Grand Market

The Grand Market is an informal name for a large part of the Lower Docks in Magnar's Landing, demarcated on the west by the portside frontage road, on the east by the Great Bridge, and on the south by Lower Dock Road and the Gullstien Counting House.

General Description
Streets next to the piers are made of packed cobblestone, worn smooth by time and saltwater spray from the harbor. These streets run right up to the top of the retaining wall; at high tide on a windless day, the waves lap against the retaining wall just three feet below the streets.

The frontage road near the piers are wide to allow for carts to pass through the area comfortably, but they’re often cluttered with crates and packed with sailors, traders and dock workers. The far side of the frontage road is packed with stalls and grain bins, where commodities are kept in large quantities until their owners arrive to claim their shipments, or until they can be sold off.

Commodity Markets
A few streets further in are the open air commodity markets. Here, deals are made to ship food and raw materials in and out of Vesland. You’ll see open stands with stacks of crates and pallets, some open so that customers can buy smaller bulk quantities of grain, nuts, berries, etc. Many merchants own permanent stalls here but keep the bulk of their product in the warehouses a few streets further west.

These open air markets are surrounded by two and three-story limestone buildings, with cloth or glass arcades shading the alleys between them. The alleys and streets here are also cobblestone, fairly narrow, and during certain times of day are crowded with street vendors. The buildings themselves house a huge variety of shops and offices, as well as the apartments of their owners. Some of the buildings are used as warehouses, with the cooler basement floors housing perishables like fruit and vegetables. Others are used as barns, where livestock is housed for a short period before being sold at the market and/or loaded for shipment.

Sometimes livestock gets loose, so you’ll occasionally see pigs or chickens running around the Docks.

Gullstien Buildings
The southwestern corner of the Grand Market, and the Lower Docks district itself, is comprised of the Gullstien Counting House and the family’s storehouses, which together make up an entire “block” of the district.