The settlement stands on ancient ruins around the Tower, far enough away to reduce danger from falling fragments. Human brick, timber, steel, chimneys, roofs, stairs and scaffolding parasitize Tower ruins.
An amphitheater-like ruin supporting the town is a strong option, not hard canon.
The frontier is culturally diverse and politically important. Open warfare is constrained in town; inside the Tower, law effectively disappears. Reputation and Tower success matter more than outside status. Wealth is displayed through Tower fragments/relics/technology; rich districts should look bizarre rather than merely luxurious. Amended D-323, D-324 How, on bodies and in buildings, is §36.
Amended D-294–D-296, D-299, D-300 - The valley. The Tower stands in a river valley, and the river flows out of the Tower: its aqueducts feed the valley. What the water is, ordinary or not, is a mystery (§2). There is no sea coast and no harbour.
- A crossroads. The frontier lies near no realm's heartland. Long roads, rivers and sea routes bring people from every realm (§25), so nobody is local and the town is cosmopolitan: its market is a fair of goods from around the human world (D-285).
- A city-state. Amended D-316 The frontier is a neutral city-state, run for profit by the Cartographers' Guild. Open warfare is constrained because the realms signed a treaty that keeps it neutral (§26, §35).
- Amended D-332 The foot. The approach to the Tower is emptied ground, bare and scarred: debris falls, nobody lingers, and expeditions cross it quickly. The only human work there is the gate's scaffolds and ramps.
- Amended D-333 The Tower from the city. Seen from outside, the Tower's exterior is weathered grey stone, warmed by the low light and misted at its base. Ivory stays the stone's underlying appearance (§4); inside, the altitude law (§6) is unchanged.
- The gate. Nobody holds the Tower gate. The real gatekeeper is the Cartographers' monopoly: no expedition without a Cartographer is known to have come back (§9).
- Banners. Factions hang their banners and marks in the settlement and on the human structures at the Tower's foot, never inside the Tower (D-276): on the gate's scaffolds, and at the city's edge facing the approach (D-332).
- The name. The city is Lowerreach (D-345): the lower reach of the Tower's river.
- Relics as wealth. Tower fragments and relics are displayed, worn and traded as wealth (§36).