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--- korth [2020/04/21 13:01] – external edit 127.0.0.1
+++ korth [2025/12/11 15:20] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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+====== Korth ======
+<WRAP box bgblue fgblack 300px left :en><panel type="default" no-body="true">
+{{korth_map.png}}
+^ Nom        | Korth
+^ Pays       | [[Karrnath]]
+^ Gouverneur | [[Kaius III]]
+^ Industrie  |
+^ Population | 85,500
+| races      =  | [[Humain]]|42|[[Gnomes]]|16|[[Demi-Elfes]]|14|[[Changelins]]|12|[[Nains]]|5|[[Elfes]]|4|[[Hobbits]]|4|other|3|}}
+^ Maison     |
+^ Religions  | [[Légion Souveraine]], [[Le Sang Divin]]
+</panel></WRAP>
+//The weight of age is apparent even as you pass under the gates and enter//
+//**Korth**. Many of the stone buildings here appear thousands of years old,//
+//their crumbling edifices displaying the decorative arts of a bygone age.//
+//And the buildings are as massive as they are old. Many take up entire//
+//city blocks and stretch to fill the sky.//
+Karrnath has a number of large cities, but only one true metropolis: **Korth**, the capital city and heart of
+the nation.
+Korth suffered sieges from both Aundair (939– 940) and Cyre (936 and 971–973), but it never fell to the invaders—a fact that fills Korth residents with pride. But siege weapons damaged large swaths of the city, and Kaius used the rebuilding opportunity to unsnarl many of the tangled streets and add a semblance
+of order to one of Khorvaire’s oldest cities.
+Now Korth has five main wards: Highcourt, Temple, Commerce, Community, and the Low District. The riverside bluffs on which Korth was built provide natural borders between one district and the next.
+**Leadership**: Fundamentally, Roi Kaius III runs Korth just as he runs Karrnath. He leaves the day-to-day functioning of the city to his Civic Minister, Hyran ir’Tennet. The Civic Minister’s authority doesn’t extend to the La Sureté; the city’s garrison, known as the Lions Blancs of Korth, is under the command of General Thauram
+======Notable Features======
+Each of Korth’s five wards has features of interest to adventurers, whether they seek an audience with the king or black-market identity papers.
+**The Gates**: The PCs’ first contact with the Lions Blancs and their first glimpse inside Korth’s walls takes place at one of four places: Westgate (the terminus of the road from Rekkenmark), Northgate (the terminus of the Train Fulgurant), Eastgate (the terminus of the road from Karrlakton), and Rivergate (a customs house on the dock, rather than a gate per se). Each gate has scores of Lions Blancs soldiers on duty at all times, a not so subtle reminder for travelers of Karrnath’s umbrella of martial law. But it takes only minutes to pass a cursory check of travel papers, and even merchants bearing taxable goods can usually get beyond the gate in less than an hour.
+From the docks near Rivergate, sailing ships leaving every 2-24 hours for the following destinations:
+Rekkenmark (7 days, 10.5 gp), Karrlakton (13 days, 19 gp), Thaliost (14 days, 20 gp), Fort-de-la-Flamme (8 days, 12 gp). Maison Lyrandar galleons leave every 1d3 days for Port Royal (25 days, 1,800 gp), and Le Refuge (7 days, 500 gp). Ships bound for other destinations leave less frequently, and chartered ships are also available.
+Train Fulgurants depart Northgate every 1-12 hours for Rekkenmark (128 miles, 4.25 hours, 64 gp) and every 1d6 hours for Atur (274 miles, 9.25 hours, 137 gp), Vedykar (522 miles, 17.5 hours, 261 gp), and Fort Zombie (778 miles, 1.1 days, 389 gp).
+Two other gates, Southgate and Holygate, exist, but they aren’t ordinarily open. Southgate, near the king’s palace at Maison de la Couronne, is opened only for ceremonial parades. Clerics of the Légion Souveraine magically fused shut Holygate in the northeast during the 973 AR siege, and it hasn’t reopened yet.
+**Maison de la Couronne**: On King’s Hill in the Highcourt Ward is the fortress-palace of Maison de la Couronne where Kaius rules. Built like a massive wall between two towering rock spires, Maison de la Couronne is as much military base as it is residence or seat of government. More than a thousand soldiers are garrisoned here, including elements of the Lions Blancs city guard and the Conquérant’s Host, the king’s royal guard. The towers and roofs bristle with magical siege engines capable of reaching a full mile from the city walls.
+Kaius’s audience Chambre is rather austere, but it’s designed to put visitors off their guard. Elite guards escort visitors through a Labyrinthe of twisting corridors. When they climb a final set of stairs into the throne room, they find they’ve emerged from underneath Kaius’s iron throne (a gift from the Nains des Bastions) and now stand with him above and behind them. Maps of Khorvaire cover every wall, and a board for the chesslike game of Conquérant sits at Kaius’s right hand. The throne room is strictly for official audiences; Kaius takes no entertainment there, and his ceremonial duties are few. The queen rarely uses this Chambre; she has a pleasant, tapestry-filled audience Chambre of her own.
+The east wing of Maison de la Couronne is the residence for the royal family, and it’s also where Kaius keeps the harem of young Karrns he feeds from. A sect within the Le Sang Divin supplies cultists for the harem, cultists who follow Kaius instead of Vol. The Guerrier de Fer Beauty (LN female personality Guerrier de Fer fighter 7) guards the harem and serves Kaius faithfully.
+As part of the exchange of relatives with the other Cinq Nations, Kaius has sent his younger brother and sister, Gaius and Haydith, to the courts of his neighbors. In truth, he has done this as much to promote diplomacy as to get the younger siblings (who are really his greatgrandchildren) out of the way so they can’t stumble unto the truth of the situation—that this Kaius isn’t really their brother, but their great-grandfather. Gaius is in Thrane, studying with the Gardien de la Flamme, while Haydith has found a place within Breland’s royal household.
+[[Tower of Les Douzes|**Tower of Les Douzes**]]: Floating above the center of the lightly wooded Wollvern Park is the Tower of Les Douzes, a magicians’ college where the Maisons Marquées Du Dragon send their best and brightest. This thirteenfloor tower (with one empty floor to memorialize the Perdu Marque de la Mort) is full of classrooms, libraries, and laboratories devoted to arcane research. The Tower of Les Douzes is the primary rival to the Congrès Ésotérique, but only those affiliated with a Maison Marquée du Dragon can enter and study within.
+**Cathedral to the Légion Souveraine**: After the Treaty of Fort-du-trône, Prelate Roerith (described below) led the reconstruction of Korth’s Cathedral to the Légion Souveraine, a massive house of worship at the heart of the Temple Ward. Travelers come from miles around to worship there and see the Dome of Les Douzes Lunes, the inside of which has a magically animated starscape said to predict the future.
+**Lair of the Midwife**: In Korth’s Low District is an unassuming curio shop in a ramshackle building. Underneath a trapdoor within that shop is a fortified sequence of rooms. And those underground Chambres are home to a criminal gang led by the master forger known as the Midwife.
+The Midwife’s gang numbers less than two dozen, so she relies on an extensive network of traps to protect hersElfee. Pits, poison darts, magic glyphs and symbols, and a host of other traps guard every door and every 10- foot section of hallway within the Mid wife’s Lair.
+**Caves of the Skeletal Hand**: Within the bluffs that mark the eastern edge of the Community Ward are a series of muddy caves, each marked with a Huge skeletal hand that emerges from the earthen bluff. The caves were used to store food and water during La Dernière Guerre, but the Lions Blancs emptied them out when the war ended. Last year, a tribe of Gobelins affiliated with the Dhakaan moved in, claiming the caves as their historic home from when the Empire Dhakaani was extant, more than six thousand years ago.
+The Gobelins negotiated an agreement with Civic Minister Hyran and have further excavated and remodeled the caves. But bands of Gobelins have been harassing citizens of Korth at night, and nearby residents and shopkeepers worry that the Gobelins are trying to establish a claim to more of the ward. Everyone suspects that the Gobelins are behind a series of kidnappings and disappearances. If adventurers were to drive off the Gobelins, they’d receive a sizable reward from grateful merchants and residents in the area.
+======Notable NPCs======
+Korth is home to Karrns of every race and class. Among those the PCs will interact with are the following NPCs.
+**Prelate Roerith**: NG female Humain cleric 10. The most powerful cleric in Korth is Prelate Alinda Roerith, unless a high priest of the Le Sang Divin is in the city on some secret errand. Roerith remained in Korth throughout the Cyran siege in the early 970s AR, heedless of her own safety as she healed fallen defenders atop the walls. Accordingly, she’s one of the city’s greatest heroes.
+Roerith urges Légion Souveraine followers to oppose the Le Sang Divin whenever possible. She sees the cult as a rival faith capable of stealing followers of the Légion Souveraine, but she has no idea of its true nature. Like most in Karrnath, she sees the Le Sang Divin as a nothing more than an ancient cult devoted to bloodline, heritage, and the mysteries of death.
+Prelate Roerith sponsors missions that oppose the Le Sang Divin in some way, but she has to be circumspect because Vol worship is still popular in parts of Karrnath. If she learns the truth about the Le Sang Divin, she’ll become much more militant in her opposition—which is why the Le Sang Divin has infiltrated her priesthood and is poised to assassinate her at a moment’s notice.
+**The Midwife**: N female hobbit rogue 1/wizard 9. Her clients call her the Midwife not because she assists in births, but because she gives birth to new identities as Khorvaire’s preeminent forger. The Midwife can flawlessly create realistic travel or identity papers. She’s also the inventor of the parchment of the cursory glance, a set of identity papers that seem to always show what the reader expects to see. The Midwife cares only about her continued safety and her vast fortune; she’ll sell forged papers to anyone and asks no unnecessary questions, as long as she can avoid trouble with the La Sureté.
+**General Thauram**: LE male Demi-Elfe fighter 8. Yorin Thauram has been a loyal Karrn for all of his 130 years, and he’s fought in every major campaign in La Dernière Guerre. Now he oversees the city’s defenses as the commander of the Lions Blancs brigade, keeping the Code of Kaius and imposing military law.
+General Thauram is a hands-on commander and is almost always inspecting one unit or another. He’s alert to any disturbances within the city and often oversees arrests personally. Thauram also interrogates noteworthy prisoners before turning them over to the Justice Ministry for punishment. He’s been known to offer amnesty for criminals who agree to join the Lions Blancs or perform some service for the city.
+As a young Demi-Elfe, Thauram was one of Kaius I’s royal bodyguards. He fi nds the current king’s resemblance to Kaius I to be remarkable and wonders whether Kaius III isn’t using magic to make himself appear more like his great-grandfather.
+**Lions Blancs**: Humain fighter 1. A typical member of the Lions Blancs has a breastplate, a longbow, and a greataxe. They patrol in groups of two to eight. Many are led by higher-level fighters, veterans of La Dernière Guerre.
+\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ {{page>[template:karrnath]}}
+Korth (Metropolis, 85,500): The city of Korth has served as Karrnath’s capital since before the days of the kingdom of Galifar. Some of its buildings date back to the earliest human settlements; many others were built during the great expansion that marked the middle period of Galifar I’s reign. The Korth skyline rises along the southern shore of the Karrn River, with the dense Nightwood to the east of the city gates. The high walls of Maison de la Couronne, the hereditary home of Karrnath’s royal family, rise atop King’s Hill in the Highcourt Ward of the city. Another prominent structure, the Cathedral of the Sovereign Host, fills a sizable piece of real estate in the Temple Ward and has shrines dedicated to the entire pantheon.
+In general, the style of the city is heavy and symmetrical, with blocks set forth in a grid or radiating out from a central plaza. The militaristic influence that infuses all of Karrnath society permeates Korth and helps define the monolithic appearance of the buildings and decorative features such as monuments, obelisks, and tombs.
+Five wards make up greater Korth, and each ward has its own personality. These wards are named Highcourt, Temple, Commerce, Community, and Low District. While each ward consists of living space, markets, and other city necessities, each concentrates on an aspect of city life and is built to accommodate that aspect. The Highcourt Ward houses most of the government departments, as well as the halls of the royal family and some of the more affluent noble families. The Temple Ward features winding streets dedicated to the many religions of Khorvaire; everything from small shrines to giant cathedrals can be found here, and some representative of even the most obscure cult probably finds a location to preach from within the walls of this ward. The Commerce Ward presents businesses of all types and provides space for the enclaves of all the dragonmarked houses; supply and demand come together inside this sprawling ward. The Community Ward is the most residential ward in Korth, providing housing for the Classe Moyenne. The Low District is a dangerous maze of narrow streets from which the poor and the destitute attempt to eke out an existence. The criminal element has a firm hold on the Low District, using its twisting warrens as a hiding place and somewhere from which to conduct business best done in the shadows.
+{{tag>["Géographie"]}}
+{{tag>["Karrnath"]}}
+{{tag>["Villes"]}}
+{{tag>["Capitales"]}}