Rauxes

Rauxes was the capital of the Great Kingdom

Pop.: 175,000

Capital: Rauxes (pop. 22,200)

Ruler: Ivid The Undying (many nominal titles)

Rulership: High (Rauxes), Medium elsewhere

Cost Multiplier: 180%

About 80% of the lands in the area shown on the color map are owned by Ivid V or are held in royal trust by troops and liegemen nominally loyal to Ivid. The situation is very different in Rauxes.

For 600 years, Rauxes stood as the capital of the Great Kingdom, bearing witness to both the empire’s greatest glories and its most savage depravity. In 586 CY, Rauxes’ long reign as imperial capital came to an end when Patriarch-General Pyrannden of Hextor announced to a stunned imperial court that Ivid V was no longer overking. Within minutes, a ferocious magical battle broke out on the streets of the imperial city as rival princes desperately vied for the Malachite Throne. What happened next none can say, but its effects are well known. Rauxes was cut off from the surrounding lands by a shimmering magical field that enveloped the city.

Since that day, debate has raged among the learned as to Rauxes’ fate. Some say it has become a Fading Land, while others, including Mordenkainen it is whispered, argue that the vast magical energies unleashed in Rauxes’ death throes have torn a rent in the planes into which the city has fallen.

These scholarly arguments over the fate of the city have not troubled the fortune hunters attempting to plunder the legendary wealth of the overkings. However, of the many who have passed through the Shimmering Wall surrounding the city, none have returned – save perhaps one.

In Brewfest 593 CY, the bard Finnadrel of Delaric was pulled half-drowned from the Flamni near Orred. He claimed to have escaped what he called the, “War Without End,” raging within the ruins of Rauxes. Though the bard painted a dramatic picture, doubt was cast on his account when it was discovered he was wanted in Delaric for defrauding investors in his last theatrical production in 591 CY. Nonetheless, reports that the Ahlissan soldiers warding the margins of the Forsaken City have been assailed by all manner of strange otherworldly creatures emerging from the Shimmering Wall have convinced some of the truth of Finnadrel’s tale.

One of the more worthy citizens of Rauxes is Emasstus Carcosa. He was the Patriarch/Sage of Pholtus circa 576-77 CY. He spoke out publicly against Overking Ivid V's tyranny and his trafficking with devils and called for open rebellion. He even went so far as to reach out to the church of Saint Cuthbert with which the Pholtan Church has had a long-standing antipathy. For this Carcosa was deposed and ordered arrested for treason. Carcosa's whereabouts are currently unknown.