Dapplegate (Large Town)

Population 5,231; Dominant Alignment: LN

This independent, large town stands on the northern border of Bedorn, and it is slowly falling under the influence of that peace-loving realm. Borderers know Dapplegate as a pleasant place of cobbled streets and solid, three-story stone buildings where merchants rule (in a council of forty that can never agree on much of anything) and fill the town with cheerful bustle at all hours.

Native Dapplans can sleep through anything thanks to crafters hammering through the night and the din of wagons and pull-carts groaning and rumbling endlessly through the streets -- this town never sleeps. Dapplegate's resident craftfolk make superb stormlanterns (of wrought iron or brass with glass panes and hanging chains), adequate chain, and rough but sturdy crates and chests for the transport of bulk goods. Most businesses are open night and day, staffed in three shifts, busily selling Borderers all that Calimshan and more distant lands have to offer and buying Border goods for export. Goods are hauled north to wharves along the left bank of the River Scelptar for shipment via barges. The riverbanks in that area are so marshy and insect-infested that there are no other Borderer settlements there. Lizard folk and mudmaws battle for supremacy, and no less than six mercenary companies based in Dapplegate are kept busy providing protective escort duty for bargebound shipments. All of this makes Dapplegate a worthwhile stop for shoppers seeking variety of wares (often an elusive quality in the Border Kingdoms), but hardly an exciting place for the romantic or adventurous.

Visitors to Dapplegate are directed to the Place of Arrows (the central marketplace and the site of a long-ago battle between rival companies of archers). There, stalls of traveling merchants crowd together inside a ring of eight circular, waist-high, walled ponds (for watering draft animals). Overlooking the Place of Arrows is Danchilaer's Tower, standing immediately northwest of the market in its own walled garden (which it shares with ancient, massive, stunted oaks, a cairn commemorating the Valiant Fallen of Dapplegate in the many wars that have raged across the region, and -- at most times -- many children of the town at play).

Beside the Tower is the round, turreted Council Hall, an ungainly pile of a building that has flung out wings in all directions over the years as kitchens, meeting-rooms, and rental storage lockchambers for visitors have been added haphazardly. Facing the Hall across Lockwyvern Street is The Chased Unicorn (not, as some travelers think, The Chaste Unicorn), an inn (Excellent/Expensive) offering superior dining and fairly luxurious appointments, including gaming rooms, private baths, and chamber service. Such accommodations are rare in the Border Kingdoms -- and priced accordingly.

Most visitors stay at one of the three less expensive (and more spartan) inns just inside the town gates. Hard by Bedorn Gate is The Old Tin Tankard (not, despite its name, a tavern; Good/Moderate). Just inside Easting Gate is The Watchful Warrior (large, new, noisy, and bright; Fair/Moderate), and beside the River Gate is Mistfall House (which many folk in town suspect has something to do with the Harpers; known Harpers stay there when in town; Excellent/Moderate). The best tavern in town is Black Blasko's on Sharaghil Street (Good/Moderate). The most raucous and shady is Tarnalar's Tipple on Bloodserpent Lane (Poor/Moderate).