Pra'xirek

The remains of Pra’xerik echo with the struggles of the creatures that live there. Drow and giants strike at one another amid the shell of the city, with neither side willing to surrender its claim to the ruins.

Ancient Ones: A family of cloud giants that lives in the floating great hall, the self-named Ancient Ones would have all who inhabit the surrounding region believe that they retain the hidden lore of the giant civilization. In fact, the cloud giants are only marginally more civilized than the hill giants who occupy the ruins below them. They certainly do not have access to any of the giants’ arcane power of ages past, though their few spell-like abilities and the handful of magic items they have found in the ruins have convinced the hill giants otherwise. The Ancient Ones live off the labor of the hill giants, demanding tribute in the form of food and giving nothing in return but a promise not to bring another cataclysm down upon Xen’drik—a promise they do not have the power to break even if they were so inclined.

The Ancient Ones despise the drow, and not only for the murals within the great hall that remind them how the elves once served the giants. They worry that the drow might somehow disrupt their dominance over the numerically superior hill giants. In years past, the cloud giants have made war on the elves, whipping the hill giants into a frenzy before turning them loose in the jungle.

A cloud giant who calls himself Skyfather (NE male cloud giant sorcerer 4) is the patriarch of the Ancient Ones, and uses minor illusions to increase his appearance of power. He longs to acquire real magical power so that he might rule Pra’xirek properly, returning the drow to their original place as slaves, but has neither the resources nor the cleverness to do so. He has an instinctual feeling that the Siberys dragonshards that fall from the sky will grant him this power, but he doesn’t know how. Still, he commands the hill giants to bring his family any dragonshards they find, in the hope of someday determining what to do with them.

Hill Giants: A primitive tribe of hill giants inhabits the old center of the city, killing or driving off any smaller creatures that try to explore it. While they have no real understanding of the history of the giant civilization, they have a strongly held belief that the ruins belong to them.

The hill giants cater to the whims of the Ancient Ones, believing them to be gods who built the city. They gladly lash out at any enemy the cloud giants indicate, and have been known to obliterate whole tribes of drow on Skyfather’s orders. Their chiefs tend to be strong but dim-witted; whenever a particularly clever or ruthless hill giant seems likely to rise to power, the Ancient Ones execute him before he can rally his brethren. The current chieftain, Urggruk (N male hill giant barbarian 4), is secretly terrified of the Ancient Ones, and orders his tribe to do everything they can to avoid the cloud giants’ (nonexistent) destructive wrath. Ka’ki’ kur Drow: The drow of the Ka’ki’kur tribe live a few miles from the center of Pra’xirek in a series of caves that protect them from hill giant attacks. They believe that the city was once their ancestral home, and they have a burning desire to rid it of all other inhabitants, regularly striking out at the hill giants and the locathahs from the catacombs beneath the city. They also covet any magic items from the lost giant civilization, viewing them as a rightful inheritance from that dead nation.

The Ka’ki’kur are led by Ghyrra (LE female drow wizard 5/ranger 5), a cunning and ruthless tactician who has greatly increased the number of strikes against the giants in the inner ruins. She has a personal vendetta against the cloud giants, who sent their hill giant lackeys on a raid that cost her the life of her mate and first-born child. While most of her subordinates would immediately kill anyone who stumbled on Pra’xirek, Ghyrra might be willing to ally with anyone she felt was capable of killing Skyfather and the other Ancient Ones.

The Yiidro: This large tribe of locathahs lives in and around the submerged ruins of what was once Pra’xirek’s river dockside district. Relative newcomers to the lost city, the Yiidro discovered the ruins some seventy years ago and created a sizable settlement there, giving up their nomadic ways.

For decades, sporadic bloodshed has erupted between the locathah and the drow of the Ka’ki’kur; and only the fact that neither can occupy the territory of the enemy has prevented the two tribes from allout war. Because they have had no other contact with land-dwelling humanoids for several generations, the Yiidro tend to view explorers with suspicion and distrust. They are ultimately a peaceful people, though, and proving oneself to be an enemy of the drow is a sure way to gain their respect.

The city of Pra’xirek sprawls across the jungle, and each ruin might hide a complete adventure in itself. Several important locations are described below.

1. River Dock: Pra’xirek was always a river port in ancient days, and the giants built an impressive dock to support their mammoth longships. Designed to magically float on the river surface, the dock remains dry even though the water has swallowed a large portion of the surrounding city. Because it was built at what was once the shore of the river, the dock represents the northernmost edge of Pra’xirek. Sailing a ship past the dock to the current shore thus risks grounding it on the submerged ruins.
   
   The dockhouse is a large stone structure with 20-foot-tall archways on all four sides. The interior is empty, having been exposed to the elements for millennia, and a square opening in the floor leads directly into the river. Amphibious monsters occasionally make their nests here, at least until the locathahs drive them away. Twelve berths line the north side of the dock platform, allowing even large galleons to moor here. A small sailing ship of outdated design sits abandoned in one berth. The vessel was owned by a band of adventurers who came to Pra’xirek twenty years ago and were subsequently killed in the ruins. From here, a rowboat can be used to reach the shore.

1. Underwater Ruins: Dozens of buildings lie wholly or partially submerged beneath the river. In and around these structures lives the Yiidro. While the locathahs will not attack rowboats crossing this stretch of the river, diving down into the depths to explore the ruins is seen as trespassing, and they will respond with violence unless quickly convinced of an interloper’s peaceful intentions.

2. Outer Ruins: This region is made up mostly of buildings that have long since fallen into rubble. While a wall or two might survive, most of this area is so thickly overgrown that no one can tell what the layout of the buildings and streets might once have been. Boulder-sized building stones litter the ground, providing plenty of cover for those wishing to sneak deeper into the city. However, the fallen stones also provide excellent hiding places for a drow ambush. The Ka’ki’kur drow scavenge through this area often, and will attack anyone they see digging through the ruins.

3. Shattered Walkways: When Pra’xirek stood unblemished by war or disaster, these four stone walkways provided access to the great hall floating above the city for those common giants without the ability to levitate. Stretching from the outer ruins up over the inner ruins, all four walkways are fallen now—shattered in the long years since the giant civilization fell.
   
   Every night at the same time, the ghost of a female storm giant who died in the cataclysm that broke Xen’drik walks silently along the northeastern walkway, floating over those portions that have collapsed. Why she haunts the walkway is unknown, but she could likely reveal much about the ancient city to one who could successfully communicate with her. 5. Inner Ruins: Farther in from the shore, the ruins start becoming more recognizable as former structures. While some might be missing large portions of one wall (or even an entire wing), remnants echo where buildings once stood. It is in these broken places that the hill giants, numbering in the hundreds, now make their homes. Even ruined, the halls of the ancient city are still scaled to the giants’ 10-foot-tall stature, and they make fine lairs.
   
   The primitive hill giants have little understanding of the heights of their lost civilization, and cannot repair any of the ruins or construct new buildings. Millennia of repeated habitation by the giants have destroyed all sense of the function of these ancient landmarks, whether elegant dining chambers or arcane workshops. Only the walls still bear the marks of their ancestors, where runes and murals have survived.

1. Great Hall: Floating above the remains of the city, the great hall is one of the few surviving examples of giant magic. A towering square building with a colonnaded facade on all four sides, the great hall has remained mostly intact for centuries, escaping the worst of the cataclysm by literally standing above it. Though the building’s original purpose is unknown, there are said to be many rooms within it. One adventurer who claimed to have been inside reported a majestic throne room built to giant scale, leading many to suspect that it was once a palace of some sort.
   
   The magic that holds the great hall in place more than 300 feet in the air is unknowably powerful, resisting any attempt to dispel it. The hall does not move from its place even in the strongest winds, and cannot be pushed or towed by airship. Even without the promise of giant lore hidden within it, most wizards from Khorvaire would consider the hall itself the magical discovery of a lifetime.
   
   The clan of cloud giants called the Ancient Ones inhabits the great hall. What lies within is thus largely unknown, since few explorers have ever successfully penetrated its walls. However, many believe that the cloud giants would surely have already seized any easily obtainable magic, and that whatever lore might still rest in the hall must therefore be carefully guarded by still-functioning magical wards. In the end, though, exploration is the only way to uncover the great hall’s secrets.

1. Slave Quarter: This section of Pra’xirek was built to house the elf slaves kept by the ancient giants. As a result, the buildings and walkways are scaled for use by the smaller elves, and have mostly been ignored by the giants living in the city today. The drow of Ka’ki’kur do not come here either, for they believe the place to be horribly cursed. The ruins in this area are thus relatively uninhabited, and those few explorers who have been here have found it an excellent place to make camp while surveying the expansive ruins.

Though not technically within Pra’xerik itself, the following areas are accessible from around it, and can give characters additional places to encounter the local inhabitants.

Catacombs: By decree of the lord of Pra’xerik in ancient days, elf slaves were not permitted to walk the streets of the city unattended. In order to allow slaves to get from place to place without being escorted by their masters, a series of tunnels was constructed by giant magic, stretching throughout the city and for miles beyond it. The catacombs did not lead to the basements of any giant buildings, however, because the elves were forbidden from entering these areas unsupervised.

The drow still walk these catacombs today, but not to serve the giants. Instead, the Ka’ki’kur use them to move undetected among the ruins, most often to surprise wandering hill giants and kill them (or make a quick escape when an ambush goes awry). From the inner ruins, scout parties might spirit away an uncovered artifact by way of the catacombs as well.

Access points to the catacombs are scattered throughout the outer and inner ruins, and are well hidden by the drow against the threat of the hill giants collapsing any entrances they find. A successful DC 20 Search check can find an entrance despite whatever undergrowth or other concealment hides it from the giants.

Drow Caves: The Ka’ki’kur drow inhabit this series of caves. While they do not connect directly to the catacombs beneath the city, several catacomb entrances lie within the immediate area. Drow patrols scout the surrounding region constantly, often with the aid of trained scorpions. Entering this area with the intent of seeking out the drow is risky at best; scouts kill on sight unless given orders to the contrary.