Port Foozle, 883 GUE


 Port Foozle, 931 GUE
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 Port Foozle, 1067 GUE
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     Fish Market
     Homes (A) / (B) / (C) / (D)
     Main Street
     Overhead View
     (Concept Art) (A) / (B)

 Port Foozle Forests, 1067
     node: 1 / 2 / 3
     Secret Entrance to GUH
     looking north towards Foozle
     ...south at Steppinthrax Penninsula


 Inquisition Occupation, 1067
    (A) / (B) / (C) / (D) / (E) / (F)

 Standoff at Enchanters Guild, 1067
    (A) / (B) / (C) / (D) / (E)

 Destruction of Magic Contraband
    (A) / (B) / (C) / (D)

  Foozilli, 1067
    (A) / (B) / (C)

  Port Foozle, c. 1067~1247
    City Streets
    The Casino (abandoned)
PORT FOOZLE

Port Foozle, which lies nine bloits west, one bloit south of former Flatheadia in the Aragain Province, is the primary seaport of the Frigid River Valley, the busiest seaport in the Eastlands, and is a common departure point for ships to Antharia. To the south is a small stretch of forests before the mountains thrust up from the earth into the skyline like a giant rocky wall. The Quilbozza Beach, running south along the edge of the Flatehead Ocean, is considered the nicest beachfront in the Eastlands. Several wharfs jut into the harbor from the village, where buildings rest on piers over the water including one of the many casinos. South of the city, a road winds through the Steppinthrax Penninsula and to the Monastery (which was once hemmed in by streams of fire spilling from now-dormant volcanos).

As the eastern shore of the Flathead Ocean lies far underground in most places, Port Foozle was originally an underground city. Sometime between 883~931 GUE, the ceiling of this particular section of the underground was removed, allowing the city and its surrounding forests and beaches to be exposed to sunlight for the first time. When, and how this was accomplished (if by natural, physical or arcane means) is unknown. The southern walls of the now-exposed cavern still stand today, as seen in this photograph.

Port Foozle has a good scurrilous reputation for drinking and gambling, the epicentre of which was the world-famous Port Foozle Casino. The Casino is one of the oldest buildings in the town, although it has been renovated (and even rebuilt) many times. It has been suggested by some scholars that it was actually there before the town, dating as far back as 1,000 BE, when the site may have been used as an ancient place of worship to the so-called gods of chance. Archaeologists have discovered what may well be prehistoric betting chips (or possibly fossilized cookies) on sites near the Casino, and at least one “mummified deadbeat with broken fingers”.

Port Foozle is known for its vibrant inhabitants (and, in one case, its vibrating inhabitants. It is the sad story of a powerful wizard-turned-children’s entertainer with a particularly odd sense of humor and a penchant for turning the members of his audience into jello), including the well known Zorkastrian Bishop and author, Francois Malveaux, and Antharia Jack, star of the hit TV series The Z-Team. For a time Jack owned a bar in Port Foozle, but had to sell it to cover his gambling debts in 931, although he bought it back in 1001 and finally fulfilling his dream of becoming a pawn shop owner, renovated the palce into "Antharia Jack's Pawn Shack."

Towards the end of the Second Inquisition (1066 GUE), unproven legends arose, telling of an obscure off-shore island with a rocket ship on it, where the Fourth Dungeon Master was marooned for five years before Matchlick the Mighty rescued him. Every fruitless expedition to find this island has been met with heavy dismay.

Incidentally, chroniclers of magic remember Foozle as the home of the Fisha wand company (established sometime before 883). Other local interests include the Port Foozle Psychic Friends Bureau (open in 1048), Mick's Chop Shop (in operation during the Second Age of Magic), and the Foozle Film Festival, an annual event since before the turn of the eleventh century. As early as the Second Age of Magic, crowds always packed the streets during the Wandsday market, which consisted of fish vendors, tough sailors arm-wrestling, and parrot salesmen.


HISTORY OF PORT FOOZLE
Established sometime before 789 GUE, many have (very nearly litigiously) called Port Foozle “The Happiest Place on Quendor." This was not always the case. Hard times hit Port Foozle in 881 when the panic concerning the Curse of Megaboz reaching the boiling point. Extremist religions spring up whenever an empire collapses, and this was no exception. Early that spring, the first violent stirrings of the Inquisition swept through the streets of Port Foozle, and quickly through the forests to nearby Flatheadia. The followers of this crackpot religious sect believed that the impending doom of the Curse of Megaboz was caused by widespread sinning, and the only way to forestall the curse was to appease the gods. The original goals of the movement, rather than beginning with an indiscriminate massacre of the general populace, called for the sacrifice of only those people in power, particularly members of the Flathead family. Correspondingly, after the sacking and looting of several governmental buildings, the growing ranks of the extremist cult group laid siege to the Flathead Castle itself, seizing both the key forest roads and underground caverns leading away from the capital.

The Inquisition seized total control of Port Foozle and over several sites around the world. This lunatic religious fringe begun a systematic decimation of the local population in hopes that the Curse could be averted if there was no one alive to notice it, which understandably led to the city’s decline in popularity. A large stone building was constructed at the northern end of the city where these sentences would take place. Oddly enough, the vicious executioners in Foozle did allow the victims one final wish. If the wish could not be granted, the person was beheaded. If the wish could be granted, it was, and the person was subsequently hanged. This understandably led to the town's decline in popularity.

By 882, an alarming number of Eastlanders were marching voluntarily to their own deaths, and even more were being dragged against their will. To avoid a similar fate, thousands upon thousands of natives began to flee the area, some heading to the vacation spots in the Grey Mountains, but more still taking to the sea, hoping to find safety in the still calm western provinces. The wharfs and the world-famous Casino were deserted, apart from a single mime who had genuinely become trapped in a glass box and was unable to escape (no matter how hard he searched for the invisible rope). After the collapse of the Empire on Curse Day of 883 GUE, the First Inquisition died. To this day it is not known how many people lost their lives to this horrible cult.

Following this dark period, Port Foozle quickly started on the road to recovery with their ingenious policy of offering free windkittens to all adventurers who visited the town. Unfortunately many adventurers found that the supply of kittens had dried up just before they arrived there, but luckily they were always able to receive vouchers for discounted poker chips in the reopened casino.

For but a time the town was the base of operations for the Flatheadia vice squad. With the fall of Flatheadia and the Great Underground Empire the vice squad was disbanded and within a week the Port Foozle motto was changed to “Hello, sailor". However this was later recanted (and then decanted) when it was pointed out that Port Foozle should not be receiving a scurrilous reputation for that sort of thing when they already had a perfectly good scurrilous reputation for drinking and gambling, the epicentre of which was the world-famous Port Foozle Casino. (The threat of legal action from Antharia, whose motto "Hieya wizka" translates to "Hello, sailor", may have also had something to do with this.)

Port Foozle, with its proximity to the White Cliffs Beach, was for a brief time the surfing capital of Quendor. While some of Port Foozle's regular inhabitants were willing to put up with the shaggy haired surfers who seemed to infest the area because of the extra income they brought to the town, others were not so enthusiastic and with the introduction of a particularly vicious 20 foot long sea serpent to the waters off the shore of White Cliffs Beach, the surfing industry soon collapsed. However, some vestiges of it still remain with the occasional lone surfer still skulking around the more accepting of Port Foozle's bars.

As stated above, sometime between 883~931 GUE, the ceiling of this particular section of the underground was removed, allowing the city and its surrounding forests and beaches to be exposed to sunlight for the first time.

During the eleventh century, the Second Inquisition arose in the region around Port Foozle, and at its head, the Grand Inquisitor, Mir Yannick. This campaign was obsessively concerned with the destruction everything with even the slightest semblance of magic. With its headquarters at the Steppinthrax Monastery, Port Foozle again became known as the center of a religious fringe. A large jail for Inquisition use was constructed in Port Foozle and the streets swarmed with Inquisition Guards and propaganda. The Inquisition gift shop kiosk was set up to take home a souvenir of the stay in Port Foozle with memorbelia such as "Talk to Me" stuffed Grand Inquisitors or fasimilie autographed copies of Yannick book. A compulsory Inquisition speaker system was installed on every corner and within every Foozle household. All the citizens feared the dread Inquisition, although they were brainwashed into "joyfully" submitting to its every whim.

For a time, the local Enchanter's Guild (although powerless during the Age of Science) formed a coalition against the Inquisition, which eventually ended in a standoff. The week prior to Frobuary 34th, 1067 GUE, the standoff ended peacefully when the Enchanters were freed from themselves by caring Inquisition Troops. Concerned citizens everywhere searched high and low for hidden scrolls and magic contraband, voluntarily purging themselves of the worst excesses of the Magic Revolution.

With the Enchanter's Guild quelled, Port Foozle was finally liberated on the thirty-fourth of Frobuary, 1067 GUE. On this date, the Inquisition claimed that the magic wars were finally over. “Shun magic and shun the appearance of magic! Shun everything - and then shun shunning!” said the Grand Inquisitor from atop Flathead Mesa, where the grateful masses thronged to welcome Inquisition Troops to newly-occupied Port Foozle. A region-wide evening curfew initiated by the Grand Inquisition:

"Attention residents of Port Foozle. By order of the Grand Inquisitor, master of technologies, useful and otherwise, High Lord of all that he wants and then some, Leader of the campaign against all horrid sorts of magic the evening curfew is now in effect. The Township of Port Foozle is an occupied Inquisition Outpost. No citizen over or under the age of eighteen may appear on or in the streets after curfew is in progress. Violators of Inquisition Curfew may be intimidated, incarcerated, lacerated and/or masticated, if time permits and the weather is fine. Further violators of curfew may be totemized, which is unspeakably painful and altogether irreversible, except for in certain cases including but not limited to those at the correctly played end of this game. Further violators of curfew will be threatened with smiting and then smitten. Once smote, further smitation and subsequent resmitation will commence until the smitee is deemed sufficiently smit by the smiter. Enjoy your stay in Occupied Port Foozle. This message was brought to you by Frobozz Electric: We are the Boss of You!"

On that same day, the imposter Third Dungeon Master read a brief but impassioned statement in support of the transitional Inquisition government, before he “accepted the Inquisition’s generous offer of a permanent vacation” in prison. This was off course not true, as the Dungeon Master had been defeated for quite some time, but it prevented Mir Yannick from having to upkeep the pseudo-Dalboz and risk the discovery of the false identity. Although rumors that the Dungeon Master was leading a Magic Resistance abounded, the Inquisition assured the populace that these were entirely false.

In addition to the occupation of Port Foozle, the Grand Inquisitor had completed his technological wonder, a powerful mind-control device in the form of the Inquisition Cable Network, Inquizivision, which he planned to broadcast from atop Flathead Mesa and use to broaden and enlighten the minds of citizens across the countryside. This super-plan would tighten his grip on the minds of the Quendorans so painfully, that he believed it might never be reversed. With Inquizivision, non-stop twenty-four-hours-aday Inquisition programming would brainwash the already mind-numbed, dogma-fed population until their brains would become useless mush. He planned to unleash this powerful device on Frobuary 35th, but his plans were thwarted by an unknown adventurer, AFGNCAAP, who returned magic to Zork and afterwards became the Fourth Dungeon Master.

In the days following the removal of the Second Inquisition, the adventurer population multiplied in abundance, and the magical creatures of Zork, no freed from persecution, did as well, and at a much faster rate. Thus the Great Monster Uprising overtook most of Zork. Times became hard for the city's inhabitants. The sales of fish were at an all-time low and the once-famous casino was abandoned and overrun with monsters (although there were numerous other places in Port Foozle where people were conned out of all their savings and still left with a smile on their faces). Despite this, some enterprising Port Foozle citizens still tried to sneak into the Casino and organize their regular poker tournaments with whatever lurking horrors were up for a game. One of the many portals leading to the Bozbarland arena was installed during the Uprising.

Throughout the Monster Uprising, the village was a well-known wretched hive of scum and villainy. Foozle remained a dingy and bustling haven for adventurers, whether they were pirates, scallywags, parrot salesmen, or just the commonplace laid-off FrobozzCo International employee armed with mighty weapons and magic of inconceivable power. If there was a particularly nasty bar fight somewhere in Port Foozle which resulted in the death of one of the contenders, those who wished to remove the evidence often dumped the bodies in the Frigid River (the mermaids in the sea were known to rat people out for a big enough salmon in the past). It was generally easy enough to tell a natural falling-off-the-waterfall death from a casualty of Port Foozle's more than exuberant night life by counting remaining fingers on the victim's hands, or checking for surviving gold fillings in their teeth. The citizens looked forward to the day when the town could reclaim its lost glory (or just tried to get the pirates drunk enough to reveal where they buried all their loot).


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