Bluelog

The second largest city in the The Divided Regions of Bestaria though it has shrunk a lot in the last few decades it still has more residence than either Crownhill or Wollatton. It sits just south of The Northern Fernthen forest and harvests large amounts of wood from there, which used to supply most of northern Duthgar before the DRB succeeded and trade was hindered. This didn't halt all trade across the boarder but the tax and paper work meant that cheaper options transported up from the south became Tarcheck's primary source of wood, while Girdev and North Lowsland still buy from this city. Bluelog is well known as both a place of great financial opportunity even though that name is fading but it is also known for holding many large and impressive festivals throughout the year often centred in Pelleras Square but the festivities and revelry spread out through most of the quarters other than Eastern Fort. The city used to hold around 6000 people many of whom didn't want the seperation from Duthgar knowing it would damage trade but a smaller number of far louder people with the backing of the Houses of Old Vashton managed to get Bluelog added to the settlements that were with Old Vashton. Since split from the population has fallen to around 4000 people and there are a number of vacant homes as their value dropped. There are a large detachment from the Bestaria military split between the two forts but they work closely with Commander Mercer who heads up the town guard here in Bluelog.

Architecture
Most of the buildings in Bluelog are made of wood while some of the more expensive properties have plaster covering the wooden frame and the really expensive and older homes are made of stone imported from Girdev, mainly these are in Western Fort or Stowmarket. Much of the cities private buildings are built with heavy elven influence, most buildings having large images carved into their facade's, while the public buildings draw more from Dwarven and human architecture styles, with sharp straight lines in polished stone, or intricately carved interlocking joins in wooden planks held together by nothing but the wood and friction.

History
Bluelog was originally a medium sized town near to the edge of The Northern Fernthen Forest that was sustained by the gathering, working and shipping of wood from the forest. However, in around 5460 when Ryin fell out with Whittlesbourgh and refused to let them continue harvesting wood from their forest and violently protected the trees. This lead to a sudden crash in the economy within Whittlesbourgh as it was almost entirely based around the forest, very quickly people began to move to the town of Bluelog as it was close and already had an infrastructure built around the harvesting and processing wood. The sudden loss of timber from Whittlesbourgh lead to a spike in the price of timber sold from Bluelog, in addition to this the influx of new inhabitants required new homes creating jobs for builders and an even greater demand for timber. This cycle then attached even more inhabitants from Whilttlesbourgh and also the surrounding area of northern Duthgar from labours craftsmen and builders, to merchants and workers from the agricultural industry to recreational and hospitality industries, civil services and many more. For about a decade Bluelog was synonymous with new opportunities and chances of great wealth and the town now city sized continued to rapidly grown, new houses being erected almost daily. The town grew ever closer to the edge of the forest and continued to grow with hope, excitement and reckless disregard for its effect on the forest or defences for the city.

The relationship between Ryin and Whittlesbourgh eventually improved and they were able to begin gathering small quantities of higher value woods which they craft into art work and extravagant wooded products, but Bluelog handled anything wooded needed in large quantities like timber planks, cheap furniture and charcoal/fire wood.

In 5523 the forest decided to fight back, after a particularly fierce lightning storm that rolled across the forest a massive number of shambling mounds came out of the forest edge and began consuming the city, building after building were covered in a mass of vegetation and later spawned even more mounds. The creatures moved slowly and although they attacked if provoked seemed quite content to simply swallow up the wooden buildings, thus there was a surprisingly low number of fatalities, and many people were even able to save most of their belongings as it took approximately two months for the attack to take place. A large force made up of House Deneith mercenaries and the Duthgarian army was rallied and a slow but thorough eradication of these mounds began, and the now homeless citizens began to rebuild, this time they built the city much further from the forest edge and after rudimentary shelter was set up for them to stay in work began on a defensive structure built between the shelter and the forest to provide some defence. This lead to a second phase of intense building and opportunities and the city grew even more, this time masons were also needed as walls were erected from stone and even some homes for the more nervous residence who were wealthy enough.

The city grew to around 6000 inhabitants towards the end of the 67th century, but as the area now known as The Divided Regions of Bestaria began to prepare to secede from Duthgar some of the inhabitants of Bluelog began moving south expecting the worse for their city and looking for the next good opportunity. After 6730 when the DRB got its independence, the trade of raw and worked wood across the border began becoming expensive and harder, and the demand within the country was not sufficient for the supply produced, the attitude that had grown the city so quickly throughout the previous century now lead to a mass exodus following these difficulties as almost 2000 people moved south to Duthgar.

Industry
While Whittlesbourgh continues to craft the high end wooden products but the limited number of products produced raises the price but also the allure of these products. Bluelog has built itself to be the supplier of all things other wooden products, the Craftman's Way is filled with lumber yards, wainwrights, carpenter factories, sawmills and charcoal burners but also masonries, stone carvers and a few forges, all focused on supporting the wood industry and the defence of the city. Large caravans of wagons laden with wood can be seen traveling out of the city normally to the south west on a regular basis. To the south there are a number of farms, near the city they are largely quick spoiling vegetables like lettuce  while further from the city up the hill there are a number of animal pastures to supply meat and dairy to the city, also live bait for when patrols venture into the Northern Fernthen Forest

Law
Bluelog has a fewer town guards than the other cities of its size but it has a large company of Bestaria's military stationed in the two forts who patrol through out the city and act almost like a second policing force, even though while off duty many of these men are in the city needing to be calmed down by the guard or military police. Both forts have dungeons to reprimand unruly soldiers while also acting as prisons for the city along with the much larger Pinewood Penitentiary that sits on the edge of Causeway Green and Craftman's Way.

There are no particular rules within Bluelog that are all that different form the standard laws set out by The Visible Council although laws against arson and uncontrolled fires are more harshly punished and tracked.

Defences
Currently the City of Bluelog has a stone wall surrounding it and two large forts, Eastern Fort and Western Fort found on the West and North east of the city respectively. The wall is quite low for a city wall only being around 3.5 meters tall and it is built out of interlocking stone block without the use of cement meaning that it would be quite poor in a siege situation, however, the bonus of this design is that it can be taken apart and rebuilt with a large amount of man power but still far more easily than a traditional wall. This has been done multiple times over the course of the cities history as the city expanded or moved.

The two forts standing today are the third and fourth forts to have been built after the city was overrun in 5523, the first fort was built quickly out of wood as one of the first building built after enough temporary shelters were erected for the displaced citizens, the town guard as well as s mall contingency of the House Deneith fighters that came to clear Old Bluelog, maned this fort as the building of more permanent structures began, around it. Before long it was noticed that the re-growing city was forming very much with this fort at the centre rather than in a far more useful place like between it and the forest and more so as more and more buildings went up they were again creeping towards the forest where most of the cities infrastructure was still focused. The Guards began to try and convince people to build south of the fort telling people it was dangerous, they named the fort North Fort in an attempt to make people think of it as the north side of the city and thus they needed to expand south. This however, had little effect and soon the city had to make it illegal to begin building north of North Fort, this worked for a few years but there hadn't been any more attacks and the long walk from Bluelog to the edge of the forest frustrated the inhabitants that relied on the wood and meat the forest provided. The people were also concerned about the lack of stone used for nearly any of the construction stating that if an attack happened again it would be very similar result. The city didn't have the resources to fund a large stone construction, due to most of its money going towards trying to maintain the infrastructure of roads, amenities and sanitation in the rapidly growing and changing city.

This all lead to the second fort being constructed, a wealthy noble from Tarcheck offered to build a new fort out of stone closer to the forest in exchange for the land rights to some the extra territory the city would then gain allowing him to rent it to people as they rebuilt there. His name was Garreth So'ieth and he began construction right up against the boarder of Ferthen forest to maximise the extra land he would get despite the protests of the Bluelog mayor and citizens. He named this second fort after himself and it was known as the Garreth So'ieth he then employed a large number of soldiers to maintain and protect the fort and area to its south. so people began calling them the Garreth Garrison which then evolved into the fort being known as the Garrison So'ieth, and later just the South Garrison. This garrison, allowed for another new building expansion as more buildings were built, those who knew the forest well only expanded the city northwards while new investors and people wishing to build buildings they were never planning to live in built new properties closer to the South Garrison. Nearly as soon as the Garrison was finished they began encountering wondering creatures in the forest, some would simply wonder towards the structure and get attacked while others seemed to be intentional in their aggression towards the encroachment of civilisation. The garrison continued to fend off these attacks occasionally accidentally letting a few creatures through to damage those buildings built too close to the forest. during the Armilus Festival just 15 years after the fort was built a large group of wild animals including dire variants charged the fort while most of the garrison was in the city proper for the festivities, the guards were overrun and forced to retreat and by the time they had rallied and gathered more guardsmen and return the building was heavily damaged, they chased the remaining animals away but had to relocate to the North Fort. After this Garreth pulled out and refused to spend any more money on the repair or upkeep, a number of those hired by him to maintain the garrison suddenly found them selves with out jobs, many returned to Tarcheck but a number remained in Bluelog.

Geography
The city is built on a gentle slope downhill towards the north with good farm land to the south, between Bluelog and the Northern Fernthen Forest is an entire town worth of ruined wooden buildings now known as Old Bluelog. From the South east and south west of the city are two large roads that lead down to Old Vashton and to eastern side of the DRB. There are two forts on opposite sides of the city that are mainly focused on guarding the city from the various creatures that emerge from the forest.

Districts
Craftman's Way

Western Fort

Stowmarket

Hayard

Causeway Green

Eastern Fort