Kirkwall is a coastal city-state in the Free Marches, tucked between the Vinmark Mountains and the Waking Sea. It is an ancient place, also known as the "City of Chains" first for its long history as the center of Tevinter's slave trade, and since its independence for the massive chains it is able to stretch across the narrow navigable strait at its harbor's mouth, which are capable of cutting off all east-west traffic on the Waking Sea. This stranglehold made Kirkwall one of the richest and most powerful of the Marcher city-states, and a center for trade in Thedas. But it has fallen on hard times over the last decade, seeing Qunari occupation and later invasion before earning the dubious honor of hosting the start of the Mage/Templar War.

↠ Inquisition Property
↠ The City
↠ Surroundings
↠ The Locals
↠ Player Additions




The Inquisition has been granted permission to set up its base on the small island fortress known as the Gallows. As one of the most heavily fortified and easily defensible parts of the city, it is a natural home for an independent military organization, separated from the rest of Kirkwall by a ring of open harbor and high fortress walls. Of course, the Gallows was also previously home to the city's Circle of Magi and Templar Order, and thus was the site of horrors and battles in the unrest that led to the start of the Mage/Templar war, and prior to that was a prison for thousands of Tevinter slaves.

There are no bridges connecting the Gallows to the rest of Kirkwall, requiring all travel to and from the island to be made by boat—although the distance to the nearest dry land is easily swimmable in an emergency. There is regular traffic by ferry and small dinghies from the Gallows to the docks and back, and so the Inquisition has been granted a portion of the docks as well. Keeping with the theme of confining the Inquisition to land no one else in Kirkwall particularly wants, Viscount Bran has granted them use of the area of the docks formerly home to the Qunari quarter.

The Gallows

The Gallows is a large complex--it fills the entire island--and is made up of a number of buildings around a stone-floored central courtyard. The largest structures are three towers. The tallest central tower primarily contains library and work spaces, including offices, laboratories, and work rooms. The Inquisition has converted the upper floors into a roost for the griffons.

The two side towers will remain residences, as they were when the space was previously occupied by the Circle of Magi and Templar Order. In addition to bedrooms (discussed further below), the towers contain the communal facilities necessary to support a large number of people. This means a massive central kitchen that serves two large dining halls--one per tower--each furnished with rows of long tables perpendicular to a raised dais at the back of the room for the faction's leaders and their guests.

Each tower also has communal baths, with hot and cold pools, though unlike at Skyhold, only the cold here is natural. The hot water is heated by a system of pipes and furnaces that must be fed and tended to keep the water temperature up, which right now with a skeleton crew and limited resources means there are only a few specific hours in the evening when hot water is available. The Inquisition doesn't currently have enough personnel to justify using both halls or both baths, so the facilities in the former Templar tower will be staffed and maintained (they're a little nicer), and personnel living in the former mage tower will have to walk the short distance across the courtyard to get their meals or baths.

The two smaller towers each have small, sparing Andrastian chapels, while the central tower has a larger and more ornate one.

Outside of the three main towers, the Gallows complex's buildings and structures include:

• A large armory complex, with storage for arms and armor.
  
• Open areas on either side of the complex used for training and sparring.
  
• A smithy on the Templar side.
  
• One large herb garden, including five trees, squared in by walls and a few rooms once used for alchemy on the mages' side.
  
• A smaller prayer garden on the Templar side.
  
• Docks.
  
• An infirmary.
  
• Cheerful dungeons.
  
• Laundry.
  
• Assorted offices and storage areas.

ACCOMODATIONS

The towers hold a range of options, with larger communal rooms on the lower floors and private rooms on the upper floors. Because the Gallows was built to hold significantly more people than the Inquisition will be housing there, it will be possible for anyone who wants a private room to claim one. If your character resides in the Gallows, you can record where he or she is staying on this spreadsheet.

The following two room types are available to anyone. While the rooms are designed to hold multiple people, the population the Inquisition is housing in the Gallows is sufficiently small that a person may wind up having one of these rooms entirely to themselves. Characters may use additional rooms for other purposes—offices, training spaces, etc.—but will only be permitted to "claim" one as a private space and be issued a key. Any secondary rooms will remain unlocked and must be shared as needed with others.

Each residential floor of the towers includes a central communal space.

• Group Quarters: The lowest residential floors of both towers contain dormitories meant to house apprentices or new Templar recruits, sleeping dozens of people in sturdy bunks. They're the largest enclosed spaces in the towers
  
• Shared Rooms: The next levels contain rooms meant to be shared by two to four occupants, with larger beds, armoires, and desks. Many of the rooms also have tin tubs for bathing, though water must be carried by hand from the communal baths.

The other two room types, on the highest floors, are reserved for Inquisition leadership.

• Private Rooms: Up another flight of stairs are private rooms, once held by enchanters or Templar officers. These rooms are generally the size of a decently large college dormitory room, large enough for a bed, desk, dresser, and a few other pieces of furniture--some have bookshelves, others armor racks, etc.--without crowding. Some have fireplaces, while others have braziers. All have wash basins, but tubs for bathing are house in separate rooms and also require water to be brought upstairs.
  
• Grand Rooms: At the highest levels are suites originally reserved for the First Enchanter, Knight Commander, and high-ranking visitors. The Inquisition will be reserving these for the advisors and their own visiting dignitaries, so PCs will not be housed in them.

The Docks

The Inquisition has been granted use of one quay and the surrounding land, made up of several dock areas with broad steps down to the water and piers jutting out to meet anchoring ships, as well as several adjacent warehouses and the remains of the Qunari compound. Small boats are also tied up here, used to ferry passengers to and from the Gallows or other parts of the docks. Those traveling to the Gallows are carefully observed by guards, with visitors logged and searched for weapons before they're given passage.

The center of this district is a narrow, lopsided courtyard beside two renovated warehouses. One is used as a barracks (discussed below) and the other houses an open kitchen, where the lack of ovens means most food is cooked over hot coals on large grills. It occupies one wall of the dining area, which can seat dozens at tables and benches cobbled together from scrap wood. Another section has been partitioned off into communal baths, little more than a collection of metal tubs and a couple water pumps, plus cauldrons to heat the water and buckets to carry it. There are benches next to each so that clothing and towels can be kept off the floor, and sometimes there's soap, though it's wise to bring your own just in case. The rest is offices.

What's left of the Qunari compound has been converted into stables. The rest of the area is currently used for storage, including another armory and a few spaces cleared of rubble that are used for guard drilling and training. This area is walled off from the rest of Kirkwall and secured by a heavy gate with posted guards. The Qunari banners on either side have, of course, been replaced.

Much of the Inquisition contingent housed here are members of the guard tasked with controlling access into the Inquisition district. Guards are posted on all main routes into the area and patrol the smaller alleyways, and some are assigned to rooftop posts as well. More man the gates across the main thoroughfares and the docks where passengers come and go from the Gallows.

ACCOMODATIONS

The barracks warehouse offers fewer housing options than the Gallows. It has been partitioned into two unequal spaces: the group quarters and the shared rooms. Any Inquisition personnel are welcome in the group quarters, but shared rooms are limited and will be divvied up based on seniority and then by a lottery. Because shared rooms are in demand, unlike similar Gallows rooms they will always be filled to capacity (i.e. no groups of two in a four person room).

• Group Quarters: The large central room of the warehouse is fitted with rows of bunkbeds sufficient to sleep several score of guards, dockworkers, and other Inquisition personnel. Each bed comes with a locker for personal belongings. During renovation several holes in the wall were turned into (haphazard, mismatched) windows, so there is some natural light in this space.
  
• Shared Rooms: Along either end of the warehouse are long spaces that have been partitioned to create a series of smaller rooms along a shared hallway. These rooms are designed to house either two people in a pair of cots, or four people in a pair of bunkbeds. Each of these rooms is furnished with an armoire or two, and some will have desks. The walls between these apartments are thin and don't quite reach all the way to the ceiling. There are long windows set up high in the walls, and at least a portion of one stretches into each room.

Kirkwall is a big and busy city by any measure, but like the docks, it's quieter than it should be. Some buildings in the poorer areas of the city are still burnt-out shells; others are missing walls where they were once struck by debris. You can view a basic map of the city here.

Hightown

The wealthy district, Hightown is also literally high, set up on the cliffs at the peak of the city, just below the Viscount's Keep. Full of mansions and expensive shops, merchant guilds and gilded brothels, it is as clean as a city gets, decorated with flowers and silk banners, and connected to Lowtown only by a few guard-watched sets of stairs. During the day it is a relatively tranquil area, but at night it can be hazardous. Kirkwall's criminals aren't as brazen as they used to be, but those wandering around Hightown alone will need to stay in well-lit areas to protect against ambushes or quiet muggings.

A relatively small slice of the city's popular reside here, and strangers—particularly non-humans—will be regarded with suspicion, at best. The nobility of the city have the money to drive Kirkwall's trade, and, accordingly, also have the Provisional Viscount's ear; while Inquisition members and allies are currently welcome to explore the area, pissing off the locals has been specifically forbidden, and those who disobey will find themselves disciplined.

The square where the Chantry once stood (before it was destroyed by a massive explosion caused by the rebel mage Anders in 9:37) has been converted, with the Inquisition's assistance, into a memorial garden. More details are in the comments to this entry.

Kirkwall still lacks a singular, fully-functioning Chantry, in the sense of an enormous building that centralizes worship and the city's Chantry administration, but it does have non-Revered Mothers scattered in smaller facilities throughout the city, like charitable outreach centers, private chapels, shrines, and smaller spaces designed to offer Chantry services to various districts in the absence of a central facility to replace the one that was destroyed. They would all have the authority to oversee a conversion. Kirkwall also does have an assigned Revered Mother, technically, but due to the lack of a fully-fledged Chantry in the city, the city's history and lingering unrest, and the lack of security, she spends most of her time in Tantervale with the Revered Mother there, and travels to Kirkwall every few months to do the rounds and follow up on anything that requires her attention. Usually. Sometimes she doesn't, because Kirkwall is terrible.

Lowtown

Most people in Kirkwall live in Lowtown, the residential and industrial district located in the sunken pit of an ancient quarry in what is now the middle of the city. The area is a maze of narrow streets and hexagonal courtyards, all carved out of the rock and surrounded by high walls that allow no views except upward to Hightown and the Keep. Foundries, tanneries, and shafts venting foul air up from Darktown choke many neighborhoods in a hazy smog that only stiff winter winds can disperse.

Despite this, Lowtown is always bustling with trade and commerce. The market district is large and if you're not too picky about quality or provenance, basically anything can be gotten for a price. In this part of town, elves and dwarves are a common sight and even qunari aren't unheard of, though they may draw negative attention due to Lowtown suffering the most damage during the qunari attacks. Pickpockets and bar brawls are very common at all hours, and at night those traveling alone or unarmed should be on their guard. Anyone nicely dressed or flashing coin is likely to become a target.

Most of Kirkwall's elven population is segregated into a dilapidated alienage of small, run-down apartments and winding alleys. Its heart is a courtyard containing a large tree, the vhenadahl, lovingly tended and brightly painted around the base of the trunk. Only one road leads in or out of the alienage, and during emergencies or unrest the city guard may lock its gate.

Darktown

Darktown was once a series of mining tunnels beneath the city surface, but now serves as a home for both literal and metaphorical refuse: sewage drains through the tunnels, which also serve as a home to the poorest of Kirkwall's residents—or those who just don't want to be found. Anyone who looks out of place and insufficiently armed down here risks pickpocketing at best, murder at worst.

The old mining tunnels form a labyrinth that is fully navigable only by those who have had years to make themselves intimately familiar with the twists and turns, allowing the city's underworld to thrive in hidden corners and secret rooms that the guard will never have the resources to fully clear. Many buildings in Hightown have tunnels connecting them to this underground city, though the entrances may be bricked over and the owners unaware, allowing those in the know to slip between areas of the city unseen. It's an easy place to get lost in, whether you want to or not.




Beyond Kirkwall's walls, the landscape quickly gives way to wilderness, with few interested in braving the wild—or the outlaws, pirates, and slavers—to live outside the city. Several specific regions or landmarks lie within a few hours' walking distance.

East of Kirkwall, the Wounded Coast sports one of the few land routes into the city, and with it a reputation for bandits who hide in the coast's craggy cliffs and caves to rob passing travelers. The waters are calm, but clearly treacherous despite that, with a number of skeletal shipwrecks in the bays to ward off anyone else who attempts to hide there. Further inland, the Bone Pit is a region of old mining tunnels and excavation sites. It was once the site of the deaths of hundreds of slaves, leaving the veil thin and the atmosphere dour; more recently, it was the site of the deaths of several dragons.

Beyond both, north of the city, is Sundermount, the highest peak of the Vinmark Mountains. According to legend, Sundermount was the site of the final confrontation between the Tevinter Imperium and the ancient elves, and it remains dotted with elven ruins and holy sites as well as vicious guardians: varterral, shadow warriors, wraiths. Some of the palpably eerie and oppressive atmosphere the mountain is known for has dissipated since the death of the demon that once resided at the top, but it is still an unpleasant place to linger, with dangerously changeable weather.

Those locations are the only areas close enough to Kirkwall to easily travel to and from in a single day, but further from the city, within reach of overnight travel, the landscape is diverse, varied, and host to a number of unexplored ruins and potential mysteries:

THE WAKING SEA	VINMARK MOUNTAINS	PLANASENE FOREST
the eastern Amarantine Ocean all the way inland to the heart of Orlais, Val Royeaux. On average days the sea is choppy and likely to see storms, but it has its periods of calm. Kirkwall sits at the sea's narrowest point, allowing the city control of naval traffic trying to reach Cumberland or Val Royeaux from the open ocean. The shores near Kirkwall tend to range from cliffy to hilly, with more stone than sand, but there some small, flat beaches scattered along the coast.	The Vinmark Mountains stretch east to west along the Free Marches' southern coast, with only a thin region of hills and flatter land separating them from the sea. Kirkwall lies directly between the sea and the mountains. To the west, they tend to be green and wooded. To the east, areas of the range have been turned to dry wasteland by past Blights and darkspawn activity. The mountains are riddled with ruins and tunnels, including several entrances into the Deep Roads, and (unknown to most) home to Corypheus' ancient prison.	Immediately west of Kirkwall, the coastal strip between the mountains and the sea is occupied by a dense temperate rainforest called the Planasene Forest—so named for the human Planasene people that preceded Tevinter occupation of the continent. The forest is unsettled and largely unexplored except by wild Dalish elves (who probably eat babies and drink blood) or the occasional outlaw band or brave explorer, but scattered with overgrown ruins that indicate this was not always the case

Kirkwall’s locals are primarily human, with an elven alienage and a notable dwarven presence that’s mostly merchants and Carta members. A few Tal-Vashoth mercenaries who remained behind after the Qunari withdrew still remain in the city, usually working as mercenaries or bodyguards. A small Templar presence remains, consisting only of those who didn’t leave to fight the rebel mages when the war broke out and who felt a duty to remain and help restore the damaged city even with no Circle to guard—in short, they’re mostly the good ones. The very few mages who didn't flee the city are keeping their heads down.

The local populace is wary of foreigners and outsiders. How much so varies by person. There may be shopkeepers who will bar elves or Qunari or mages or rifters from entry, landlords who refuse to rent property to them, and people who avoid them in the street; there will be many, many others who are wary or prone to impertinent questions but otherwise behave themselves; and there will be a few hippies who are vocal about thinking everyone ought to get along. Some Kirkwallers will be glad for the Inquisition’s presence, while others may envision a power grab similar to Meredith’s. Very few people will be inclined to vigilante violence or public harassment, and very few people will be moved to overjoyed tears by the Inquisition’s assistance. Most will fall somewhere between those two extremes.

The majority of people will be a little racist--if only in an ignorant way, a little suspicious of the Inquisition, and a lot wary of unfettered magic. But your characters will be able to live normally--as long as their "normal living" is relatively respectful of the locals' concerns--without being run down by angry mobs.


If you'd like to add something extracanonical to the setting—a business you invented, a room in the Gallows dedicated to a particular type of research, a ruin in the wilderness—you can reply to the appropriate comment below with this form:

<blockquote style=“text-align:justify;”><b>NAME:</b> Official or Unofficial <b>LOCATION:</b> Vague is fine—we don’t need floor numbers or street names! Just “in the mage tower near the chapel” or “in the Hightown market district” will do. <b>DESCRIPTION:</b> Purpose, physical description of the space, who’s in charge of it, what hours it’s open, anything you feel is important to know. <b>NOTES:</b> Anything else! If you include images please limit them to 500px width. (You can put “width=500px” in your image html tag to limit something larger.)</blockquote>