Circle of Explorers¶
"Groups coming back up from the underground display their latest discoveries there, or share incredible rumors from the deep."
The hub of underground exploration in Cadwallon — part guild, part guild-hall, part tavern, part marketplace for the dangerous trade of plundering the ruins beneath the city. The Circle is where the shrews (underground explorers) gather, outfit, recruit, sell their finds, and trade rumors before descending into the entrails of the Free City.
Glory-Hunt¶
The Circle's home is Glory-Hunt — a bustling base camp in a great cave under the east district of Soma, near the cliff (with a second access from Gamehead, near The Skinner). An opening thirty meters up lets in a pale, surreal light. A troglodyte village is dug into the cave walls. This is the staging ground for every serious expedition into the deep.
- Night rights — Glory-Hunt is the one place to legally buy the "night rights": a 50-ducat license to exploit the underground's riches without being a free leaguer. An ancient metal portcullis, guarded by the Militia, controls access to the foundations of the old Cynwäll city beyond.
- The Wheelbarrows — a succession of caves where dwarves sell underground maps and knowledge for a percentage of discoveries; peddlers hawk mining gear, light sources, compasses, and instruments. Reliable goods cost ~20% more here, with Availability one point higher.
- Compass — a notable blind contact who dispenses advice; his presence surprises no one
The Circle Building¶
The unavoidable checkpoint of Glory-Hunt: a building studded with ornate gargoyles and disturbing sculptures emerging from the chalky dust. Returning groups display their finds and share rumors. A warm tavern in the basement is where shrews spend a last evening before descending — and where patrons and scholars come to mount expeditions for specific items.
What They Do¶
- Exploration brokerage — matching shrews to patrons, expeditions to funding, finds to buyers
- Outfitting — gear, maps, light, expertise
- Knowledge trade — the dwarves of the Wheelbarrows sell hard-won underground intelligence
- The night-rights system — legitimizing (and taxing) non-leaguer exploration
The Watchers¶
Cynwäll surveillance
Cynwäll spies permanently watch the Circle of Explorers building to keep an eye on what the shrews bring up from the deep. When something significant surfaces — a Sphinx-era artifact, a Cynwäll vestige, anything touching the [[Labyrinth]] — the shrews are roughly dispossessed, or offered great sums of gold to surrender the find. The Cynwäll (via Dyrsin) do not want certain things leaving the underground. The Circle knows it's watched. The Circle takes the gold.
Relations¶
- Militia — guards the portcullis to the deep ruins; regulates the night-rights system
- Cynwäll / Dyrsin — surveillance and quiet confiscation (above)
- Guild of Architects — clients; the Architects hire shrews for vestige extraction and catacrypt survey (including, secretly, around the Tractor bore)
- The Rags — trade partners; Rags know the shallow tunnels, the Circle the deep
- Free Leagues — overlapping membership; many shrews are leaguers and vice versa, though night-rights let non-leaguers play too
- Sophet Drahas's Court of Ashes — uncomfortably adjacent; the Court sits in the same underground the Circle explores
The patron with a list
A scholar at the Circle's tavern is mounting an expedition for a very specific set of items — and the list, read closely, describes components of a tarot-related ritual or a [[Labyrinth]] key. He's paying well and asking no questions. The Cynwäll watchers have already noticed him. So has someone from the Court of Ashes.
The find that got someone killed
A shrew who bought night rights last week surfaced with something, sold it fast and cheap at the Circle, and turned up dead two days later. The buyer has vanished. The Cynwäll watchers are agitated. Whatever it was, it's now loose in the city, and three parties want it back.