Blacktooth Bay
Blacktooth Bay (Blachtandh) is the principal settlement of The Iron Coves, named for the jagged black basalt teeth that rise from the water at the bay's entrance and make approach lethal for anyone who does not know the one safe channel through them.
Geography
Inside the teeth the bay is deep and well sheltered, ringed on three sides by steep volcanic hillsides that drop almost straight to the water. The settlement clings to every flat surface on those slopes, buildings stacked wherever the ground allows and joined by steep staircases and narrow paths rather than anything like streets. The volcanic rock gives everything its look: dark gray-black stone, buildings made of the same material as the hill they sit on. Roughly half the Coves' population is here at any given time; few live here permanently.
No walls
The teeth at the entrance, the hillsides, and the reefs around the whole archipelago are the wall. A naval force attempting the bay would have to thread the entrance without local knowledge, under fire, which is suicidal; a land approach means crossing the island's interior through dense and dangerous growth the locals know and an invader does not.
The docks
The functional heart. Rough timber, constantly repaired, extended, and modified; every space used, vessels moored three deep in busy periods. It smells of tar, salt, fish, and dozens of cargoes at once. The clockwork cranes are assembled from salvaged parts, worn and salt-corroded and working. The whole area looks improvised because it is — generations of practical solutions layered into something that works completely without ever having been designed.
The market
Everything available, no questions asked, provenance irrelevant. There is no permanent structure; it happens between buildings, on the docks, in certain taverns, wherever buyers and sellers find each other. The Fences' Association operates openly here, a large established business with complete community acceptance.
The taverns
The most important civic institution in the Bay, where everything that matters happens: negotiation, information trading, crew recruitment, alliances, dispute resolution, and entertainment. Each major tavern has its own character and clientele. Decisions affecting the whole community are discussed in the largest ones, and a captain who controls an important tavern has more influence than any formal authority, because there is no formal authority to exceed.
The criminal guild district
The Fences' Association building is large and well built by local standards, with its own dock. The Information Brokers' Network occupies a discreet building with deliberate acoustic insulation. The Forgers' Guild can be found by the chemical smell of its documents. The Assassins' Brotherhood is the most deliberately unremarkable building in the district and identifies itself by the absence of distinguishing features.
Residential
Whatever space is available: dark stone, timber framing, roofs of salvaged timber, sail canvas, or dark tile where it can be got, stacked up the hillside using the slope as a back wall. There is no district by wealth or position; a successful captain may live beside a struggling crewman because that was where the space was.
Character
Built by people solving one immediate problem after another, and it looks like it. Black stone, salvaged timber, pitched roofs on steep slopes, steeper stairs, the teeth visible from almost anywhere, vessels in every state of repair, mismatched brass catching lamplight. Dark, dramatic, chaotic, with an almost violent beauty. At night it is nearly black except for tavern windows and dock lanterns — the darkest settlement in the Known World, and the loudest.