Your Neighbourhood: The Adventurers' Quarter

Adventurers' Quarter Background

The Adventurers’ Quarter is located in the Rego Scripa (Scribe Sector), the mercantile district just south of the Parego Dospera. Specifically, the Adventurer’s Quarter is in the northeast quadrant of the Scripa, near the Canaroden (the longest canal in Westcrown), which separates the Spera from the Dospera. The Adventurers’ Quarter is aptly named – many of its residents are former or fledgling explorers and adventurers, often from outside of Cheliax, and wealthy enough to permit residence outside of the Dospera. As such, the Adventurers’ Quarter features a higher incidence of non-human population. It is not uncommon to pass the occasional goblin-kin or ‘civilized’ monster race within the Adventurers’ Quarter.

The Adventurers’ Quarter is a relatively new neighbourhood in Westcrown. It developed in earnest after the mayor of Westcrown put a call out to explorers and adventurers to assist the dottari against the shadow plague in 4692 AR, some 16 years following outbreak of the nightly scourge. Those who answered the call had little success in ending the menace, but many stayed and established themselves in Westcrown, opening businesses and taverns in what is now known as the Adventurers’ Quarter. Although many of the original immigrants still live in the neighbourhood, the prevalence of outsiders and non-Wiscrani does mean that behaviour that might be considered anti-Chelaxian is an ongoing issue, at least for the dottari. The Hellknights are ever-watchful, and do not hesitate to make their presence known in the Adventurers’ Quarter.

The main avenues for traffic within the Quarter include Weeping Maiden’s Run, Grocer’s Lane, Snake Alley, and Kerrigan’s Court. Weeping Maiden’s Run is named for the young woman who ran down the street in tears after her lover as he was dragged away by a Hellknight patrol in 4698 AR. As her lover was shackled and taken away in chains, the woman fell to the ground before the stolid Hellknights. She took a dagger from her boot, ran it across her wrist, and spat a curse at the Hellknights before dying, her blood running out on the cobbled street.

Grocer’s Lane, an alleyway finally named by locals, is wide and tidy as Nindal Jalbuck hires men to keep it that way (and keep the midden within its bounds, not in the street). Many assume Snake Alley is named after its twisting path, and Kerrigan’s Court has been named such since before the neighbourhood was called the Adventurers’ Quarter.

The midden and general dumping ground for refuse is located in the dead-end alley south of Grocer’s Lane, behind the Ferrara Silversmiths; garbage is picked up by the Dungsweepers’ Guild on a semi-weekly basis. Handbills, broadsheets, general notices, and employment inquiries are posted on the stout, post-mounted barrels that serve as kiosks; there is one at the intersection of Weeping Maiden’s Run and Fishwife Alley.

The dottari patrol this neighbourhood on the same schedules as the rest of the city, and the condottari (the ‘canal wardens’) patrol the Canaroden. The Hellknights are known in the Adventurers’ Quarter, and the nightly curfew is in effect here as elsewhere in the city.