In the days when the valleys of Endon were not united under one King, a town's most prized features were its defenses. Some of the settlements dating back to that town boast large castles, high walls, or formidable towers. Rantil, however, needed no boasts.
Perched precariously upon the tip of a pinnacle in the chasm of the Deitre River, Rantil is a seasonal town. Seasonal because of the spring thaw, the annual melting of the snows throughout the kingdom, but particularly the snows on the tops of the downs, hills, and mountains. When that ice begins to melt, the chasm around Rantil turns into a rushing, ravenous maw of black water, and it takes courage even to cross one of the three causeways above the river.
When the water has washed away, though, the town is beautiful: on a iron-grey peak, bridges extending to the downs and towers charging to the sky, the tunnels into the rock beneath the town reach deep beneath the surface, and a lift system designed by the dwarfs of Glaston lowers goods from the peak to the goods platform when it is not covered by the spring thaw.
On Arrival to Rantil
"As if the earth itself suddenly opens, a chasm stretches out - and far below, a small rush of water wends its way along the bottom of a perilous ravine. On the far side, the town of Rantil rises on its island, its fragile causeways the only approach."
Custom Houses. The Rantilians have not forgotten their defensive roots, and the Lords of Rantil maintain restrictions on the goods that come in and out of the city. The tolls to cross the bridge are high, and the Lords get richer every year.
Low Water Goods Platform. The gorges around Rantil are not the remains of some ancient cataclysm or erosion - they are the paths of springmelt that rushes down the mountain. Most of the year, there is only a small rush at the bottom, some hundreds of feet below, but in the springtime, the water rises. In those months, the Low Water Goods Platform is not accessible, and it is a lean time for the townsfolk.
The Rantil Causeways. Rantil is one of the few human towns that truly understands building in the verticle plane: before the causeways were built, the only way to cross the ravine was by a careful descent to the bottom and a hasty climb to the top, and then only when the river was low. Nowadays, the architects of Rantil have had to bend their ingenuity towards methods of traversing up as well as across.