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See the attachment for a more elaborate version...)
To his Grace - King of the Emerald Throne
Humbly I submit the following reporting on the daily routines of the City of Lankhmar. I have bound up my daily journal entries, along with accounting records with lists, names of the guild masters, as well as those who were elected, when they were elected and how they were elected.
I present this book, with a binding crafted in the most current fashion listed on the highest grade vellum available.
Please indulge me while I take this delightfully stretched vellum and record my observations and opinions on ‘Lanky’ as it is called in the common vernacular of those citizens of men residing here.
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Let us begin as does each day, with the dawn. The typical townsman’s day begins just before the light begins filling the narrow, stony streets. One of the gods of the men, takes it upon themselves to designate the beginning of each morning by peeling bells they’ve mounted in a towner. Everyone complains, of course, but the mercantile bourgeoisies who control the day-to-day affairs of their given district in the city refuse to condemn them for it. Perhaps there’s a golden jingle to the vibration of the brass monstrosity which keeps it peeling each day.
The night watch, having stood down, as their last duty open the gates of the town walls and the unsecure the waste and water conduits.
Soon the unemployed laborers, begin to arrive bringing the tools of their trades. The carpenters and masons go to the main crossroads and corridors with their young sons and necessaries, in the hope of gaining work for the day or more.
Journeymen leave their homes and head to start the day’s work in their masters’ houses.
The mayor’s day begins when he was escorted for his religious activities at his gathering sacellum.
The Lankmar working day finishes after the direct light of the sun drops below the horizon, signified by the tolling of bells and sounding of the ‘Prope Diem’ horns of the guild halls. This is a warning that the gates are closing soon and the night watch is coming back to their toil. It is unspoken that this is the que for anyone needing to be where one should be (or should have been)… and soon.
During each day, there are breaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The gates are officially closed when the curfew is signaled, and the Master of the Watchers sounds his Watch Whistle. This shrill tone is then repeated by each member of the watch, which echoes throughout the city as the varying tones travel down the streets and from all of the buildings. Once heard it is picked up and continued onward, by all of those whose job it is to keep a tab on the city during the dark hours. Soon the echoes die away with only the sound left being those of routine to the evening, albeit muffled by closed doors and secured shutters.
On each day there is a market for grains, meat and bread. This is the ‘regular’ market held in each of the districts throughout the city.
However, each fifth day between the budding of the Annora Tree and the first Mort du Gel frost, the fish market opens. These are well visited days where those who make their living by fishing plan their barges arrival of local river fish, eels and other water creatures and where an abundance is made available. This is held in the city center and where might be found, brought by an occasional flatboat having traveled upriver from the sea, exotic delights from those salty depths. Although fish mongers operate on regular days, this full fish market is reduced to once-an-em after the first snowfall, and further once the river freezes over where only those who tent over cut holes in the ice are able to continue to provide produce from the water.
A cloth market day occurs every seventh day during Longdays, with this too being reduced to once-an-em during the Shortdays season. The looms of Lankmar continue to be the envy of the known world.
The main market area is called Crossroads Cheaping, and is on a direct path to the center of the city from the docks area, and is also where the largest concentration of butchers, bakers and fishmongers are located. Butchers slaughter their animals on the sixth and seventh days of each em, in season.
The local inhabitants are required to sweep the streets in preparation for fifth day market and those who actually live within the city walls, are given preference to buy from the market before sales are opened up to others who are from the outlying towns and travelers.
Market days are traditionally only worked for half of the day, depending on Guild rules and need. These are days are also when wages are paid. The evening time on Market days are often passed in the ale houses and other tactile pursuits of a worldly nature.
The final day of the em is a day of rest when extended leisure pursuits are permitted. Any number of physical games, such as bowling, may be found outside the walls. To be sure, the townsfolk have a keen sense of their urban status; the walls and gates are a source of municipal pride, and all citizens are required to contribute to their upkeep, which is organized through a system of wards; where wardens are elected on a designated Greenday by those who are assembled to vote. Each male or female, who have reached the rank of apprentice (or in the case of unmarried daughters are able to bear children), have a single vote.
This is a reform to the former practice of allow the vote only to those who own or farm ten acres of land, and was part of a compromise established upon the arrival of our Stone Elf brethren.
Apprenticeships begin near the age of manhood and follow varied lengths of training depending on established practices of applicable guilds: Men of the city must serve at least five full years as an apprenticed carpenter, seven years for a weaver and nine years for a draper or grocer.
Marriage only takes place when a fellow is ready to set up his own household, the costs of which are often helped by a dowry provided by the family of the female. Weddings are a public affair, often held in district centers and depending on the social status of the bride and ground, attended by members of the applicable guilds. Membership of the guild fellowships and their regular processions and ceremonials were and are a continuing affirmation of the social order. A smart bride and groom hold their ceremony just prior to warden or bourgeois election cycle, as those who want the status often try to out-give their opponents during such events.
Household sizes usually ranged from two to nine people, including in-servants. A man’s working life is usually over by the age of 45 to 50 in the clothing trades, which currently is one of the main industries and exporting goods. However, sheep breeding has begun to grow substantially very recently. This is, I’m sure, a direct correlation to the expertize brought by those recent immigrants as well as the cappers, clothiers and weavers of the community.
Only those men and women who’ve reached an elderly or infirmed stage of life may expect admittance to or assistance from one of the guild or religious hospitals. These are the main institutions set up to provide some social care for those disadvantaged, and whose prestige was enhanced by the assistance they gave to those of the Grey Stone. There is no portal on to the next world for men or women. They are born, they strive and they die, to have their fleshly armor buried in the soil and the being tended to by any ethereal deity they chose to focus energy upon while they could.
Women can and do supplement household incomes through thread-making, spinning and knitting. Trades where widowed women or those who were not able to be matched at an earlier time in their lives (and who wish to maintain a respectable stature within their community), include the trades or brewing and baking. Winemaking is also an art being shared and I’m happy to report a new female-only (made up of those Elven and human women) guild has been formed around the wine making trade.
The city’s Weavers Guild need large amounts of thread and are happy to pay individual ladies well for their quality product. As demand is high, so are the amounts given to the craftswomen able to consistently provide volume and high-grade threading. The guilds investments enable them to have access to a variety of new equipment including the broadcloth loom. A loom of this size is restricted by space to the larger guild houses. However, smaller pieces of cloth are produced in individual cottages.
Life is precarious for poorer households and those not born into a family of means or who have had the ability to marry into such a family, live close to a day-to-day existence. Famine and disease are not unknown in these households. Guild and craft fellowships are the only access to any stability.
Overall, Lankmar is recovering from the sudden changes and demands an influx of such a large number of foreign refugees had brought, both financially and culturally. There are long roads to tread. In my opinion, a person who has an arbitrary outlook on the community as a whole and who has no need in involving themselves in the petty goings on within, should continue to act as an mediator and when necessary an adjudicator in the squabbles. This is the role I’ve tried to embed, enforce and maintain during my time in the city.
I remain, as always, your humble and obedient -
Eioin Boughsinger