Derlusk

Derlusk is a city of music that grew up around one of the busiest harbors in the Border Kingdoms beneath the shelter of the Dragonsmoke Ridge to the northwest. Wealth is everywhere in the city, with many of the stout stone buildings dug deep into the ridge, appearing as a beautiful vista of slate roofs and shimmering lanterns at night. The city's port has several rival shipyards, best known for building swift, sleek 'wave runner' coastboats (those which are often preferred by smugglers and pirates for their speed and low silhouettes).

Being a city of music, bards are highly regarded in Derlusk, where every inn, tavern, tankard-house, and fencing club has its own musical entertainment. Also full of scriveners, bookbinders and book collectors, Derlusk is the city to come to if you seek an old, rare book. If a particularly rare or valuable volume can't be bought, a seeker might negotiate a price at which the book's owner will allow scribes to safely allow a copy. Expect to pay at least 100 gp per copied page, and thousands more for especially rare, valuable, or sought-after tomes. Scribed maps typically start at 1,000 gp each and go up rapidly from there, with most costing about 4,000 gp with one-of-a-kind tomes books costing accordingly more. All of this literary interest gives the port a whiff of sophistication reminiscent of far larger ports such as Waterdeep, Athkatla, and Calimport.

Though many dockworkers of Derlusk find the world of books to be something strange, they regard the city's sages as harmlessly eccentric, true fellow citizens -- provided they share an appreciation of music, especially the music that is sung lustily off-key at the wharves or bawled drunkenly out of windows.

Government
With no guilds in Derlusk, the city is lightly governed by the Coinseats -- the nine chairs of their ruling council, elected by the head merchants. Their duty is to pass laws, settle and pass judgement in disputes between neighbors or rivals and directing the Watch, Derlusk's 60-odd strong guardsmen. Despite their distaste for guilds, merchants in a given field tend to nominate and vote for "one of their own" to be fill a thankless, time-consuming stint as Councillor.