Draj, City of the Moons

Commanding the landscape for miles around, blooddrenched Draj is home to a warlike people whose loyalty to their sorcerer-king is as unwavering as their ferocity.

Population: About 18,000 people live in Draj, plus many more—mostly slaves and guards—in the surrounding fields. Humans account for just over half the population of the city-state. Elves and dwarves are the largest minorities; many dwarves toil as slaves in the fields. A few muls, halflings, thri-kreen, and others round out the populace.

Water: The boggy mudflats surrounding Draj release little usable water, but deep wells in the Gift tap into the water table below.

Supplies: Draj is an agricultural center, with abundant grain and hemp fields that can feed the city-state many times over. Textiles such as cotton, linen, and silk are major exports. The city’s distance from Tyr means that some commodities, specifically metal goods, are hard to acquire.

Defense: The city-state has an enormous military. Some five hundred jasuan knights make up the core of the defense and receive support from another three thousand lesser warriors. The moon priests can press slaves into service if they see the need to do so.

Inns and Taverns: Unfriendly to travelers, Draj offers few inns and fewer taverns. Most accommodations are run by House Tsalaxa, cater to caravans, and stand near the Golden Moon Gate.

Few of Draj’s people travel abroad, except in war parties. Most residents of the city-state are insular and suspicious of others.

Calmec Scribe: Your family belongs to one of the scholar, or calmec, clans. You have studied writing, history, astrology, and theology. Few calmec scribes wander far from Draj, but you might have dabbled in forbidden arts recorded in your clan’s ancient texts, or perhaps you discovered warnings of a dire catastrophe to come in the horoscopes you cast. What are you searching for in the deserts beyond your city-state?

Jasuan Knight: You were born in one of the heroic clans as a noble of Draj. You spent your youth scouring the surrounding lands for enemies, monsters, spies, and captives to bring back for sacrifice. You might have been sent out into the world to meet the demands of a horoscope drawn for you by the calmec scribes, or perhaps you fled Draj to avoid a blood feud with another clan. Were you blamed for the death of a fellow jasuan knight and exiled, or did the bloody cruelty of the moon priests finally push you into a crisis of conscience?

Pochte Trader: You were raised in a pochte clan, a family group dedicated to mercantile pursuits. Tsalaxa is the largest and best-known group outside Draj, but a number of other pochte clans exist. Whereas most Draji are xenophobic, you have dealt with foreigners all your life, and you understand their ways. Pochte traders have a reputation as sly, ruthless dealers who dabble in espionage and intrigue; do you live up to that stereotype, or are you more honest? Are you always looking for the next chance to barter, or have you left your caste behind in your adventures?

The basic social organization of Draj is the clan, a group of related families that practice the same trade or craft. Most Draji are raised to follow in the footsteps of the forebears of their clan. Each clan is assigned a portion of the fields surrounding Draj and a share of slaves taken in raids on other city-states. Prestigious clans receive better plots in the fields and hold more slaves.

Whether or not they believe that Tectuktitlay is a divine being, almost all Draji embrace him as their ruler and count his presence as a boon. The Father of Life delegates most of the city-state’s administrative concerns to his templars. The elite warrior caste known as the jasuan knights supports the templars. All other residents of the city-state are merchants, artisans, or slaves.

• Tectuktitlay
• Moon Priests
• Jasuan Knights

Other city-states have larger populations, but only Raam rivals Draj’s sprawling size. Draj commands the Tyr Region’s easternmost extent, where the old Road of Kings curls east and then northward to legendary lands and the world’s edge beyond. The rich mudflats that surround the city-state for miles give Draj its strength and resources. Grain and hemp grow abundantly in fields worked by slaves day and night under the moon priests’ watchful eyes.

A causeway of stone cuts through the muddy fields and brackish ponds. Along this narrow path travel House Tsalaxa’s merchant caravans, laden with flour, rope, textiles, and other goods, casting a deep shadow across the smaller clans that struggle against this mercantile giant—such as Draj’s Elven Market, which consists of a string of shabby little tents and booths along the causeway. The ancient stone road cuts through the fields until it comes to the outer city, which is called the Gift. No wall protects the Gift; a wide, muddy ditch filled with sharpened stakes and vermin is the only barrier. Javelin-armed guards patrol the perimeter of this moat. The only route across is a stone bridge, its footings sunk deep into the mud.

The Gift is a lively community that fills the space between the ditch and the 60-foot-tall walls that surround the inner city, known as Two Moon City. In the Gift, roads wend among clay buildings that are stacked atop one another like children’s blocks. Wood or hemp ladders offer access to the upper stories and roofs. Here and there lie public squares with great wells and the fat, round towers of grain silos.

The Golden Moon Gate is the only passage from the Gift into Two Moon City. Upon entering Tectuktitlay’s inner domain, the first sight that visitors see is the Father and Master Temple, an enormous steppyramid that commands the entire city-state. At its peak is the God’s Altar, where Tectuktitlay sacrifices slaves, dissenters, and enemy soldiers by tearing out their hearts and discarding their corpses to the arena hundreds of feet below. Channels cut into the pyramid’s sides carry blood down to ground level and into the compound. On days of sacrifice, crimson streams trickle throughout the inner city.