Lapspell

minaria RPG

Last update Oct 5, 2025

Lapspell, with a population of approx. 11 000, is Hothior second largest city. It has two high points of land, with a creek emptying into the harbour, nestled in between them. The land rises quickly south of the creek, ending a cliff face overlooking the Deep. Upon this tor sits Castle Lapspell.

Castle Lapspell is over 500 years old, originally built by the Zefnarites. The inner citadel was built on top of an ancient Soraskier barbarian hill fort and there are rumours that the lower dungeons of the Castle contain barbarian-era cave steles. The Castle’s design retains the old-fashioned Zefnarite square towers, with a modern round tower, built by the Hothioran kings, atop the older inner keep. A 75’ high drop into the Deep protects the Castle’s southern flank. The city comes almost up to the walls of the castle on the west and north ides, but a steeper rise on the east side has precluded development there. Earl Brennan’s family has lived in the castle since the Restoration (1254 AC) and his court is known to boast exotic (and occasionally illegal) luxuries from many distant lands.

A smaller hill east of the harbour is the home of a secondary redoubt, housing the pharos (lighthouse), built long ago by the Zefnarites to guide their ships into the excellent harbour. The main gates to the city as well as the commons and market are located on this higher land. Travelers, those catering to the official trade, merchant houses, and the military, dominate this portion of the city. A temple to Tukultae competes for believers with a temple to Huisinga, which is overseen by Father Ceibir, an intelligent and compassionate cleric who despairs of the corruption of the Earl. The eastern side of the peninsula remains a public park by the ancient order of King Walkort. It was renamed Sheldric Park after the Restoration, to commemorate the folk hero who fought Mueta occupation.

Hothior’s navy is headquartered in a 150-year-old square keep, built during King Pithean’s reign, which overlooks two lesser channels east of the main harbour. Lord Daric Brennan keeps his offices in the naval headquarters. The royal naval vessels are moored at docks on either side of an artificially created peninsula. By Royal writ, no non-military vessels are permitted to berth on the opposite sides of the two channels. The naval headquarters completely blocks access to the dockyards and its western side is secured by a man-made moat stretching from the south channel to the north channel, crossed only by a single drawbridge gate.

East of the walls, the land falls into former marshlands. A second creek runs southwest into a secondary bay. Three centuries ago, the Mueta overlords built a sea dike along the coast on the far side of the secondary bay to reduce localized flooding and drain swampland. In the intervening 300 years, the creek system has become the basis for irrigated agriculture and fields of scarlet runner beans, beets, and onions grow on both sides of the trail to Nazlon.

The creek feeding into the harbour springs from the Fens north and west of the city. There is a grind mill west of the city walls, where the creek drops slightly, marking the end of settlement outside the walls to the west. The creek passes under the city walls, flowing through a well protected culvert under one of the square towers, emerging into a man-made watercourse running eastward in a straight line down into the harbour. Three bridges cross the “creek”, which is really a canal once inside the city walls. The eastern stone bridge, built by the Zefnarites, is the oldest and most ornate, with ancient Cirdal-script runes inscribed on its arches.

Only a single city street links the three levels of the tor upon which sits the Castle. The wealthiest homes lie on the third level. Superior residential buildings and a few commercial buildings (e.g. – silversmiths) are on the second level. At the lowest level (creek level), the ground is relatively flat and the majority of the city buildings; commoners and commercial, here lie. Inside the city walls, the majority of housing stock is of solid, if unspectacular wooden quality, and populated by secure, if not prosperous Hothior yeoman peasants. The oldest portion of town lies between the harbour, the creek, and the eastern slopes of the Castle. Several old families have their homes here, as does the resident wizard. There are examples of architecture from the Zefnarite and Mueta, as well as the Hothioran eras.

Roere Flengen (Fighter 4), a burly red-bearded human in his early 40s with a zest for adventure, a skill for troubleshooting, and sufficient wealth to be comfortable, engages in a variety of daring (and occasionally illicit) activities. Flengen’s wife is Natalia, a swashbuckling Ercii (Sorcerer 2). Flengen, who rather unconvincingly claims to be from Maragon, also has a human son, Vele (Warrior 1), from a previous marriage. Flengen’s privateer sloop is often in and out of harbour, skirting the Deep between Nazlon, Freeport, and Lapspell.

There is also an undesirable area north and west of the harbour, where illicit sea-borne trade finds a home in a warren of warehouses and wooden shacks. The Currufieri trading coster maintained a dockside warehouse in this district, although it recently burned to ground in a mysterious fire, forcing the Zefnarite merchants to purchase buildings nearby to provide storage for their goods arriving on their private dock.

The city walls of Lapspell are not particularly high, as the Lord relies for protection more on the strength of his ancient Castle than the city fortifications. The town itself has also sprawled north and west, outside the original walls. A thick maze of low-income houses, warehouses, and animal pens catering to the official trade exist as far west as the mill.

One inn outside the walls is the Sign of the Singing Fish, a clean well-kept establishment run by Cnuas, a pleasant man with small amounts of Elven blood in his veins. The Singing Fish lies at the first junction west of the gates on the road running parallel to the city walls. In the dock area, the Two Moon Inn is an unpretentious tavern, frequented by urbanites and seamen.

The lands for a half days journey around the port are dotted with small farmsteads, whose produce feeds the hungry masses. Every day, carts of farmers bearing eggs and vegetables arrive at the city gates for sunrise and depart every evening, dispersing to the surrounding countryside. There is even a modest traffic jam of carts through the outer neighborhoods during the early and late hours of the day, as waggoners for the caravan trade wrestle with farmer’s carts en route to market or home.

Recent History

During the 1352 war, Lapspell nearly fell into enemy hands when a local mercenary group hired by the Old Earl Brennan tried to seize control of the town, presumably to hand it over to the Mueta army besieging Fursten at the time. The town was saved when two wardens of Sheldric Park rallied the common folk and held the city gates, preventing the mercs from opening them. The timely arrival of a party of Forri Knights from Port Lork led to the mercs retreating into the Castle (where they had inexplicably overcome the Old Earl’s guards). The young Daric Brennan, who had been captured and imprisoned in the cellars, learned that his father had been murdered by the mercs. He broke out, and heroically led his remaining Guards to slay every single one of the treacherous mercs from inside the keep, as the commoners let the Forri Knights into the town. Brennan assumed his father’s throne and secured the town for the Hothioran crown. Rumours persist however as to how Brennan escaped his father’s fate and questions remain about how timely were Brennan’s heroics, given that his men somehow lost control so easily, only to regain it miraculously.

In 1355, Lapspell was the incubation site for the Black Death, a virulent plaque which devastated the urban centers of Hothior and nearby coastal heartland cities. Earl Daric Brennan ordered all the buildings on the south side of the harbour burned to the ground. Despite an efficient evacuation and quarantine screening, a prominent merchant, Sumujh, scion of the Shucassami king in exile’s line, somehow failed to get out of his warehouse in time and was burned to death with his infant daughter, Lilit. The death of Sumujh, who had never claimed the throne in Adeese, and his only heir, seems to have snuffed out the line in exile, except for the nagging fact that Lilt’s body was never identified in the mass of burned plague corpses. Sumujh’s merchant coster, Panyapati, never recovered from the disaster and its operations ceased soon after.

Starting after the 1355 plague, the royal court at Port Lork authorized the installation of dykes and other water-control mechanisms on the banks of the lower Deep, turning marginal shrubland into irrigable fields. This has greatly increased the arable land along the Deep east of Lapspell and beyond Nazlon, whilst also reducing what was a riverside highway and direct entry for cavalry into the heartland of the kingdom.