Halenhead Keep

Halenhead Keep GEOGRAPHY — A city. The largest city in all of → Mor-Thandak, Halenhead Keep—known also as Halenhead or simply The Keep—is a well-fortified city in the eastern region of → Ausrost. It is surrounded by mountains to the west and north, a high cliff to the south that drops away into the → Gimmlett bay, and the large mountain lake Lockneye to the northeast. To the east of the city is an uninhabited peninsula (uninhabited due mostly to its isolation behind the Keep, the mountains, and Lockneye, and its height above sea level and resulting sheer cliff walls to the ocean below) called the → Jib. The Keep is built atop the stone of a promontory, and it rises above the bay in layers. The layers are as follows: the Bowels are the city’s sewers (and include the prison), the Ditch is the lowest habitable portion of the city where its poorest residents reside, the Pole represents the largest population of the city and also represents where the majority of commerce takes place, the Shoulder is primarily the habitation for the rich (though there are markets here as well), the Loft is where the very richest of the Keep’s → folken live (including dignitaries), and the Promontory (a pre-existing obelisk with a staircase carved into its side and a Torch built on its top) is a soldier watch and gives a view over the bay, the peninsula, and the surrounding mountains. The Torch atop the Promontory is lit each night to serve as a beacon for passing ships. Halenhead uses a pulley and lever system to bring people and goods from the seashore below, but its primary enterprise is not trade but information.