Saltoan

Genabackis

"The city is Hood's crusted navel incarnate. I wouldn't take Rallick Nom's axe-wielding mother to Saltoan."

―Coll

Saltoan was one of the oldest cities on the Vision Plain. It was located in the eastern part of the continent of Genabackis on the trader road between Darujhistan and Capustan. It was surrounded by thick low walls stained with brown streaks. No guards monitored traffic passing through the huge wooden doors of the city's gates. Having sent its vaunted Horse Guard to join Caladan Brood's Host, the city became a mostly lawless place with its pitiful constabulary no match for the various thieving groups vying to control the city.

"Saltoan had once stood alongside the river Catlin, growing rich on the cross-continent trade, until the river changed its course in the span of a single, rain-drenched spring. Korselan's Canal was built in an effort to re-establish the lucrative link with the river trade, as well as four deep lakes - two within the old river bed itself - for moorage and berths. The effort had seen only marginal success, and the four hundred years since that time had witnessed a slow, inexorable decline."

―Description of Saltoan

The city was characterised by crumbling architecture, and narrow alleyways through rat-infested tenements. The streets stank of rotting rubbish and sewage.

Although nominally ruled by a king and council, true power was said to belong to the city's hold-masters and mistresses, local crimelords who each controlled their own territory. The roads leading away from the city were monitored by spotters at the city gates who could report particularly promising caravans to the local bandits.

Notable residents

• Garno, hold-master
• Kenth, assassin
• Nektara, hold-mistress

Points of interest

• Korselan's Canal
• Mucosin Street
• Sunrise Gate
• Sunset Gate
• Twistface Passage
• Waytown, a small settlement just outside the Sunrise Gate
• Wu's Closet Square

In Memories of Ice

As the Pannion Domin expanded its influence to the northwest, Pannion priests began proselytizing in the city for the cult. They promised the return of law and order, threatening the rule of the city's crimelords. The merchant Keruli travelled to the city with Gruntle, Stonny Menackis, and Harllo as his bodyguards. He met with the local thieving guilds to relay the true horrors of the cult and to explain their use of disinformation and discord to conquer their enemies. He convinced them that counter-intelligence was a more effective response than violence.

For four days, the city was the site of a series of unexplained murders. This occurred during the same time period that the necromancers, Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, were in the area.

After the Siege of Capustan, a regiment of Saltoan cavalry was listed among the ranks of Caladan Brood's forces as they made their way to face the Pannion Seer at Coral.

In Toll the Hounds

A spokesman for the pilgrims of the Pilgrim camp surrounding the Barrow of the Redeemer recalled his time as a refugee in Saltoan. He had been a wealthy merchant in Capustan before fleeing to Saltoan ahead of the Pannion Domin's army. In Saltoan, he had witnessed the Expulsion--the night when the advance agents of Pannion Domin were driven out of the city.

The nomadic tyrant of the Lamatath Plain known as The Captain sent emissaries to Saltoan and other cities bordering the plain to announce his claim to the territory.

Notes and references

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