Beran’s Claim

Beran’s Claim is a bustling and prosperous town located at the foot of Cragtooth Mountain in the northern kingdom of Araia along a major trade route between Catar City to the northeast and Port Araia, the capitol city located on the coast.

Beran’s Claim has all the amenities you would expect to find in a town of its size, but it’s known in the region for its mining operation, blacksmithing. armorsmithing, and weaponsmithing. There’s a rich iron mine located halfway up the mountain that is still in use. Some of the ore is used in town for crafting, but the majority is smelted into bars and shipped all over the continent by the Cragtooth Mining Company run by the dwarf Durgrin Ironshale and his son Tegrin. This resource has made the town very wealthy, and there is little to no poverty and a very active thieves guild.

Another less savory element the town is known for, but only by a select few, is as the source of the potent drug Mindflare. A secret enterprise run by a shady organization known as the Crimson Ring keep a tight control on the extraction, purification, and distribution of this drug, which when taken, provides the user with glimpses of the immediate future giving them advantages in interactions of all sorts. The drug is distributed far and wide via the Coldstream River that runs past Catar City to Port Araia at the coast.

Of course, a town of this size attracts all sorts of attention. There is a sizeable bandit army operating in the area- stealing valuable trade goods and even kidnapping nobles- though they claim their true purpose is to protect the area from an incursion of vampires, and they are not wrong. The vampire archon, or sovereign over this part of the world, Ezerbaran, has appointed an influential and talented master vampire, Nissafar, to take control of the region, starting in Beran’s Claim. She is rumored to be hold up in a centuries-old crumbling tower to the east formerly owned and occupied by the legendary archmage Vandrex.