City · Gilmora
The grand cotton-country capital of Gilmora — famed for its Cotton Lords, its dragonfall, and the pleasures (and hazards) of its notorious courtesans.
Barrowbell is the principal city of Gilmora, the rich cotton-producing region that spans the border country of Castal and Alshar. It is a city of ancient Cotton Lord families, broad avenues, temples, guildhalls, and the river-barge wharves that move the bulk of the kingdom's cotton trade into the Riverlands. Politically Gilmora is a patchwork: although the Second Peace of Barrowbell formally bound the region to Castal, many of the older families retain Alshari sympathies, and this latent loyalty has coloured the city's politics for generations.
Barrowbell's walls saved it during the gurvani invasion, when most of northern Gilmora was depopulated. For a time Barrowbell was the last defended city in Gilmora. It was here that the young knights magi Tyndal and Rondal earned national fame for the Dragonfall, slaying the dragon that had been driven against the city. The aftermath left Barrowbell with both a heroic reputation and a lively demimonde of maidens eager to attract the victorious warmagi.
In later years Barrowbell served as Marshal Terleman's headquarters during the Gilmoran campaigns, the site of the climactic tournament bout with the Lion of Gilmora, and the target of Minalan's plans for a cotton-transport Waystone arch to link the city to the rest of the kingdom.