BardsHeart

BardsHeart
Located up the Ferth River, inside the nation of Garmond, is the lively river port town of BardsHeart. From the Great Basin Lake, the town is roughly 200 miles inland up the river. It is a bussling, industrous port town, and is the largest trading port in all of Garmond as well as the surrounding Central Mainlund areas. The town is highly comsopolitan, especially compared to Garmond as a whole, with sailers, merchants, mercenaries, and various other adventurous or entreprenurial type folks making up its population.

The region of Garmond around the Ferth river is known for its excellent agricultural production, and much of those surplus crops end up passing through this port town to be sold to Partha, the Footlands, and other such destinations. Excellent timber can be cut from the thick, old growth forests of Central Garmond, and horses and sheep are raised and sold from here as well.

The Civic Library of BardsHeart
In addition to its merchantile nature, BardsHeart boasts some of the best libraries in the region as well, including something akin to a modern public library, where local citizens of proven reliability can inspect books and scrolls under proper supervision, for free. The Civic Library of BardsHeart, as it is called, is currently overseen by Maulla Braagkhal, an esteemed and accomplished half-orc adventurer, who retired from her adventuring career to work as a mercenary, tracking down overdue books from their untrustworthy holders, often admonishing the folks so severly that they felt the need to pay their past due fines, plus extra donations to reassure the library of their good faith. The library is famous for its tomes on the history of the central and eastern Mainlund, including many centuries of records related to the various invasions from the Fae East. The affairs of the Fae in general are well documented in this library, with many scrolls and books describing the Parthian and Garmonder's contact with fae-touched wild elves of the deep forests, as well as theories and records related to the Faewild as a whole.

Other notable libraries in the town affiliated with the Civic Library include Lord Chastain's Private Collection, a privately held collection of tomes mostly related to Parthian policy, engineering, and history, and The House of Klazar, a sort of library/museum/theater owned and operated by the retired sage, Klazarbajiripsik, which holds a high number of tomes dedicated to arcane and clerical research.

Secret Portal to the Shadowfell
"The Deadman's Shitter" was the name of a famous old bar in BardsHeart that used to be an infirmary back in olden times. A plague of sickness which killed the victims via unstoppable diarrhea swept through the lands and the infirmary was famous for being coated completely with bloody feces during this era. After the plague was over, a thrift dwarf bought the building for a steal and set up a bar, playing up on the old reputation instead of trying to hide it. The bar was famously known as being one of the toughest in the town, as well as rumored to be haunted, although most felt that it was the dwarf proprietor who was playing up the haunting rumors. At any rate, he disappeared mysteriously many years ago, and the building has fallen into disrepair. Located on the docks, the old building is still a bar, serving the poorest sailors and residents of the town. Down in the basement, which floods apparently with chest deep water when the river rises, there is an old cistern. Its made of mortar and apparently used to be connected to the river itself, and all manner of filth and body parts and whatnot were dumped into the cistern to be flushed out of the building. It is within this cistern that scolars found notes and evidence indicating that a crossing to the ShawdowFell exists. Despite most of the rumors of hauntings being propaganda from the owner, a few legitimate reports of zombies crawling out of the cistern are in the records. Furhtermore, there's a tale of a thief running from the constables, diving into the cistern in desperation, disappearing, then re-appearing several years later, with no one having seen them in between, and stark raving mad, claiming to have been locked up "on the other side" for the crime of picking the pocket of a zombie, who supposedly pressed formal charges. Everyone naturally thought the thief was mad, although his absence was hard to explain. Nonetheless, diving into the cistern and holding yourself under the undoubtedly putrid water should trigger an opening to the ShadowFell, which you can cross by swimming down further.

The bar is now called "The Belvedier" and is ran by a surly hobgoblin named Jack, who does not allow anyone down in the basement, although he can be bribed, intimidated, etc. Sitting at the bar are 5 hobgoblin sailors whom will back up any attack on Jack."Listen, you health department CUNTS aren't foolin' me. I told ya, I stopped serving me mum's pickled eggs here after that last lad died and that wasn't my fault! The jar had a clear warning label and its his own fuckin' fault if he can't handle spicy hobgoblin brine. So you lot can FUCK OFF."