These are not traders. They do not carry silks or dates. A Ladogual longship returns with what the sea provides: whale oil rendered in iron pots, bolts of heavy wool from the Nordlands, and the terrified, gagged prisoners of a coastal raid on some Imperial fishing village. The slave market in the Lower Circle is Ladogual’s true economy. A man’s worth here is measured not in denars, but in the weight of his chains and the hardness of his back.
The city has no grand walls. Instead, it has a labyrinth. The outer districts are a maze of dead-end alleys, collapsing wharves, and multi-story wooden tenements that have been soaked in seawater and set alight so many times they are now harder than iron. An invader who takes the docks hasn't taken the city; they've entered a killing box. Sturgian axemen don't defend the streets. They collapse the buildings onto the streets. They punch through floorboards with spears. They fight in silence, the only sounds being the crunch of frost under boots and the wet thud of an axe meeting a helmet. bannerlord ladogual
Stand on the northern promontory, near the crumbling lighthouse that hasn’t been lit in a generation. Look down at Ladogual as the autumn wind whips salt spray into your face. These are not traders
This is not a city of dreams. It is not a city of empires. The slave market in the Lower Circle is
A Sturgian of Ladogual will charge you triple for a loaf of bread. But if a blizzard howls down from the north and you are outside his door, he will drag you inside, force a horn of mead into your frozen hands, and not ask your name until the sun returns. Their cruelty is practical. Their generosity is survival.
Ask any mercenary in the taverns of Zeonica about Ladogual, and they will spit. "It’s a trap," they’ll growl. "A frozen maw."