Halfmoon Bay

From LSWiki

History

Halfmoon Bay began as a small settlement on the eastern coast of the continent. Originally little more than a way station for adventurers traveling between Darkhold and Losthaven, the town of Halfmoon Bay has gradually grown into a booming port town. Fairly early in the town’s history, Oman, the grandson of one of the town’s founders, declared himself king. Though people originally objected, Oman was rather effective at convincing the town’s residents to support him (needing only to decapitate and dismember one protestor to get his point across) and thus, with no further interference, Oman became Halfmoon Bay’s first king. He chose to call himself Oman the Great, but history remembers him as Oman the Insane.

King Oman may have been insane, but he also proved to have a knack for planning and promotion. During his reign, Halfmoon Bay grew from a small village dependent primarily on fishing and the little business brought in by travelers into a mecca for shipping and commerce, and the people were happy.

Though he bore the title of ‘king’, Oman never quite managed to transcend his barbaric beginnings and remained crude to the very end. As it happens, the end came in a bar room brawl when one of the participants got a lucky dagger thrust in. King Oman left behind 14 sons by 9 different women and, rather than grieve for the loss of their beloved king, the people began placing bets which son would ultimately become Halfmoon Bay’s next ruler.

If the people of Halfmoon Bay were looking for sport, they certainly didn’t have to wait long. With King Oman gone, the various sons and their respective mothers immediately began to jockey for position. The first body (that of Oman’s eldest son Lars) fell before Oman’s funeral had even ended. He was simply rolled out of the way and the funeral continued as if nothing had happened. Before the week was out, 4 more sons and two mothers had also succumbed to this macabre comedy.

As the number of competitors decreased, the intensity of the competition increased tenfold, much to the delight of the regular citizenry. It became the main topic of conversation at the town’s numerous taverns, shops, and along its busy streets. All agreed that King Oman would have been delighted by the goings on and the betting was fast and furious as those with entrepreneurial aspirations scrambled to turn a profit from what was proving to be the most exciting event in the town’s history.

Over the next two weeks, mothers and sons continued to drop like flies. The townsfolk cheered their favorites on and the competition was nearly as intense as that between the would-be future kings. Soon, there were only two sons left: Sephus and Gorin, who happened to be full brothers. These two were, beyond a doubt, the most ruthless, cruel and vicious men that had ever walked the streets of Halfmoon Bay. Though nobody could provide conclusive proof, it was even rumored that Sephus had killed his own mother because he found out she’d been assisting his brother.

For weeks the competition continued as each brother tried not only to kill the other, but to avoid his brother’s best efforts. As the competition became more desperate, each attempt to squash the competition became more violent and more bizarre. The attempted kidnappings, burnings, ambushes, hired mages, drownings, poisonings and such were beginning to take their toll on the local population as innocent citizens got caught in the crossfire.

Just when people were beginning to wonder if the matter would ever be resolved, and if there would be anybody left to rule when it finally was, Sephus got the break he was looking for. It seems his dear brother had inherited their father’s fondness for the opposite sex (anything lacking male genitalia being fair game regardless of race). And so, in the early hours of the morning, Gorin fell victim his vice in the form of a rather pretty prostitute armed with an equally pretty jeweled dagger, and Sephus became the second king of Halfmoon Bay.

The people soon found out that, while Sephus might physically resemble his father, he lacked his father’s better qualities and had inherited the worst in far greater measure. Oman had always been viewed as somewhat crude, fairly violent, definitely insane, and about as rough as they come, but with a heart of gold. He didn’t stand on formality, refused to build a palace for himself and generally held court in one of the local taverns where he admirably proved that time and again that his drinking was just as legendary as his generosity. By contrast, Sephus was cold and distant. He wanted there to be no illusion that he was the governor and his fellow citizens were the governed. His first act as king was to begin work on a lavish palace. In order to pay for this monument to himself, he doubled taxes and seized many of the private shipping businesses that had sustained the populace. Those who complained were often slain outright. The less fortunate found themselves stripped of their remaining possessions and thrown in Sephus’ private dungeon. Nobody had ever returned from Sephus’ dungeon, but rumors of what happened to these poor souls were enough to convince most that those who died outright were the lucky ones.

Sephus produced 9 children during his reign, but unlike their father, the king’s heirs didn’t even wait until Sephus was dead to begin clearing out the competition. If Sephus and his brothers had been monstrous, his children were positively horrifying. They schemed, killed, and manipulated with an utter lack of conscience and nobody, regardless of how helpless or how defenseless, was safe from their intrigues - the youngest victim being just days old when he was smothered in his cradle. In the end, even Sephus wasn’t immune to his children’s scheming. His last surviving son, Vimish, quietly slipped into his father’s room one night shortly after his 13th birthday and casually slit his father’s throat, thus making himself Halfmoon Bay’s third king.

Through four more generations, each worse than the last, Oman’s line continued to maintain its increasingly feeble hold on the throne and Halfmoon Bay continued to decline, her people demoralized and starving, her buildings crumbling, and her once prosperous shops and shipyards all but abandoned. It was this decaying, miserable place that Jayce, the 8th king of Halfmoon Bay inherited.

Like his ancestors before him, Jayce ruled with an iron fist, willfully sacrificing Halfmoon Bay’s few remaining resources for his own comfort. However, where the townsfolk had called Oman insane as a term of endearment, there could be little doubt that Jayce was truly mad. On those few occasions when he allowed himself to be seen in public, he would often carry on whole conversations with himself. Sometimes he’d refuse to wear clothing, and others he’d insist on wearing everything he owned. His most notable quirk though, was his fear of children. Perhaps because so many of his predecessors had died at the hands of their own ambitious children, Jayce simply couldn’t tolerate the presence of children. Each time one of his mistresses bore him a child, he promptly had mother and child executed which essentially ensured that Jayce would be the last of Oman’s line to rule Halfmoon Bay.

It was at this time that a young sekh named Nyseem stopped in Halfmoon Bay on her way to Sanctuary. Unlike others though who only saw decaying buildings, empty docks, and dying businesses, Nyseem saw the enormous potential that a basically unsecured port town like Halfmoon Bay represented, for Nyseem was, in fact, not an ordinary traveler, but rather the leader of a powerful and well organized gang. Before long, Nyseem had relocated her base of operations from Sanctuary to Halfmoon Bay and established a lucrative smuggling operation, bringing along with her a literal army of cohorts. At first, the locals were suspicious of the newcomers, but it didn’t take long before they began to see some definite benefits to the gang’s presence in Halfmoon Bay - the most important of which was an influx of cash as hitherto failing businesses were suddenly inundated with requests for goods and services.

For a time, Nyseem operated in Halfmoon Bay with no competition. King Jayce, who had lost the last shreds of his sanity, barricaded himself in his palace and left the town to its own devices. Some say his only companions are the ghosts of his ancestors - which could very easily explain his descent into madness. The town's guards, with no orders to the contrary and seeing no reason to disrupt the town's new found prosperity, largely spent their time watching for outside intruders, only interfering with affairs inside the city's walls when the direct safety of the locals was compromised. All in all, everybody involved was happy.

Before long though, word of Nyseem's success had spread beyond Halfmoon Bay's borders and attracted the attention of more than a few of Almeria's better known underworld figures. Nyseem's first challenger, a drow by the name of Vandryx, was astonished to find that instead of just facing a small group of outlaws, he faced an entire town, armed to the teeth and intent on making him less than welcome. Nyseem's second challenger fared no better. After hearing about the fates of those who'd attempted to move into Halfmoon Bay before him (it was rumored that Vandryx's skull had made a lovely candle holder), Calin decided that maybe a full frontal assault wasn't such a good idea. Instead, he and three of his gang snuck into the city disguised as sailors. Given the number of sailors coming into and leaving port everyday, they had little trouble moving through the city undetected. They set up shop in the warehouse district in one of the many abandoned warehouses left from Oman's day. In this fashion, Calin gradually snuck his entire gang in without arousing suspicion. Once firmly entrenched in the city, Calin began to operate his own smuggling ring, and soon, even the few empty warehouses were full of goods awaiting shipment.

When Nyseem realized what had happened, she was furious, but by this time, Calin and his group had managed to develop their own group of supporters, though neither faction was strong enough to drive the other one from town. After a number of bloody, but otherwise unproductive skirmishes, both factions settled into an uneasy truce. For their part, the townsfolk were delighted - having not one, but two successful smuggling operations running had brought the town more prosperity than it had seen since the days of King Oman. As a bonus, the two sides kept each other in check which allowed the town to enjoy its new found prosperity without fear of any one side becoming too powerful.

Halfmoon Bay is once again known as the Pearl of the West. Its crumbling buildings have been restored, its docks and shops bristling with activity, and its streets once again ringing with laughter as people go about their daily business. Nyseem and Calin eventually came to be known as the Robber Barons of Halfmoon Bay and are looked viewed by the townsfolk almost reverently. As for King Jayce, nobody is really sure. Its entirely possible that he still roams the palace halls dodging the ghosts of his murderous ancestors. They say if you stop near the palace gate late at night, you can their voices carried on the night breeze, but that, my friend, is another story.

Alignment

The Alignment in Halfmoon Bay appears to be fairly neutral for all the NPC's. Gang members can be referred to by thug rather than by race or their impossible-to-type names. There are NPCs that mention guards, but no swarms of guards appear.

Map

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Wychwethyl 04:15, 17 January 2011 (EST)

Map Key

E = Entrance