Lydius: free port administered by Merchants, at the mouth of the Laurius where it empties into the Thassa. Goods, primarily rough goods like tools, crude metal and cloth are shipped from this port to many islands and coastal cities.
(Book 7: Captive of Gor, page 59)

Lydius is a bustling, populous trade center located at the estuary of the Laurius River. Many cities maintain warehouses and small communities in Lydius. Many goods, in particular wood, wood products, and hide, make their way westward on the Laurius, eventually landing at Lydius, later to be embarked to the south on the ships of various cities, lines and associations. The population of Lydius, as one might expect, is a mixed one, consisting of individuals of various races and backgrounds.

(Players of Gor.. pg 12)

"Lydius is one of the few cities of the north which has public baths, as in Ar and Turia, though much smaller and less opulent. It is a port of paradoxes, where one finds, strangely mingled luxuries and gentilities of the south with the simplicities and rudenesses of the less civilized north. It is not unusual to encounter a fellow with a jacket of sleen fur, falling to his knees, sewn in the circle stitch of Scagnar, who wears upon his forehead a silken headband of Ar. He might carry a double-headed ax, but at his belt may hang a Turian dagger. He might speak in the accents of Tyros, but startle you with his knowledge of the habits of wild tarns, knowledge one would expect to find only in one of Thentis.

Those of Lydius pretend to much civilization, and are fond of decorating their houses, commonly of wood, with high, pointed roofs, in manners they think typical of Ar, of Ko-ro-ba, of Tharna and Turia, but to settle points of honor they commonly repair to a skerry in Thassa, little more than forty feet wide, there to meet opponents with axes, in the manner of those of Torvaldsland."

---Hunters of Gor, page 45

 

I glanced about myself, in the crowds, as we worked our way through them. I saw a blond giant from Torvaldsland, with braided hair, in shaggy jacket; a merchant from Tyros, hurrying, perfumed and sleek; seamen from Cos, and Port Kar, mortal enemies, yet passing one another without thought in the streets of Lydius; a black woman, veiled in yellow, borne in a palanquin by eight black warriors, perhaps from as far south as Anango or Ianda; two hunters, perhaps from Ar, cowled in the heads of forest panthers; a wood cutter from one of the villages north of Lydius, his sticks bound on his back; a peasant, from south of the Laurius, with a basket of suls; an intent, preoccupied scribe, lean and clad in the scribe's blue, with a scroll, perhaps come north for high fees to tutor the Sons of rich men; a brown-clad, hearty fellow from Laura, some two hundred pasangs upriver; a slaver, with the medallion of Ar over his robes; two blond slave girls, clad in brief white, bells on their left ankles, walking together and laughing, speaking in the accents of Thentis; I saw even a warrior of the Tuchuks, from the distant, treeless plains of the south, though I did not know him; it was not by the epicanthic fold that I recognized him; it was by the courage scars, high on his angular cheekbones.

Hunters of Gor pages 41-42