Vedycaer is the greatest city of the northern Borderlands — a walled metropolis of merchant guilds, arcane towers, temples, and gladiatorial games on the banks of the Darkwater River. Once a jewel of independent Caernath, it now answers to the Sair and its Prefect, and is sometimes styled the Capital of the Borderlands. It is a Class III market, the largest in the northern Borderlands, reached from Teryk by way of Fort Talon.
Seeded page
This overview draws on the city guide. The individual districts’ interiors, the undercity, and the city’s cast are being filled in chunk by chunk.
Layout
Two rings of wall tell the city’s story. The outer Imperial Walls, raised by Sair after the conquest, enclose all eight districts; the inner Old Walls, a legacy of Caernath, gird the oldest heart of the city. Within them, Vedycaer is divided into eight districts — the Old, Festival, Bridge, Plaza, Tower, Temple, Lake, and Palace — each with its own character, gates, and gossip. The Darkwater River runs through the middle, crossed by three great bridges.
See Vedycaer Districts for a walk through all eight; the Old District has a page of its own.
The undercity
Beneath the sewers lie the buried bones of an older city. Rumor tells of a fabled “Nethercity” somewhere below, said to hold the secrets of necromantic immortality, and of wererat packs that have delved the tunnels in search of it. What waits beneath the streets is anyone’s guess.
Powers
Vedycaer is governed by a Prefect — currently Councilor Tavicus Basilio — advised by a Municipal Council drawn from the city’s wealthiest patrician houses, among them Ambador and Drakomir. The City Watch keeps the streets and walls, quick to arrest and slow to release. The Prefectural Guard, a heavier force of cataphracts and veteran infantry, answers to the Prefect alone.
Street rumor
Beneath the civic order runs a current of gossip. The city is whispered to sit atop a web of criminal syndicates, though little is ever proven:
- The Caernathi Family — rumored to run a smuggling ring and protection racket out of the Mink Inn, trading in looted Caernathi relics under a red-wolf sigil. Talk ties it to the Mink’s owner, the merchant Lucius Furlan.
- The Sewer Rats — said to hold the gambling dens and cantinas of the Festival District, and to stage illegal pit-fights beneath the Silk Pony Inn, under a man named Nicolai Selenium.
- The Brotherhood of Knives — a shadowy band of assassins-for-hire, spoken of only in uneasy whispers.
People
See Notable Vedycaer NPCs. Public figures include Prefect Tavicus Basilio and Councilor Valens Ambador; among those who move in less reputable circles are the merchant Lucius Furlan of the Mink, the gladiatorial lanista Maxwell Silvermane, and the curio-dealer Damonos.