Gulg, the Forest City

Gulg persists as it always has: simple, unchanging, and devoted to its queen.

Population: The smallest of the city-states, Gulg has a population of only 13,000 within the city wall, plus small outlying dagadas in the nearby forest and plains. Nearly all Gulgans are human, with elves, dwarves, and muls as the largest minorities. A small thri-kreen community is counted among the judagas.

Water: Most individual dagadas have a well for their citizens. The Oba maintains cisterns throughout the city for the use of residents; by law, all Gulgans are entitled to water. The cisterns are not guarded—fear of the terrible curses placed by the nganga to punish water-thieves keeps the citizens honest.

Supplies: Any items beyond simple stone or bone tools and weapons are difficult, if not impossible, to find in the city-state. This supply problem is due to Gulg’s primitive culture and its draconian trade laws. As part of its isolationist policies, Gulg places heavy restrictions on trade with the outside. Merchants from outside the walls can trade only with the city-state; buying from or selling to individual citizens is strictly forbidden. Nonresidents can buy and sell goods from the merchant house emporiums by the Queen’s Gate, but except for House Inika, few maintain much stock in Gulg.

Defense: Lalali-Puy can count on the devoted service of more than two thousand judagas to meet any threats to Gulg. In a dire emergency, thousands of militia could be raised from the dagadas. Most young adults in the citystate have some familiarity with the spear and bow.

Inns and Taverns: Outsiders usually settle for the merchants’ lodges or the travelers’ dagadas outside the city wall. Within Gulg, most dagadas have a few empty guest huts, but such accommodations are rarely made available unless travelers are known and trusted by the dagada.

The dagada is the core unit of Gulgan society. The term refers to both a physical village and its collective inhabitants. Most dagadas are a cross-section of Gulgan culture; hunters, artisans, and even slaves identify with their dagada first and their city-state second. Layered across the patchwork of dagadas is a second set of divisions known as Peoples. A People is a unit that falls somewhere between a dagada and an extended family. Many dagadas are composed of members of only one or two Peoples, but some dagadas have citizens of many Peoples. Each of the Peoples has its own dagafari, an ancestral lodge or shrine built in the branches of an agafari tree where their elders gather to discuss important matters. Associated Skills: Insight, Stealth

Enlightened Seer: You exhibited talent in the Way and were taken from your family to study in the seer dagada. Were you equal to the testing and instruction, or did you fall short? How have your experiences with the seers altered your perceptions about the Oba? Do you still view her as a goddess, or perhaps as something less?

Paper Wasp: You were a member of the Paper Nest, a clandestine society of advisors and confidants to the sorcerer-queen. Taking their name from the pulpy nests of wasps, group members create the paper used by Lalali-Puy and her scribes, while also secretly convening to advise the sorcerer-queen on matters regarding Gulg. Do you still serve the Oba, and if so, what is your mission? Have you ended your service, and if so, why did you leave?

Judaga: You were a headhunter, an esteemed warrior in your community. Because warriors make up the noble class of the dagadas, you enjoyed great freedom and lavish luxury. All warriors must undergo the Forest Walk, wherein they encounter forest spirits after depriving themselves of food and water. What did you learn on your sojourn? What sort of spirit became your totem? How does it reflect or influence your personality?

Lalali-Puy maintains a stranglehold on all political power in the city-state. She handpicks a circle of advisors and works through them to govern civic affairs. Her templars—the dreaded nganga—remain apart from the citizenry, vigilantly guarding Gulg from threats both internal and external.

Despite her totalitarian rule, the Oba is beloved by most of her people for three reasons. First, all citizens of Gulg are entitled to the fruits of the city: Grain from the meager client farms, produce from the forest, and meat from the dagadas’ herds are distributed to all citizens more or less equally. Second, every citizen has the right to appeal to the queen directly; in any dispute, a Gulgan can request an audience with the Oba to let her resolve the issue. Although citizens sometimes wait months or years for an audience, every request is heard eventually. And third, the personal power of Lalali-Puy is seen as Gulg’s chief defense against the larger city of Nibenay, its bitter rival.

Unlike the other sorcerer-kings, who maintain that primal magic is a sham, Lalali-Puy teaches her people that the primal spirits of the Crescent Forest are real—and that they hate the residents of Gulg. Primal spirits, according to the Oba, are embodiments of pure evil, and only the might of the queen and her templars hold them at bay. Because primal magic is the best means by which to coerce and control these vicious spirits, many of Gulg’s templars are shamans or druids who cruelly enslave the spirits serving them.

Primal practitioners who do not subscribe to the queen’s teachings should keep their reservations to themselves. The Oba’s templars are swift to seize and condemn anyone who questions their use of magic.

Travelers bound for Gulg follow a wide stone tradeway from Altaruk along the north arm of the Estuary of the Forked Tongue. At the eaves of the Crescent Forest, the stone road gives way to a hard-packed dirt causeway called the People’s Road. The city-state of Gulg stands in a large clearing inside the borders of the forest.

Rather than earth, stone, or wooden fencing, Gulg is walled by a tightly woven hedge of razor-sharp brambles 20 feet high, known as the Mopti Wall. Guards in woven grass armor and fearsome animal masks patrol the wall and monitor the gates that provide ingress into the city. By decree of the Oba, all outsiders must enter the city through the Queen’s Gate, to which the People’s Road leads. The Hunter’s Gate is reserved for the use of the judagas and any warriors in arms (in the rare event that Gulg goes to war). Common citizens and slaves use the People’s Gate.

The fourth gate, called the Exile’s Gate, is used for the banishing of criminals. This gate is opened in the north wall when a templar performs a ritual to create a temporary opening in the Mopti Wall. In addition, those who wish to leave Gulg can exit through this gate when it is opened and no templar will raise a hand to stop them, but no one can enter the city through the Exile’s Gate.