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In this edition of Realmslore, we talk all about one of the oldest (in the real world) locations in the Realms, Scornubel.

In one of Ed's earliest stories, One Comes Unheralded to Zirta, readers find themselves in what is, geographically, the southern half of Scornubel (details in the Q&A section). In many ways a den of iniquity, and likened to the Star Wars Cantina on Tatooine, Scornubel is a place rife with adventure possibilities for you and your party.

SPOTLIGHT ON SCORNUBEL

Looking for a Star Wars Cantina spot in the Realms?

Where all races, including monsters, cross paths in a largely lawless setting to trade?

A rough-and-ready city where you can buy anything?

Welcome to Scornubel.

The Caravan City, it’s called—and it is THE major caravan rendezvous, mustering, transhipping (to barges, for travel mainly down the River Chionthar to Elturgard and Baldur’s Gate, but also to Berdusk and up the River Reaching to Hill’s Edge) and warehousing center in the Sword Coast. Waterdeep and Baldur’s Gate are busier, but lack the space for cheap wagon repairs and longterm storage, and caravans often make runs to them, offload, then “run on, empty” well out into the countryside to avoid thievery, vandalism, and high fees, to await local small wagon runs out to them, to fill their wagons and move on.

Scornubel, by contrast, has always been spacious (and muddy), with visitors sleeping in their wagons and tolerance for parking and camping anywhere that doesn’t block a thoroughfare or access to a local business. And the caravans bring a lot of visitors (“wayfarers”) in spring, summer, and fall, the city’s winter population (in the 1490s DR) of about 22,000 swelling as much as eightfold (a “base” of threefold is a usual summer norm).

Scornubel is where thievery is rampant, and cabals and cults flourish, and (amid the monsters citizens are used to seeing, thanks to the city’s traditional staged-monster-battles entertainments) Red Wizards, Zhentarim, orcs, lamia, and even drow, illithids, and yuan-ti stride or slither the streets openly—because there’s no local constabulary to stop them. There ARE hired adventuring bands, some of them hardened and capable, who keep the peace by dealing with murderers, arsonists, and street brawls, on behalf of the Highlord or Lady Highlord. While they’re on such duty, Scornubel calls them “the Hounds,” no matter what their company or other adventuring band name is, a corruption of the formal term “the Highlord’s Hands.”

Right now, the Highlord of Scornubel is Lady Highlord Rhauvva [“RAW-vah”] Qavarshield [“Kah-VAR-sheeuld”], a LN female half-orc Wiz7, INT 18 WIS 16 who stands a muscular, buxom nine feet tall, is strikingly beautiful, and is customarily demure and quiet (with a low, husky alto voice) but can bellow like a foghorn when she feels the need. She succeeded Highlord Maeraxh [“MARE-ax”] Hammilar [“HAM-il-lar”], who was murdered in the street by two merchants he’d swindled; these two tried to seize rule of Scornubel, dubbing themselves “the Merchant Princes,” but were dead by nightfall, after the mercenary band they’d hired as bodyguards defected to Rhauvva Qavarshield. Hammilar (Highlord from 1453 DR to 1479 DR, and chiefly remembered as the Highlord who “broke us free of Elturgard,” repudiating the annexation into that realm that befell in the city’s lean times, with trade dwindling at the height of the Spellplague and the city’s first Highlord desperate for taxes to personally live on; he’s widely—and correctly—believed to have been bribed by Elturel to join Elturgard) was widely believed to have murdered the previous Highlord, Oabran [“OH-brann”] Marhee [“MAR-he”], a perpetually smirking half-elf bard who’d earned the loathing of every Scornubrian over his long and corrupt tenure (1404 to 1453 DR)—and he’s widely thought to have seduced the previous “Lord” of the city, the elderly Lady Rhessajan Ambermantle, and strangled her when they were abed together, ere proclaiming himself the city’s first “Highlord” (in 1404 DR). If this swift summary makes it seem to you that “might makes right” in Scornubel, and that holding open ruling power is both an invitation to corruption and a dangerous occupation, you’ve grasped what life in Scornubel is like. Moreover, the Caravan City has always had problems with doppelgangers slaying and impersonating citizens and wayfarers alike.

So why come to Scornubel, to court such daily danger?

Well, there’s the freedom. And then there’s all the money you can have access to, as unscrupulous—and recklessly risk-taking—sponsors abound. And of course, you can get almost anything in Scornubel, and even if you’re after poisons or their antidotes, or magic items, or spell scrolls, or complex and formidable automatons to use as guards, there’ll be local competition, not just one guild or crime boss whose price and terms you’ll have to meet. (Contrary to what tavern-talk may have you believe, magic items are not for sale in shops on every third or fourth street corner in Faerûn.)

If you’re after something more mundane and safer to handle than magic items (or blessed-of-Gond devices that explode or pulverize or roast), Scornubel is the place on the Sword Coast where at any one time you can buy more bulk barley, “raw” or milled, or any other grain, loose or in sacks, from one seller. Again, Baldur’s Gate, Waterdeep, and even Athkatla likely hold more of a grain in various granary warehouses, but that’s just it: they’re the “various” warehouses of many sellers, and in all of those places, either guilds set prices (high), or once word spreads—faster than you can run, as it’s spread by street youths who can really scamper—that someone is buying, say, cornmeal, everyone will raise their prices, so by the time you find the last granary to buy from, you’ll be paying as much as twice what you emptied the first granary for.

If you’re a wagon merchant, or want to hire on as a caravan guard, there are always more than a dozen—usually closer to a score—of trading costers with paddocks and warehouses in the city, and they’re always in need of “new hands.”

Scornubel is the refuge for disgraced adventurers who’ve swiftly departed a Sword Coast city after... Read More 

This is an a excerpt from the full post on Patreon which comes in full-length video and audiobook formats. The full post finishes this write-up, and also includes an extended Q&A section that lasers in on specific and interesting happenings in Scornubel, the history of its creation, adventure ideas, and much more.

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