Shearwater's Rest is the largest city on Aesar Island and the capital of the de facto nation of Aesar. When undead hordes began to rise in the Kingdom of Oscan in Y9940*, the former island backwater of the kingdom was the only region spared. Large numbers of refugees flocked to Aesar, and to Shearwater's Rest in particular, in the following years, and today the city is heavily overpopulated.
Once an austere but well-designed city, today tents and ramshackle constructions cover the streets and parks of Shearwater's Rest. The city's population has increased six-fold in the last thirty years, and there is simply not enough housing to go around.
A vibrant black market and criminal underworld have formed in Shearwater's Rest since the population influx. While many goods in Aesar are officially rationed, they are often more easily accessible on the black market, albeit at an increased price. Black market goods are not hard to find and well known to the guards of Aesar, who by and large do nothing to stop them.
Paladins traveling to the Deathlands usually arrive in Shearwater's Rest first. As the closest major safe port, these religious warriors use the island as a stopping point before attempting to fight the undead of the mainland - as long as their items and equipment aren’t stolen from them in the slums of the city first.