Talathees

The former port city of Talathese lies at the edge of the easter foothills of the Spine mtn range. The west-most side of Talathese is carved out of one the side of a large foothill. It was the first quarry of Talathese and there is essentially a 35 foot wall from the lookout house at the top of the hill down to the cobblestone street below. Most buildings in Talathees are of stone construction made of stones carted in from quarries in the foothills of the Spine. Only the small aristocracy that served as the local government, simply by owning the majority of the businesses, lived in primarily wooden houses with tall steep roofs.

Talathese was a restocking point for ships sailing the Salton Sea, rounding the southern tip of the Spine. As a waypoint for various merchant vessels, the culture was fairly diverse in the small city, which had a local military consisting primarily of foot soldiers and a small cavalry to ward of the small tribal war parties of orcs that would occasionally attack from the plains of Ur as well as a small naval fleet to aid againstpirate raids. The navy and shore defense primarily uses small catupults as ranged weapons as lumber is scarce, leading to a scarcity of arrows and spears. The navy uses primarily single sail narrow long ships with oar ports from the lower deck to aid them in quickly closing on and boarding attacking pirate ships to then attack with their superior swordsmen.

Talathees currently lies largely a pile of rubble with bits and pieces being rebuilt by the few survivors of the Rage of Branok the warlord. What seemed like hundreds of orcs and ogres attacked Talathees at night. They struck in the wee hours past the moon's highest point when most citizens were soundly asleep. The wooden buildings owned by the aristocracy were left but smoking charred sticks and piles of ash. Most of the stone buildings have been gutted by fire and many toppled by Ogre-manned siege weapons (giant hanging battering rams and the cities own small catapults turned against them).

The playable races around Talathees are humans, goblins, gargoyles, orcs and ogres. All of these races can be found in the Fantasy Folk source book. Although the army that has recently been pillaging the country-side consists of orcs and ogres, so it may be difficult, although never impossible to work one of these into the party. Humans were the primary occupants of the city of Talathees as well as the primary travelers to and fro via the sea. The goblins are mostly wandering merchants who take their ox-pulled wagon caravans throughout the plains of Ur far to the east and north bartering and trading with various beings along thier journeys. The goblin caravans often supply common wares to many of the farms to the northeast of Talathees. The gargoyles are from the very base of the Spine and are rumored to be utterly useless hecklers and thieves (when there is something attractive enough to get them off of their lazy backs). It is rumored that gargoyle guides can be hired to take travellers through and/or over the Spine, although noone known has actually done so. It is also likely that there were/are some resident goblins or gargoyles in Talathees, and possibly even an orc, ogre, or half-breed of some sort.