent that surrounds the town of Waterford on three sides--west and south towards the highlands, and east toward your vantage point. Large rivers snake out north east and south east into the countryside, carrying barges hither and yon.
Waterford itself sits on a rise. The road before you meets a couple of other roads along the way, leading to a long white stone bridge that spans part of the crescent lake. You see a steady stream of travelers and carts making their way across.
An hour or so later, you’re up on the bridge, and it is truly breathtaking. It’s just wide enough to accommodate three carts, but it goes on for what must be half a mile, and feels like it is just as far down to the water below.
An inn and tavern in lowtown. The party discovered a secret backroom where the Corsairs, a group of merchants and dockworkers trying to work around the Kjellbergs' blockading.
Tucked away in the corner of lowtown's main squares is The Heady Pint, a little hole in the wall with a shingle depicting a stylized version of a foamy beer in a squat stemmed glass. It's a fairly large building and shares an alleyway with the general store, but it's got a tiny little door, inlaid with stained glass, and an equally tiny set of stone stairs leading up to it.
Inside is a different story. The ceilings are low with exposed rafters, but the open common room sprawls out for a ways. It's hard to tell just how big the room is, as so much of it is tucked behind the wooden columns supporting the ceiling.
What you can see is several large tables where sailors, dockworkers, and poorer merchants and traders mingle loudly. A bald, squat man stands behind the bar washing a glass.
An inn and tavern in hightown.
You wouldn't exactly call it fancy, but Thorfinn's leans hard into the popular aesthetic in Waterford these days. Drinking horns, intricately decorated steins, and metal mugs are everywhere. The menu is tilted heavily towards meads and farmhouse ales--sort of like Seyben's local fare, but with more complicated descriptions and prices to match. On the more exotic end there are things like akvavits--golden-hued spirits with heavy botanical flavor--and glogg--a spiced, mulled wine.
It all feels a bit put on, frankly. While The Haile's tavern strove to turn limited imports into elevated fare, Thorfinn's seems to be leaning heavily on Waterford's harbor to bring drinks that couldn't possibly have been made around here.
Waterford's two-story town hall isn't much taller than the other shops in hightown--the area at the top of the cliffs overlooking Lake Labhrann--but it's very distinctive. It takes up about half a block, and its beige walls are accented by dark oak beams and a flagstone foundation. A high pitched eave in the middle of its roof holds a large clock face, so that everyone in hightown knows the time.
You push open its wooden double-doors to reveal a bustling lobby painted in a washed-out cerulean hue. The room isn't quite filled to capacity, but the three representatives working at desks upfront are rushing to keep everyone's wait times down to a reasonable ten or fifteen minutes.
There's a ghost ship appearing on the lake, supposedly conducting piracy against Kjellberg ships.
The Kjellbergs are hyping up the accusations of questionable shipping activities and piracy to put the squeeze on smaller merchants.
Some carts and packs in impound have reporting some of their wares going missing when they are returned.