City of Bral

The Rock of Bral is roughly 1 mile long and half that in width and depth, oriented front to back, with a leading edge and a trailing edge. A gravity plane bisects the length of the Rock, separating it into a topside and an underside.

The city of Bral is spread across the topside. On the trailing edge rises the High City, which includes the royal palace of Starhaven and its grounds, the noble estates, and Lake Bral. From there, the geography of Bral slopes down toward the Middle City, the financial and mercantile heart of the city. At the leading edge of the Rock is the Low City, an area populated by folk of modest means and the businesses they patronize. New arrivals at Bral typically disembark at the Low City’s docks.

The underside of the Rock is off limits to the general population and not part of the city per se. It is where Bral’s military forces are based. Most of the ground on the underside is used to grow crops to feed the populace. These fields are tended by convicted criminals who are housed in barracks and guarded by soldiers.

The interior of the Rock, which stretches half a mile from the surface of the topside to the surface of the underside, contains a network of caverns and tunnels. Built by pirates and smugglers, this dungeon is home to one of the city’s underbarons (see Underbarons above) and is frequently used for clandestine meetings.

The city was ruled by a prince and was an unchartered monarchy. The prince could levy taxes, regulate trade, judge laws, and declare war. Typically, he would appoint bodies to enforce any changes that he made.

However, Bral also had three government councils, which hypothetically had the power to overrule the prince, though historically, they never once used this power.

The first such council was the Council of the City, which represented the people and was composed of 30 members appointed directly by the prince for lifetime service. Each Councilman represented one of the many neighborhoods of Bral or one of Bral's Underbarons. This council served as advisors to the prince and could overrule his decisions by unanimous vote.

The Noble Council was composed of all 37 chartered landholders in the city. (Except for these "nobles", the prince owned the rest of the Rock of Bral.) By majority vote, this council could remove land from any owner, except that the prince also had a vote that counted for 49%, so to remove him of his land would require a unanimous vote.

Sitting underneath this council was the Bureau of Land Distribution and Collection, which regulated the real estate market.

The final council was the Council of Captains, on which any owner of more than four spelljammers was permitted a seat if they also leased or owned land on the Rock. This council regulated trade by means of tariffs or trade rules. The prince could veto any decision made by this council, but he otherwise only had a tie-breaking vote in their decisions.

Piracy and slavery were both officially illegal, but charges were generally only pressed if the prince wanted to get rid of the accused. Betrayal of Bral was the ultimate crime and could include simple treason against the crown or doing something that put the whole asteroid at danger, such as starting a fire, which could deplete the air envelope. Those guilty of such a crime might be handed over to the illithid embassy to be eaten.

However, for the most part, laws were absent in Bral, and there was not even a city watch to keep order in the streets.

Never trust anyone you meet in Bral. In fact, never trust anyone at all. Anywhere.

— Burkag Axethrower, warrior for hire and "importer of undeclared goods"

The city of Bral was full of rogues and unsavory characters of all kinds. Nevertheless, everyone was polite to everyone in the city of Bral; mind flayers could be seen conversing with elves and dwarves with beholders. This was not because they were friends; rather, the city had a policy of "check your vendettas at the docks". A simple walk down any of Bral's main streets would introduce a visitor to hundreds of languages.

Humans maintained the highest population, but almost all manner of races lived here. The city contained several districts where the various races were dominant. These included:

The Burrows, where many halflings lived;

The Dwarven District;

The Dracon Enclave;

The Forest, where many elves lived;

Giff-town; and

Shou-town.

Also found in the city of Bral were gnomes, beholders, and mind flayers. Neogi were not welcome in Bral.

While severely overcrowded, there was little poverty in Bral, because there was always work to be found, even if it was hard work at the docks, and visiting ships very often took on new crewmembers.

The nobles of Bral were the 37 persons besides the prince who actually owned land on the small asteroid. All other lands belonged to the prince, and all other citizens rented from him or the nobles.

The city contained a number of temples, mostly located near Lake Bral. In addition to many faiths or pantheons from Toril, there were also churches for the Polygots, Pantheists, the Church of Ptah, and the Path and the Way. Nonhuman faiths also had a presence in Bral.

Once a year, the Arena of Frun is the site of a series of athletic games, though it is seldom used for organized events otherwise.

Bral was the epitome of free trade. Money was power, and anything and everything was bought and sold there, from a vast number of worlds and crystal spheres. Bral was full of shops and contained two major open-air markets, the Great Market and the Lesser Market, usually called the Thieves' Market. Musicians and entertainers filled the streets, hoping to earn coppers for their songs.

Coinage from at least thirty different realms was known to be accepted in Bral, but paper currency was not accepted from even the most powerful nations. Coins from other locations would need to be exchanged by the Royal Exchequer, with a 5% service fee applied. The Royal Exchequer accepted coins from at least 100 different countries.

The cost of living in Bral was much higher than in other places, and most things cost half again as much as they would on the surface of a planet. Rent for an apartment in the Low City cost anywhere from 5 to 30 gold pieces per month. A cheap room at an inn would cost about 3 gold per month, while a fancier room might be as much as 8 gold per month.

A laborer in Bral earned about 12 gold per month, while a longshoreman earned double that. The agent for a merchant might take home as much as 40 gold per month.

Four distinct groups engaged in trade in Bral: the large trading companies, who dealt in bulk materials; the smaller, familial merchant houses, who usually specialized in a unique type of cargo; small merchants, shopkeepers, and the owners of inns and taverns; and, finally, independent spelljammer captains.

The older and more superstitious citizens of the city believed that Bral would one day be destroyed by the asteroid's original inhabitants.

The Rock of Bral has not always been the trade center that it is now. In fact, humans have been living here for less than 200 years. Most residents of the city have little or no idea of the history of the place; only the most learned scholars and mages would know about anything before the reign of House Cozar. Even if such a sage can be found, he is likely to demand quite a sum for the trouble of his researches.

Ancient History

The history of Wildspace and spelljamming is an arcane subject of which little is known to be factual. Many races preceded the current spacefaring races into Wildspace; the thri-kreen flourished in space before most human societies had even mastered agriculture. Rumors persist of an elder race whose symbol was a three-petalled flower. In any event, mankind is a very late arrival in Wildspace.

The current population of the Rock has occupied the asteroid for only a small fraction of its inhabited history. The oldest and most superstitious Bralians insist that the city is destined to be razed by the return of some previous owner. So far, no one has appeared to press a claim.

Expeditions into the caverns and tunnels beneath the Rock's surface have revealed both illithid and beholder artifacts, but no member of either race now admits to any past presence on the Rock. However, the evidence would seem to indicate that the mind flayers had an outpost on the Rock about 800 years ago. The beholder artifacts are more recent; in many places supplanting the illithid constructions. Scholars have concluded that the mind flayers were exterminated by a powerful beholder nation which was in turn wiped out in the perpetual race wars of that evil kind.

More recent dwarven excavations and construction have also been found in the tunnels. These ruins appear to be about four centuries old. Oddly enough, not a single dwarvish tomb or message has been left to memorialize these folk. Homeswere found with pots still on the hearth, their meals unfinished. Forges had partially finished sword blades laid across their anvils, as though set down for only a moment. A clan of dwarves numbering at least 200 simply vanished without a trace.

The dwarves were apparently the last inhabitants of the Rock for some time, although the elven navy occasionally stopped by to replenish air and water. No one else had permanently colonized the Rock until the pirate Bral founded his base here, 170 years ago.

The Pirate's Haven

The Rock as it is known today traces its roots back to roughly 170 years ago, when the eponymous Captain Bral established a pirate refuge here. The asteroid became a haven for thieves and cutthroats, and among them a few merchants and entrepreneurs set up shop. Even in a climate of lawlessness, the place evolved into something resembling a settlement of citizens.

The Rock was rediscovered by Captain Bral, a notorious pirate in need of a secure hideout. Ignoring the rumors of "haunted space" in the area, he selected the Rock as an ideal lair. Air and water were plentiful, and he seeded the topside and underside with trees and crops. The caverns that form the modern docking caverns were his first home.

A charismatic leader and brilliant tactician, Captain Bral soon assembled a small fleet of corsairs known as the Black Brotherhood. A town grew up around the port as more people and races came to settle and to build. Many were rogues and thieves, but some were merchants and entrepreneurs. The Rock was a lawless town of endless revelry and unchecked duelling.

Bral himself came to a bad end, leading a raid of five ships against a groundling city. Although the raid went well, the elven fleet was waiting for him in orbit. Eight men o' war attacked and only one ship of the pirate flotilla escaped. Bral himself perished as his vipership, the Starwind, fell in a glorious blaze to the world he had just raided. In honor of the great pirate, the citizens threw a wild wake and promptly named the city for him. The city became known as Bral, and its asteroid as The Rock of Bral.

For almost 60 years after Bral's death, the Rock remained largely unchanged in character. The city grew slowly, climbing up the topside from the old pirate lairs. No one tried to impose order on the town, and most people were content to live that way. The pirate captains ruled the city by popular consensus.

Cozar's Rule

Even as Bral continued to grow, the city was changing. About 100 years ago, there came a time when the majority of the citizens were not pirates any longer, but merchants and tavern keepers who lived off the looted gold spent in their establishments. With these permanent residents came increased tensions between the pirate crews and the shop owners. Most pirate captains laughed at the "lubbers' wailing." One did not.

This was a captain named Cozar, a clever and ambitious man who sensed that times were changing on the Rock. He saw that the days of the pirates were numbered, and he acted. Cozar systematically and quietly bought every square foot of land on the Rock. Those who opposed the partitioning of the Rock into lots were simply bought out, with promises of free leases continued in perpetuity to their descendants. Some powerful or influential holdouts were granted land ownership privileges, forming the basis of the city's later nobility. In a matter of months, Cozar owned the Rock.

Then he evicted any pirate who could not produce a legitimate business or lease. There were several clashes, but most of the townspeople were tired of the endless brawling in their carefully built ale houses or inns. Many sided with Cozar outright, and the crafty pirate captain had his own crew to fall back on. The other pirates were forced to accept Cozar's generous terms or leave. The pirate turned prince produced a Royal Charter with which he claimed lordship over the Rock and set forth the basic rules under which Bral would now be governed. Thus House Cozar was born. By the time of Prince Cozar's death, Bral had been tamed.

Frun's Rule

Cozar's son was not the man his father was. During the 35 years of his reign on the Rock, the city flourished and grew threefold. Unrestricted trade drew the great companies and houses of a dozen spheres to the Rock, all to Bral's profit. Frun did not have the strength that characterized Cozar and he allowed the authority of the crown to slide, nearly into nonexistence. He concerned himself only with the accumulation of wealth and comfort.

Whatever else might be said about Frun, he knew architecture and engineering. The prince delighted in the expansion and rebuilding of his father's palace. His greatest projects, the Citadel and the Donjon, proved to be superb fortresses, although they sorely taxed the royal coffers. Frun's foresight saved the city several times during sporadic raids.

During Frun's rule the neogi first surfaced in the Rock's sphere. A neogi trader who put in and demanded to see the prince was kept waiting for more than a week. It was finally insulted and driven off the rock by Frun's order, since Frun found the creature too arrogant for its own good. The neogi returned about six months later with a small fleet of its kinsmen and an abandoned dwarven citadel, bent on demolishing the Rock. The citadel was dropped on the Rock, leveling a part of the Middle City, but it did not wreck the city as hoped. The neogi left in disgust, and Frun promptly seized on the demolished quarter as the perfect site for a festival ground.

Frun died as he had lived, collapsing in the middle of a soiree commemorating Cozar's birthday. His sons, Calar and Andru, were left with the unenviable task of restoring the royal fortunes.

Calar and Andru

Frun's eldest son was prince Calar, a decadent man who took after his father. Spoiled and pampered his entire life, most people assumed that under his rule the royal house of Cozar would eventually pass into insignificance. This was, however, tragically erroneous. Six days after taking the throne, Calar was found in the jettisoned rubbish trailing the Low City. Prince Andru, Frun's second son, stepped up and assumed the throne. He was a man cut from a different bolt of cloth than his father and brother, a quiet leader who seized the reins of power within hours of Calar's death. Calar's wife protested, claiming that her young son Aric should inherit his father's throne but Andru, firmly entrenched in power, altered the rules of succession.

After securing his throne, Andru launched a thorough inquiry into the circumstances of Calar's death. In time, a powerful Gnderbaron was accused of collaboration with the illithids and sent to his death, along with a small group of his closest henchmen. It was never made clear why the Gnderbaron would have wanted Calar, an ineffectual and uncaring prince, removed from the throne, but the evidence uncovered in Andru's investigation was irrefutable. If any Bralians had doubts about Andru's role in the whole affair, they wisely remained silent.

Andru is a serious, intelligent man who is often compared with his grandfather Cozar. He has struggled to reestablish the power of the royal house of Bral. During the 15 years of his reign thus far, Bral's army has doubled in size and its navy has tripled. The government is returning to the role of regulating commerce and of maintaining law and order in the city. Some feel that Andru's rule heralds the end of Bral's lawless period, but most of the citizens feel that a little peace and quiet would be a welcome change.

Though his place on the throne is secure for now, Prince Andru is merely one player in a maze of political intrigue. He has a host of agents and forces loyal to him, but he must act with consideration, since he has opponents who would rather see Bral ruled by a more ineffectual leader or by a council that could more easily be influenced. Andru maintains his strong base of support because he is a serious and intelligent person—often likened to his grandfather, Prince Cozar , in this regard—and he isn’t easily intimidated.