A Region of Lerona Mere
While Lerona Mere recalls images of The Concords greatest metropolis, the region itself is home to a wide variety of locales outside of its sprawling city.
The verdant fields of The Madre Campo, the crystal calm Lake Isabella or the hard lands of Est Speranza, the region of Lerona Mere is more than a city with some measly outskirts. Something its people take great pride and love in.
The nature of distance has led to a strange reality for the further afield parts of the region as the revolution thrashed the city. Most of the regional areas were spared the worst of the conflict but have been subjected to proletariat witch hunts, as revolutionaries seek out the fleeing wealthy of the city. With them they brought economic and political freedom and promptly left without so much as a manifesto.
Now these towns, farms and vineyards search for their new place in the world as much as any street thug, free captain or theatre owner in the city. Flags of farmers communes fly over grain storage and cartel signs are carved into mine shaft supports. Even beyond the city, Lerona Mere is a region of loyalty and revolution.
The Towns
Lerona Mere the city deserves mention. The metropolis is home to more people within its walls than within the region outside it. Its workhouses and ports produce a lion's share of the goods that are bought across the region. For the people outside, the city is a place you plan around, your year is dominated by the two trips you travel there to trade or see shows. It is equal parts shining lure and entrapping maw.
The city is protected by two defences, a low, thick wall that wraps its northern side and the taller harbour walls that protect its harbour. Capable of shielding an entire fleet from sword or storm, the great harbour is as much a marvel as the city itself. The western terminus is dominated by a stone fort known as the ‘Castello Bambino’’ or The Child's Castle. A place that has functioned as armoury, fortress, prison and wheat storage throughout its life. To the east, the wall is met by the Harbour Lighthouse, tended to by priests of Lumos and covens of Magi.
While the city is primarily a place of trade and production, there are some base industries. Fisheries fill the space between warships and trading galleons, bringing in fresh meat for the populace. Brave or foolhardy miners scramble up the limestone cliffs hoping that waves will reveal deep crevasses of mineral wealth and herb gardens fill the trellises of the city streets.
The city is broadly split into four districts, which are as follows:
Stretching from the Seer’s Gate in the northwest to the Brawler’s Gate in the northeast, The North Wards form a quiet, stable arc of middle-class townhouses, artisan workshops, and merchant guilds. It is the calmest district in Lerona Mere, spared the worst of past revolutions thanks to its lack of Artebazzani ties. Here, young and successful families make their homes, foreign interests stake their claims, and well-kept parks offer a breath of serenity in an otherwise turbulent city.
Once the gilded enclave of Artebazzani nobles and their fleeting ambitions, The Redbrick District earned its name when revolutionaries spilled the blood of tyrants and traitors across its streets. Today, its densely packed townhouses and narrow roads play host to the highest concentration of churches in Legend City, sanctified as a holy site of Anarch by the Church itself. It is a hotbed of faith, agitation, and defiant community, forged in the crucible of fire and revolution. The people here are, in many ways, the truest embodiment of Lerona Mere’s soul—unyielding, fervent, and ever ready for the next fight.
The only district to keep its Artebazzani name, The Crux Patricus is the sprawling heart of Lerona Mere—a labyrinth of cobbled streets, towering manors, and cavernous government halls stretching westward. If the Redbrick District was the revolution’s butchery, the Crux was its battlefield. Every street bore barricades, every alleyway a redoubt, and every square was soaked in blood. Today, the Crux is the most populated district, home to some of the city's most powerful institutions: the New Parliament, rising from the ashes of its burned predecessor, and One Concordian Promenade, the beating heart of the Civil Service. Nearly one in three residents of Legend City live within its bounds, lending the Crux a restless, unshakable energy—a city within a city, alive and self-contained.
The Docklands is the city’s underbelly, its wild frontier, its bloody golden gateway to The Concord. Encompassing Lerona Mere’s entire southern third, it is a place of mist-drenched mornings, frenzied trade by day, and whispered deals by night. Here, the Capos and their gangs rule from the shadows, their grip strong but never absolute. Though often painted as a lawless den of crime, the Docklands is more than its reputation—a rough-and-tumble world of cutthroat ambition, roaring portside life, and riotous joy. It is the beating, chaotic heart of the city’s commerce and vice, where fortunes are made, alliances are broken, and no one moves without watching their back. More information on The Docklands can be found here.
Mivara in the North West at the base of The Lungo Elsa is a meeting place for the various mines, homesteads and wilderness types that have eschewed the flatlands of Lerona Mere. Like a small piece of the city Dockside district dropped in the foothills, it is a place of trade and brawls. The mineral wealth coming from Mivara constitutes a majority ofthe ore mined in the region.
Since the revolution Mivara has become a place more violent than previously, as the gang warfare of the city has arrived with trade. Rival cartels seek to control the township and peace does not look to be coming any time soon.
Gafroza is a larger township than Mivara which originated as a fortified border outpost at the headwaters of the Risvegilo River. It was from here that Artebazzani mercenary actions were taken in attempts to secure Bolsterlee from the Iron Valley. As the war was won and the Valleyfolk pushed back to their mountain abodes, the town became a cultural center and trading place.
The sleepy mountain town now finds itself in a reverse. Once a military encampment, it is now a waystation for Iron Valley merchants travelling to Passage, Lerona Mere or beyond. The point where one truly enters the Mere, Gafroza is a proud town of petty traders, fine taverns and aggressive Lerona Mere stylings.
The Waters
The Bay of Promised Gold laps at the base of the Lerona Mere Harbour. A deceptively cold but glassy blue sea with a sandy bottom, the Bay is ideal for new sailors testing their craft or for fast ships eager to make back a few days on their journey. The breakwaters are harsh as the depth can change quickly, resulting in dangerous swells that lash at the coast, resulting in more cliffs than beaches. This leads to the Free Captain concept of ‘Deep waters, still seas’, where one should find the most calm when they are at their riskiest.
The Bay is occasionally upset by savage storms that roll up from the Icereach that can wrack the coast for days. These storms can come without warning, and some fear that they herald the arrival of the Illsevir.
Fiorenza River travels South East from The Lungo Elsa towards Lake Isabella and the Bay. A fast moving river, the Fiorenza is not particularly wide, rarely more than a good bowshot, but flows strong and deep. Beyond Lake Isabella the flow is far more mellow, leading to rambling brooks covered with cattails. The river forks near the coastline, resulting in the small island dominated by Castello Bambino.
The Fiorenza forms the officially western border ofthe Lerona Mere region, something that under Artebazzani control was not a large issue. However as the war barges of the Illsevir have come ashore in Mancante Terra, the Fiorenza has become a frontline, manned by Lerona Mere Bravos and silent Illsevir Raiders, glaring at each other over rapids and shallows.
Lake Isabella often likened to a painting. A beautifully calm and flat flake that mellows the cold and clear waters of the mountain river. Its picturesque beauty and distant exclusivity lead the construction of many noble villas, for those rich enough to escape the hustle of the city for a seasonal retreat.
Many of these fine summer homes burned in the revolution, the final holdouts of the lenders and the lucrative. What remained became headquarters for the stale western front against the Illsevir or managed to remain in their previous function, acting as a retreat for the new petty bourgeois, if they don’t mind the threat of a hostile river crossing.
The Lands
The Hunters Wood is a trick, and not truly part of Lerona Mere. This sliver of the Greenweald stretches to connect the cursed forest to the copses that cling to The Lungo Elsa, ensuring that a concourse remains to the dark heart in the north. Separating Lerona Mere from the Tribelands in the East while being under the control of the Baronies, the Hunters Wood lures in careless travellers with the promise that it is southern enough to be safe to leave the path. But it is not known as The Hunters Wood because humans are the hunters, quite the opposite.
The Southern Greenweald forms a foreboding northern border for Lerona Mere. The wisdom is that if you can touch two trees with your outstretched hands you have entered the Baronies. Along this frontier you can find hunting lodges, hermitages and other peoples that have no interest in being a part of larger society, but not desire for the elaborate suicide that the Greenweald promises.
The Madre Campo is the verdant heartland of Lerona Mere. Rolling fields of wheat, barley and corn that crest into hilltop vineyards and gardens. A vast agricultural land shielded from the storms of the south by distance, the cold winds of the North and East by forest and mountain, saved from the harsh western wind by the same. This cradle of life is a simple place, a place of living things and of quiet people.
Est Speranza lacks the protection of The Madre Campo, facing the lashing storms of the Bay and the cold winds swooping down from the mountains. As such it is less desirable than its North Western neighbour. Home to smaller farmsteads, ranches of cattle, sheep and goats. Life out here is a bit wilder and a bit more honest, a rarity for the region.
Until recently Est Speranza was a frontline, much like the Fiorenza River, but recent Concordian gains in Bolsterlee have given the people here space and peace.
The Heights
The Lungo Elsa is the terminus of the Blade, a massive mountain range that splits Esterra’s South Western archipelago. While not home to vast mineral wealth, great stone or powerful beasts, it holds a special place in Lerona Mere. It is here that the most secluded places can be found, it is here that the storms rival the sea, it is here that the people of Lerona Mere can see across the world.
The Western Steinvault Mountains are closer to a traditional image of a snow capped mountain range. Stretching out from the valley, these dark granite peaks are cold places of icy winds, great ornery beasts and strong iron. Acting as the border between Lerona Mere, the Valley and the Kingdom of Bordevar, the Steinvaults are generally seen as impassable to all but the most powerful or foolhardy Challenger.