Dar-Kesh-Anam -- Five-Fold Deity
The Fabled City of Dar-Kesh-Anam is a lost city known from legends in many different cultures.
In a time of myth, Dar-Kesh-Anam is said to have been created from the first union of humans and dragons. A mysterious being known as the Five-Fold Deity is said to have rested there, as well as the enigmatic Sisterhood of Balash-Kopeh.
Accoring to legend, the hero Molaho Khem is originally from the Fabled City of Dar-Kesh-Anam. In his final days he returned to the city to combat the Hivecouncil, called an "alien menace." Though he defeated his foes, he was felled by their poisonous blood. His body was interred in the Kushkava, the city's highest tower, magically preserved just before his moment of death. It is said he lies there to this day, waiting to be revived.
Tales of Molaho Khem are relatively common in the Flanaess, and every culture claims that he was one of their own.
Geography and climate
The location of Dar-Kesh-Anam is unknown, though many scholars place it in either the lowlands of ancient Itar or in a mountain valley west of Mur. However, a shopkeeper in Nellix who calls himself Venal Lon-Verdagis claims the city has somehow been shrunk to miniature size and imprisoned beneath a glass dome. A fantastically detailed city in miniature, apparently still inhabited by tiny figures, exists in the corner of his shop, covered in a cloth most of the time, as evidence of his extraordinary claim.
The bottled city can be entered; those who touch it find themselves miniaturized and transported there. From the perspective of those trapped within the city, it seems to be surrounded by several miles of hostile desert, at the end of which is an impassable barrier. The sky is lit with a hellish red hue. The city can be escaped, in theory, from the Chamber of Portals at the apex of the Far Turret in the city's center.
Beneath the city is the undercity, a maze of tunnels and catacombs populated by those who sought to escape from the decaying city above. Within the undercity are two-dimensional holes in reality that function as portals to elsewhere. These portals lead to deadly places like the interiors of volcanoes as often as they lead to safety, and all are guarded by beasts or humans. They could lead to any plane of existence.
People
Most of the inhabitants of Dar-Kesh-Anam are human, but most are from cultures alien to the Flanaess and perhaps even not of Oerth at all. They are said to have come from a thousand different cultures, many of them abducted by men with skin of a burgundy hue bearing magic rings.
Government
The Fabled City of Dar-Kesh-Anam is said to be ruled by a council of "mind-mages" known as the Hivecouncil.
Military
The Hivecouncil is served by an army of mindless insect-men, perhaps identifiable with the phalanx vermin. These creatures guard the Far Turret, preventing the prisoners of the city from escaping without going through them.
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