Crafters’ Cross

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Introduction

• Description: Located at a strategic crossroads between high society, historic districts, and industrious areas, Crafters’ Cross has become a melting pot of skilled artisans, niche merchants, and ambitious entrepreneurs.
• Demographics: The residents of Crafters’ Cross are a diverse mix of skilled artisans, merchants, and a growing number of scholars and patrons from nearby Goldgull Heights. Many young apprentices and journeymen from The Squalids come here to learn trades, seeking a better life through skilled work. The neighborhood is also home to a burgeoning guild presence, making it a hotbed for trade alliances, innovation, and cultural exchange.

Detailed Description

Here’s more detail about the intriguing Crafter’s Cross.

Crafters’ Cross is a vibrant neighborhood bustling with specialized workshops, niche markets, and artisans’ guilds. Known for its unique blend of Oldtown’s charm and the industrious energy of Fishmonger’s Bend, it attracts artisans whose crafts lie between practical trades and refined artistry. You’ll find everything here, from expert weavers and glassblowers to leatherworkers and woodcarvers. Decorated market squares host seasonal fairs, attracting visitors from all walks of life. By night, Crafters’ Cross is lively with street performers and hidden taverns where both commoners and the elite gather in search of rare wares or the latest gossip.

Adventure Hook: Recently, a famous artisan’s workshop has been plagued by sabotage, with completed wares mysteriously vanishing or being damaged. Rumor has it that a rival guild from another city may be behind it, and local guild leaders are eager to hire adventurers to protect their crafts and uncover the saboteur.

Interesting Denizens of the Cross

1. Karna Goldleaf – The Artificer-Inventor

Description: Karna is a skilled elven artificer known for her small clockwork inventions and enchanted items. Her shop, Goldleaf Gears, is a place of wonder for the mechanically inclined, featuring everything from self-filling inkwells to miniature brass birds that sing at sunrise. Recently, she's been experimenting with an ambitious “auto-map” project: a scroll that traces a traveler’s steps in real-time.

Adventure Hook: Karna is in need of rare materials from the Whisper Wood to complete her “auto-map.” She hires the party to procure a specific type of iridescent sap, warning them of strange creatures that haunt the forest.

2. Dorian Tallowbane – The Candlewright

Description: Dorian is a quiet, mysterious candle-maker who crafts candles with magical properties. His shop, Tallow’s Flame, is renowned for its Dreamlights, candles that grant vivid dreams to those who burn them overnight. Locals whisper that Dorian was once a mage who left the arcane arts for unknown reasons, though his candles betray some latent magical talent.

Adventure Hook: One of Dorian’s Dreamlights malfunctions, causing a customer to become trapped in a dreamscape. Dorian, desperate to avoid scandal, asks the players to retrieve the soul-stone component of the candle from the dream world to save the customer.

3. Griska Wildfury – The Potion Witch

Description: Griska is a half-orc potion-maker with a flair for the dramatic, selling her wares in theatrical displays of color and spectacle. Her stand, Fury’s Brews, is always surrounded by plumes of colored smoke and strange bubbling sounds. Griska has a reputation for powerful but volatile potions and is known for her explosive temper, especially if a customer doubts her brews.

Adventure Hook: Griska’s supply of dragon’s blood—a key ingredient in her most popular potions—has run dry. She hires the party to “convince” a merchant from the Docks to part with his reserve, but unknown to Griska, the merchant is rumored to have ties with the Leviathan cult.

4. Balinor Flintshod – The Wandering Armorsmith

Description: Balinor is a dwarf who specializes in enchanted armor. His small but well-equipped stall, Flintshod’s Forge, offers custom-fit pieces infused with rare ores from his ancestral mines in the Black Marsh. Recently, he’s been constructing an experimental shield he calls the “Gale Guard,” rumored to be able to deflect spells.

Adventure Hook: A recent break-in has left Balinor short of essential blueprints and ingredients to complete the Gale Guard. He suspects a rival in Ironside Row or a student from the Scholar’s Enclave and enlists the players to retrieve the stolen plans.

5. Silva Veil – The Perfumer

Description: Silva is an elven perfumer with a knack for creating fragrances that stir memories and emotions. Her shop, Whispers in Bloom, is filled with enchanted flowers, each distilling rare scents from plants she cultivates in The Bloomfields. Silva’s latest fragrance line, “Ghost of the Sea,” is said to contain the essence of the Saltmaw Depths.

Adventure Hook: Silva’s assistant has gone missing after venturing to the Three Sisters Islands to retrieve a rare kelp for the Ghost of the Sea. She quietly asks the players to search for him, concerned that he’s run afoul of pirates or something far worse.

6. Nimma Flickerfinger – The Luminous Scribbler

Description: Nimma, a gnome artist and calligrapher, runs Flickerfinger’s Illuminations, a place of magical illuminated manuscripts, scrolls, and spell books. Her works are well-regarded among the Scholar’s Enclave, and she’s recently been commissioned by the Temple of Saint Ronald to create a tome of sacred prophecies. Nimma is always experimenting with ink enchantments, like her glowing inks for nighttime reading.

Adventure Hook: Nimma’s latest shipment of rare phoenix-feather quills has gone missing, stolen en route from the Black Marsh. She fears the quills may have attracted cursed creatures and hires the party to track them down, hoping they can restore her patron’s confidence.

7. Vasco Mirthfoot – The Wandering Troubadour

Description: A halfling with a fondness for coin and stories, Vasco is well-known in the local taverns. Though he claims he’s “retired” from adventuring, Vasco often entertains patrons with tales of his youthful exploits. His song about the Leviathan of the Deep has recently attracted attention, and there are whispers that he’s made some questionable deals to acquire his growing fame.

Adventure Hook: Vasco is being pursued by agents of a noble house whose secrets he unwittingly revealed in his song. He begs the party to help him either clear his name or “convince” the noble to overlook the lyrics he’d rather forget.

Each of these characters has ties to the community that make them essential to the lifeblood of Crafters' Cross. Their wares, skills, and personalities provide unique opportunities for interactions, side quests, and developing deeper connections with the local culture of Harbour City.

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