"Come on people, no lollygagging! The sooner we depart, the sooner we reach Abah's Landing. And I am in dire need of a fancy drink, exotic fruit and a couple of handsome nightflowers."
Areth grows weary of pretending that everything is fine. Captain Shaigan is still missing, as well as half of the Darkmaiden’s crew. And there is no clue about their whereabouts. Admitting to his clients that he has no idea where Shaigan may have gone to simply would have been bad for business. But the figures are clear: He cannot continue this farce with only half the crew and a rented cockleshell. He needs to expand the business if he doesn’t want to end up broke by the end of the year.
So he made the plan to hire a new crew and establish fresh business contracts. Therefore, the Bosmer used part of the remaining reserves to have a ship built for his endeavor: The Jolly Spriggan. Once it is seaworthy, he will travel to the major trading hubs all over Tamriel, starting with the vibrant merchant city of Abah’s Landing.
Therefore, Areth made an offer to House Telvanni. He asked for assistance concerning his endeavor and will in turn provide free – and if necessary secret – passage on his trading trips throughout Tamriel for its members. Additionally, he offered further incentives once the operation is successful. Like business contacts, discounts and loyalty rewards.
When Jolly Spriggan is ready, members of the House may accompany him and his crew to Abah’s Landing in Hew’s Bane. Of course, he expects them to take on some duties during the voyage – with only half the crew left, there will be plenty of work to do.
Tl;dr:
Areth plans a voyage to Abah’s Landing in order to save the dwindling business of Darkmaiden Shipments. He receives support from the mainland branch of House Telvanni in the form of temporary deckhands until he can hire a proper crew. Members of the House may partake in the endeavor.
What does that mean for our setting?
Once we have planned the major outline for the Hew’s Bane Hub, we will announce the event which will take some of our characters to Abah’s Landing.
Contrary to the Wrothgar Hub, the Hew’s Bane Hub isn’t as restricted, so characters may join and leave if they want or need to. HOWEVER: We don’t want characters to plop in and out of the setting on a whim. Once a character is there, he or she is expected to stay a few days at least. So no “I’m just fetching something from Heimlyn Keep real quick!”
In this setting, creating portals for long-distance teleportation is simply too complicated to allow for quick and instant transport. The Mages Guild teleport on the other hand is available for characters to travel back and forth but since Abah’s Landing is more or less THE city for trading, lots and lots of people use the Mages Guild portal service on a daily basis. So in our setting, the Mages Guild will have a waiting list, which means that trips to and from Abah's Landing have to be planned beforehand.
There will be situations however, in which the Hew’s Bane plot will disable the ability of leaving the Hub for an extended amount of time. Those instances are connected to events and will be announced beforehand of course.
The overarching plot in Hew’s Bane will most likely revolve around Areth’s business there. Due to the contract with House Telvanni, he may therefore employ player characters for some tasks. Other than that, characters are free to have their own plots and may explore the peninsula of Hew’s Bane, as well as the busy merchant city of Abah’s Landing. In case we need certain areas for the main plot, I will post a list of no-go locations before the Hew’s Bane event starts.
As for power levels and choice of chars, this Hub is intended for medium to low power characters. If someone really wants a high power char to join, keep in mind to reduce your power play, so you won’t ruin the RP for others by dominating it. When in doubt, please adjust your power play to the char with the lowest power level. This also involves the creation of portals by mage chars, as mentioned above. In general, you can bring chars that want to go to Abah’s Landing for business or leisure and get along with Areth, for obvious reasons. For example apprentices, wardens and the like. Nobles? Well, it depends on the character.
The event also brings good opportunities to introduce new characters into our setting. Keep in mind however that new chars have to fit into our setting if you want them to remain there (unless they're NPCs). We cannot take every Tom, Dick and Harry from next door with us everywhere we go. If they are bound do Abah's Landing due to their jobs or similar obligations, they should remain there and take on a rather peripheral role in the RP, even more so if they are not fit for casual RP.
Tl;dr:
Once the Hub is set up, an event will take our chars to Abah’s Landing. Once there, characters are allowed to travel back-and-forth, but not on a whim – characters are expected to stay at least a few days. Teleportation rules are explained above. The power level for this HUB is low/medium.
If you have questions, you should really read the stuff above. If you still have questions then, feel free to ask me.
