A new year, a new summary

Races:

Goblins: Clever engineers that threw off the shackles of the evil god that created them and now enforce their goodness through temperance leagues and other clubs and societies.

Orcs: Gentle seafaring folk who live aboard their greatships and rarely venture onto dry land

Halflings: Live communally in small villages in the homeland, but more conventionally in the city, the home hearths of Astre owe their current form in the city to the Halflings.

Dwarves: If not a dead race, then certainly dying. No child has been born in the mountainholmes for more than a century and the remaining Dwarves spend their time in a stupor, unwilling to do much besides eat and sleep.

Humans: Come from many of the worlds connected to the City, but mostly from the many shattered kingdoms of the old empires of Tikreti.

Kobolds: Recently civilized tribes from the swamps, they appear more and more often in the city as traders of fish, fowl and other products of the swamps.

Worlds Beyond Portals:

Benoch: The area around the portal is low lying hills populated mainly by Halflings. Large river near the portal makes it a huge trade route to the many kingdoms that formed from the fallen Tikreti empire.

Orlock: The source of the Aqueduct, the goblins beyond the underground exit to the portal are proficient engineers, building dams and canals above and below ground.

Copia: Portal exit is to a vast swamp populated by Kobolds and much worse. A massive project to build a causeway across the swamp is nearing completion, will enable much better trade with the dwarves of the mountainholmes beyond the swamp.

Ilum: Leads to a floating pontoon that orc ships occasionally dock at. The nearest land is more than a week's voyage from the portal.

Interesting Sites:

The Palace of Justice: Next to the Night Palace, Court cases in Nocte are known for their entertainment value, creative punishment, and mad Judges.

The Pits: Home to the poorest and most desperate of Nocte's peoples, the pits burrow deep below the city into the rock.

The Night Palace: The palace of the Duke of Nocte, although the Duke himself hasn't been seen in many years, is known for lavish balls and its intricate gothic architecture.

The Home Hearths: Each morning, all the citizens of Nocte eat breakfast in one of the almost 50 hearths, tended to by the Priests of Anwyn. The elite of the city do most of their business deals in the hearths.

Walker's Square: The largest open public space in the city sits next to the Palaces of Justice and is the site of all executions in the city.

The Anchor: In several Nocte neighborhoods, massive chains, with links the size of a horse, can be seen randomly piercing walls and spanning streets. These chains hold up parts of Nocte that jut out over the edge and have allowed people to build wider and higher than would otherwise be possible. Most of the chains originate from the Anchor.

The Aqueduct: The City's only water source stems from the underground canals beyond the Orlock Portal and is so important it has an entire legion of guards to protect it.

The Dwarves of Csarnok

Far beyond the plains of Blonks and it's surrounds near the source of the river Skoll lies the mountainhomes of the Csarnok dwarves. Once a mighty empire that spanned the Hegek mountains that form the spine of the known world, they are now a dying race, fractured and defeated.

No war brought the Dwarves low, no famine nor pestilence, yet brought low they were. No baby has been born in the mountainhomes for a century and their halls echo emptily. The dwarves left their mines, crafthalls and smithies and fell into a maliase. Now they barely speak to each other, most of the time they can be found sitting staring at nothing. With no new produce, the dwarves barter away their heirlooms and prized possessions in exchange for the minimal food they need to survive. The dwarves don't even particularly seem interested in that survival, a fact that various monstrous races have used to their advantage. The dwarven Csarnok populations have halved in a century, no new babies have been born in that time. Old age and one-sided conflict have hastened the dwarves demise.

The dwarves of the city of darkness talk often of this maliase as they are seemingly unaffected. In fact, almost none of the dwarves who have left the mountainhomes are similarly afflicted. Some of these dwarves attempt "rescue missions" back to the mountainholmes but almost all are failures; the rescuers either falll into the depression of their intended rescuees and never leave the mountains, or return unsuccessful. One successful expedition was mounted recently however, led by Butusov Feargehar. He and 12 other dwarves ventured to Crajeholde and brought back almost 50 fellow dwarves. In their words, they felt "a great weight lifted from my shoulders, something in those halls is pushing the dwarves down and I for one, will never go back to the accursed mountainhomes."

The successful foray by Butusov Feargehar has inspired massive enthusiasm for the "plight" of the dwarves. Charities have sprung up founded by poor and wealthy dwarves alike. Posters adourn every wall advertising rallies for the dwarves as well as new charities and charitable organisations.

As yet unnoticed by the dwarves of the city, they too are affected by this curse, their productivity is slowing and the quality of the work they do is declining. They may survive another century, or another millenia; only time will tell.