Dragon Warriors

Freemarket

The areas across the bridge west of the city are not considered part of Ongus but their proximity means they have some impact on the life of the city. Until recently the area now called Freemarket was simply land held by the Order of Hadar - a group of men and woman who are convinced that a noble of that name who spent most of his fortune tending the sick and indigent in the areas across Albion for over thirty years until his death ten years ago will eventually be canonised. He had established a plague and leper hospital here and left what little remained of his money to his followers who have built a hostel which serves as a base for their work. They wear robes of simple wool and number both men and women among their numbers. They rarely enter the city except to travel through it, focusing their work on the poor and ill who lives in smaller communities They have recently allowed the setting up of market stalls on their land without charging any fees so that poorer people from nearby rural communities may have some place they can sell their wares to the people of the city. The City Council tolerates this but is not entirely happy about it.

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Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide

The Manor of Saint Jera's

The Manor of Saint Jera is a village held by a middle-aged Knight named Sir Colum Marshwood, as vassal to Lenas, Baron of Haxton, whose main demesne is in central Albion. There are many of these villages within twenty miles of Ongus, each owned by an absent lord, and held by a Knight on his behalf as Lord of the Manor, or in the control of a steward of some description - most of the powerful nobles have such a holding near the capital. Land not held in this way is generally either owned by the city of Ongus itself or remains crown land under the direct control of the King (although, again, he will have appointed a Lord of the Manor, or a Steward of some description). Smaller parcels are held by the Church, or by individual religious orders, and some land is even in truly private hands owned by a legal deed, purchased from its former feudal owners.

Saint Jera's, named for its church is simply the closest such manor to the city. It has a fortified manor house, an inn - The Old Regret and a recent addition, a theatre, The Bear Pit which shows entertainments - plays. Until recently most dramatic performances seen in Albion have been based on religious texts, or very occasionally Ancient Emphidian plays, but in recent years, new plays have started to be written and performed in open spaces or rooms hired in inns. Though relatively small, The Bear Pit is a purpose designed theatre - Sir Colum and his wife enjoy such entertainments, but the city authorities are not sure they want such establishments within the walls. Sir Colum sees a business opportunity here to rent his theatre to travelling players.

A few other businesses exist in the village, but the majority of residents are serfs who farm the nearby fields or fish the river, or trap in the forests to the west. They live in relatively comfortable conditions - any serf who flees to the city and lives within its walls for a year and day becomes free, and with the city in such close proximity, people really do need an incentive to stay. The typical villager here lives a better life than the working poor of the city.

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Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide

Holders Creek

Holders Creek is both the name of a stream running into the river, and the name of an area immediately north of the city of Ongus, through its northern gate. It serves as the execution ground for the city. Almost every Boldursdae morning, felons are brought here from Oldfort in the city to be publicly hanged on the gallows that sit by the side of the road. Hundreds of people typically attend to watch the executions - sometimes thousands in the cases of somebody of serious notoriety. It is treated by many as a form of morbid entertainment but it is also considered to be a salutory lesson for the populace - including children - to see what happens to those who seriously violate the law. Rows of elevated benches are available for use by nobles in attendance, but the populace in general have to stand.

Felons of noble birth are generally beheaded here instead, and very occasionally an execution by hanging, drawing, and quartering on burning at the stake may be carried out here as well.

Bodies are typically left hanging until Tyrsdae at which point they may be claimed for burial by family members or friends in most cases - occasionally gibbeting at the gibbet outside the eastern or southern gates of the city is imposed as a specific part of a sentence. If not claimed by Torsdae the bodies are cut down and thrown into a common grave on the western side of the road here. When a grave is filled a new one is dug.

An inn, The Overlook is the only other structure in Holders Creek besides the bridge that crosses the creek here.

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Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide

Monk's Reach

Across Albion, a considerable amount of land is held by the Church - either by the Church in general terms, or by individual Monasteries and Abbeys. Monk's Reach is simply the closest such area to the city of Ongus. The holding is small, surrounding the Monastery of Saint Jaden. Some orders of monks are primarily contemplative, but the Monks of Saint Jaden take their secular tasks almost as seriously as their religious requirements. The Monastery itself is covered in creeping, flowering vines, with beds of flowers planted around the land as well. Behind the Monastery is a grove of fruit trees. But all this is ancillary to the monk's true calling - the grove of trees is full of beehives and the main vocation of the monks is the collection of honey and the production of some of the best mead in all of Albion - which they market under the name of "Bee's Best."

The bees have a reputation for being unusually aggressive which is the main thing that keeps many of the children of Ongus from stealing fruit from these groves. The monks also make fruit preserves, and are known to have a good knowledge of the uses of many herbs, but this is all secondary to the making of mead.

A gibbet is located near the Monastery as a deterrent for those travelling towards the city from the south who might be tempted towards a criminal life in Ongus.

_________________
Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide

Ongar-on-High

Ongar-on-High occupies higher ground about half a mile north on the city of Ongus. It is not part of the city (at least as far as locals are concerned - to those further afield, the city and all the areas around it are really seen as one), but as is it the centre of the King of Albion's Court, it exerts a considerable influence of the largest city in his Kingdom - and vice versa. The King generally only spends the winter months in Ongar-on-High, the rest of the year is spent travelling with a large entourage around southern Albion, but Ongar-On-High remains quite busy and crowded even when the King is absent - much of the administration of the Kingdom cannot readily be moved even if the King travels.

The centre and largest building in Ongar-On-High is The Tower - a mighty keep that dwarfs even the largest buildings within the city walls. It stands four floors tall and is an eminently defensible structure. It has never fallen and is regarded as one of the greatest fortresses in the modern world. It is the residence of the King and the Royal Family and also houses offices and apartments for many high officials of the court. Beside the Tower, there are many other large buildings - Thuland Hall is a smaller castle that is occupied on occasions when the King of Thuland visits Albion - a rare event today, but in centuries past, the two Kingdoms had relationships that required considerable personal diplomacy in order to avoid war. The is also a Guest House that can be used to house senior representatives of other foreign nations at times. The Kings School is a school, established by the crown for the education of the sons of nobles and the gentry who seek it out - only a small number of students from Ongus are permitted to attend it. A Royal Prison exists to hold prisoners of noble birth, or of personal interest to the crown. A boathouse by the river houses the Royal Barges which the King can use to travel the river past the city - the King requires the formal permission of the Lord Mayor to enter Ongus by any of the gates, but does not technically require permission to enter via the river.

The Royal Crypt houses the remains of deceased members of the Royal Family, although Kings themselves are generally buried in the crypts underneath the Cathedral.

_________________
Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide

This ends my geographical description of the city of Ongus and its nearest environs. Comments and criticism still appreciated. I will probably post some more material about the city as well, but the maps are now dealt with.

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Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide

Awesome stuff! Well done!

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co-author Fury of the Deep
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide
co-author Cold Fury
co-author Cadaver Draconis
co-author Ordo Draconis 1 and 2.

I'm very impressed - I don't think there'll be anyone that wouldn't consider you the authority on Ongus after this! Maybe there'll even be a sourcebook with your name on it in due course .

My only challenge would be to make this a distinctly Dragon Warriors city, as opposed to just a medieval fantasy city. For example if you changed the place names, could you just put this city in any other low-fantasy RPG? It might be an unfair question, because that intangible DW feel is difficult to instill, but usually comes with a twist of melancholy, a shade of horror, and a frisson of unknowable influences and political manoeuvring .

But don't take that in any way as a criticism of what you have produced, which stands out as a magnificent addition to DW lore.

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Cobwebbed Dragon (Lee)

https://www.cobwebbedforest.co.uk/
https://www.dragonwarriors.uk/
https://twitter.com/CobwebbedDragon
Now on YouTube!

I agree - and that is there in the city and may come out in some later postings. To some extent, I need to keep a handle on that at the moment, because I'm running a campaign set in Ongus right now and some of my players are on this group - but in the course of that campaign, we've already had a series of gruesome murders (one person being divested of certain internal organs every night and dropped in a different churchyard around the city - the characters eventually tracked it down to an incursion by a small group of Volucreth who had trailed ships from Mungoda and were astonished to discover humans on this continent were more than just slaves, and had no idea how to get back home and so were engaging in prayers to their foul blood gods for power and guidance involving human sacrifice), a wizard who was either a Necromancer or Demonologist (at least the characters think so - he may well have been something entirely different) using innocent (relatively speaking) street urchins to carry out crimes, a missing girl who was apparently being held hostage by the Bishop of Ongus, possibly on the instructions of the Royal Family, slavers, a strange priest from Algandy who tried to launch an inquisition in the city, and who was persuaded to leave only by being given a really, really powerful (and horribly nasty!) holy relic (which he's going to be very annoyed with when he gets home and realises it's now what it seems), attempts to disrupt much of the high level commerce of northern Coradia that may actually, possibly, just somehow involves elves or other faerie... oh - and Chaubrettan spies on top of all this...

There's also somethings that I may elaborate on when the Players Guide appears, but I don't want to write more about until it does!

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Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide

Hail and well met.

I am sure you have been asked a thousand times previously but I dare to ask again. How are you producing those maps? What arcane magister did you lock up in a tower somewhere and induce to compile said maps?

I would love to know how to do such feats if one was willing to share such forbidden knowledge!

Kindest regards

Marn