Blackmarsh
Current setting (as of March 2019)
Blackmarsh, a city of canals in the middle of, unsurprisingly, a marsh. It’s loosely based off Venice, though as a proud Midlander it is necessary for me to point out that Birmingham has more miles of canals than Venice, and is a great city, even if its train station is confusing, so maybe it’s a little based off there too.
Blackmarsh can be summed up as a city full of witches scheming. They scheme a lot. Everyone in Blackmarsh is incredibly attractive and a little bit evil. The marshes are at the southern edge of an empire which has recently been paying a little too much attention to what’s going on in the town, so things might get even more interesting soon.
Key parts of town
The city has eight main boroughs or districts, though the party hasn’t visited all of them yet. There’s the Aviary, where the rich people live, planning crimes and being hot. Then there’s the Crucible, which is a rougher neighbourhood, and the Horse Mire, which is…where people who like horses live? Not all the names are brilliant, but they’re canon now so there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Notable tourist attraction/other sites of importance and interest
There’s the Osprey Arena, where fun PC-NPC battles sometimes take place. It is also (in)famous as the location of the party’s first person-murder. It was possibly justifiable, though they’re wrong if they think they got away with that death without consequences.
The Horse Mire is home to the best tea shop in town, Something Something Tea, because coming up with names for unanticipated but empire-renowned coffee houses on the fly is tricky.
There’s the Empty Bridge. Who knows what happened here. There’s now lots of creepy statues on it.
There’s also a candlestick museum. No one has visited the candlestick museum. No one has tried to buy anything from the over-priced gift shop. That’s completely fine.
Key inhabitants
The (former) Vice Provost of the city, Thomas Gorey, is probably a necromancer of some sort. He’s currently on the run, but that almost certainly won’t stop him from enacting terrible revenge on the party for their actions in revealing his evil machinations.
Geozy and Miriam are friends of the party. They live in Blackmarsh and give the SJWs an anchor/stake in the town. They’re a very sweet couple. Awful things keep happening to them, only some of which are the party’s fault.
There are half a dozen wealthy families in town, most notably the de Leon siblings, witches with falcon familiars and a penchant for getting even. Their sister was killed by the party in the Osprey Arena. Her death was tragic for so many reasons. There is also the de Ghents. They’re rich; they’re hot; they like to party; they might have currently kidnapped Geozy and Miriam.
Deborah Lightfoot is technically not an inhabitant of the city; like the party, she is a traveller on recently arrived. She’s loud, she’s lonely, she’s great at napkin-folding. She may have once plagiarised the PhD of a party member. Even in fantasy worlds, academic crimes are the worst crimes.