Highport

Overview

• Country: Located in::Orcish Empire
• Leader: Count Kertek Bilarro
• Population: Population::20000

The Map of Highport

Note: Much of the material on this pageis taken from TSR 11621: Slavers, released in 2000. Our campaign's timeline differs in significant ways from that source book, but much of Highport remains the same.

The largest humanoid city on The Pomarj, located on the northern side of the peninsula on the shores of the Woolly Bay. It is part of the Orcish Empire, and is known to have a large contingent of Uruk Hai (high orcs) as well as representatives of almost every other humanoid race. In spite of this, it retains a a sizable human population, largely due to the pirate, smuggling and slaving activities that are still common in the city.

History

Highport was ruled for centuries by Count Kevram Bilarro, a powerful wizard who extended his life through the prodigious use of 'potions of longevity'. Unfortunately, one such draught malfunctioned, and instead of gaining another 10 years of life, he instantly lost a hundred.

He died instantly and with no heir, throwing the entire city into chaos. This ended when a distant relative named Kern Bilarro -- a nephew several times removed who also happened to be a Wild Coast warlord of considerably strength -- brought his men to the city and seized the Lord's Palace for himself.

He ruled until the city was invaded by the orcs in CY 513, burning and looting their way through the city in an event that came to be known as the Night of the Bloody Spear by the survivors.

In the decades that followed, the city was ruled by an uneasy coalition of humanoid tribes. Humans -- typically the most evil scum ever to sail the Azure Sea -- began to return as well, with the bravest and strongest pirates using it as a port. A handful of tradesmen followed, and in time a sense of normalcy returned to the city.

In the CY 560s the Bilarro family returned to the city in the form of the charismatic Kertek Bilarro , who was able to swindle his way back into the position of count by deftly playing the humanoid tribes against each other, gifting them with treasure and weapons, and generally succeeding through deception and gile where his ancestors had failed through magic and force of arms.

He was able to do quite well for himself, negotiating successful treaties with powerful pirates, humanoid tribes, and even the notorious Slave Lords themselves (which in turn made the city a center of the lucrative slave trade).

This state of affairs survived the fall of the Slave Lords (though the Slave Market itself became far less trafficked with the defeat of the lords at the hands of the Invincibles Guild in the CY 570s) and lasted until the Rise of Turrosh Mak during the Greyhawk Wars of CY 583. Seeing an opponent that he couldn't possibly defeat on the battlefield, and who was far too canny to trick, Kertek decided to do what he does best: negotiate.

He established a deal that kept him in nominal control of the city, while simultaneously allowing legions of Mak's disciplined orcs into the city. A strict order the city hadn't known in centuries was soon established.

In 586 and 587, the city saw its population soar as it became the staging area for the Despot's Army of Burning Glory, a great humanoid army led by the pyromancer archmage Weri. For a time, Weri and his subdued red dragon Inferno were a common site in the city, but that ended in CY 587 when the army marched down the Shore Road to capture Blue.

They were stopped when Weri was killed by a band of adventurers known as the Blackrazor Guild while feeding his dragon in the fields outside of Blue. The Army itself held together long enough to fight a bloody battle with the Obsidian Bay Expeditionary Force out of Blue, but it was ultimately defeated. The survivors broke up and fled into the Drachensgrabs, with perhaps only a third of the overall force making it back to Highport.

Today the city's commercial trade has seen a in spike traffic with the resurgence of the Slave Lords, who's yellow-sailed ships have once again been arriving in Highport's piers to do business and sell slaves.

Leadership

Kertek Bilarro

Count Kertek Bilarro (Hum, Rog 6/Ari 2) is 20 years older than the young lord who arrived in Highport and claimed the city for his own, but he's just as crafty, charismatic, and wily as he ever was. He understands his position in the city has diminished since his deal with Turrosh Mak, but he also knows that he plays a crucial role in governing the human population of the city ... and that if he left (or died) a significant percentage of that population would leave. Mak is also all-too-aware of that fact, and it gives Kertek a sense of job security, and some power when it comes to negotiating with his peers.

General Braks-dur-Vulzon

The military commander of the city -- a brutal Urak-Hai known as General Braks-dur-Vulzon ("Brings the Fires of Doom") (Urak-Hai, Ftr 12) arrived ahead a column of 200 highly-disciplined, ruthless High Orcs. He deployed these orcs to bring order to the city ... and crucified any who dared disobey on the newly-christened "Killing Way" (a stretch of the old Slave Road to the Drachensgrab Mountains). He and his fellow Urak-Hai occupy the Lord's Palace.

Brother Nofosh

The leader of the Temple of the Earth Dragon in the city -- the half orc Nofosh (Half-Orc, Clr 9) wields considerable power in the city, and is crucial to maintaining the peace.

Tanva the Gold

Tanva the Gold (female elf, Wiz/Enc 8) completes the triumverate of Mak agents in the city. She long ago assumed leadership of The Illumination, a cadre of half-insane wizards hellbent on creating ever more powerful (and ever more strange) magic items, encouraging them to create weapons for the Empire of Mak. She is typically found at the Lord's Palace serving as an "advisor" for Kertek Bilarro.

The City

City Overview

Highport is a dark, dirty city firmly in the grip of evil, but safe for those that don't appear weak. The humanoid districts within the city reek of filth, unwashed bodies, and rotting meat, with the human districts being in a somewhat more tolerable state. Some of the buildings still show burns and damage from the Night of the Bloody Spear, but most present at the time of the invasion have either fallen down or been renovated by the new inhabitants.

Some parts of the town are little more than open fields with large and small tents, where drunken sailors, poor mercenaries and outcasts of many races grab a few hours of sleep at any time of the day. A large area devoted to warehouses covers part of the shoreline, and the damaged city walls have been rebuilt.

Religion

The temple of the Earth Dragon is in a renovated temple of Xerbo that was looted and damaged during the sacking of the city. Other dark deities with temples here include Beltar (caves, pits, malice), Erythnul (hate, slaughter), Incabulos (plagues, famine, disasters), Hextor (war, discord, tyrany), Iuz, Mictlantecuhtli (Olman death god), Nerull (death, murder), Pyremius (poison, fire, and murder), the Cult of Vecna (destruction and evil secrets) and various humanoid goids.

Of course, not everyone in Highport is a monomaniacal cuththroat; many are merchants and other people (not necessarily humans) just looking to do businesses, and are just not concerned with the sort of person who pays them for their goods. A wide variety of shops, inns and taverns exist within Highport, serving the rough-and-tumble clientele and providing the basic services that are necessary to all: equipment, food, clothing and such.

Strange Allies

The city has some strange allies and unique vermin. A flock of harpies nests in a pair of unused watchtowers. They scout the near part of the bay in exchange for food and pretty trinkets. Some of the braver people in town have tamed giant weasels as pets or guard animals, while wild ones run free in the humanoid districts. A pair of mated hill giants hire themselves out to different groups as bodyguards or laborers and they compete for work with a single pack of trolls that live in town. An extended family of ogres works as a mercenary group (either on land or on a pirate ship) and the temple of Nerull has an agreement with a pack of ghouls that lives outside the city. Many parts of the town are prone to hordes of giant rats sweeping through the entire neighborhood, and casks of oil are kept ready for lighting to act as barricades for the rodents.

The local stirge population is significant, having grown fat feeding on the rats, but they themselves are a dangerous enough threat that the harpies have been hired to kill them off periodically (an effort that has had mixed results).

Guilds of Note

The city is home to a number of evil adventuring and mercenary guilds. The foremost of these are the Grey Renders, a union of necessity between about a half dozen smaller human guilds and cults from within Highport, which was founded to protect their interests within that city and the surrounding area.

Also notable are the Followers of the Skeletal Way, a fantatical group of warriors, mages and thieves who have pledged themselves to the service of Nerull and His agents on Oerth. They are known to serve the Cult of Death Undying, a Nerullite group based in the Obsidian Maze in the Drachensgrab Mountains.

City Gates

Unlike other walled cities its size, Highport has only one main entrance to the city: The Great Gate. There are two smaller side gates -- the Suss Gate and the Coast Gate -- but they are heavily fortified and closed to all but military traffic. This design, dictated by the original count of the city, was intended as a defense against the marauding humanoids of the peninsula. It has worked, but it has also created massive logisitical problems in the city.

On major trade days its not uncommon for traders trying to get into the city to be backed up for several miles along the Coast Road, the highway that runs from Highport to Blue. Before the Greyhawk Wars, Highport's rulers allowed only select individuals -- mostly fishermen and farmers -- to set up settlements outside of the city's fortification, but Turrosh Mak put an end to that practice for security reasons.

The Piers

The Piers is the collective term for the city's sprawling warehouse and shipping district. Most of its streets are cluttered, claustrophoic and generally unsettling for most people. Rangers especially despise the place.

Some of the buildings here are made from stone, but most are made from wood harvested from the surrounding woodlands. Exposure to the corrosive, ever-present sea air has ravaged many of the buildings to the point that most are near the point of collapse. That inevitible occurance has been postponed in many cases by the addition of new, but still inferior, wooden supports.

Bands of thieves, pirates and other cutthroats fill the Wharf like vile human rodents. Blood is spilled nightly in bar fights that can quickly grow to include more than 200 combatants.

About half of Highport's original piers are completely ruined. The local authorities have towed derelict ships into place on these pierces to use as additional storage space, as well as to confuse would-be attackers about which piers are actually viable. The remaining piers either survived the Night of the Blood Spear or have been rebuilt since that time. The piers are almost exclusively used for trade, with only one near the eastern part of town having facilities for making repairs. Ships are not build in Highport; rather most of the heavy ship-building is done at Elredd.

What passes for the city guard here -- the Count's Men -- rarely enter the Piers, and when they do, it is usually to escort a particular cargo to some of the better warehousing facilites outside of the district.

Orc Districts

Each of the orc districts (as noted on the Highport map) is home to one minor tribe of orcs. Their buildings are universally run down, and the entire area smells particularly bad. Orc hunting parties make daily forays into the grassland outside of the city in search of meat to supplement the food they buy, and those on the waterfront do a lot of fishing as well. Unlike Elredd, there is very little territorialism between the dsitricts. Orcs can enter the human areas, and vice versa, but there is little incentive to do so other than as a means to get to another part of the town.

Humanoid Districts

Each of the humanoid districts in the city tends to be exclusive to one sort of humanoid. The eastern part of town has gnolls, the western part has hobgoblins, goblins, and small groups of norkers. The southwestern humanoid district is another goblin haven, and the small group near the Lord's Palace is entirely composed of orogs. Like the orc parts of the city, the buildings in these regions are in a state of disrepeair and smell foul; the only exception to this pattern is the orog tribe, which is nearly indistinguishable from a human district except for the decorations they use.

Human Districts

The human parts of town show the highest degree of attention to preserving existing buildings and the most new construction. In addition to homes, the human district has more shops than other parts of town these shops are patronized by all inhabitants of the town, regardless of race.

Tent Fields

These are the poorer parts of town, little more than areas of clear rubble dotted with tents or lean-tos, and inhabited by the most wretched of the free populace.

Specific Locations

These locations are keyed to the Highport map. Both the locations and the map are taken from the TSR 11621 Slavers source book.

Temple of the Earth Dragon (1)

The Temple of the Earth Dragon used to be dedicated to the Suel god Xerbo, but was desecrated on the Night of the Bloody Spear. It has since been stripped of its old religious icons and rebuilt by the human allies of Turrosh Mak as a Temple of the Earth Dragon. It's view of the harbor is unrestricted, and is a frequent stop for visitors of all races because the priests here offer free food and the lowest rates for healing magic.

The high priest here is Nofosh (half-orc, Clr 9). He is assisted by twenty lesser priests and ten acolytes (orc, human and half-orc, Clr 2-Clr 5)

Warehouse District (2)

The Warehouse District is part of the Piers, and provides temporary storage for goods passing through the city. They are guarded by mixed groups of human and humanoid soldiers.

Lighthouses (3)

These towers have been converted into lighthouses; each is a defensive tower with a beacon mounted on the top. Humans and half-orcs typically man the lights, since humanoids detest the bright illumination.

Temple of Gruumsh (4)

The holy temple of the father of the orcish pantheon sees a steady amount of traffic. While some orcs have switched to worship of the Earth Dragon, most remain loyal to Gruumsh. Their faith is bolstered by the regular appearance of the Uruk-hai who come each Godsday to venerate Gruumsh. There is also a shrine to Ati, the Uruk-hai god of war (and son of Gruumsh) located in the temple.

The master of this temple is an orc shaman named Nabbok (Orc, Clr 8)

Temple of Yeenoghu (5)

Most of the gnolls of the city that live on the east side pay homage to the demon prince Yeenoghu. The priest of the Temple of Yeenoghu is Rafguraat (Gnoll, Clr 4, Rgr2).

Temple of Mictlantecuhtli (6)

The temple to the Olmon death god Mictlantecuhtli is presided over by Lipacatihli (Ftr 3/Clr 2), a former slave from the Hold of the Sea Princes.

Lord's Palace (7)

This large building is the ancestral home of the city's traditional human rulers, the Bilarro family. Count Bilarro still holds court here, but he is now joined by the orcish General Braks-dur-Vulzon and his legion of Uruk-Hai. About 50 of these elite orcs are stationed in the Palace at any given time, with the rest taking up residence in the surrounding district.

The castle was built with several strange enhancements that allowed it to repel or consume those who would see it fall. The souls of the orcs who besieged it are now bound the building, and their low moans fill the city almost every night.

The palace district is surrounded by a defensive wall, which held off the original humanoid invaders. As a result, this area remains largely intact, and the palace itself retains its magical defenses against besiegement.

Temple of Beltar (8)

A tunnel leads from the surface to this cave, which serves as the Temple of Beltar, Goddess of Caves, Pits, Malice. It is staffed by the female orc shaman Kurrsh (Orc, Druid 5)

House of Quiet (9)

This odd business is a restaurant set in one of the less used parts of Highport. Its owner is a mindflayer named "Quiet" by the locals (his illithid name being unpronounceable). He runs a well-kept establishment catering to the elites in the city who favor a less chaotic dining place. The single most important rule in the House of Quiet is that no one talk above a whisper; those who do so find themselves promptly mindblasted.

Temple of Erythnul (10)

The Temple of Erythnul is located in a former butcher shop. It's operated by Renchen (human, Clr 8) who preaches among the tent city at all hours, and provides blessings to pirates and humanoids before their raids.

Temple of Incabulous (11)

The Temple is little more than an abandoned house with a bar of bronze bar twisted into the shape of a possession ruin nailed to the door. A cleric known only as "The Mad One" operates the temple, raving night and day about his god to any who will listen (and most who don't want to).

Temple of Hextor (12)

The Temple of Hextor is a converted warehouse that serves as a large training ground for the faithful of the evil god of war. Fifteen priests of the Scourge of Battle can be found at this temple; they are led by Satran (human, Clr 11)

Temple of Nerull (13)

This former Temple of Pelor is now home to the Followers of the Skeletal Way and their spiritual leader, the priest Torish (human, Clr 8).

Temple of Pyremius (14)

This temple doubles as a storefront as its priestess, Malav (female human Clr 6/Exp 1), sells poisons and spicy sauces to the natives of the city.

Temple of Iuz (15)

No one knows why the priest of Iuz, Marten (human Clr 4), wasn't killed long ago for sedition; he constantly complains that his demigod is the true power in the Flanaess, and that he will one day lead an army to conquer the city.

Temple of Vecna (16)

This temple is home to a handful of cultists, led by the cleric Gotto (human wizard/necromancer 7). The temple's claim to fame is that it's defended by a young basilisk; exactly why such an insignificant temple needs such a fearsome defender is something no one knows. In addition to the stone-turning horror, the temple also has a number of skeleton defenders.

Temple of Maglubiyet (17)

The head of the goblin and hobgoblin pantheon is popular among his people in the city, as well as those who enjoy the monthly bloodsport sacrifices that the god demands. His priest in the city is Jukko (hobgoblin Clr 4).

Stockade (18)

This fenced-in area is guarded by warriors with crossbows loaded with sleep-poisoned bolts. It contains a large open yard in front of a raised platform from which slaves are auctioned, a small smithy for making chains and colors, and a big building with many smaller rooms in which the slaves are sorted and detained.

Guardhouse (19)

The human contingent of the city guard -- known as the Count's Men -- is stationed here. They usually number about 100, and patrol the human portions of the city in groups of 10.

The guards are identified by a blush slash tied diagonally across the shoulder and chest. Each carries a signal horn on addition to his own weapons and equipment, which can be used to summon help. Pulling a weapon on a guard is a criminal offense. Most other crimes are punishable by fines or short jail time in the jail beneath the guardhouse.

The humanoids are responsible for keeping their own peace; if any faction gets out of line it is the Uruk-Hai who are sent into deal with them, not the Count's Men.

The Fat Cow (20)

A food store specializing in dried meats, and operated by Shem (human fighter 4), a former mercenary from Rax who choose to move to Highport after Turrosh Mak rose to power on the Pomarj.

People

• Count Kertek Bilarro, the nominal human leader of Highport
• Braks-dur-Vulzon, High Orc general of Highport
• Brother Nofosh, High Priest of the Earth Dragon in Highport
• Gotto, cleric of Vecna.
• Jukko, hobogoblin cleric of Maglubiyet.
• Kurrsh, orc priestess of Beltar, Goddess of Caves, Pits, Malice.
• Malav, priestess of Pyremius, expert poisoner.
• Marten, annoying priest of Iuz.
• Nabbok, orc high priest of Gruumsh, leader of the Temple in Highport
• Quiet, mindflayer owner of the House of Quiet restuarant.
• Rafguraat, gnoll high priest of the demon prince Temple of Yeenoghu.
• Renchen, priest of Erythnul.
• Satran, high priest of Hextor.
• Shem, owner of the Fat Cow food store.
• Tanva the Gold, leader of the Illumination and Court Wizard in Highport
• Torish, priest of Nerull, leader of the Skeletal Way in Highport.
• The Mad One, insane servant of Incabulous.

Sites

This is a dynamic list of all the sites associated with this location. {{#ask:located in::Highport | ?Population | format=ul }}

Organizations

• Church of Hextor, Highport: Even in a city dominated by humanoids, the Church of Hextor is a force to be reckoned with.
• Illumination, The: About 15 mages belong to this reclusive, exclusive organization which serves as the city's Wizards Guild.
• Followers of the Skeletal Way: A fantatical group of warriors, mages and thieves who have pledged themselves to the service of Nerull and His agents on Oerth.
• Grey Renders Guild: An adventuring guild based in Highport with members of an evil and corrupt nature
• Count's Men: What passes for the City Guard in Highport; these men make no attempt to patrol the humanoid portions of the city, instead sticking to the human-controlled areas.