D&D City & Town Generator

town · pop. 2,140

Read aloudReed roofs step down a mud bank toward three brown channels, each capped by a stone sluice gate. Red-painted wooden markers stand in the shallows, and several are taller than the houses behind them.

• Who runs it — Warden Hesper Vaun, chosen by the Dike Assembly, which meets once a year to draw the flood lots.
• What it lives on — Brick and lime from the kilns, eel and reed fishing, and barge freight moving grain up the river to the market at Carrowby.

Districts & landmarks

• 1. Brickhythe — The dry ground: kilns, brick stacks, and the families who sit on the Assembly. Landmark: The Sluice House, a stone keep over the main gate, where the lot-box is locked in a cabinet with two keys and one missing key.
• 2. Lime Row — The low ground: lime pits, tanning sheds, and the houses that flood first every spring. Landmark: The Pit Dike, a turf wall with a gap where a child once drowned, now marked with a single red stake that has never been moved.
• 3. Eelgate Wharf — The floating market: barges tied three deep, boatmen, and the noise of freight at all hours. Landmark: The Gull Stair, a stone stair that goes into the water and is only dry at low tide, where the ferry crews wait for fares.

People who matter

• Hesper Vaun, Warden of the Sluice and chair of the Dike Assembly — She keeps two sets of flood lots in her strongbox and burns the spare set on the first night of each draw. Full NPC →
• Tobiah Sarn, Carpenter who carves and paints the lots and the red water markers — He was ordered last autumn to repaint the Lime Row marker a hand higher than the others, and he has not told anyone. Full NPC →
• Mercy Feld, Boatwoman who runs the flood ferries from Eelgate Wharf — She wants a seat on the Assembly so she can vote the draw open, and she will pay for a witness to the lot-box. Full NPC →
• Piet Lochran, Foreman of the Lime Row dike crew and a tanner by trade — His crew has rebuilt the Pit Dike four times and will not do it a fifth time without the Assembly's written word. Full NPC →
• Anselm Drury, Master of the Brickhythe kilns and the Assembly's largest landholder — He has bought three Lime Row plots through a cousin and wants the low ground flooded for good so the pits can be filled and sold. Full NPC →

Rumors (truth for the DM)

• The Lime Row marker was repainted a hand higher than the rest last autumn. true
• The lot-box has a false bottom, and the spare lots are kept beneath it. half-true
• The town's original charter sank in a barge in the Eelgate channel and is still there. false
• Drury's cousin has been seen at the Brickhythe land office every week since the autumn draw. true
• Something the length of a man's arm lives under the Eelgate sluice and tears at dike ropes after dark. false
• Vaun has never once drawn a Brickhythe lot, and the Assembly has never asked why. half-true