The city of Hollin is the bustling port and great arsenal of the Anhault Charter Company. A million souls call Hollin home: ordinary shopkeepers and sailors, but also gentlemen scientists, bare-knuckle boxers, the occasional urban barbarian, and a few who don't know who they are.
This page describes everyday Hollin, but adventurers will quickly discover another more alarming Hollin for themselves.
Hollin is at the mouth of the Volm River on the continent Anhault, where it's positioned to control Anhault's trade with the wider world, Balaal.
Inside Hollin, the borough of Braddock is the port, the market, and the city’s heart. Other boroughs are nearby: the administrative district Dunham, the shipyards, Rankin, the medieval old town Lofton, and the City of the Dead.
Hughe Lane knows every Hollin shortcut and his walking tour, below, visits all of these boroughs in just a few hours.
Hughe's tour starts at the Company's Great Council Palace in the administrative district, Dunham. The palace is Hollin's political arena, and most Hollinders know it for the Lion's Mouth, the iron mail slot where they can leave anonymously tips for the secret police. Anuhault Charter Company says more.
The Company's Merchant Fleet administration, courts, and mint are near the palace. Glitterglobe coffee shop, adjacent to the palace square, is a good place to sit and surveil the palace’s grand entrance or the Lion’s Mouth. Glitterglobe's baker, Silas, makes the best cake pops in town.
Ballard Street goes south from the palace square to the Roundabout, the hectic intersection with Meade Street where many of Hollin’s trading houses maintain fine townhomes.
Continuing south on Ballard leads to Quay Street, the river, and the shipyards. Scores of ships under construction tower overhead there, including the Admiralty's new flagship, Harbinger.
The yard builds ships for the Admiralty, the Company's Merchant Fleet, Meade Street, and even foreign trading houses. Private contractors take the orders, and parcel carpentry, smithing, and sail making out to thousands of craftsmen, who form a small city of their own inside the yards.
The Admiralty is also in the shipyards district, including the administration, marines, and cannon works. Parja is the current Admiralty Secretary and his palatial home is nearby. Morning Star Observatory, where Admiralty navigators study the night sky and timekeeping, is there too.
A fire swept through the shipyards and Braddock seventeen years ago, and the Admiralty ammunition dump exploded, sending a shock through the entire city. Afterwards the ammunition dump and gunpowder plants were rebuilt on Putnam Island, in the river upstream from Hollin.
Following Quay Street west from the shipyards leads to Braddock, Hollin’s port and market district.
South of Quay there, hundreds of docks, cargo ships, and brick warehouses line the river. A hive of longshoremen works day and night, loading wheat, tobacco, and furs, and unloading cotton, opium, and guano. Fishing boats unload salted cod and load more salt for their next voyage. Two or three times a month, a whaler brings in its leviathan catch tied up on one side of the ship, alarming longshoremen who run to deal with it.
The asylum hulk Stiles and the prison hulk Intractable have been berthed here since before memory, at the farthest dock.
After the docks, Quay reaches Market Street, Hollin’s key artery. Glendower Square at Market and Quay is the heart of Braddock and by extension, the heart of Hollin. During the day, locals and sailors fill the square buying fruits and vegetables, and live animals at the Shambles meat market. The Mooncalf merchant hostel and tavern, famous worldwide for its basement labyrinth of opium dens, is there. The Mooncalf mostly houses visitors, but some local notables also live there, including the rogue and trader Kasskar.
At night, sailors, girls, and drinks mix at the Mooncalf’s tavern, and gamblers crowd the Whipsaw tavern for illicit bare knuckle boxing, somehow making Braddock even more raucous than in the day. Meanwhile, Admiralty press gangs prowl the streets looking for drunken revelers to draft into service.
The Winter Wolf weapon shop and Jennish Cole’s shop are in Braddock, and could have special surprises for adventurers.
Going north through Braddock, Market Street passes through Hangman's Gate in the old city wall, then later Foundling Gate in the "new" city wall, and enters Hollin's City of the Dead.
The City of the Dead was originally Hollin's cemetery outside the city wall, and is filled with old headstones and elaborate monument buildings ingrained with brown dust. As Hollin grew over the last few centuries, more and more poor families took up there, and now 100,000 people live there. Many have one-room mudbrick houses squeezed between the ancient graves, and their children play among the headstones without thinking twice about them.
The monument buildings are Hollin's most beautiful art, and they contrast with the City's mudbrick houses and dust. Two examples, the monument that Hughe Lane maintains and the neglected Monument of Ulm, are in Foundling Gate Square right at the City's entrance. Beale the Goldenpiper grew up in the City and celebrates the monuments in song, and is happy to talk about them. Worship below also describes them more a little more.
North of the City, Market Street leaves Hollin and becomes the old Gradskan royal highway.
Going south from Braddock instead of north, Market Street crosses the river into Lofton, the medieval old town. Lofton is the original Hollin, and was abandoned and overgrown by forest long ago. Hollinders rarely visit Lofton nowadays, scared off by whispers and Admiralty lumberjacks’ stories.
The abandoned Lofton Castle still stands out from the overgrowth. Like Braddock’s walls, the castle is a vestige from the days before gunpowder and cannons.
Lofton sits below two granite cliffs on its south border, Brice Hill on the right and Durning Hill on the left.
Following Quay Street west from Braddock leads to Drew Street and the district of Rankin. In Gradskan times, Rankin was the village outside Hollin where dangerous or noxious work like glass making and tanning were relegated. Hollin has since grown to include Rankin but glass and leather are still made there.
The Anhault Charter Company is the private trading company that rules Hollin. The city-state Naumkaeg chartered the Company to import opium to Anhault two hundred years ago, and the Company eventually grew to be the de facto government of Hollin, and to rival Naumkaeg itself.
This section describes the Company briefly. Here are more details.
The Company is responsible to its Great Council, which includes all of the Company’s stockholders, from Hollin’s largest trading houses down to everyday folks who might own a single share.
However, most decisions are made by a smaller, more secretive Board that includes the very largest stockholders. Some board members also serve as board officers, including the Chairman and the Master of Revels.
The Great Council and Board meet at the Great Council Palace in Dunham. The palace's front facade includes a secure iron mailbox, the Lion's Mouth, where Hollinders can drop off anonymous tips for the secret police.
In contrast to the Great Council and Board, the Company’s Bureaus are the apolitical administration that keeps the Company and Hollin running.
The Bureaus include the Merchant Fleet and Treasury, but the Admiralty is the Company's most prominent bureau. The Admiralty protects the Company's trade on the high seas and wars with other trading cities in the no man's land Hilde.
Admiralty press gangs prowl the night streets in Braddock forcing men into service. So, some residents of Hollin still see the Admiralty as a foreign power to be resisted.
Dozens of patrician trading houses work out of Braddock’s ports just like the Company, including some that predate the Company by hundreds of years. Many have fine offices on Meade Street in Dunham, east and west of the Roundabout, and often the trading houses are collectively called "Meade Street."
Some like Enfield House are general conglomerates. Others specialize in particular commodities, like Ulm House, which introduced opium and whaling to Hollin. Still others trade with just one foreign country, like House Hanan, which trades with the Caliphate’s capital al-Watan.
Although Meade Street predates the Company, the houses have become entangled with it over time. Most own Company stock and the largest even own enough to sit on the Board, where they can vote to benefit themselves or hold Board offices. Other houses made their fortunes working with the Company, like Carver House, which supplies guano for the Admiralty’s gunpowder.
While the Company has Admiralty marines and secret police, they don’t police everyday street crime. Instead volunteer militias, the night watches, patrol the streets.
Because the watches are volunteers, they're often well-meaning gentlemen of leisure or retirees, and they're social clubs as much as militias. Each has a home tavern where patrols start and end, and where they banquet each year. The Mooncalf's tavern has been home to many watches, and its walls are covered with their group portraits, some painted right on the wall.
To find the local watch, ask the bartender at the nearest tavern.
The Hobnail mob dominates organized crime in Braddock. They extort protection money from the merchants there and hunt smaller gangs like the Coopers' Union and the Renderers.
The Hobnails are violent, but they also protect some who can't go to the law for help. In particular, they resist the Admiralty press gangs, which has created an escalating nightly war in which the Hobnails and press gangs hunt each other. Some in Braddock support the Hobnails believing that the Admiralty are foreign oppressors.
The Hobnails started as a gang inside Hobnail Prison, but moved to the streets as members were released. Some say the Hobnails are still directed from inside the prison.
Hollin has a loose network of thieves for hire, who trade tips at the Halfpenny tavern in Braddock. Rowan Hashin in Dunham or Harbin in Braddock can say more.
Many of Hollin's thieves, like Rowan or Hughe Lane, seem to have soft hearts and target the rich.
Illicit bare-knuckle boxing and betting on boxing are popular in Braddock, and three taverns have underground rings: the Whipsaw, the Stuck Pig, and the Kill-Courtesy.
Most Hollinders recognize one high god, Ajana. There’s no one church of Ajana, so no services, priesthood, or soaring cathedrals. Instead, people all have their own pictures of Ajana, which sometimes differ wildly.
However, Hollin does have hundreds of independent monument buildings dedicated to Ajana. Many are ancient Hollinders' fine tombs with elaborate domes or towers, and some provide a service like a quiet chapel, a one-room school, or a fountain. Neighbors or brotherhoods maintain some of them, while others accept small donations for the service.
Most of the monument buildings are in the City of the Dead, but not all. Merrick runs the Chapel of Ajana in Dunham, and he's happy to share his own thoughts on Ajana.
Hollin natives believe that the demigod warlord Gradska originally led people to Hollin. For centuries, Hollin had an organized Gradskan religion and kings who ruled in Gradska's name. The old town Lofton was their capital, and some Gradskan secrets wait to be rediscovered under the forest there.
Caliphate expatriates in Hollin worship ninety-nine gods, just called the Ninety-Nine. See the Caliphate for more.
Gregor the Naturalist is a gentleman scientist who seeks out cures and specimens from foreigners arriving in Braddock's docks. Last year a Company fisherman brought him one treasure, a coelacanth, but giant squid are his real obsession. No one has ever seen one alive, but recently whalers brought him a giant squid tentacle still wriggling on a hook, and he's keeping it alive in a salt bath.
Gregor is the go-to for clues about anything weird in Hollin. He's also part of a larger circle of gentleman scientists including Brunn, who studies electricity and magnetism, and Herndon, an anatomist who studies the body by dissection.
Chambers the apothecary sells healing potions, antivenoms, and other cures in Braddock. He's working to make a new tapeworm cure from wormwood and a new love potion from love-in-idleness, and he'll pay well for either plant. Chambers is elderly and has forgotten some of his own discoveries, but rumor says his private formulary still includes some of his forgotten gems.