What began as a simple crossroads farming village has become a much larger regional waystation, trade hub, and drop-off point. With nearby access to local waterways and one of the primary roads into the underworld of the Weeping Reaches, the town of Bavlo has established itself as a well-diversified economy with interests in shipping and storage, official grading of wares, and production of local comestibles.
Bavlo is a highly integrated town, with no one race forming a majority of the population. While gnolls, orcs, and lizardfolk make up about two-thirds of the rural population of Bavlo, the urban center of the city contains notable goblin, ratfolk, lynix, and kitsune communities.
A number of crofter's guilds have headquarters or regional offices in Bavlo. Most of these guilds work with overworld professionals, but some guilds operate as representatives of underworld guilds and interests from nearby metropolis, Durmont. Bavlo's largest guilds include the Far Reach Shipping Guild, the Bavlo Farmer's Alliance, the Mycelium Guild of Durmont, the Appraiser's Union, and the Sheaves of Truth (a guild of bookbinders and bookkeepers.)
Still a crossroads settlement at heart, Bavlo plays host to a number of notable regional festivals and fairs. Several times a year, the Ampitheatre Fairgrounds of Bavlo transforms from merely another part of the city seemingly into another world as enthusiastic locals construct, decorate, and disguise the faigrounds in the theme of whatever event is impending.
Bavlo, LN, Large City Corruption +2; Crime -2; Economy +5; Law +3; Lore +2; Society +7
Qualities
Government: Council (+4 Society; -2 Law; -2 Lore)
Population: 15,000~, Highly Integrated (4,200 Gnolls; 3,000 Orcs; 2,700 Lizardfolk; 2,400 Goblins; 750 Ratfolk; 750 Vanaras; 600 Tieflings; 300 Lynix; 150 Kitsune; 150 Mixed)
Marketplace:
As a crossroads town built over, around, and through a landscape of rolling hills, Bavlo's city structure consists of a series of winding roads intersecting in large, ungainly roundabouts. These main roads divide the urban center of the town into four main districts, while the three primary roads leading out of town contain sprawls of farmland formally attached to the municipality of Bavlo.
a.k.a., "The Fairgrounds"
This is the first district any travelers coming up from the Wildurwynde River will see upon entering the city. The southern-most ward is home to the Ampitheatre Fairgrounds of Bavlo, known far and wide as a location for its massive celebration of annual regional festivals. There is also a larger concentration of warehouses in this district, some of which is dedicated to construction and storage for the events held at the Ampitheatre Fairgrounds, while yet more is owned by shipping companies bringing merchandise and materials up from the Wildurwynde River. This is the most densely developed district in Bavlo; it is the first quadrant of the city to completely cover the original landscape of it's district.
a.k.a, ""
The smallest and least developed of the four primary districts of Bavlo, the east district is home to the Grand Stage, a giant arena and coliseum used to hose theatre, musical events, gladitorial combat, and more.
Most of the east ward is mixed residential buildings, small food markets, cafes, and shops of various curious and antiquities, and small offices. The local cafes, cooked food stalls, and smaller food markets of this district are daily meeting places for most of Bavlo's citizenry, being the easiest part of the city in which to catch a quick meal or to swiftly gather the ingredients necessary to make one.
The wild hills east of the easternmost ward are still dotted with farmsteads, impromptu campgrounds, and temporarily fenced off areas used for grazing. In addition, a pair of relatively young world trees grow atop one of these hills in symbiosis with the surrounding farmers.
a.k.a., "The Crofter's Ward"
The north ward of Bavlo contains the most dense population of crafters, artisans, and manufacturers, in addition to the accompanying array of guilds, appraisers, and workshops associated with these industries. A number of large markets dedicated to various crafted goods make the north ward their home.
There are a number of taverns, food stalls, and cafes in the north ward, but most of these establishments are "locals only" types of places. These business will still serve out-of-town visitors, but they are usually keyed towards serving the residents and artisans of their district, unlike their counterparts in the westernmost district which tailor their operations towards the tourism and import industries.
a.k.a.,
The westernmost district of Bavlo could be defined as an administrative district, given the concentration of official government buildings and guild headquarters located within it. However, most visitors would describe it as a leisure district, for throughout the quadrant are a number of bathhouses, saunas, fine restaurants, fancy shops, and quiet places where a fatigued party goer might retreat to be pampered and to recover from an evening's jubilation. If the Fairgrounds Ward is the "party" district, the West Ward is then assuredly the "morning after" district.
A wild patch of hills, similar to that east of the East Ward, bounds the city just west of the West Ward. Though it is used in much the same way as the east hills, these western hills have turned into more of an expansive and improvised community garden and park, featuring better-maintained paths, public wells and gardens, as well as a number of gazebos and structures designed to offer shade and a place to sit.
The city of Bavlo is run by an elected council of academic, guild, and mercantile leaders called the Bavlovian Quorum. This organization oversees and regulates trade, provides public services to the population of and visitors to Bavlo, maintains a certain amount of regional infrastructure, and maintains diplomatic and trade relationships with the smaller settlements of the area.
Primarily concerned with the safety and prosperity of their community, the Bavlovian Quorum puts most of its regulatory efforts into keeping local markets stocked and stable, and into keeping travelways safe. Very little non-destructive activity is banned within Bavlo's city limits, though there is very little tolerance for behavior deemed "bad for business".
While deeply invested in the well-being of its citizenry, the level of government spending and social welfare comes from a business mentality rather than an altruistic one, with the thinking that a town full of healthy, happy citizens is better for trade and tourism than a one full of hungry, desperate, deprived peasants.
Business contracts undertaken in good faith are legally and socially sacrosanct, and the Quorum often convenes with guild and trade leaders to set standards and taxes on goods and services.
No true royalty or nobility has ever existed in Bavlo, as it has historically been a settlement of consensual governance. That being said, the large amount of trade flowing through the city has left a number of individuals, families, and groups with comparatively vast amassed fortunes. Such monied entites have formed an upper crust to Bavlo's social and trade circles. Though most Bavlovians are well-enough off, there is still enough wealth inequality to rankle many of the less fortunate laborers, as the wealthy elites of Bavlo wield an amount of power and control over the city which seems to grow with each passing decade.
There is very little violent crime in Bavlo, as there are very few non-destructive illegal activities in Bavlo. Prostitution, drugs, gambling, all are legal to engage in within strict regulations set forth by the Quorum. Though there are facilities to hold violent criminals, these cells are more often used as drunk tanks for rowdy tourists during a festival. What violent crimes do occur are investigated and dealt with as swiftly as possible, with most sentences for extreme crimes being death or enforced exile.
Crimes related to trade, finance, and destruction of property are commonly addressed with heavy fines and widespread public admonishment. The Bavlovian Quorum has a respected record for ensuring such fines are used to bring recompense to victims of negligence, financial skullduggery, or artifical disasters, or to be used to fund the wide array of public works programs undertaken by the Quorum.
The Bavlovian Quorum maintains consistent communication with overworld settlements in the region. Though no claims of sovereignty have ever been made by Bavlo, there are several degrees of mutually voluntary trade agreements and protection contracts that exist between Bavlo and many of its smaller nearby neighbors.
Bavlo is also home to an embassy for representatives of Durmont's trade, crafting, and political interests, who facilitate relationships between over- and underworlds. Though there is very little need for joint military operations or engaging in allied warfare with other forces, much of Bavlo and Durmont's relationship consists of trade treaties, infrastructure maintainence arrangements, and academic pursuits. Due to their considerably larger size and resource pool, it is not uncommon for Durmont to send aid to larger nearby neighbors during times of catastrophe or widespread natural disaster.
Most taxes come in form of permits, tolls, and business license fees. A travelling merchant might pay a small toll to enter and exit the city, or a more modest fee to be able to set up a booth in one of the many markets or roadside booths. Skirting such fees usually only results in escorted expulsion from the town proper, though repeat offenders may face increasingly steep fines.
As these tolls and fees are mostly used to fund regional roadway upkeep and protection, and as they are commonly quite affordable (depending on the value of your goods), most individuals and groups will happily pay these fees for the security of trade and travel they afford. Due to the concentration of merchant and trade organizations, these fees and licenses are strictly tied to the quality and values of the wares or services being traded, meaning peddlers of simple goods and services will pay less than those operating in high-end markets.
The most notable factor of Bavlovian infrastructure is the well-established roadway system. Wide, encompassing avenues, these roadways wind through the foothills of the region, built over the original pathways found by traders navigating the wild region. These roads feature ample drainage, dedicated lanes for processions of wagons and carts, sidewalks (which are covered in several sections of the city), and, in many places, a wide-enough meridian for impromptu market stands and vendor stalls.
Though the innards of the city are now too densely packed for the construction of the more extravagant of these roadways, all secondary and tertiary passageways throughout the city are well-drained with maintained sub-level sewer systems, and feature a raised, paved sidewalk network. As a matter of show, and expression of the city's prosperity, the Quorum has long-funded a series of programs to upgrade the primary roads leading in and out of Bavlo as far as feasibly possible. At this point, some of these upgrade roads lead more than 100 miles outside the city borders.
In the city proper, one feature visible from any point in the city is one or more of the eight mighty watch towers of Bavlo. Under conditions of duress or war, these towers are used to communicate quickly across the city and to provide coordination, defense, and safety to their appointed districts. In times of peace, these towers declare the time, forecast weather, announce events, and alert the city guards of a district in need of backup. Each is a relatively large complex, each housing barracks, dormitories, smithys, a hospital, stables, cafeteria, and ground water pump system, the last of which is operated via the large windmills attached to the midsection of each tower. The "watch tower" part of the watch towers are thick, sturdy buildings climbing at least 100 feet over the rest of Bavlo's skyline.
Because large-scale ware is exceedingly rare in this region, and due to the haphazard nad unplanned nature of its development, Bavlo has no physical defenses to speak of, and fortifications only in the form of its watch towers. Its citizenry maintains safety through constant vigilance, both through the observation decks at the top of the watch towers, and also through regular, daily patrols of its extended roadway network.
Though lesser roads in and out of the city exist, the convenience of the merchant roads funnels most wheeled and ridden traffic onto the main thoroughfares, making on-foot patrols around the city's perimeter far more effective.
While the watch towers can easily spot approaching raiding parties, such encounters are rare. In the event a raid does occur, the watch towers draw on their held supply reserves to muster and coordinate the town guard, the road patrols, and a modestly-trained reserve milita in order to establish defences, evacuate civilians, and reconnoiter advancing enemy forces.
Though it has nothing that could formally be called a military, Bavlo does have a slightly larger-than-average pool of guards and patrols for a town of its size, due to the city's involvement with the regional roadways. It's emergency milita is drawn from appropriately-aged volunteers from the citizenry of Bavlo.
The only immediately available resources in or around Bavlo are clean ground water and its highly fertile soil. In an extended proximity, stone and wood can be had from the foothills and forests to the northwest, while the forests and rivers of the east provide, besides more lumber, an array of comestibles, medicinal herbs, and raw crafting materials. While basic ingots can be had from some surface mines, nearly all high quality and/or precious metals are imported from Durmont.
To fund an array of public works programs, not least amongst which is the extensive roadway network, the Bavlovian Quorum enforces a series of tolls, fees, and licensing for traffic entering or leaving the city. Though frequent, these small payments provide visiting merchants a degree of security and insurance via a paper trail with the city bookkeepers, allowing for citizen and visitor alike to claim compensation or reimbursal for wrongful loss or damage during a trip to Bavlo. For most merchants, the few gold it might cost to set up shop during a festival are well worth the security of making it home safely with their hard earned income.
Bavlo is a city of trade, with a population generally tuned in to the intricacies of balancing the interactions of dozens, if not hundreds, of competing and intersecting industrial, commercial, and financial interests. It houses many regional guilds of varying size and importance, from the Far Reach Shipping Guild (which delivers packages of all scale and scope anywhere connected by water to the nearby Wildurwynde River), to the Bavlo Farmer's Alliance (which organizes fair compensation and accurate assessment of the value of goods for farmers and food merchants in the extended Bavlo area).
To encourage a near-constant influx of merchants, the Bavlovian governments offer official spaces throughout the city for an appropriately-licensed travelling merchant to set up shop. Some of these locations, through the metamorphosis of a developing settlement, have evolved into dedicated structures taking up tangible space in the footprint of the city. Many of these markets are even so build up as to no longer be considered "outdoor markets". Regardless of its placements in the city, most of these markets have been invested in by the city, and have slowly been rebuilt and maintained in nearly the same fasion as a park. The license fees for placement in these markets are locally gathered, and prices any given season depend on the popularity of the individual market in question.
Though prosperous, Bavlo is not a magically-predisposed settlement. Most actively practiced minor magics are usually for the purpose of enhancing hand-crafted goods or improving rendered services. Enough religious variety exists for there to be a good number of small temples scattered throughout town, and many lesser divine casters live in town to offer magical healing. In addition to the temples, there is a small enclave of practicing physicians in the city who, though primarily present ot oversee the quality of produced medical goods, also run small practices for dispensing basic non-magical healing to the public.
The technology behind Bavlo's relatively advanced roadway network aside, nearly all of the city's energy goes into trade. Academic institutions exist, though few and far between, and nearly all technological endeavors are undertaken by out-of-towners with imported engineering knowledge and practice relying on Bavlo's trade market to access the resources necessary for their research.
The only metropolitan transportation is the roadway systems. Private enterprises sell access to rented mounts and vehicles, but no public transportation exists.
Quorum bulletin boards exist in multiple locations around each watch tower, and town criers are sent out whenever rapid, city-wide dissemination of information is required. The watchtowers themselves are also in near-constant communication with one another via magical and mundane means.
Small farming communities exist extensively throughout the grasslands east of the Weeping Reaches. In the area around Bavlo, the grade of hills prevents normal farming techniques, and has caused the evolution of a tiered plot farming technique to become prevalent throughout the region. Most farms specialize in at least two different primary types of produce: one crop grown on the sunny side of the hill, and one crop grown on the shady side. This farming method is on full display on the roundabout surrounding Bavlo's urban center, where some of the region's oldest and most well-established farming homesteads are. The world's long year means most farmers can expect two harvests from a single season.
While the offered produce is of good, consistent quality, very few grown comestibles are so rare and in-demand as to be called luxury goods. The main strength of this region's farming land and population is the comparatively high output of food per working farmer, whereas natural farmland is much scarcer in the deep forests of the north and the caverns of the underworld.
Though the output of the farming industry represents a considerable portion of Bavlo's physical exports, the most valuable export is the array of seals of inspection and approval, allowing a merchant travelling abroad to provide something of a pedigree for their goods. Guild accreditations are a fairly common reason for a local export merchant to bring their caravan of goods to Bavlo before setting off towards their final destination.
Being a crossroads home to a number of crafter's guilds, there has developed a number of knowledgeable academic groups which have grown from the intersection of academics and trade. Accredited masters of craft are employed to judge and determine the quality of any number of gathered, grown, or manufactured goods. Because the members of these academies keep in contact with distant colleagues regarding variables potentially affecting the upcoming quality of certain goods, a network of branch offices of these academiescan exist around the region to verify the claimed quality (and therefore value) of these goods.
Nearly everything else is imported, so to speak. Food from nearby farming villages, wood and stone for building materials, and metals for crafting stream into the city by the wagon load on a daily basis, but these goods enter the city freely so often that very little formal import agreements exist between Bavlo and neighboring communities.
The Ampitheatre Fairgrounds and the Grand Stage of Bavlo are well-known stops for regional party goes and festival attenders, being the homes of the regions greatest displays of theatre and music as well as the most extensive festival celebrations. Outside of planned festivals, Bavlo is also a regular spot for travelling performance troupes to add a large feather to their cap for that performance season.
The regularity of performers, entertainers, and musicians created a need for such artists to have representation and collective bargaining with the numerous entities hiring their abilities for whatever event. This need was met by a small number of entertainment accreditation organizations which began negotiating standard rates, persuing long-term contracts, and offering training and certification to its members.
Though there are a few local artists, musicians, and thesbians, most of the draw in the Bavlovian arts and entertainment scenes is the constant influx of new sources of entertainment and leisure.
With a few exceptions, most of the buildings in Bavlo are one of two colors of nearby stone: a champagne granite mined from the mountain foothills to the west, or a dark green, muddy quartz-like stone from the banks of the Wildurwynde River to the southeast. The most common lumber types imported for construction are a strong dark oark and a more flexible tall pine, brought down from the northern forests.
Brick and timber construction is the norm, with stone archways adorning nearly every minor alley and avenue in the city. Some rare buildings are made with larger, thin slabs of stone set in a frame of thick timbers. Such construction is far more costly due to the more complex techniques employed in both manufacturing and construction processes. occasionally, stucco or painted walls are used to patch older and crumbling stonework in need of replacement.
Most citizens, guards, merchants, and government officials of Bavlo are honest, righteous individuals who believe in fair trades and social behavior which leads to repeat business and long-term business relationships. There are merchants and craftsmen with tempers, thieves and swindlers, dishonest vendors, smugglers, and corrupt officials, but they are few and far between, lone coverts operating amidst droves of incorruptible peers. Most of the citizens of Bavlo are honest traders or craftsmen looking to support their families, and most visiting merchants known Bavlo to be a place known to promote honest, fair trade.
Due to the generally hardy nature of most of Bavlo's citizenry, and a consistent cross-culture norm of supporting expectant mothers (a holdover from various ancient small clan mentalities) child bearing is seen as more of a civic duty and community responsibility. Gender restrictions on positions and professions is largely nonexistent, though there are occasional stubborn pockets of gender related bigotry.
The general number of merchants, vendors, craftsmen, and service workers long ago drove "How can I help you?" and "Hallo, what do you need?" as the two most common greetings among the Bavlovian middle and lower classes. The general worker-customer relationship implied by these exchanges rankles some locals who don't work in service industries, though most such citizens are not nearly as brusque as their lack of a salesperson's courtesy makes them initially seem. Chance meetings and minor accidents between strangers are nearly universally met with benign politeness and concern. The only surefire method of truly enraging the Bavlovian populous is engaging in behavior deemd "bad for business".
Despite a portion of the population who fastidiously follow the fashion trends of far off lands and cities, most of the Bavlovian workforce wear practical garments made of sturdy fabrics favored by craftsmen and farmers across the region. Several local varieties of wildflower provide colors of dyes for coloring fabrics, with shades of yellows and blues being the most plentiful.
Dressing for work is the de facto standard amongst the workforce, and there rae many local tailors who specialize in comfortable, sturdy work clothes and gear for a variety of professions. Most craftsmen wear small locally made leather tool belts specific to their trade, the broad variety of which are one of the few true innovations of Bavlovian crafters.
One universal fashion trend across the entire populous is the accruing of festival clothes. For most Bavlovians, this takes the shape of slowly assembling several sets of fancier dress clothes to be work during specific festivals and parties. While more exuberant party goers may amass and cultivate ever more complex and elaborate garb for festivals, most people simply dress in well-made, brightly colored, high quality cloth cut by local tailors in styles relevant to a certain festival.
As something of a party town, a portion of the Bavlo economy is tied into the annual festival cycle. While the settlement does not have any holidays specific to itself, the populous and hte local government not only celebrate the standard yearly holidays of the greater Weeping Reaches region, but are also notoriously accomodating to smaller groups of citizens or visitors seeking to celebrate uncommon or unrecognized holidays. (An example of this would be yearly celebration of Underworld New Year.)
Bavlo has no official religion/s or patrion deities, though much of the local government has consistent contact with temples and clergy of various gods of trade, diplomacy, and prosperity. Few deities, religions, and forms of worship are outright banned, as those that are generally focus around deities of death, destruction, plague, famine, disease, and war. The occasional cult that pops up in the city is swiftly dealt with by investigators from the town guard or by independent adventurers hired by the city.
Temples dot the city, most of the smaller ones being dedicated to a single deity or a pair of deities, while some of the larger temple complexes house shrines to entire pantheons or groups of similar deities.
Any religious practices or deities that are actually banned in Bavlo focus around necromancy, death cults, war gods, and destructive magic, all of which is bad for business. From a cultural standpoint, very little non-destructive behavior is not permitted in Bavlo, and most unfamiliar religious practices are respected once identified.
Along the same vein as Bavlo's stance on religious tolerance, very little of the practice of magic is outright banned within the city confines. Destructive evocation and necromancy are universally frowned upon, if irrationally, by most. Though Bavlo is not a strong town for magical research and production, a few low- and mid-level business-minded mages live and work in Bavlo, properly licensed, of course. In the case of particularly damaging magical accidents, the responsible mage/s is/are commonly required by law to pay damages to any victims of property damage or personal injury.
Most other laws on the books regarding use and practice of magic relate to the trade and financial implications of magic as a rendered service, both to assure mages are being paid (and charging) fair rates, and to protect local craftsmen from having their markets upended.
As with most places in the world casters are not very common. With the crossroads nature of Bavlo, however, most non-magic users have seen enough of magic and mages to be nonplussed by the occasional presense of magic in their daily lives. Magically-enhanced public entertainment displays are fairly common, and most citizens of the Bavlovian area have had some interaction with the divine magic of one of the many temple's clerics.
Before becoming an actual settlement, the initial pathways through what would become Bavlo were winding, meandering trails following the path of least resistance through the foothills of the Weeping Reaches. As the city grew, the eventual flattening of the hills by building development made newer roads less winding and more direct, cutting through rather than circumnavigating.
The pastures around Bavlo grow on a thick layer of fantastically rich topsoil. Much of the countryside surrounding Bavlo is covered with scattered hilly pasture and tiered farming plots growing up, over, and down the far side of entire hills.
Though there is no running water over the surface around Bavlo, the water table is accessible enough for wells to be a relatively simple installation process. Bavlo itself has developed the technology to pump water from the water table to the surface and has, over the past few centuries, built these pumps into the great watch towers all around the city. Via sets of large windmills, water is drawn and then freely distributed by the city at numerous watering holes throughout the city.
Weather around Bavlo is typical for the land north of the Weeping Reaches. Late springs lead to long, mild summers. Autumnal transitions are rapid, with a yearly storm season to herald the arrival of winter. Winters are colder and harsher than in the lands south of the reaches, though most communities are well-inured to the cold, wind, and snow. Spring brings an annual flood season with the snow melt, and actually creates more hazardous conditions than winter's blizzards, by way of flash floods, land/mud slides, falling trees, lightning storms, swollen or clogged rivers, broken bridges, and blocked trails.
Being a developed area, much of the native plant and animal life around Bavlo has drifted further afield and away from the city proper. Still, though, Bavlo is surrounded on all sides by hundreds of square miles of mostly undisturbed grasslands. Most of the countryside is occupied by seas of different grasses and wild grains which feed the migrating herds and flocks of the wildlands. Within these large, waist- to head-high clumps, a number of regionally known wildflowers bloom in waves throughout the seasons. Rarely, patches of ground berries can be found hiding on the sunny side of hills, under the grass. Trees are rare on the open plains. A number of lesser world trees grow, scattered through the hills. Most of hte larger plant life in the area consists of large, bushy shrubs, spindly herb plants, and creeping vines, some varieties of which are quite thorny.
Small animal life in and around Bavlo is common. Many types of small songbirds have made the high nooks and crannies of Bavlo's buildings their home, in a land where they would otherwise be nesting on the ground. The abundance of fields, farms, and stockpiles of food in and around Bavlo gives life to a staggering array of small pest creatures: shrews, squirrels, cockroaches, and others. Warehouse managers and farmers around the area therefore religiously keep trained hunting pets, such as large mousing cats or hunting hawks, or sometimes both. Some groups within the greater community compete socially to see who can train the most successful or most exotic pest-hunting pet. It is good common sense, when in Bavlo, to treat any unattended small animal with kindness, as one may not know if it has an owner standing nearby.
Beyond the developed edges of Bavlo and its roadways, massive herds of grazing beasts drift through the hilly landscape, coming down from and returning to the heights of the Weeping Reaches seeking nourishment. These herds are occassionally hunted by individuals or groups from Bavlo proper, but that task is usually left to the smaller northern settlements with less by way of a ranching industry. These herds are always tracked by a series of natural predators that have been known to rarely attack people camping too far from the main road, or to snatch stragglers from a group strung to far out on a trail.