King's Landing

[Rivine]

It is a time of strife and violence in the Seven Kingdoms. It has been half a year since the death of Robert Baratheon and five kings have arisen to vie for the Iron Throne. With the kingdoms torn asunder there is ample opportunity for those who seek to advance themselves...

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King's Landing is the capital of the Seven Kingdoms, located in the Crownlands on the east coast of Westeros. It is situated along the kingsroad at the mouth of the Blackwater Rush and overlooks Blackwater Bay. It is the site of the Iron Throne and the Red Keep, which is the seat of the king, Joffery Baratheon from House Baratheon of King's Landing.

The city is roughly square-shaped, sprawling across several miles and defended by tall walls manned by the City Watch of King's Landing, also known as the Gold Cloaks. There are seven gates leading into the city: the Dragon Gate, the Lion Gate, the Mud Gate, the Old Gate, the Gate of the Gods, the King's Gate, and the Iron Gate. Within the walls, the city is dotted with manses, arbors, granaries, brick storehouses, timbered inns, merchant stalls, taverns, graveyards and brothels. There is a fish market. Hundreds of quays can be found in the harbor. Between buildings the roads are broad, lined with trees and branching alleys and streets.The city covers the north shore of the Blackwater and covers three tall hills, named after Aegon and his two sisters, Visenya and Rhaenys. Aegon's High Hill, surmounted by the Red Keep, the royal castle located in the south-eastern corner of the city, overlooks the bay directly, whilst Visenya's Hill to the west is crowned by the marble-walled Great Sept of Baelor and its seven crystal towers. Rhaenys's Hill in the north is capped by the collapsed ruins of the Dragonpit dome, its bronze doors shut for a century and a half since the last dragon died.

King's Landing is extremely populous, but rather unsightly and dirty compared to other cities. Poorer smallfolk build shanty settlements outside the city. The poor reside in the slums which are called Flea Bottom, a maze of narrow streets and alleys, where many beggars and the poorest part of the city's population resides; they regularly subsist on "bowls of brown", a mystery stew that can include the meat of rats and murder victims, among other things. The richest residents live on the other side of Rhaenys's Hill from Flea Bottom. The richer areas of King's Landing lie near the Old Gate. The stench of the city's waste can be smelled far beyond its walls. It is the principal harbor of the Seven Kingdoms, rivaled only by Oldtown.

Nearby towns include Rosby and Duskendale to the northeast and Tumbleton to the southwest, while the kingswood is found south of the capital across the Blackwater.

 

[Sharub]

Brarton's plan of making his family more powerful and known than the rival cousins of Smallwood, despite being considerably modest in a time of Lords claiming a kingdom and kings claiming Empires, was nonethelessly in need of help. And while the Smallwoods can count on the Lannister's infinite gold raining into the pockets of their allies, House Orchardwood was pretty much alone. In the good and the bad of the meanings.

But it was during a merry night in his mansion, with ale flowing freely over the smoking roast of a board hunted that morning, that to his ears arrived a whisper... Brarton moved his small piggly eyes from the dancers twirling and spinning in the hall, to a clearly drunk young man, barely able to wobble on his feets in a rather pathetic attempt to maintain his balance. <<Where have youbheard this, boy?>> asked Brarton, his attenction captured, trapped. But the young man instead rose his mug and placed a finger to his mouth and just as he appeared, he groggily walked away.

"A drunk man? That for sure. But what he said was true? A secret group helping its members to reach power. Incredible power..." Brarton's mind-mumbling continued even as he grabbed a large piece of meat, unceremoniously digging his teeths on it. The evening passed, but the thought remained, flying around like a modquito in a summer day, avoiding a serene sleep.

The day after, Brarton was already sure of his decisions. <<I will go in King's Landing >> Announced him to his court, that immediately started to prepare the horses and his carriage. In his mind this was a good plan: Going in Kings Landing, stsy there and see if someone or something speaks or have ever knew of such a group... in the worst occasion, he would have wasted few Golds, but if it was true... he gains everything. And to those that asked him if he was not afraid of the war, he simply answered <<Here is domain of the Lannister's and their allies. Luckily Smallwoods are allies of the Lion, and they do need allies. ...not to mention my four knights.>>

And so he departed from Acorn Hall, full of meat and hopes, toward the city of intrigue that is King's landing...

 

[Sharub]

After painfully long days passed on a stuffed seat in his chart and slept in awfully poor inns, Brarton finally saw the City that made him traver so far away from his safe home, immediately welcomed by the legendary smell of latrine, carried away from the winds and sprinkled in a wide radius from Flea Bottom.

His chariot stopped at the gates gave little to no issues, his shield quartered with the hated Smallwood immediately labeled him as an ally for the Lannister-payed guards. Entering the city his pigly eyes saw everything he could expect from a city so popolous and mercantile: coloured silks, coloured peoples, heard strange voices and smelt strange odours...
But he was not there for leisure, as half of the visitors, but... for business...

In his mind a turmoil of ideas, thoughs, genuine fears and suspicious behaviours, crowding his brain.<<How to find a secret group basing all on the voice of a drunken pleb?>> mumbled Brarton in the dim-light of his chariot. Then he got an idea: "I must go where drunk people goes... someone will know. yeah. Is right! If someone got the information wrong... he will just blame the wine..."

His eyes sparkled in an apparent victory, as he planned his bect moves. After having payed for a seemingly clean and "not pleb inhabited" Inn, Brarton waited for the darkness to sneak outside the Inn, clad in a brown cloak, looking like a walking rounded bag. He walked in the darkness, following the trail of torches and the fsint smell of wine to find a drink-hall drink-hole, he entered the crowded ambient, with questions and the availability to drink his question off, if necessary.