| abstract
| - Fanuilond (S."Cloudy Haven"), the chief settlement of Methed Lebennin, was founded in S.A. 1700 as a subsidiary fortress of Pelargir, and during the early Third Age became a thriving trading haven. After the capture of Umbar in T.A.933, Fanuilond's golden age began. Prospering from the southern trade, merchants built large houses and the Merchants' and Navigators' Guilds built themselves large halls that still remained. Fanuilond did not suffer any worse than the rest of Lebennin during the Kin-strife, but with the loss of Umbar and a severe cutback in trade with Harad, Fanuilond declined and became a center for the local trade in southern Lebennin, sustaining a quiet life in the shadow of Linhir and Pelargir. Before the Kin-strife, Fanuilond had a population of 6,000. after T.A. 1492 it was 5,000, after the Plague 2,000. and at the beginning of the third millennium, the population was about 3.000. In T.A. 1492. Umbarean raiders attacked Fanuilond and captured the towns walls: but the defenders prevailed, after vicious street fighting, in driving the confederates back. The town was not plundered, though much destruction was wrought by fire. In the following decade, the town's defenses were strengthened once again. The garrison, the Hando, and his staff were housed in an ancient keep, the Hardirith (S. "South watch"), and regularly patroled the coast between Methed Lebennin and Gaersûl. The garrison soldiers, who doubled as town watch, wore tabards with Fanuilonds device: on blue, a yellow sun over yellow waves. When operating as town watch, the soldiers were equipped with chainmail and their ordinary weapons, but carried clubs to deal with brawlers without killing them. For defensive reasons, all houses inside the wall were built of stone. One third of the structures, in the north and west section of the town, antedated the Kin-strife, and were large and well-built. The rest had been erected after T.A. 1492, and were of lower quality. Many, especially near the docks in the southern blocks, were not much more than stone huts. The two most notable buildings, apart from the keep, were the Navigators' and Merchants' Guild Halls. The Navigators' Hall was built in T.A. 1245, and served for some two hundred years as a center for training ship-captains and navigators. The hall was built around the base of a hundred and eighty-toot high tower, which originally was used for astronomical observation and to train captains to navigate by the stars. The design of the hall itself vaguely resembled a ship, seemingly rising out of the ground to a height of four stories. The sharp reduction of Gondor's merchant fleet as a consequence of the confederate withdrawal to Umbar in T.A. 1448 robbed the navigators of much of its revenue, forcing the guild to turn most of the hall into a boarding house for sailors, with only a small part reserved for guild business. There was a tavern, First Watch, in the old meeting hall, and the tower was locked up, since there were no astronomers left in Fanuilond. The guildhall had become Fanuilond's meeting place for sailors and the like. The old Merchants' Hall stood on the northern side of the town square, opposite the Navigators' Hall, it was a large, square, three-story building with towers at each corner,The assembly with the banquet hall filled the center of the building. This room, four stories high, with a stained glass roof and beautiful wall paintings, was still a marvel of beauty, even though it had lost the splendor of its pre-Kin-strife days. After the Kin-strife, when the Merchants' Guild faced a severe economic crisis, most of the other town guilds moved into their building along with the town government. The assembly hall was only used a few times a year for important guild and town functions. Close to the docks in the southernmost part of the town, there was a rambling, two-story house, called the Red House (because all its window frames and doors were painted a bright red).This was Fanuilond's largest brothel, and the adjacent inn , Mother's Finest, was the gathering place for the shadier elements of the town. Fanuilond had repeatedly been the target of Corsair attacks, but it's prime location kept the population returning. Places of note:
* First Watch - Tavern adjacent to the Old Navigator's Hall
* The Harbour
* Hardirith - Town's Garrison and Hando's offices
* Mother's finest - a shady Inn adjacent to the red House
* Old Navigator's Hall - including an old astronomical observatory-Tower, Sailor's boarding house and Captain& Navigator's School
* Old Merchant Hall - housing most of the Towns guilds and Government, Assembly and Banquet Hall
* The Red House - a brothel
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