Prymp

A walled city of 16,300 people, Prymp is the major base for the Ahlissan navy. At any given time, half the Ahlissan force of 22 cogs and coasters, seven galleys, and four galleons are either here or within a day's sailing time of the city. Keeping close to port is a reaction to the Nyrondese raid on Prymp earlier this year (585 CY). Fleet Admiral Llarnen is a cautious man by nature in any event.

Prymp is a cruel, harsh city. It always has been administered by a military council, comprising the ruler of South Province, the Fleet Admiral, and the commander general of the Ahlissan armies, General Reynard. The similarity of name to Reydrich is coincidental. Law here is military-based, and the rulership level for this city is high. Prymp is a major center for the vile trade of slavery, and in truth virtually anything is for sale here, including the loyalty of many of its mercenary and black hearted defenders. Many are ex-slaves, pirates of old, or simply chaotic and utterly untrustworthy souls held in check by the rigid Lawfulness of the city's rulers. Prymp never has been a decorative or pleasant city, and after the damage caused by the Nyrondese the city verges on the decrepit in many areas. There are still ruined buildings, fire-scorched areas toasted by the fireballs of Nyrondese mages, and worse. Some back streets of Prymp are little better than open sewers. Evil cults flourish here, whether it be the notorious assassins' guild of the city or furtive and unspeakable rites practiced by devotees of Nerull or other such deities in the squalid and neglected city cemetery. Prymp's undercity is extensive and even more dangerous than the streets above. A complex and extensive series of underground ducts for draining away high tidal waters combines with burial vaults, natural fissures in the limestone bedrock, and secret passages used by assassins and worse to form a huge area of only partly-mapped caverns, tunnels, and vaults. Some of these areas are permanently underwater, others flood occasionally. Monsters such as ropers, various forms of cave lizards, moray eels, cave fishers, and others infest some areas of the Undercity, while some claim that there is a deep and interdicted nest of Kuo-toa far below the city. There are even tales of an underwater complex occupied by a lich and undead very like sea zombies.

Treasure and magic still draw the brave or foolhardy into this dangerous territory. Among those reputed treasures, there is known to be a sacred relic of Pholtus, warded and sealed up here by the last of a desperate priesthood chased into the farthest recesses of the Under city by pursuing assassins in Ivid's employ. It is believed to be a cloak, granting the wearer (if a faithful follower of Pholtus) protection from evil 10' radius, a +4 bonus against all spells and spell-like effects cast by evil enemies, and other benefits. The cloak is important enough to have attracted the interest of Mitrik, but an adventuring group sent in disguise in Fireseek of the current year to fetch it did not return. This relic, and who knows what else, is still there for those valiant enough to seek it.