Quotes / City of Canals

CITY OF CANALS. This CITY is usually on a south or south-facing coast and under the governance of MERCHANT FEUDALISTS at their most crooked. The City is pretty old and seems to have grown up from settlements on a great number of islands in a large RIVER delta; after a while, the channels between island and island have become the canals (dark, scummy) and on their banks houses have been built upon houses, mostly of timber (rotting), with WHARFS on top of that and BRIDGES on and around those. The result is a labyrinth of watery ways known only to the inhabitants, who mostly get about in old, cranky BOATS. The ruling MERCHANTS always live somewhere at the centre in very beautiful houses built of imported stone. They are totally ruthless about wringing their money's worth out of the poorer folk and everything else, and their laws are draconian. Not surprisingly, the THIEVES' GUILD is very strong here; one of the Merchants is probably its Guildmaster. Murders are frequent, and bodies drift up and down the canals along with other REFUSE. The whole City smells.

—The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

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