Belleville

Belleville is a small port city on the southern coast of Neverland, built into and among the trees of the Smee Jungle’s edge. It is permanently green, permanently humid, and permanently full of the sound of birds and the distant rush of the sea. It is also, at the moment the party arrives, being terrorized by something in the surrounding jungle — something with terrible roars, yellow eyes, and ferocious claws. Something that calls itself Maurice.

The City of Belleville

Overview

Belleville sits at the edge of two worlds: the open coast of the Pirate Shore, with its salt air and clear lines of sight, and the dense interior of the Smee Jungle, which begins where the last stilts sink into the root-tangled ground and does not end for fifty miles. The city occupies both, uncomfortably and cheerfully. Half its buildings stand on the jungle floor on thick wooden stilts, raising them above the seasonal flooding and the more ambitious wildlife. The other half are built directly into the trees themselves — canopy structures reached by rope bridges, wooden walkways, and at least two very questionable zip lines installed by someone who clearly had confidence to spare.

The city is connected vertically as much as horizontally. Belleville residents think nothing of walking across a bridge forty feet in the air to buy bread from a bakery built into the crown of a banyan. Visitors think about it constantly. The walkways are, in fact, extremely safe — they have been maintained and improved for three hundred years, and the Belleville Rope and Bridge Guild is one of the most respected institutions in the city. But they sway. Everything sways.

The canopy above Belleville is dense enough to filter most direct sunlight, casting the city in a greenish, shifting glow that changes character throughout the day: golden in the early morning when the light slants in from the east, deep jade at midday, amber and mysterious at dusk. It never gets fully dark at night, because the jungle itself bioluminesces slightly — mushrooms, insects, a particular species of tree frog — and the combined glow keeps the city in a dim, living twilight.

Districts

The Stilts — Ground Level

The ground level of Belleville is called the Stilts — named for the forest of wooden legs that holds the city above it. It is not a pleasant place to spend time: dark, humid, full of root systems and puddles and the things that live in puddles. The city’s maintenance workers operate here, inspecting the stilts and making repairs. The few businesses at ground level tend toward the practical: a rope-maker, a timber merchant, a boat repair yard where the small river craft are overhauled.

The Stilts is also where the jungle begins in earnest. There is no wall, no gate, no clear boundary between Belleville-below and the Smee Jungle. The stilts simply thin out and become trees, and the city becomes wilderness, and most Belleville residents know exactly where that line is and have a healthy respect for it. At the moment the party arrives, that line has become much more relevant than usual.

The Midwalk — Primary Commercial Level

The Midwalk is the main commercial and residential level of Belleville, built on platforms roughly twenty to forty feet above the jungle floor. This is where most of the city’s shops, taverns, homes, and civic buildings are located. The platforms are broad enough in the central market area for six people to walk abreast; narrower in the residential areas, where the walkways thread between closer-grown trees.

The Midwalk’s central feature is the Market Crown — an open platform roughly eighty feet across, built at the junction of five major walkways, roofed with layered palm fronds that keep off most of the rain. Market days are every third day; on off days, permanent stalls and shops line the walkways leading to it. The smell of the Market Crown is complex: spices, fresh fish from the coast, the particular green smell of cut jungle plants, something frying, and always the underlying sweetness of the bioluminescent fungi that grow at the platform edges and are locally considered good luck.

The Heights — Upper Canopy

The Heights are the upper canopy structures — built into the crowns of the largest trees at fifty to eighty feet elevation. They are harder to reach and harder to maintain, but they offer something nothing else in Belleville does: a view above the canopy, where the sky is actually visible and the sea can be seen on clear days as a line of blue-silver on the horizon. The Heights are accordingly expensive.

Mayor Barnaby Highbrow’s offices are in the Heights. The Belleville Rope and Bridge Guild headquarters are there. The city’s only temple — a modest structure dedicated to several maritime gods at once, on the grounds that Belleville cannot afford to offend any of them — sits in the crown of the oldest banyan in the city, reachable by a spiral staircase built around the trunk.

Getting Around

Visitors quickly learn two things about Belleville navigation: the walkways are colour-coded (red rope rails for commercial routes, blue for residential, green for the Heights), and the city has no horses, no carts, and no vehicles of any kind. Everything is carried by hand or by the city’s licensed porters — the Canopy Guild — who wear distinctive yellow jackets and can carry extraordinary loads at impressive speeds across the bridges. For the right price, they will carry a person as well.

The river on the city’s eastern edge is navigable by small boat, and several families operate river taxis connecting Belleville to the coastal shore and to the small fishing settlements downriver. These boats can also reach the sea, making Belleville accessible from the water as well as the road, though the road from Pegport is more commonly used.

The People of Belleville

Belleville’s population runs to about two thousand, with another five hundred in the surrounding settlements and farms. They are a mixed group: descendants of the original settlers who came from the Pirate Shore three centuries ago, plus a significant community of halflings who arrived a hundred years later and promptly moved to the lower canopy (finding the Heights too exposed and the Stilts too damp), and a smaller but economically significant community of gnomes who maintain most of the city’s mechanical systems.

Bellevillans are cheerful, opinionated, and fiercely proud of their city. They will tell you, at length and with evidence, that Belleville has the best food in Neverland, the best climate (ignoring the humidity), the most interesting architecture, and the friendliest people. They will do this even if the conversation started on a completely different topic. They are mostly correct.

The one thing Bellevillans are not, at the moment the party arrives, is calm. The jungle disturbances have been going on for two weeks, and while no one has been seriously hurt, the disruption to trade is significant and the general atmosphere in the Midwalk has the quality of a town waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Civic Locations

The Market Crown

The central market platform. On market days, it hosts forty to sixty stalls. On off days, the permanent stalls around its perimeter stay open, and the platform itself is used by the rope-skipping leagues, the city’s unofficial debating societies, and several competing groups of children who treat the roof supports as a climbing frame.

The River Dock

A series of platforms extending over the river on the city’s eastern edge, where small boats tie up to load and unload. The dock master, a gnome named Pip Knotwell, tracks every boat that passes through and can tell you within the hour where any given vessel is on the river.

Shops of Belleville

The following establishments represent Belleville’s most notable commercial enterprises. Each is well-established, locally owned, and has been operating in some form for at least a generation. Prices reflect the jungle-trade economy: certain items are cheaper here than anywhere else in Neverland (jungle materials, river fish, handcrafted goods), while imports from the mainland or from Pegport carry a premium.

The Green & Gilt — General Provisions

The Green & Gilt occupies one of the largest platforms on the Midwalk, identifiable from a hundred yards away by the enormous gilded pineapple mounted above the door — a relic of the shop’s founding three generations ago, when pineapples were considered the height of exotic luxury in Neverland. The shop sells almost everything a traveler could need, with particular strength in jungle-sourced goods, food supplies, and practical equipment. It smells of dried herbs, spice, and the cedar oil used to protect the wooden shelving.

The platform creaks slightly as you step onto it. The shop occupies the full width of the space — shelves from floor to ceiling on every wall, with a broad counter running down the center and hanging baskets above it full of dried things you can almost identify. A hand-painted sign behind the counter reads: ‘If we don’t have it, you probably don’t need it. If you do need it, ask Delphine.’

Delphine Marchmoor — Proprietor

APPEARANCE: A human woman in her early forties with sun-darkened skin, ink-stained fingers, and the kind of calm efficiency that comes from having run a busy shop for twenty years. Her hair is always pinned up with whatever is nearest, which today appears to be a small wooden stirring spoon. She wears a long canvas apron with approximately forty pockets.

PERSONALITY: Delphine is warm but precise. She remembers every customer, every order, and every price discrepancy. She has opinions about the quality of goods from various suppliers and will share them freely. She does not haggle — her prices are fair and she will tell you, pleasantly, that you are welcome to pay them or shop elsewhere. She is also the unofficial postmistress of Belleville; packages and messages left with Delphine reach their recipients.

SECRET: Delphine is quietly funding an expedition to the interior of the Smee Jungle. She believes there is a significant archaeological site three days in — ruins of something predating Belleville — and she has been collecting maps and accounts for years. She has not told anyone because she does not want competition.

PLOT HOOK: If the party brings her an unusual item from the jungle or the Stilts (a strange fungus, an unfamiliar creature part, a piece of carved stone), Delphine will recognize it for what it is and reveal her project. She can become a source of information about the jungle’s deeper interior.

Item	Price	Notes
Standard rations (1 week)	5 gp	Jungle-preserved, lasts 2 weeks
Jungle rations (1 week)	8 gp	Higher calorie, better preservation
Waterskin (large)	1 gp	Treated leather, jungle-proof
Rope, hempen (50 ft)	1 gp	Local weave, excellent quality
Rope, spider-silk (50 ft)	8 gp	From Smee Jungle spiders; lighter, stronger
Torches (10)	1 sp	Treated with resin; burn 2 hours each
Lantern, hooded	6 gp	Brass, Belleville-made
Lantern oil (flask)	1 sp	Local pressed seed oil; burns clean
Hammock	1 gp	Jungle cotton; fits in a belt pouch
Insect netting (tent-size)	3 gp	Necessary. Trust Delphine on this.
Jungle salve	5 gp	Cures common insect bites; 10 uses
Antitoxin (vial)	50 gp	For the genuinely alarming bites
Healer’s kit	5 gp	Standard; jungle-sourced materials
Herbalism kit	8 gp	Includes 12 local specimens, labeled
Parchment (10 sheets)	2 sp	Humidity-treated; won’t warp
Ink (vial)	2 gp	Made from jungle berries; vivid and permanent
Signal whistle	3 sp	Three-note coded whistle; jungle standard
Canopy whistle (Belleville specific)	8 sp	5-note coded system used by locals; DC 12 to learn
Dried jungle fruit (3 lbs)	1 gp	Keeps 6 months; excellent trail food
Spice pack (assorted)	4 gp	12 spice jars; popular trade item
Blanket, all-weather	2 gp	Treated wool; repels light rain
Mess kit	2 sp	Tin cup, plate, and small pot
Grappling hook	2 gp	Standard; sold frequently here
Piton (10)	5 sp	Jungle-hardened iron
Portable ram	4 gp	Collapsible; for stubborn doors
Mirror, steel	5 gp	For signaling across the canopy
Chalk (10 sticks)	1 sp	Useful for canopy marking conventions
Marbles (bag of 50)	1 gp	Delphine refuses to explain why these sell so well

Delphine’s Specials (Not on Display — Must Ask)

Item	Price	Notes
Jungle cartography (partial map, interior Smee)	15 gp	Accurate to about 10 miles in; beyond that, guesswork
Smee Jungle field guide	12 gp	Flora, fauna, hazards; written by a local naturalist
Forager’s license (Belleville)	2 gp	Legal right to forage within city jungle boundary
Letter of introduction (Belleville merchants)	Free	Given to customers Delphine likes
Package forwarding (to Pegport)	3 sp/lb	Reliable; 3-day delivery via river

Thorncroft’s Remedies — Apothecary & Herbalist

Thorncroft’s occupies a narrow platform between two large ficus trees, its exterior almost completely covered in hanging bundles of drying plants, jars of preserved specimens, and hand-lettered signs warning about various things (DO NOT EAT THE RED ONES. DO NOT SMELL THE GREEN JAR. THE BLUE JAR IS FINE BUT PLEASE DON’T OPEN IT). Inside, it is cramped, dark, and extraordinary — shelves on every surface, a ceiling so hung with dried herbs that entering feels like walking through a forest in miniature. It smells of eucalyptus, something bitter, and a sweetness that visitors cannot identify. It is produced by a specific fungus Milo cultivates in the back room and has never successfully commercialized.

The first thing you notice is the smell — green and sharp and sweet in turns, like standing in three different gardens simultaneously. The second thing is the jars: hundreds of them, each labeled in a hand so small you have to lean in to read it. The third thing is the gnome behind the counter, who is already looking at you as if he has diagnosed your problem from across the room and is simply waiting for you to catch up.

Milo Thorncroft — Apothecary & Herbalist

APPEARANCE: A gnome in his late hundreds — which puts him in his energetic middle age. Short even for a gnome, with an impressive set of white eyebrows that move entirely independently of each other and seem to have opinions of their own. His fingers are permanently stained in four colors simultaneously and he always smells faintly of the shop. He wears a magnifying lens on a chain around his neck and consults it constantly.

PERSONALITY: Milo is brisk, observant, and constitutionally incapable of not diagnosing people. He will identify a party member’s ailment, physical complaint, or vitamin deficiency within two minutes of meeting them and recommend a treatment before they have finished introducing themselves. He is almost always right. He is not unkind — he just experiences the body as a puzzle to be solved. He finds the concept of small talk bewildering.

SECRET: Milo was once a physician in a major city — not in Neverland, somewhere further. He left under circumstances he does not discuss. He has a sealed letter in the back room addressed to a name the party might recognize, which has been sitting there for twenty years. He has never sent it because he has not decided if he should.

PLOT HOOK: If a party member is poisoned, diseased, or suffering from something unusual, Milo can treat it — but he will ask questions about where it came from. If they have been in the Abyssal Trench, near the Veil-Renderers, or in contact with Dagon’s cult, he will recognize the symptoms and know more about their origin than seems likely for a small-town apothecary.

Item	Price	Notes
Potion of Healing	50 gp	Milo’s own preparation; very reliable
Potion of Greater Healing	200 gp	Limited stock; 2 on hand
Antitoxin (vial)	40 gp	Milo’s blend; works on 90% of local venoms
Antitoxin, broad-spectrum	75 gp	Works on anything jungle-related
Anti-venom, sea-serpent	100 gp	For the coast; harder to source
Jungle fever remedy	15 gp	Cures the three most common jungle fevers; 3 doses
Wound salve	8 gp	Stops bleeding; 5 applications
Burn treatment	10 gp	Excellent; Milo has a strong opinion about fire safety
Sleeping draught (mild)	5 gp	4-6 hours; no hangover
Sleeping draught (strong)	15 gp	8-10 hours; leaves you feeling very well-rested
Stimulant tonic	8 gp	Advantage on Con saves vs. exhaustion for 8 hours
Pain relief tincture	12 gp	Removes the Poisoned condition from minor sources
Calming draught	20 gp	Advantage on Wisdom saves vs. fear for 1 hour
Truth serum (mild)	35 gp	DC 13 Wis save or unable to deliberately lie for 1 hour
Fungal spores (bioluminescent)	5 gp	Glows for 6 hours when activated with water; safe
Darkvision draught	40 gp	60 ft darkvision for 4 hours; side effect: eyes glow faintly
Spider-climb salve	45 gp	Apply to hands and feet; 30 min climb speed equal to walk speed
Herbalism kit (premium)	15 gp	Includes Milo’s personal identification guide
Alchemist’s supplies (basic)	25 gp	Milo’s recommended starter kit
Healer’s kit	10 gp	Milo’s version includes 3 extra bandage types
Mortar and pestle (gnomish)	12 gp	Self-cleaning; expensive but worth it
Preserve specimens jar (sealed)	3 gp	Airtight; for keeping samples

Milo’s Specialties (Prepared to Order — 1 Day)

Item	Price	Notes
Pressure resistance tonic	80 gp	Resistance to pressure damage for 8 hours; for deep dives
Riving suppression	150 gp	Slows Riving progression for 1 week; Milo won’t ask why you need it
Custom antidote	60 gp+	Milo needs a sample of the toxin; 6 hours to prepare
Diagnosis (full)	10 gp	Full physical; Milo identifies all active conditions and their sources

The Canopy Forge — Weapons, Tools & Metalwork

The Canopy Forge is the structural anomaly of Belleville: a metalworking operation built in a city with no roads and no carts, accessible only by rope bridge, operated by a woman who hauled every piece of her equipment up by hand over the course of six months when she moved here. The forge itself is on the lowest platform — close to the ground for ventilation, on a particularly large and old platform that can take the weight of the equipment. The rest of the shop, where finished work is displayed, is one level up, connected by a internal staircase. The whole building vibrates very gently when the forge is running.

You hear it before you see it — a rhythmic ringing, confident and even, the sound of metal being convinced to become something better than it started as. The forge platform is hot even from the walkway, and there is a faint smell of coal and iron and something organic underneath that you can’t quite place. The display room above is quiet and well-lit, with finished pieces on stands and hooks — blades, tools, hardware, things decorative and things deadly.

Petra Ashvane — Smith & Proprietor

APPEARANCE: A half-orc woman in her late thirties with the kind of build that comes from working a forge for twenty years — broad shoulders, forearms like architectural features, hands that could crush a coconut without visible effort. She has short-cropped hair, a working scar on her left cheek that she has never bothered to get healed, and a habit of evaluating every person she meets by their grip strength within the first two minutes. She usually wears a leather apron over simple work clothes, and she is always either working or thinking about working.

PERSONALITY: Petra is direct, fair, and intensely proud of her craft. She has no patience for poor technique, in herself or others. She respects people who know what they want and can explain why. She has a dry, understated sense of humor that takes a moment to land. She will offer a small discount to anyone who can correctly identify the alloy of a piece by looking at it and explaining their reasoning.

SECRET: Petra came to Belleville specifically because it was somewhere she was not known. She is a former soldier from a conflict that is ongoing elsewhere — she deserted not from cowardice but from a specific order she refused to carry out, and she has been careful about her visibility ever since. She has skills she does not advertise: weapons maintenance at the level of a master armorer, and knowledge of siege equipment design.

PLOT HOOK: If the party is visibly preparing for something serious — the descent, an armed conflict, a confrontation with a supernatural enemy — Petra will notice. She can upgrade standard weapons to magical quality for the right price, given time. And if the party encounters military equipment of a specific design, she will recognize its origin.

Item	Price	Notes
Dagger	2 gp	Petra’s standard; better balance than mainland
Shortsword	10 gp	Clean, reliable
Longsword	15 gp	Standard; she keeps 3 in stock
Handaxe	5 gp	Useful in jungle; Petra recommends it
Battleaxe	10 gp
Spear	1 gp	Jungle-weight; lighter than standard
Trident	5 gp	Useful in water; she stocks these for the coast trade
Warhammer	15 gp
Rapier	25 gp	Fine work; Petra’s personal favorite to make
Crossbow, hand	75 gp	Compact; good for canopy work
Crossbow, light	25 gp
Crossbow bolts (20)	1 gp
Arrows (20)	1 gp
Shield, wooden	7 gp	Jungle hardwood; lighter than iron
Shield, steel	10 gp
Chain shirt	50 gp
Scale mail	50 gp
Breastplate	400 gp	Made to order; 3 days
Crowbar	2 gp
Hammer	1 gp
Pitons (10)	5 sp	Belleville-made; reliable in wood or stone
Grappling hook	2 gp
Block and tackle	1 gp	Essential for the canopy; Petra keeps it in stock
Chain (10 ft)	5 gp
Manacles	2 gp
Lock (good)	10 gp	Gnomish mechanism; she sources from Pip Knotwell
Lock (superior)	25 gp	DC 20 to pick
Tinker’s tools	50 gp	She maintains them herself
Smith’s tools	20 gp	She knows what she’s selling
Woodcarver’s tools	1 gp
Whetstone	1 cp	She gives these away if you bought a blade

Petra’s Commission Work (Quoted Individually — Minimum 2 Days)

Item	Price	Notes
+1 weapon (standard)	300 gp + base cost	2 days; she needs to know what it’s for
Weapon modification (balanced for underwater)	50 gp	Reduces attack penalty in water to 0; 1 day
Silvered weapon	100 gp	Standard service
Adamantine weapon	500 gp+	Rare material; she may not have stock
Custom weapon (designed to specification)	Cost + 20%	She needs a full description; worth it
Armor repair	10% of armor value	1 day; she takes pride in other people’s work
Armor modification (custom fitting)	15 gp	Removes disadvantage on Stealth; 1 day

The Coconut Grove Inn — Tavern & Music House

The Coconut Grove Inn is not strictly a shop, but it is where you go when you need something specific in Belleville: information, company, music, or the particular kind of meal that takes three hours and is worth every minute. It occupies three connected platforms on the upper Midwalk, with the dining area on the largest platform, the music stage on the middle one (open-sided for acoustics), and a small, private room on the third for conversations that should not be overheard. Every evening, starting an hour before sunset, a musician plays. The quality varies. The enthusiasm never does.

The lanterns are, as promised, hanging — twenty or thirty of them at various heights, each one a different shape and color, filling the platform with overlapping pools of amber, green, and rose light. The tables are mismatched but comfortable. The smell of whatever is cooking tonight makes an argument for staying. From the music stage, a woman with a hand drum is playing something in 7/4 time that most of the patrons seem to find entirely normal.

Cassidy Wren — Proprietor & Host

APPEARANCE: A tall, thin human man in his fifties with a spectacular collection of waistcoats — he has forty-seven, one for every week of the Neverland calendar, plus extras — and the kind of face that seems to be naturally arranged into an expression of delighted welcome regardless of what is actually happening. He has silver hair worn long and tied back, and he moves through the Coconut Grove Inn as if the space were an extension of his own body, which after thirty years, it essentially is.

PERSONALITY: Cassidy is warm, socially gifted, and pays extremely careful attention while appearing to pay none at all. He remembers every conversation he has ever had in the Lantern. He has an opinion about everyone in Belleville and will share it in the form of a story that makes the opinion obvious but technically deniable. He is on excellent terms with Mayor Highbrow, Delphine Marchmoor, and at least two people in the city who are not quite what they seem.

SECRET: Cassidy spent ten years as a professional information broker before opening the Lantern. He stopped because he got too personally attached to the people whose information he was selling. He still has the contacts and the skills; he simply no longer charges for the service. If something significant is happening in Belleville or on the Pirate Shore, he has heard about it.

PLOT HOOK: If the party is investigating the Veil-Renderers, or if they ask Cassidy about unusual activity on the coast, he knows more than Ol’ Nessa or the mayor. He will share it over a long meal and a bottle of something excellent, in exchange for the party telling him honestly what they are doing and why. He will not help people whose goals he disagrees with. He will figure out very quickly what the party’s goals are.

Item	Price	Notes
House ale (pint)	4 cp	Local jungle-grain brew; excellent
Imported lager (pint)	8 cp	From Pegport; Cassidy keeps it for nostalgia
Jungle wine (glass)	6 cp	Fermented palm fruit; sweet and strong
Jungle wine (bottle)	3 sp
Mainland wine (bottle)	8 sp	Good vintage; he’s selective
Rare spirits (shot)	5 sp	Ask what he has; it changes
Coconut water (fresh)	2 cp	Always available; non-alcoholic
Spiced tea (pot)	3 cp	Jungle herbs; Milo Thorncroft’s recipe
Bread with jungle butter	2 cp	Made fresh; jungle fruit butter, slightly sweet
River fish soup	4 cp	Daily; always good
Roasted bird with root vegetables	8 cp	The signature; the bird is local, the roots are not
Jungle stew (vegetarian)	6 cp	Hearty; Cassidy’s own recipe; better than it sounds
Spiced fish on flatbread	5 cp	Quick service; popular with the after-work crowd
Full dinner (3 courses)	2 sp	Takes 2 hours; worth every minute
Traveler’s breakfast	5 cp	Eggs, bread, preserved fruit, strong tea
Private room hire (per hour)	1 gp	Soundproofed; Cassidy will not discuss what goes on there
Accommodation (per night)	5 sp	Three rooms available; comfortable, quiet
Music session (by the performer)	Varies	Cassidy pays the musicians; the hat is optional

Cassidy’s Information Pricing: Cassidy does not charge gold for information. He charges honesty. The following represents what he knows and what he will share, depending on how much the party trusts him.

Item	Price	Notes
General Belleville gossip	Free	Comes with any meal
Trade route and coastal shipping info	A meal and a drink	He knows the Pirate Shore schedules
Veil-Renderer activity (limited)	Tell him what you know first	He confirms or adds to what the party already has
Specific individual’s background or location	A full dinner	If he knows. He usually knows.
Introduction to a coastal contact	A favor TBD	He’ll collect when the time is right
Full intelligence briefing (everything he knows)	The truth about why you’re here	He needs to trust you completely. This takes time.

Quickfingers & Sons — Rope, Bridge & Rigging

Quickfingers & Sons has been maintaining, building, and selling rope in Belleville for four generations. The shop is less a retail space and more a workshop: a long, open-sided platform on the lower Midwalk where rope is spun, braided, and tested constantly. Samples of every product hang from the rafters. The floor is perpetually covered in fiber. The family employs twelve people, all of whom seem to have at least four fingers permanently entangled in something.

The name is a family joke — the founding Quickfinger, Amos, was known for losing three fingers to a rope tensioner in his first year of business. His sons, grandsons, and great-granddaughter have inherited the name but, so far, kept all their digits. The current proprietor, Sera, is cautiously optimistic about this trend.

The platform smells of fiber and lanolin — the oil used to treat the rope — with an undertone of the salt air coming off the coast. Dozens of rope samples in every thickness hang from the ceiling, each tagged with its weight rating and source material. A young halfling at the far end is braiding something with a speed that makes it look effortless. Near the counter, a large tabby cat is sleeping on a coil of what appears to be spider-silk rope, ignoring everything.

Sera Quickfinger — Fourth-Generation Proprietor

APPEARANCE: A halfling woman in her late thirties with spectacular calluses, a measuring tape worn as a bracelet, and the ability to tell the difference between ropes by touch alone while discussing something completely unrelated. She has her great-grandfather’s dark eyes and his talent for mental arithmetic. She is always in the workshop — she finds the office deeply boring and has never developed a taste for paperwork.

PERSONALITY: Sera is practical, cheerful, and unexpectedly philosophical about rope. She will tell you that a rope’s quality reveals the character of whoever made it, and she means this literally: she can identify poor-faith craftsmanship from tension inconsistency alone. She has strong opinions about knots and will, if asked, teach any party member a useful one. She genuinely enjoys customers who have interesting problems to solve.

SECRET: The family has a contract with the Belleville Rope and Bridge Guild that gives Quickfingers & Sons first right of refusal on any new bridge construction. This contract has been contested by a mainland competitor for the past year, and it is making Sera very irritable. She suspects the competitor has a political patron but can’t prove it.

PLOT HOOK: Sera can custom-braid rope to almost any specification and has the family’s accumulated knowledge of working at height in the jungle. If the party needs to rig something unusual — a descent system, a pulley mechanism, a trap — Sera can design it. She will want to know exactly what it’s for.

Item	Price	Notes
Hemp rope (50 ft)	1 gp	Standard; local fiber; reliable
Hemp rope (100 ft)	1 gp 8 sp	Bulk discount
Jungle-vine rope (50 ft)	1 gp 5 sp	Lighter; greater flex; 300 lb rating
Spider-silk rope (50 ft)	10 gp	500 lb rating; 1/3 the weight of hemp
Spider-silk rope (100 ft)	18 gp
Braided safety line (30 ft)	4 gp	Double-woven; 800 lb rating; for climbing
Grappling hook	2 gp	Standard iron
Grappling hook, folding	5 gp	Compact; fits in a pack
Block and tackle	1 gp
Block and tackle, heavy	4 gp	For loads up to 1,000 lbs
Pulley (single)	5 sp	Belleville-made; smooth action
Pulley set (4)	1 gp 6 sp	For rigging a full system
Carabiner (iron)	3 sp	Locking clasp for rope systems
Carabiner set (10)	2 gp
Harness, climbing	8 gp	Fits humanoids Medium and Small
Harness, descender	12 gp	For controlled descent; includes brake
Net, fishing (10 ft)	1 gp
Net, cargo (15 ft)	2 gp	400 lb rating
Net, throwing	1 gp	Standard weapon
Ladder, rope (10 ft)	1 gp 5 sp	Folds flat; jungle standard
Ladder, rope (20 ft)	2 gp 5 sp
Canopy anchor set	6 gp	4 anchors + connectors; for setting up a secure working position in trees
Hammock (travel weight)	1 gp 5 sp	Folds to fist size
Hammock (heavy duty)	3 gp	For larger characters; 400 lb rated
Knot guide (laminated card)	2 sp	12 essential knots; Sera’s recommendations
Rigging primer (booklet)	1 gp	How to set up basic systems; illustrated

Custom Work (Quoted Individually — Minimum 4 Hours)

Item	Price	Notes
Custom-length rope (any type)	Per-foot rate + 20%	Any length; any thickness
Suspension system (for a platform or object)	25 gp+	Sera designs; her team installs
Descent rig (for controlled vertical movement)	20 gp	Handles one person; reusable
Trap rigging (tension-based)	15 gp	She asks what it’s for. She is not judgmental.
Net customization (size, weight, mesh)	Base + 50%	Any net to specification
Repair (any rope item)	25% of value	Usually same day

The Feathered Eye — Curiosities, Maps & Secondhand Wonders

The Feathered Eye is the kind of shop that visitors to Belleville discover by accident and then spend an hour in without intending to. It is tucked into a corner platform between the main Midwalk and the lower Heights, partially obscured by a ficus that has grown through one of its walls and been incorporated into the shelving rather than removed. The sign is a painted eye with a feather for an iris. Inside: maps, instruments, curiosities, secondhand equipment, unusual finds from the jungle and the coast, and whatever Orla Dusk has decided is interesting enough to acquire this month.

The ficus has come through the back wall and been given a shelf of its own. This is not the most unusual thing in the shop. That distinction belongs to a glass case near the counter that contains what appears to be a compass, except the needle is pointing at you personally and has continued to do so since you walked in. The proprietor — small, white-haired, ageless — is watching you with the same sort of interested calculation.

Orla Dusk — Collector & Proprietor

APPEARANCE: A woman whose age is genuinely impossible to determine — she could be sixty or six hundred, and the uncertainty feels deliberate. Small, pale, white-haired, with sharp eyes the color of old moss and a stillness to her movement that is not quite human and is probably nothing to worry about. She dresses simply, always in the same grey-green, and she smells of old paper and something coastal.

PERSONALITY: Orla speaks carefully and precisely. She does not lie, but she does not always tell the whole truth, and she is very good at the space between the two. She is interested in almost everything and dismissive of very little. She collects objects for reasons that have nothing to do with their market value and everything to do with their history and their potential. She will occasionally refuse to sell something to someone she has decided should not have it.

SECRET: Orla is not human. She has been in Belleville for two hundred years, arriving before it was properly a city, and she has never aged visibly. She does not volunteer this information. She is aware of Dagon’s existence and history in a way that is not consistent with a shopkeeper’s level of knowledge — she was present for something related to the original Germonian pact, in a capacity she has never disclosed to anyone.

PLOT HOOK: If the party brings her an unusual magical item — especially anything with oceanic or deep-water resonance — she will recognize it. If they show her Maevis’s pearl (or the sacrifice pearl), her reaction will be unmistakable and she will have to decide how much to tell them.

Item	Price	Notes
Maps (regional, Neverland)	5-25 gp	Quality varies; she notes which are reliable
Maps (coastal, Pirate Shore)	10-30 gp	Some very old; DC 12 History to assess accuracy
Map (Abyssal Trench, partial)	40 gp	She has one. She does not explain how.
Navigator’s compass	15 gp	Reliable; standard
Compass (unusual)	50 gp	The one in the case. It points at whoever it chooses. Orla won’t say why.
Spyglass	100 gp	Good quality; Orla tests everything she sells
Sextant	60 gp	For celestial navigation; accurate
Astrolabe (gnomish)	80 gp	Intricate; for the serious navigator
Star charts (Neverland sky)	20 gp	Current; updated by a local astronomer
Field journal (blank, waterproof)	3 gp	Treated covers; survives submersion
Magnifying glass	5 gp
Magnifying glass (fine)	20 gp	For detailed examination of small objects
Goggles (water-proof)	8 gp	Good for coast and rain work
Signal mirror	5 gp
Lantern (puzzle design)	15 gp	Opens via mechanism; tricky to open without the trick
Hourglass (accurate)	25 gp	Gnomish mechanism; precise
Pouch of unusual dice	10 gp	6 dice; each a different shape. All fair.
Deck of cards (illustrated)	5 gp	Local artist; beautiful; no magical properties (probably)
Curiosity box (random contents)	15 gp	1d4 items from Orla’s surplus; condition varies
Ink (invisible, heat-reveal)	20 gp	Writes invisible; visible when warmed
Ink (water-reactive)	15 gp	Reveals writing when wet; useful for hidden messages
Cipher wheel	12 gp	For encoding and decoding messages
Forgery kit	15 gp	She sells it. She does not ask questions.
Disguise kit	20 gp	Well-stocked; she has theatrical contacts
Thieves’ tools (good)	30 gp	She keeps these for ‘locksmiths’

Orla’s Back Room (Not on Display — Must Earn Access)

Item	Price	Notes
Sending stone (pair)	200 gp	Allows communication over any distance; she has verified they work
Scroll of Water Breathing	100 gp	She asks why you need it
Scroll of Freedom of Movement	150 gp
Eyes of the Eagle	250 gp	Goggles; Advantage on Perception checks relying on sight
Ring of Swimming	200 gp	40 ft swim speed
Cloak of the Manta Ray	350 gp	Breathe underwater; 60 ft swim speed
Lore-stone (records one conversation)	Variable	She will not sell these; she may give one to the right person
The Compass in the Case	Not for sale	It keeps pointing at one of you. She’s watching to see which one.