Kolvar

Deep beneath the Five Kings Mountains, the citizens of Kovlar have learned not to fear the undead-haunted ruins that lurk just outside their city’s walls. Instead, they proudly cling to their ancestral home, trusting the dizzying array of protective spells inscribed into the stone to keep their ancestors’ spirits at bay.

History

Kovlar was once a single district of grand Saggorak, the capital of one of the five ancient kingdoms that give the Five Kings Mountains their name. The city’s proudest tradition was its people’s devotion to the dwarven god Torag and the rest of the dwarven pantheon, a tradition that earned it the moniker the Pious Kingdom of Saggorak. Still, it was far from a peaceful nation. Its founder, Saggorn the Holy, was one of the instigators of seven centuries of civil war among the dwarves, which fractured the Five Kingdoms and severely strained the resources of the Five Kings’ vassals on the surface, most notably Druma. Saggorak’s builders encircled the city and each of its districts with sturdy walls reinforced by rune magic to keep out invaders, both terrible creatures from the Darklands and invading dwarves. For all its defenses, Saggorak met its end in warfare over 2,000 years ago at the hands of an army of orcs. Unable to breach the city’s walls, the orcs instead launched a siege. Saggorak held fast for years, but with little means of producing its own food, famine struck. The brave few who went on raids to secure provisions never returned, and the once-majestic city became a mass grave. When the orcs finally breached the walls and attempted to conquer Saggorak’s southern district, the tide of furious dwarven spirits that had begun to haunt the place overwhelmed them. Though the orcs retreated, their initial efforts to clear out the undead paved the way for the dwarven king Khadon the Mighty to save what remained of the ruined capital. Khadon purified the southern district, fortified its walls against the undead that plagued the rest of the city, and named the new settlement Kovlar. Kovlar’s roots were militaristic. As Khadon the Mighty turned his focus to continued warfare against the orcs, he left a contingent of his army in charge of the city, along with several groups of master artisans to rebuild the local infrastructure. But the city’s walls proved more than capable of protecting it, and as decades went by without major incident, Kovlar’s artisans grew to resent the restrictive laws meant to protect them. As the influence of Kovlar’s tiny military waned, artisans gradually seized control of the city.

Government

Kovlar’s primary governing body is the Court of Regents, a council that began as an alliance between the leaders of the city’s artisan and mercantile guilds, but which has grown to control almost every aspect of Kovlar’s administration. Its duties include imposing taxes, directing public works projects, and legislating policies to maintain the city’s safety and prosperity. Because of the outsized political influence guilds hold in the city, most citizens of Kovlar strive to maintain at least a nominal affiliation with one. The largest of these organizations, the Anvillers’ Guild, represents almost 10 percent of the population, including many of the city’s most talented smiths. In total, nine guilds have voting seats on the Court of Regents: the Anvillers’ Guild, the Carpenters’ Guild, the Guild of Arms, the Guild of Coins, the Guild of Faith, the Guild of Finery, the Guild of Spells, the Physic Guild, and the Stonemasons’ Guild. Additionally, the Gamblers’ Guild is given a non-voting representative.

Guild membership is a cornerstone of life in Kovlar, and the political stances of guilds, as well as their attitudes toward outsiders and each other, help define the character of civic life. Locals identify strongly with their guilds, a loyalty second only to their affiliation with their family and clan. To ensure fair representation, Kovlar forbids its citizens from being part of more than one guild.

Each of the 10 guilds are summarized below, along with their leader and the guild’s favored skills—those pursuits and trainings that members of that guild tend to see as most valuable. Use of a guild’s favored skills is the best way for a visitor to Kovlar to earn the respect of each guild’s corresponding member of the Court of Regents (this becomes important during Chapter 2 of “Fires of the Haunted City”—see Influencing the Court on page 17). A visitor to Kovlar can attempt a DC 15 Society check to Recall Knowledge or a DC 10 Diplomacy check to Gather Information to learn the general information about a specific guild presented below, its favored skills, and the name of its leader.

ANVILLERS’ GUILD

Leader Forgemaster Kelda Halrig (LN female dwarf smith)

Favored Skills Arcana, Athletics, Crafting

As the most powerful guild in Kovlar, the Anvillers’ Guild encompasses nearly every crafter and tradesperson whose trade involves metalwork, as well as those who work in glass. Kovlar has made a name for itself as a place to purchase quality weapons and armor, and the guild requires its members to pass stringent tests of skill before they are allowed to sell their goods on the public market. The Anvillers’ Guild asks its members to try to avoid the complications posed by interguild politics, an attitude that sometimes upsets members of other organizations.

CARPENTERS’ GUILD

Leader Alljoiner Torra Garnis (N female dwarf carpenter)

Favored Skills Acrobatics, Crafting, Nature

As its name suggests, the Carpenters’ Guild represents craftspeople who work primarily with wood or paper. The guild has also expanded its reach to include those whose creations do not fit neatly into any other categories, such as potters. For centuries, the Carpenters’ Guild has maintained a friendly rivalry with the Stonemasons’ Guild. According to the taunts of the Carpenters’ Guild, the Stonemasons’ Guild is filled with inflexible people who work slowly, focusing on the distant future to the detriment of the present. Conversely, Stonemasons’ Guild members cite the relative impermanence of wooden crafts as a sign of their inferiority. The Carpenters’ Guild works closely with the Physic Guild.

GAMBLERS’ GUILD

Leader Fortunate Algera Kord (CN female dwarf mogul)

Favored Skills Deception, Sleight of Hand, Thievery

The members of this guild are gamblers insofar as they undertake risky enterprises, and they like to think of themselves as daring risk-takers. While a few members make their livelihood from gambling, this guild includes thieves, thrill-seekers, and adventurers who believe that their members should be given a chance to prove themselves. Though the Court of Regents doesn’t trust the Gamblers’ Guild to make decisions for common welfare, members of the council acknowledge that the gamblers serve an important function in society. The guild regulates Kovlar’s underworld, both requiring its members to abstain from the most serious crimes, such as assault and murder, and helping the Guild of Arms capture criminals of all kinds operating outside of the guild’s auspices. While traditionalists may disparage them as merely an organized criminal organization, the Gamblers’ Guild is also a hotbed for new ideas. In addition to providing regular forums to discuss innovations in technology and thought, members of this guild take chances on investments that those from other guilds would not touch. An up-and-coming inventor with a spotty record is unlikely to receive a loan from the Guild of Coins, but the Gamblers’ Guild has a higher tolerance for risk.

GUILD OF ARMS

Leader Commander Grokar Hammersong (LN male dwarf warrior)

Favored Skills Acrobatics, Athletics, Survival

The Guild of Arms consists primarily of soldiers and guards. The guild’s members focus their efforts on protecting the city from within and fending off monstrous incursions on the roads connecting Kovlar to other settlements. They rarely venture out into Saggorak, as the guild’s traditional position is that moving out from the defensive advantage of the city’s enchanted walls is folly. Still, the guild believes that it is important for Kovlar’s citizens to know how to stay safe. As such, its members provide free self-defense training to Kovlar’s youth, with a strong focus on retreating to defensive positions where those with martial training can protect them. The guild also provides several programs of intensive training for adults. These programs are offered free of charge to guild members, for a small fee to other citizens of Kovlar, and for a hefty price to outsiders.

GUILD OF COINS

Leader Goldhand Wuldi Irontemper (LN female dwarf merchant)

Favored Skills Crafting, Performance, Society

The Guild of Coins is responsible for matters of finance and trade within the city. Its members manage banks, issue loans, and regulate commerce. The guild welcomes merchants in good standing to its ranks. Outsiders looking to trade in expensive goods may struggle to find buyers if they do not first secure a permit from the Guild of Coins. This guild maintains far-reaching connections across the Inner Sea region among traders who have come to trust Kovlar’s reputation for high-quality wares.

GUILD OF COINS

Leader Sentinel Frastin Stoneborn (LG male dwarf high priest of Torag)

Favored Skills Crafting, Religion, Society

Because guilds are virtually the only route to political influence in Kovlar, even groups that would not normally form such organizations do so here. The Guild of Faith includes priests, acolytes, and others whose occupation relates to their faith. Still, not all religious figures chose to join the Guild of Faith; for example, quite a few devout followers of Torag belong to the Anvillers’ Guild instead. Some people who favor the Anvillers’ Guild are motivated by a desire to express their faith through action, but the social standing of the Anvillers’ Guild also draws more ambitious individuals who might otherwise belong to the Guild of Faith. primary

GUILD OF FINERY

Leader Adorned Stosk Dolgindir (N male dwarf tailor)

Favored Skills Crafting, Deception, Performance

The Guild of Finery began as a guild of tailors and weavers. In a factional dispute several centuries ago, it also absorbed the Jeweler’s Guild from the Stonemasons’ Guild. Today, the Guild of Finery concerns itself with matters of fashion and style. Its members often wear their highest-quality apparel around the city to advertise their work. After all, even when it comes to high fashion, Kovlar’s customers have little interest in clothing that isn’t durable.

GUILD OF SPELLS

Leader Archmage Hromgar Nalruven (LN male dwarf abjurer)

Favored Skills Arcana, Nature, Occultism

While the Guild of Spells’s charter ostensibly welcomes members from all magical traditions, almost all of its members practice arcane magic. The guild’s most advanced spellwork is predominantly defensive magic, such as spells and rituals of the abjuration school. Guild members are expected to freely share their knowledge and discoveries with each other, a practice that has enabled the guild to compile a considerable library of spells and magical lore over the years. The guild is not so generous in sharing its collection with outsiders, charging steep prices to anyone hoping to learn any of the uncommon spells found in their archives.

PHYSIC GUILD

Leader Highphysic Natri Dolgindir (LG female dwarf herbalist)

Favored Skills Diplomacy, Medicine, Survival

The Physic Guild is a union of many smaller guilds whose work pertains to health and the body. Its component guilds support alchemists, barbers, chefs, doctors, farmers, and herbalists. Because the interests of these disparate groups are sometimes at odds, members of the guild have an unspoken agreement to always select a regent who can present a nuanced view of the guild’s perspectives. As a result, the leader of the Physic Guild is generally skilled at resolving disputes. In the Court of Regents, the Physic Guild leader can often be counted upon to calm the court when tempers flare.

STONEMASONS’ GUILD

Leader Mountainheart Kolarun Chiselrock (LE male dwarf stonemason)

Favored Skills Crafting, Intimidation, Society

Second only to the Anvillers’ Guild in size and influence, the Stonemasons’ Guild is responsible for most of Kovlar’s construction and renovation. Most of its members focus primarily on architecture, though a minority specialize in creating public decorations such as fountains and sculptures. The Stonemasons’ Guild works closely with the Guild of Faith to commemorate the dead, creating sanctified urns and grave markers to help Kovlar’s people remember the stories of their ancestors. This guild also maintains close ties to the Guild of Spells, which weaves defensive wards into the stonemason’s most significant creations at no cost as a collaborative effort to protect the city.

Culture

Kovlar’s culture prizes innovation as long as it doesn’t come at the expense of reliability. Some of the innovations a Kovlarite praises may seem small—a slight change to the shape of a weapon’s handle or a tunic’s stitching—but the people of Kovlar believe slow and steady improvement is the route to long-term success. Friendly competitions are commonplace in this city, whether contests of skill at the forge, of music, or of sport. Crowds gather to watch these contests both for the entertainment and to ensure that no cheating takes place. There is no surer way to face scorn in Kovlar than to be caught cheating or taking credit for the work of another. Such acts are said to be the work of the dwarven god of slavery and toil, Droskar (for more information, see page 59), and are punished harshly in the courts of both law and public opinion.

While disrespecting one’s ancestors is taboo in Kovlar, so too is preserving their memories to the detriment of the living. For example, while citizens pride their city for maintaining much of its original Saggorak architecture, this doesn’t stop builders from improving on existing structures or expanding them. Buildings that are mostly preserved in their original states stand next to new constructions that incorporate scattered fragments of original stonework into contemporary designs. In Kovlar’s markets, merchants present new crafts alongside artifacts with storied histories. From the regalia of ancient dwarven nobility to the treasures from Druma’s tributes to Saggorn the Holy, there’s no shortage of relics in Kovlar, even as the dwarven residents keep their eyes toward the future.

Life Underground

Life so far beneath the surface requires certain considerations unfamiliar to surface-dwelling peoples. Kovlar’s means of supporting its citizens are for the most part adapted from Saggorak’s original systems. Magma channels run from an underground chamber beneath the ruins of Saggorak to a sacred forge in the heart of Kovlar. Aeroducts leading off these channels provide heat through strategically placed vents throughout the city, both warming the caverns and maintaining a steady breeze from the outside world, ensuring the air doesn’t become stagnant. Aqueducts connected to the lake at the east end of the city provide a continuous source of fresh water. Fortunately for Kovlar, the water flows in from the east, reaching Kovlar before the rest of the old city and thus preventing undead contamination. While fishing and fungus farming provide enough food to sustain the population, imported food from the surface occasionally adds variety to Kovlarites’ diet.

No natural sunlight reaches the city, and as the vast majority of Kovlar’s citizens are dwarves who do not rely upon light for sight, the streets are typically only dimly lit by the continual glow of forges in the Earthfire District and a smattering of lanterns, magical lights, bioluminescent mushrooms, and glowbug hives along the streets and cavern walls. Brighter illumination is reserved for workshops, art galleries, and other places where the appreciation of the subtleties of color is paramount.

The lack of sunlight can be disconcerting for visitors accustomed to the surface, in part because of the matters more confounding for outsiders, Kovlar’s people adhere to the tradition of forge-days common among many grondaksen (the underground dwarves’ own name for their people). Forge-days are 32 hours long, with 12 hours for sleeping followed by 20 hours of work and leisure. During the sleeping hours, Kovlar’s guards quench fire-based lanterns, making the streets somewhat darker. Fortunately, a large clocktower at the center of the city provides one reliable way to determine the time, though even with this, an outsider must keep diligent logs to translate the forge-day hours into a time format more common to the surface world.

Death at the Gates

Perhaps no topic has been the cause of more arguments and debates in Kovlar’s history than what to do about haunted Saggorak. When a Kovlarite argues that it is high time for the city to muster an army to put their ancestors to rest at long last, a dozen others quickly point to the many failed expeditions into the ruined city. Particularly cautious citizens fear that if Saggorak were ever to be truly rid of undead, threats from farther into the Darklands would emerge to fill the power vacuum. Historically, most of the people who have departed from Kovlar’s north gates into Saggorak’s ruins have never returned, adding their bodies and souls to the undead hordes. As a result, departure out of Kovlar’s north gates is highly restricted, and potential adventurers must pass rigorous checks with the city’s Guild of Arms to be granted permission. In recent years, few other than the clergy of the god Magrim have passed these requirements. Sayings

The following sayings are common in Kovlar.

Forging the Hammer Before the Nail: In a literal sense, this expression refers to overeager smiths who attempt to skip ahead to more advanced projects than they are ready for. Figuratively, the phrase is more expansive in its meaning. Depending upon the context, people who gloss over crucial steps to get a result faster, those who loudly overestimate their own abilities, and individuals who make arguments with weak foundations can all be said to be forging the hammer before the nail.

Lost in Saggorak: A person who is “lost in Saggorak” is fixated on unpleasant aspects of the past. This could be someone who dwells on unpleasant circumstances from their childhood, or someone who continually frets over a mistake they made recently. While outsiders sometimes misinterpret the phrase as accusatory or disparaging, most Kovlarites offer and understand the absence of a cycle of day and night. To make sentiment either as a simple description of a common behavior or with some amount of sympathy.

Soupbeard/Soupbraid: A soupbeard or soupbraid is a person with poor hygiene and grooming standards. Because most underground dwarves can grow beards, regardless of biological sex, these terms are mostly used interchangeably. Soupbeard and soupbraid are also more generic insults. While these terms can be used in a good-natured way among friends and family, calling a stranger either one is likely to start a fight.

Holidays

The paired holidays of Grimnight and Bounty are Kovlar’s way of remembering its ancestors. Grimnight is an annual day of remembrance for lost ancestors. Starting at dawn, all adult citizens in good health abstain from food. On Grimnight itself, those who are fasting prepare and deliver food to everyone who is not participating in the fast, such as children, elders, and people in ill health. Families then stay up late into the night, sharing the stories they remember of the hardships their ancestors faced. The day after Grimnight is Bounty, a daylong feast marked by dancing and song. During Bounty, families recount tales of their ancestor’s triumphs. As a whole, the festival represents Kovlar’s story of rising from Saggorak’s ashes. Many citizens of Saggorak believe that Grimnight helps to pacify the spirits in Saggorak, and that the spirits are at their calmest on the day after. According to this belief, Bounty is the safest day of the year for feasts and celebrations, and some even believe that the day itself is lucky. As a result, it is the most popular day of the year for everything from marriage proposals to entering into business contracts. It is also a day when Kovlar’s people resolve to improve themselves in the next year, calling upon their ancestors to bolster their chances of success.

Locations

Kovlar is divided into six major districts. These districts and their most prominent locations are outlined below.

The Barricade

The Barricade is the northernmost district of Kovlar and the closest to the ruins of old Saggorak. Garrison: These rows of low stone barracks originally served as a garrison for soldiers. In recent years, they were repurposed into family homes and training grounds for the members of the Guild of Arms. Kovlar’s rarely used jailhouse is also located in the garrison.

Magrim’s Watch: Magrim’s Watch is a sprawling complex of graves and mausoleums, with a temple of Magrim, dwarven god of the afterlife, at the center.

The temple has a small permanent clergy led by Requiate Ladarza the Steadfast, and it also welcomes visiting clergy from Magrim’s grand cathedral in Larrad. The fell energies of Saggorak pull at the souls of those who die in Kovlar, making the city’s occupants particularly prone to rising as undead. To manage this problem, Kovlar offers free burial on sanctified ground to everyone who dies within its walls. For a fee, instead of being buried, a citizen of Kovlar can instead be memorialized through petrification. Those who opt for this method of preservation are carefully posed with implements of their trade and other prized possessions before being exposed to the breath of the temple’s captive gorgon. The temple also uses petrification to dispose of the corpses of monstrous creatures that occasionally invade Kovlar from the Darklands, as well as the bodies of particularly heinous criminals. Instead of being posed artfully, however, these statues are smashed to pieces and used in construction. In Kovlar, the word “gravestone” refers to this unusual building material. While there are reports of strange occurrences and unsettling sensations around gravestone structures, the church of Magrim’s investigations into the matter have consistently failed to turn up evidence of haunting around them. As such, the church has not stopped producing gravestone, and members of the clergy have come to regard such rumors as superstitious nonsense.

Wall of the Ancients: Thousands of feet long and 20 feet thick, this fortified barricade is an engineering marvel. In addition to its use as a physical barrier, the wall is the focus point of a magical barrier that encases the entire city in a wall of force that continually repairs itself. For more on these magical defenses, see Task 1: Check the Walls on page 21. The interior of the wall is also adorned with complex genealogical charts of those dwarves who have lived and died in the city. Most of them were made after Kovlar’s founding, but some of these charts date back to the days of Saggorak.

Commerce

Home to dozens of shops, the commerce district is a thriving marketplace. The rise of so many major threats since the death of Aroden—from the Worldwound to the return of the Whispering Tyrant—has increased the demand for arms on the surface world, bolstering Kovlar’s economy. The commerce district also contains the following significant buildings.

The Archive: This library contains one of the most thorough records of dwarven lineages on Golarion. In addition to the names of each dwarf, pulled in part from the inscriptions on the Wall of the Ancients, the lineages include snippets of the most popular stories passed down through their descendants. While the genealogical information is relatively accurate, many of these stories are heavily embellished or outright falsehoods. After all, as its curators explain, the purpose of the record is to preserve each family’s story, rather than to simply tell the history that can be found in other tomes. Still, a determined scholar who knew what to look for could find clues to great treasures and lost settlements buried among the legends. Guild Halls: With the exception of the Anvillers’ Guild in Earthfire, the Guild of Arms in the Barricade, and the Gamblers’ Guild in the Traveler’s Quarter, most guilds base their operations out of the Commerce District.

House of Oaths: The House of Oaths oversees matters of law, from notarizing agreements to hosting trials for those accused of crimes within Kovlar. It also serves as a temple to Kols, dwarven god of duty. The high priest of Kols, Arbiter Duvarit, is the head judge here, though he takes only cases of great significance. When cases involve disputes between prominent local factions, Duvarit often asks visiting merchants to participate in the trial as neutral parties.

Regents’ Hall: Regents’ Hall is the principal administrative office in Kovlar. It contains at least one office for each official guild in Kovlar, as well as extensive records of legal and financial matters. The basement of the Regents’ Hall contains a secured vault whose contents are known only to guild leaders and their most trusted advisors. This vault is guarded by contracted agents from Axis, the extraplanar city devoted to universal law, at great cost.

Earthfire

The Earthfire district is the heart of Kovlar’s smithing industry. Because of the prestige associated with this part of the city, Kovlar does not have a separate residential district—instead, most of its homes are officially part of Earthfire, and the majority of the buildings north of Steel Loop are residential.

Anvillers’ Forge: Located along Earthfire Avenue, the Anvillers’ Forge is the base of operations for the Anvillers’ Guild. This building contains two separate connections to the magma channels beneath the road, while also housing dozens of more conventional coal forges and a variety of offices and storerooms. The leader of the Anvillers’ Guild, Forgemaster Kelda Halrig, lives on the top floor of the forge.

Clocktower: While settlements on the surface can rely on the sun for timekeeping, the massive clocktower in the center of Kovlar is the most accurate way to tell time in Kovlar. Access is strictly monitored to prevent pranksters and vandals from mucking up one of the city’s most important buildings. In addition to the dwarf guards stationed outside the tower, small groups of clockwork constructs operate within the building itself, maintaining its internal mechanisms and patrolling for intruders.

Droskar’s Forge: Worship of Droskar is severely frowned upon in Kovlar, so the Dark Smith’s followers must hide their activities carefully. In this secret temple tucked beneath the city, they engage in nefarious activities ranging from smuggling to slavery. More information about this clandestine temple can be found in The Hidden Forge section on page 29.

Earthfire Avenue: Earthfire Avenue is home to the finest forges in Kovlar. This road’s twists and turns follow the path of a magma channel deep below the city. An ancient system of fire-resistant switches and locks allows smiths to bring carefully controlled flows of magma to Kovlar’s surface for use in their forges. Many of the durable buildings along Earthfire Avenue consist of original architecture from the height of Saggorak. Properties along the road are particularly valuable, and many of Kovlar’s most well-to-do citizens own homes here. Temple of Torag: The central feature of this hammer-shaped temple of Torag is a massive forge. While most who work the forges in Earthfire are unfriendly to anyone who isn’t part of the Anvillers’ Guild, the anvils here are open to everyone. The Anvillers’ Guild’s restrictions are a regular source of tension between the temple, which maintains that forging is part of proper worship, and the guild, which insists that the city’s economy relies upon its reputation for quality goods.

Farmburrow

Kovlar’s recent growth has pushed its poorest people out of the city proper and into the tunnels below. This relatively new district is named for its proximity to the city’s fungus farms as well as the occupation of many of its inhabitants. Work on Kovlar’s farms pays poorly compared to many other occupations, making it hard for farmers to escape the district.

Treehouses: This ramshackle collection of buildings contains the homes of Kovlar’s farmers and many of its poorer citizens. Despite what the name might imply, these houses are not built atop trees. Instead, they are made of wood, which Kovlarites consider to be an inferior crafting material.

Fungus Farms: These former mining tunnels were stripped of the last of their valuable minerals long ago. Kovlar’s people have made use of these winding chambers by covering the ground with nutrient-rich compost and turning them into farms for fungi that grow underground. The most common fungus, ironbloom mushrooms, are a staple of Kovlar’s cuisine. They have a light salty flavor and an earthy aftertaste.

Lakeside

The winding road that leads to the Lakeside District is built on an old riverbed that once ran from Bluecrab Lake. Kovlar’s settlers dammed the tributary to create additional real estate and make it easier to manage the city’s water supply.

Bluecrab Lake: This deep reservoir is fed with fresh water from the city’s aqueducts and an underground waterfall. It hosts a robust ecosystem of edible fish and crustaceans native to the Darklands, the bioluminescent bluecrabs being a local favorite. To maintain the lake’s value as a food source, Kovlar tightly controls fishing and crabbing, limits who can obtain permits to sail, and imposes strict regulations to curb pollution. Despite these measures, the lake’s fish stocks have been steadily dwindling in recent years. Rumors of a dull droning sound emanating from the lake’s depths have the fishers spooked, but thus far the Physic Guild has made no moves to investigate the matter.

Lakeside Bathhouse: Smithing and other arts popular in Kovlar are dirty work. Despite this, Kovlar’s people have high standards of personal grooming and hygiene, making bathhouses like this one a popular business. Visitors are expected to rinse off before entering the shared baths, which feature refreshing cold pools, warm baths, and natural hot springs heated by the magma channels beneath the city. While the main bath is open to all genders and ages at the same time, the bathhouse also features small, secluded pools for anyone seeking a greater degree of privacy. Loud conversations in the public bathing area are taboo, as is standing close to other bathers.

Nadrym’s Barbershop: Many dwarves take pride in their hair and beards, and the people of Kovlar are no exception. Nadrym’s is the most popular barbershop and salon in the city. Unlike in many local shops, which have little experience with non-dwarves, Nadrym’s prides itself on employing stylists who have experience with a wide variety of ancestries and ethnicities from both underground and above. The namesake owner of the barbershop has grown bored of traditional cuts and offers substantial discounts to anyone willing to try a more daring hairdo or beard style.

Traveler’s Quarter

The southernmost tip of the city is set aside for merchants, tourists, and other visitors to the city. Gold Sky Inn: This high-class establishment’s name comes from its gilded ceilings. It features several art galleries with rotating exhibitions of modern dwarven art, as well as a small theater. Some citizens rent rooms here for a taste of luxury. The staff has a reputation for discretion, so it’s also a place for clandestine affairs, be they financial, political, or romantic.

While a night’s stay at the Gold Sky Inn is quite expensive, the inn’s proprietor, Stinna, accepts payment in the form of art. She also offers skilled musicians, actors, and other performers the opportunity to perform on the inn’s stage in exchange for room and board. Recently, the most popular recurring act in the theater is the Mystery Troupe, a group of performers whose appearances seem to change with each show, and whose true identities are a closely guarded secret. The night before a performance, the Mystery Troupe sets a suggestion box out in front of the theater. When morning comes, they open the box and improvise a comedic play based on the suggestions. At the play’s intermission, the troupe draws and reads an additional random idea from the box, which they must then incorporate into the second half of the show.

Grandmothers’ Alehouse: This popular alehouse claims that some of its recipes date back to before the Quest for Sky, when dwarves still lived solely beneath the earth and the light of the sun was merely a myth. Whether there is any truth to these claims or not, their famous Hundred-Grandmothers’ Ale is not for the fainthearted. Its recipe is a closely guarded secret, passed down through the family of the current owners, Margit and Valik Firhoft. In addition to this famous brew, the Firhofts enjoy experimenting with new drinks. The most popular new libations earn names that suggest their potency (such as Inferno’s Revenge) or honor local heroes. Members of the Gamblers’ Guild frequent this establishment, betting proud travelers that they can’t down the more powerful beverages without making a face.

Memorial of Kings: This museum was founded to commemorate the rulers of Saggorak before the city’s fall. Its relics include the crown of Saggorak’s founder, Saggorn the Holy, as well as an early copy of the Kerse Accords, the peace treaty that ended a civil war among the original five dwarven kingdoms. While some of its relics are legitimate, the provenances of others are far more questionable. Eager to expand public interest in his collection, the current curator, Jostar, has taken to purchasing samples of Saggorak art and architecture from those brave enough to venture out into the haunted city, then hiring unscrupulous restorers to embellish the items before passing them off as royal objects.

Sleep Like a Stone: This modest inn has small private rooms, as well as a large open sleeping space. It has started to offer reusable mushroom-fiber earplugs to anyone sleeping in the common room, as the combined snoring of a dozen burly dwarves has earned the establishment the nickname “Sleep by the Anvil.”

Whims of Fortune: Whims of Fortune is a casino run by the Gamblers’ Guild, which supplies the games and manages all the betting in the central hall, guaranteeing the winnings of anyone who achieves a fair victory. In the building’s other wings, players may run their own games. Here, guild agents keep watch over the various games to protect against cheating and to calm any fights that may ensue. Those caught engaging in violence within the establishment must pay a fine to the house, while cheaters are banned with no chance to appeal.

Réferences

Pathfinder 2 - Adventure Path - 25 - Age of Ashes 4 - Fires of the Haunted City