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  1. Locations

Delzimmer

Large City
Cavalry of Bone
The Shaar

Delzimmer was a city in southeast Faerûn that began as a landlocked trading center, but became a port for shipping after the Spellplague caused the Gulf of Luiren to form as the Great Sea filled in the lowlands practically to its doorstep. Made up of Halflings, Humans, Elves, Dwarves and more. Over the next hundred years or so, the waters receded and the Second Sundering cut it off from the sea having left it with far less commerce than it used to have. As such, these days it is seen more as a frontier town, a stopping point for travelers from the north looking to explore the Shaar and the lands beyond.


Four powerful merchant families control this free-trade city: the Harlhauns, the Jathlets, the Belarks, and the Olaundrans. Though they are rivals in business, the families have managed to find enough common ground to establish some level of law and order for the town, using their private militias to keep the peace. The families all run businesses associated with serving caravans, including storage warehouses, outfitters, and financial services, (moneylenders and moneychangers), but they are not costers themselves.


The stone walls surrounding the heart of Delzimmer have long since outlived their usefulness. The city has grown considerably since the walls were built, and shops, dwellings, and warehouses have spilled out into the open ground beyond their perimeter. Roads have been cut through the walls to provide access to the businesses outside, and the remaining portions are in poor repair, sporting cracked mortar and holes of various sizes.


Delzimmer's citizens are all in the business of providing services, either for the caravan traffic, or for the other locals. The rest of the people in the city on any given day are caravan masters, their escorts, and the merchants who hire them.

Geography (Topography, Environment, Climate)

Before the Spellplague, Delzimmer sat on trade routes that connected Dambrath, Luiren, Estagund, The Great Rift, The Shaar, Lapaliiya, the Vilhon Reach, and the Old Empires of Unther and Mulhorand. To the north and east of Delzimmer were the nearby foothills of the Toadsquat Mountains. North and west were the Eastern Shaar, the Riftwood, and the Trader's Way to Eartheart and beyond. To the southwest were miles of open country before reaching the Forest of Amtar. Due south was the road to Cathyr in Dambrath, and to the southeast was the road that split the Lluirwood from the Southern Lluirwood leading to Beluir in Luiren.


After the Spellplague, the Great Sea swallowed much of Luiren, the Lluirwood, and the lower Toadsquat Mountains, bringing the shores of the new Gulf of Luiren nigh to Delzimmer, and in a short time, the city became a shipping port. The cataclysmic collapse that created the Underchasm destroyed the lands west of Eartheart and turned Underhome into a ruin. The once fertile Eastern Shaar became part of the Shaar Desolation, and the Forest of Amtar was cut off from Delzimmer by a miles-wide canyon of the Underchasm. Roads connected Delzimmer with Hammergate (gateway to Eartheart), Underwatch (near Underhome), and the Dust Road that led to Tymanther and High Imaskar.


For most of the year, Delzimmer is hot and humid-to-damp, interspersed with occasional dry spells that turn the mud to dust. In Delzimmer, winters tend to be two months of lashing cold rainstorms that are hurried through the city in swift succession by fierce winds. Sometimes rain falls hard enough to flood the streets for some hours at a time. That potential for flooding and the snakes and dust the rest of the year combine to make cellars rare, to make ground-floor rooms sparsely furnished, (and often tile-, flagstone-, or dirt-floored), and to restrict any opulence of furnishing and storage of valuable items to upper floors.


Delzimmer has city walls, which are of stone and about twenty feet high, sloping from a thickness of three feet or so at the top to thrice that at the base and lacking battlements or a walltop walk for defenders. However, their condition is somewhat akin to those of the ring walls of Malthuk's Tower: crumbling and pierced by many breaks, which now carry streets through them, and which long since allowed Delzimmer to expand beyond and in the end ignore its walls. The cute little one-room, spire-topped towers that cap the wall every so often now serve as rookeries for trained message doves and pigeons. (The ranks of which are often thinned by hungry local urchins skilled at slinging stones and desirous of pigeon pie.)

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Ecology (Flora and Fauna)

Besides the general character of the hot and either dusty or damp, (usually the latter) trade center. There are Clingvine pits outside the city, where offal, nightsoil, and refuse -- not to mention the more-than-occasional hastily and somewhat discreetly disposed-of corpse -- are devoured by hungry plants that turn such noisome leavings back into earth. Local groundflowers and most plentiful trees and bushes, some which are edible shapes and determines the look and life of Delzimmer and its environs.


The climate is very conducive to snakes and reptiles, which thrive in the city and environs. 

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Government (Politics, Laws, Order, Crime)

Delzimmer lacks a formal ruler or much authority. What it has instead are four well-established human families who operate storage warehouse, currency services, and caravan outfitting concerns. (These are not costers. They prefer to let other individuals go to the discomfort and danger of actual caravan travel.) Their private armies of liveried guards police the streets in a rough-and-ready manner -- and interestingly, although the four families are rivals, they seem to have long ago come to some firm pacts to prevent their clashing interests, (and the swords of their guards) from ever erupting into open strife. In short, they share the wealth that flows to them by maintaining Delzimmer as an open trading city.


These local Satraps, (Collective southern term for "petty rulers" because these de facto rulers of Delzimmer entirely lack any formal titles or authority) are the families:


Belark, whose guards wear leather armor of crimson hue to which are affixed painted metal bucklers displaying a black hawk in flight winging to the sinister on a white sky device;

Harlhaun, whose guards and retainers wear blue-green (deep blue dominating) livery or armor adorned with bucklers emblazoned with a purple upright sword on a white field;

Jathlet, whose colors is a light lime green and whose badge is a blue-black panther or hunting cat that is depicted leaping upward toward the sinister (on a white field);

Olaundran, whose colors are gold trimmed with white (aye, cloth-of-gold or shimmerweave, not yellow of any hue), and whose device is a circle of six gold coins (each of which is decorated in black with a single staring eye, which has won them the name "watchcoins") on a scarlet field.


The Kauladd and the Ethrael

The dabblings and everchanging enthusiasms of the Satraps serve as a sort of spotlight on unfolding events in Delzimmer. Where those four families turn their attention, so follows the general public regard and interest. Yet beneath what they've yet noticed, in the bustle of trade that makes Delzimmer what it is, other happenings befall.


In the past shoddy workmanship, (usually related to building structures too high without adequate footings -- or with none at all) caused many building collapses in the city. More than a few folk were killed, and public anger grew. When such collapses became fewer but specific, (that is, occurring only to personal foes, creditors, and trade-rivals of certain builders or Satraps, at inconvenient times), fury reached a height. Certain citizens took to paying children to watch by night in the darkness, with lamps and horns at hand.


Eventually a crew was caught -- in the light of many lamps, with horns blowing to rouse neighbors and bring witnesses running -- covertly removing key support stones to cause a collapse. They were slain on the spot by enraged citizens, and the city erupted into angry debate. Building collapses swiftly became much rarer, but it wasn't long before the now-wary citizens noticed two things: night fires within bedchambers of citizens who never awakened to escape the flames had drifted from something unheard-of in Delzimmer to a once every two tendays or even more frequent occurrence. Often after either a collapse or such a fatal fire, an important builder or a Satrap would somehow acquire the site and erect a new and grander structure.


Dozens of merchants descended upon a high-ranking Cleric of Tyr when that priest's travels brought him through the city, and prevailed upon him to convene a Council of Delzimmer. At that long and often heated meeting, (which lasted the better part of three days and was marked by public fights, several knifings, and "disappearances" during the nights between session), the participating citizenry hammered out two things: the "Kauladd," a rough code of conduct with enforcement and justice, and the system of "Ethrael" (deeds to properties).

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Society (Culture, Fashion, Religion, Education, Festivals, Holidays, Entertainment)

Specific interests in this hot, surprisingly damp trading city remain a mystery -- but 'tis the sort of lawless, everchanging, bustling center of commerce that appeals to wanderers and merchants everywhere. Aside from the climate, dusky-skinned Elves that many might mistake for Drow going about openly in the sunlight, and an abundance of chattering Halflings, one might well be in Scornubel, far to the north in the Sword Coast lands. Delzimmer's population rises and falls constantly, somewhat due to winter.


Every region of Faerûn has its crossroad places, its centers of trade vital to foreigners trying to acquire things or get things done, and Delzimmer is one such. In its small, dusty-when-'tis-not-damp way, this city is every bit as vital as Waterdeep. In Delzimmer, traders from Dambrath and Luiren meet the wider world, eager to acquire things they can't get or dare not be seen at home making or buying.


Folk of all races rub shoulders in the city, trade is easy, swift, informal, and usually bustling day and night. (Large iron lanterns are hung outside shops that are open for business in the dark hours.) There's always an air of excitement in town.


Almost half of all Delzemaer are Halflings from nearby Luiren, and they tend to swiftly and cheerfully embrace one get-rich-quick scheme and then turn to the next, playing it all as a big, cheerful game. Even heavy losses don't seem to bother them much, so long as they detect no skullduggery.


Hin love to gamble, in Delzimmer as much as in Luiren, and games of cards and dice and strategy can be found everywhere in the city. For the last decade, new table games -- ye would call them board games -- have swept the city every few months, as avid Delzemaer gamers invent new ones. Some games travel with the caravans to become pastimes of the idle rich of other cities, but most are known nowhere else in Faerûn.


Folk of Dambrath are apt to be far less open and cheerful than Halflings, but those who come to Delzimmer are generally civil, or even looking for what ye might call "a good time."


In short, Delzimmer is one of those colorful, often-wild places where the world comes to scheme and trade and play.

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Relationships (Trade, Food and Drink, Transportation, Defenses)

Trade

In the early days, and right up to the Spellplague, Delzimmer was a trading and caravan hub. Goods from Eartheart, Dambrath, and Luiren passed through here on their way to far-flung destinations, and exotic, (to them) goods came back. However, Delzimmer did not produce much of anything to export, except fruit jelly—an unusual delicacy that traveled well enough to reach Amn, Calimshan, Tethyr, Sembia, and even Waterdeep.


Delzimmer was an open-trade city with few restrictions, and that kept the atmosphere lively and made shopping an adventure. Most common dwellings were above a shop that was the family business. Almost every building in the city has a street-level shop and apartments above, shops usually crammed with a wild and crowded variety of goods. Goods from all over Faerûn eventually came through Delzimmer and many shops sold a hodgepodge of items ranging from the newest fad to dusty old items. Including cargo that came out of (or, as they say, "fell off of") wagons that passed through in the past.


The caravan trade created a demand for oxen, draft horses, and riding mounts, which were plentiful in Delzimmer. Oxen, draft horses, and riding mounts galore can be bought in plenty in Delzimmer, and more than once their numbers have attracted Wemic raids out of the north. (Bandits and Goblins from the Toadsquat Mountains were the original justification for the Satrap families assembling private armies.)  Services in town included wagons and drovers for hire, mercenaries to protect them, or even small bands of thieves to rob or harry them. Business didn't stop when the sun went down: many establishments lit their doorways or premises with large iron lanterns to indicate they were open after darkness fell. However, the Shrimmer was only open during the day, so access to (official) bank accounts, loans, currency exchanging, and Ethrael services had to wait until morning.


The four satrap families made their fortunes buying and selling goods, providing warehouse space and banking services, and provisioning costers, including breeding horses. They did not engage in running caravans themselves because they considered it too risky. This practice stood them in good stead when the Spellplague hit and destroyed many of the routes that the caravans took. When the shock wore off, the Delzemaer built docks and wharves on the newly formed Gulf of Luiren for ships to take over where caravans could no longer go. Eartheart lost all connections to the west when the Underchasm swallowed the roads, so Delzimmer quickly became known as "the gateway to the East Rift" because nearly all dwarven goods came to town to be shipped off.


Delzemaeran Delicacies

Competition keeps prices for non-rare goods quite low. Folk with few coins can eat quite well if they dine on Quace and other local fruit, (pickled quace in winter), skewers of fried snake and lizard, and Handpies, (known less politely as "rat pies" for the source of most of the ground meat therein, but tasty enough when cooked with chopped wild onion and the hot brown local sauces). Cheeses, jugged fruit jellies, and roast boar from nearby Luiren are always plentiful. What fills platters (ornate, oval, punched-metal affairs or smooth-carved, wooden ones that are cleaned by tong-held plunges into flaming oil and then into quenching water) and bellies in Delzimmer:
  • Quace
  • Fruit Jellies
  • Scaletail
  • Sakra and Mlael
  • Braskh


Defenses

For physical defense, the city built walls, but eventually outgrew them. The original walls were made of stone and were roughly nine feet at the base, tapering to about three feet at the top, with a height of twenty feet. As the city expanded, the walls were pierced with streets and they fell into disrepair. The small spires spaced at intervals atop the wall each originally held a single observation room, but these became rookeries for messenger doves and pigeons.


Circa the Year of the Ageless One, 1479 DR, when the Gulf of Luiren brought even more prosperity to Delzimmer, the city built new walls to encompass their new harbor.


In addition to the Nagra in their orange sashes, each of the four Satrap families has a small militia on retainer, each wearing their house colors and badges. In 1373 DR, these private armies combined consisted of over three hundred well-trained fighters of varying experience and double that number of warriors who had less formal training. They each still defend their family and their interests, but band together to defend the city when circumstances demand it.


Goblins of the Toadsquat Mountains

Goblins tend to be vicious and fast-breeding creature, who forage far and enjoy battle, (and ambushes, traps, and lures even more). Those who endanger the trade ways around Delzimmer do so despite periodic scourings of the caves that riddle the western Toadsquat peaks, and they return in the wake of forays against them even before the blood of their slain fellows has dried.


An alchemist of Klionna, one Urngath Dorrund, recently hired the hundred-strong mercenary band of Rollivar's Redfangs to encage and bring back to him alive some forty goblins from the western Toadsquats, (specifically from the peaks known as Klauntra's Leap, the Wyrmlar, and Liontlefang). The Redfangs did so, bringing him some sixty captives to allow for losses on the road back at the hands of expected goblin raiders from the more easterly Toadsquat Mountains. (Those raids did come, and they were beaten back with some losses on both sides.) The initial Redfang gathering attack became a pitched battle that folk from Delzmaer believe cost almost a thousand goblin lives. Dorrund has given no public reason for desiring the goblins, but rumor has it that he believes their blood has magical power because they spend their lives drinking of deep mountain cavern springs whose waters rise through a great store of magic. What that store of magic is, no one knows for sure -- and various rumors claim it to be all sorts of things, from lost dwarven or elven caches to buried Netherese cities and even the work of more ancient and powerful wizards.

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Legends (Rumors, Myths, Tall Tales)

Current Delzmaer gossip revolves around the amorous conquests of the Night Scourages:

  • Imriskril Melsamber the "Maevor for Many" that represents distant outlanders and costers.
  • A tall, bronzed, and muscular swordsman who calls himself Thorongh Davarragar, (who claims to be a dragonslaying barbarian of the Savage North" though the mage Shonsarra Tel of Oslin says she doubts Davarragar has ever seen snow in his life, let alone a dragon)
  • The native Delzmaer merchant Marlyar Nilthrul. "Mighty Malryar" is an increasingly fat, jovial seller of imported scents, perfumes, and herbal baths whose moustache has grown very large -- and who has long enjoyed a reputation of being an able consort.


Many husbands and fathers of Delzimmer are outraged at one or more of these three Night Scourges, and more than a few now attend every feast and tavern revel attended by any of the three -- and do so glowering and toying with openly worn weapons. Taverns, stalls, houses, and wellhead women's water-drawing gatherings around the city are alive with ever-wilder and more colorful tales of the Night Scourges leaping into bedchamber windows or hiding on balconies or racing away across the rooftops chased by furious menfolk. Yet the most sober citizens caution that none of the three men has yet been caught at anything more than vainglorious boasting -- bolstered by spiteful feminine whispers and certain women making boasts of their own. And if Delzimmer were to lock up every inhabitant guilty of baseless boasting and deceit, nigh every house would have a lock on it, with its habitual dwellers shut up inside! (If, that is, there was anyone left to apply such locks.)

As Delzmaer say, "Keep thy ear to the doorposts for more."


Claunkrar Coster

The Claunkrar Coster (hitherto known only for their vigilant guarding of way caravans between the Tashalar and the lands about the Golden Water, via Delzimmer and Luiren) are said to be busily at work creating the Crawling Treasure.

The Treasure is nothing less than an ever-expanding network of portals linking key sites in Faerûn -- or rather, secluded hollows and lookout heights near important trade route waymoots and wealthy cities. By means of these magical routes the Claunkrar can move small, valuable cargoes, (coffers of gems, distinctive stolen property, individual kidnap captives, and the like) swiftly across Faerûn. Once they gain a property in a city or trade town, they establish a cellar or indoor chamber portal therein to allow coster members to arrive and depart unseen -- and there are even whispers that they're growing bold enough to create portals on the roofs and in disused back stairs of palaces. The Claunkrar are hiring guards to watch over some of their portals, starting to keep secrets (and build passwords and the like into portal operations), and that they're quietly hiring adventurers, brigands, and monsters -- shapechangers in particular -- to join their ranks. It's too early to say who's behind these schemes, or if this represents an ambitious new force in the ever-active, always-foolish "road to seizing power over all Faerûn" game.

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