Starting sanctuaries?

[Heilemann]

Do you start your company off with Esgaroth, as AB169 suggests, or do you give each character his or her home as a sanctuary? It seems odd that a Woodman passing through Esgaroth has Esgaroth as a sanctuary, but not Rhosgobel or Woodmen Town.

[Falenthal]

The way I played it, I first runned "Blood in the Waters", but set in Esgaroth during the first Dragon's Tide.
All players were visiting the rebuilded town during the festivities and run the adventure (the new town had not enough room to accomodate all the visitors that arrived for the celebration, and groups of people -the PCs and the NPCs from the adventure- were being taken by boat to houses on the shores of the Lake, set as temporary inns. These houses were the ones where the habitants from Laketown had lived while Esgaroth was being rebuild). This way, they all met although they came from different hometowns, and opening Esgaroth as a Sanctuary was a reward for their help.
The adventure was sort of a Prelude, were we got the reason why the company was formed and why Esgaroth was their Sanctuary.

After that, we played some contests during the festivities as part of the Fellowship Phase.
And being known as a kind of "rescue team" in Esgaroth, there was also a reason why Glóin contacted them later to help him find a certain lost dwarf called Balin...

[Woodclaw]

I think that assumption is that Esgaroth is the only "free city" in the Wilderlands, given that it's not part of any kingdom. Hence the characters can use it as a sanctuary with the need of any previous effort. Opposite to almost every other location.