Earth Trade Settlement

The Earth Trade Settlement is the nearest colrathi settlement to the main entrance portal in the dimension of New Yenth.

Background
A transdimensional portal lies within a ruin near the city of Yenth that leads to the parallel plane of New Yenth. A trade settlement was established on the other side of the portal in New Yenth where commerce, diversion, and amusement can be found for travelers that are willing to engage with the colrathi.

The Portal
Nearby the city of Yenth, within a large, prior-world ruin lies a chamber which contains a transdimensional portal. It's a black slab of metallic material, normally unpowered. On a difficulty 6 intellect task, the controls on the side of the portal can be activated to open the gate to New Yenth. The portal will remain open for up to a minute at a time. While it's open, it's possible to cross between dimensions in either direction.

4 guards employed by merchants in the city of Yenth, known as Openers, monitor usage of the portal and are not supposed to open it for anyone but those who've signed a merchant agreement in Yenth. However, they're open to negotiation. For a guard, opening the portal would be be considered a routine action.

New Yenth Arrival
The portal to the Ninth World lies upon a low, bare hill inside of New Yenth. Visitors will find a world not vastly different from their own, at least by first glance. A sky above filled with clouds and birds, and a wide grassland dotted with trees that stretch out to distant mountains. A settlement built from quarried stone filled with what appear to be humans wearing brightly colored robes lies nearby. When the portal is closed, the hill will be empty, with no clear way to trigger a return. When the portal is opened up from the Earth side, an aperture connects the two dimensions for up to a minute.

The portal mouth will glow and hum once it opens, making it obvious to everyone in the settlement that it's active. a group of colrathi dressed in orange robes will emerge from the settlement and ascend the hill to greet any newcomers in stilted Truth, bidding them, welcome. the leader of the group will introduce herself as Bali Ambassador thirty-Seven, and will ask how she and her fellow ambassadors can help the newcomers during their visit. If prompted, she will describe the major features of the settlement. She can arrange trade, travel to other locations within the world, or even help characters track down information they might be looking for. She can even be retained to work on the PCs behalf, serving as both translator and cultural go-between if the characters do decide to venture further into the strange world.

The Trade Zone
Warehouses here contain animals, oils, plants, and any other objects brought to the realm of New Yenth by outside Traders. One smaller structure contains a variety of oddities fashioned in New Yenth by Tinkers in the city of Hoyan. Activity within this area depends upon the volume of trade currently underway - sometimes it's light, other time it can be quite busy. Whenever PCs visit, they're usually assumed to be traders, and the central building opens as a sort of general store. Here, traders can buy individual items and make deals to trade in bulk. The colrath that characters are more likely to deal with a stern woman named Kea Importer Forty-One, whose silk gown is striped to an almost military fashion. Kea is a taciturn even for a colrath, but that's mainly due to the fact that she's begun to consider the possibility of trying to escape her Forty-Four by fleeing through the portal to Yenth.

In addition to any oddities produced by the Tinkers order, PCs can trade for (or just about buy with shins) most general equipment they could need, though all of it is of New Yenth make: glowglobes contain firefly-like insects, rope is woven from spider silk, weapons are craved from insect mandibles, etc.

The Stable
All manner of riding insects are stabled here within a pen. They're borrowed as needed by the colrathi, which means there's no one around to explains things to any characters from another dimension who aren't familiar with them. It may seem like a menagerie, at least, until they see a colrath ride in from mount of town and drop off their mount.

The Bathing Pool
Each day, most colrathi will visit the bathing pool. From a distance, it appears to be just a body of turbid water. But upon closer inspection, it's revealed to actually be a mass of tiny blue-black insects. Bathing colrathi will strip, place their clothing inside baskets, and wade into the pool until the mass is up to their necks. The tingling feeling produced from this is merely the thousands of tiny bites eating off the outer layer of dead skin and dirt from their bodies. Humans are asked to bathe, but the colrathi don't ever insist, especially after a few unfortunate incidents that the colrathi would prefer not to talk about.

The Public House
This structure includes many rooms with comfortable beds that are constructed from rigid silk, as well as a public room where an alcoholic drink called spinnekis served. Lighting is provided by slowly crawling insects along the ceiling whose abdomens glow a bright yellow. When visitors arrive, they'll usually stay here. At any given point in time, a handful of merchants from Yenth are on the premises

5 members of the Hospitality order run this establishment. PCs will end up dealing mostly with Mruo Hospitality eighteen, a young colrathi male dressed in blue silk. He's exploring a secret relationship with a human merchant named Jacca. Jacca returned to Yenth and has been absent for quite some time, but Mruo is still certain Jacca that will return.

A colrath storyteller named Arvan will appear in the evening, but she won't speak the Truth. Her clicks and whistles seems to calm the other colrathi. If prompted, a colrath will explain that Arvana tells tales of fruitful adventure, calm meditation, and even glorious memorial in amber when each colrath's "Forty-Four is celebrated."

The Commissary
Everyone within the trade settlement will eat inside this structure, which is open to air and filled with tables and chairs constructed out of rigid silk. Six members of the Hospitality order run the kitchen, though some people interact with a tall colrath named Duard Hospitality Twenty-Nine, who can rattle off the days menu without so much as a stutter. Specialties will usually include pickled spiders, roasted thorax, wriggler soup, and crispy fried mandibles.

The Surrounding Grassland
Normally, the grassland that surround the trade settlement acts just like regular tall grass. However, those who don't take the trade road are sometimes inconvenienced when every leaf of grass pulls its head out of the dirt and starts swarming around, chirping in what might be considered mating behavior.