The city of Reic lies in the wooded north-western foothills of the Sliabhraon Nathrach, the range of mountains immediately to the west of the Coinnenmere. It is a sprawling collection of wattle-and-daub huts and halls, more like a huge village than a city proper, and unlike any other settlement in the North it is entirely without defenses. It has no pallisades, no moat, no defensive ditch — nothing to stop any enemy who chose to rampage through its twisting streets and burn the lot to the ground.
Curiously, that has never happened. Especially curious, because Reic belies its rustic (though crowded) appearance by being the busiest and richest trade centre in the Northlands, and therefore a natural target for any barbarian warlord with a taste for slaughter and plunder. Somehow, any land-pirate who fixes his attention on Reic with malicious intent invariably finds that his schemes go awry, his relations become dangerously fractious, and he develops uncomfortable boils on his backside. If he persists, his problems increase accordingly, and nobody who has proceeded so far as to actually launch an attack against the town has lived long enough to see its grimy roofs and cooking fires through the trees. It has become common knowledge among the tribes of the plains and forests of the Northlands that Reic is under the protection of powerful and unsympathetic gods and spirits, and among the tribes the phrase "when Reic burns" has come to mean a wonderful time when the tribe would be rich, but which everyone knows will never come except in dreams.
Reic is easy to find. Many tracks lead to it through the forest, from many points on the forest edge. In fact, it is quite difficult not to find one's way to Reic once one enters the northern part of the forest; somehow, a wanderer always seems to find him or herself back on one or other of the trade routes no matter how determinedly they try to stray.