Quodeth
EXPLORING QUODETH
BAZAAR QUARTER The bustling, commercial heart of Quodeth, the Bazaar Quarter is home to hundreds of merchant houses, trading companies, emporiums, and workshops. It lies on the northern side of the city, just across the Quosa from the similarly busy Canal Quarter. The Bazaar Quarter is under the control of the Seven Knives, who generally keep the streets safe for business, but the Red Furies have a toehold in the southern parts of the quarter. There is no love lost between the two guilds, and midnight duels on the rooftops are not unusual.
CANAL QUARTER Most districts of Quodeth are accessible by canal, but the canals of the Canal Quarter are the most extensive of the city. As a result, many of the city’s warehouses are in this district. It is also home to many businesses or artisans who need to bring large amounts of raw materials—or fuel—to their workshops. Many of Quodeth’s metalworkers, potters, and woodworkers live and work here. The Canal Quarter is under the control of the Bargemasters, but the Seven Knives also operate freely in this district.
OLD QUODETH Geographically, Old Quodeth is the heart of the city. A long time ago, all of Quodeth was encompassed on the large island between the Little Quosa and the Middle Quosa. Over the centuries, the city grew to the other islands and the riverbanks, and leaving the original city site as just one district in a much larger Quodeth. Much of Old Quodeth is dark, crowded, and dilapidated; the noble houses and wealthy merchants long ago moved to more fashionable parts of the city. Only the poor remained. Old Quodeth is no longer a thriving commercial district, but it is home to many small, eclectic shops and artisans’ workshops. The Red Furies hold much of the western part of the district, but the dominant criminal faction is the Muggers’ Guild; Old Quodeth may be the single most dangerous part of the city to pass through after dark.
PALACE QUARTER Situated on the heights of the west bank of the Quosa, the Palace Quarter floats like a golden mirage above the crowded streets and labyrinthine canals of the lower city. Not all of Quodeth’s palaces are located in this quarter, but many of them are, including the royal palace and the palaces of several important noble families. The most important and impressive civic buildings are located here as well, including the major courts and administrative centers of Quodeth. Here, at least, the city’s omnipresent thieves keep a low profile—none of Quodeth’s guilds claim to control the Palace Quarter, although most of them occasionally work here.
THE SARK The worst neighbourhood in Quodeth is the sprawling slum known as the Sark. The origin of the name is not clear; some people say that it is derived from the nearby Sarvin Bay, some say it is named after a local chieftain from the days of the city’s founding, and still others claim the Sark gained its name because one would be wise to wear a mail shirt—or “sark,” in the old turn of phrase—when one ventures into its streets. The district is desperately poor, and so wretched that none of the city’s thieves’ guilds bother to claim it as their own territory.
STONEQUAY Quodeth’s harbor district is known as Stonequay. It is a busy commercial quarter, with teeming wharves, crowded warehouses, busy workshops, and huge shipyards where the sinews of Quodeth’s mercantile power are shaped from wood, line, and canvas. The Middle Quosa physically divides Stonequay in two, but scores of small sculls and barges stand ready to ferry travelers or cargo from one side to the other at all hours of the day or night. Stonequay is disputed territory in the struggles of Quodeth’s thieves’ guilds. The Bargemasters hold much of eastern Stonequay, although the Beggars’ Guild virtually overruns the area. The western island is contested between the Seven Knives and the Red Furies. Rare is the morning when some murdered thief or thug isn’t fished out of the river.
TEMPLE QUARTER As one might expect, the Temple Quarter is so named because several of Quodeth’s more notable temples are in this part of the city. In addition to its temples, the quarter is also home to a good deal of commerce and industry, mostly in luxury goods and fine art. Here the metalworkers are goldsmiths and jewellers, not coppersmiths or blacksmiths. The Red Furies are the dominant thieves’ guild in this part of the city, and they jealously defend their rich territory against the Seven Knives, the Muggers’ Guild, and the Dyers’ Guild, which is seeking to expand into the southern part of the Temple Quarter.
TIR-PALAND Long ago, this entire quarter was the private property of House Paland. During the rule of the Atlantean viceroys, much of House Paland’s land was brought under the city’s control, plotted out, and sold off piecemeal over the years, leaving only the name of the new district to commemorate Quodeth’s old royal line. Tir-Paland is a busy, prosperous district with a mix of commercial and industrial interests, plus a handful of noble houses and temples in its better parts. Tir-Paland is tightly policed by the Dyers’ Guild, a mercantile powerhouse that collects heavy dues from its members but fights fiercely against the encroachments of Quodeth’s thieves.
Government
The traditional symbol of rulership over Quodeth is the Peacock Throne. In ancient times, the city’s monarch wielded absolute power over the city, and therefore the edicts and judgments rendered from the throne were beyond question. Over the centuries, the kings and queens of Quodeth took less interest in administering their domain and turned over the more tedious duties to a court full of advisors and officials. These panjandrums typically performed their offices “in the name of the Peacock Throne,” and were understood to be acting on the monarch’s command, even when the monarch was personally unaware of their specific activities. The tradition is still remembered today when Quodethi refer to the government and its various ministries, bureaus, and offices as the Peacock Throne—for example, “I heard today that the Peacock Throne is increasing taxes on wine by two silvers per cask,” or, “The Peacock Throne is concerned by rumours of human sacrifice and cult activity in the Sark.” The ruling monarch rarely takes a direct hand in such matters, but high officials with the authority of the throne are acting in his or her place. Queen Deyane is rarely seen by her subjects and is surrounded by powerful officials and influential nobles who carefully guide her rule. The real power controlling the Peacock Throne is the Royal Council, a group of six important officials and nobles who are too powerful to be dismissed or ignored. Collectively, the Council controls the city’s courts, armies, officials, and access to the Queen.
The Council members include:
• Grand Vizier Taroth, leader of the government.
• High Initiate Mother Zarissa, high priestess of the temple of Ishtar
• High Curate Oruk-Maneth, High Priest of Mitra
• Prince Consort & First Sea Lord Zerda Saväschu, Queen Deyane’s first husband head of the military
• Azarde Two-Blades, mercenary, freebooter, and captain of the royal guards
• Guild master Niram Terinth, Master of the Mint and fantastically wealthy merchant
Defences
When a traveller first arrives in Quodeth, the first thing that greets his or her eyes is the city wall. A 40-foot wall surrounds the landward sides of the city, studded with low square towers. There are only a handful of gates in the city wall, each fitted with massive bronze doors and wooden portcullises. Detachments of Quodethi soldiers stand guard at each gate all day and night. Anyone wishing to enter or leave the city at night must be able to convince the captain of the gate that his or her business is worthwhile (a bribe often helps prove the point). Most buildings in Quodeth are made of stone or brick (old and crumbling in the poorer neighbourhoods, of course). Glass windows are quite rare and usually found only in palaces; common buildings use light lattices or thin oiled parchment instead of glass. Doors and windows are usually protected by heavy bars or shutters—crime is a problem in Quodeth, after all.
GATE OF MAMMOTHS The largest and busiest of Quodeth’s city gates is the awesome Gate of Mammoths, a towering portal built between the 50-foot tall statues of glowering woolly mammoths facing out at the world beyond the walls. The road leading north from the Gate of Mammoths follows the west bank of the Quosa for a hundred miles or so, eventually falling into disuse as it nears the ruins of the city of Hurhun on the shores of the Kalayan Sea.
Industry & Trade
Even without control of the waterway between the Kalayan Sea and the Atlantean Ocean, Quodeth would be a rich and prosperous city. Its economy stands on four great pillars: grain, silk, metalworking, and shipbuilding. Quodeth produces more flour, textiles, metal goods, and ships than any other city in Thule.
Grain may not seem all that unusual, but in Thule, large expanses of arable land are rare. The Quosa Vale is a gentle landscape of undulating hills that serves as the breadbasket of a continent. Quodeth’s grainfields stretch for miles beyond the city walls, and the granaries of the Canal Quarter hold vast reserves for trade or to guard against a year of lean harvest. Round-hulled merchant galleys carry Quodeth’s grain to Marg, Droum, Imystrahl, and even Lomar (in times of peace).
The mild, sunny clime of the nearby Zinandar foothills is perfect for cultivating silkworms in mulberry orchards, and Quodeth is the only Thulean producer of silk. Thousands of artisans make a living as silk weavers and dyers, producing robes, togas, and gowns in a bewildering variety of colors and patterns. A single bolt of Quodethi silk can command 500 gold coins in a remote city such as Thran or Akal-Amo. This rich trade is guarded by the powerful Dyers’ Guild, which ruthlessly crushes competition and fixes prices as it likes to control its monopoly.
The metalwork of Quodeth can’t compare to that of the armorers and weapon-smiths of nearby Kal-Zinan, or even warlike Lomar; Quodethi bronze is quite ordinary and deserves no special distinction. But Quodeth is home to a very large number of coppersmiths, tinsmiths, silversmiths, and goldsmiths who turn out everyday items such as goblets, plates, tableware, and jewellery. These are valuable trade goods, especially to the barbaric peoples of Thule’s interior. Many jungle traders lead caravans laden with Quodethi cups and bowls and bangles into the forests of Dhar Mesh or the cold plains under Kang’s long shadow in search of rich profits.
Finally, Quodeth’s shipyards are the largest and busiest of Thule, turning out dozens of galleys and dromonds every year. The shipyards’ hunger for wood means that Quodethi foresters must travel deep into the Starcrown foothills or the far slopes of the Zinandar Mountains in search of good timber. While Quodeth’s arms and armor are unremarkable, its warships are a different story—and its assembled fleets are the strongest in the northern seas.
Infrastructure
CSANDO SHIPYARDS Sprawling for hundreds of yards on the Great Quosa waterfront, the Csando Shipyards are the largest and finest in Quodeth. At any given time, four to six large galleys are under construction. It takes about four months to build a merchant galley, although the shipwrights can hurry the process in an emergency, at the cost of improper curing and preparation that drastically reduces the ship’s usable life. Hundreds of wood workers, smiths, sailmakers, and ropemakers work in the Csando yards. The supervisor of the yard is the noted shipwright Podrenius, a genius of Atlantean descent who experiments with unusual designs not seen since Atlantis sank beneath the waves. Mysteriously enough, some unknown party has sabotaged his last three prototypes.
VICEROY’S BRIDGE Perhaps the single greatest architectural marvel in Quodeth, the Viceroy’s Bridge is a stone span almost a quarter mile in length across the main channel of the Quosa. It links the Canal Quarter (and the whole of the east bank) to Old Quodeth and the western half of the city. The center of the bridge consists of two wooden drawbridges 50 feet in length, providing a 100-foot wide passage for vessels that cannot step their masts in order to pass beneath the bridge. The river is deep and strong here, and the Atlantean engineers who built the bridge first had to build two huge, submerged caissons to support the span. The bridge was originally named after the Atlantean viceroy that commissioned the project hundreds of years ago but has come to be known simply as Viceroy’s Bridge today.
Guilds and Factions
As one might expect in a city of Quodeth’s size, dozens of guilds, noble houses, and secret societies compete for influence. In some cases, it is about pure politics, and the various factions are competing for the right to install their own adherents in positions of power and authority. In other cases, the competition is about commerce, territory, religion, or other issues. Outright factional warfare is rare in Quodeth, simply because the one certain way to bring the city’s disparate influence-peddlers together is to create a problem big enough to demand joint action. There are hundreds of smaller and less important organizations, many of which could reasonably be included in this list. Over time, some factions weaken or split up, some individuals die or suffer personal reverses, and others step up to take their place. The only constant is change, as they say.
THE BARGEMASTERS Corrupt Trade Guild
The Bargemasters are one of Quodeth’s largest trade guilds, consisting of hundreds of barge owners and the crews they command. They control the riverfront and the canals of central Quodeth, and no trade goods move anywhere in the middle of the city without their approval—which, of course, means that the Bargemasters’s palms must be well greased by any merchant seeking to ship cargo into or out of the city. In addition to serving as a guild of relatively law-abiding laborers, the Bargemasters are also a func-
tional thieves’ guild. They actively patrol their territory and chase off incursions from rival guilds, collect protection money from the businesses and warehouses located within their domain, and occasionally form mobs of hood-wearing thugs to simply smash in the
doors of tempting targets and pillage whatever valuables or goods are stored there.
DYERS’ GUILD Cartel of Rich Merchants
The cultivation, weaving, and dying of silk might seem like the most ordinary of trades, but in Quodeth, a vast amount of wealth and influence is tied up in the silk trade. The Dyer’s Guild ruthlessly crushes any individuals seeking to grow or produce silk without joining the guild and honoring the guild’s exacting quotas and exorbitant dues. Merchants trying to enter the silk trade in other cities are subject to vicious tactics such as price undercutting, embargos, sabotage, and outright assassination—the Dyers of Quodeth will stop at nothing to maintain their monopoly.
GOLDEN HALL OF MITHRA Priests of Mithra
The Golden Hall is Quodeth’s grand temple to Mithra, god of the sun and sky. It is one of the largest temples of all Thule’s cities, a sprawling cathedral that is home to scores of Mithran priests and hundreds of temple guards dressed in blue and gold. The priests of Mithra are widely thought to spend too much time looking out for their own property and influence, but many Quodethi agree with the Mithrans that it is well past time to curb the city’s worst excesses and uphold standards of basic decency in society. High Curate Oruk-Maneth is the high priest of Mithra in Quodeth. He is a sly, conniving old schemer who doesn’t hesitate to use the temple’s influence in a hundred different ways, working tirelessly to appoint viziers and panjandrums loyal to Mithra, challengethe worst vices of the city’s low quarters, and generally drag Quodeth toward a more pious, just, and conservative set of values. Oruk-Maneth is especially annoyed that he does not sit on the Royal Council, and he makes a show of sorrowfully lamenting the fact that Queen Deyane is denied the benefit of his wisdom.
KING OF BEGGARS
Guildmaster, Street Boss, Rumormonger There is no such thing as a Beggar’s Guild, or so the city’s officials say. They are, of course, mistaken. Hundreds upon hundreds of beggars are organized into a wretched, disorderly mob under the leadership of a
guildmaster known only as the King of the Beggars. In the slums and warrens of the Sark and the poorer quarters of the Canal Quarter the beggars ply their ancient trade—and, naturally, take advantage of every opportunity to pick pockets and cut purses, too. The Beggar’s Guild is therefore a thieves’ guild of sorts, and the other gangs of Quodeth are happy to leave the slums to them. Unlike gangs such as the Red Furies or the Seven Knives, the Beggars’ Guild offers little protection to those in their territory. The King of Beggars can field a mob of hundreds against another thieves’ guild, but beggars are poor footsoldiers and only fight when they have overwhelming numbers on their side. Instead, they prefer to fight with rumor and innuendo. Beggars serve as the best spy network in the city, since they have eyes and ears on every street corner, and report everything they see or hear to the
King of Beggars by the end of the day.
MUGGERS’ GUILD
Violent Thieves’ Guild Most of the thieves’ guilds in Quodeth focus on burglary, extortion, smuggling, and other crimes of property designed to take the money from merchants, nobles, and storeowners. The Muggers’ Guild is not that sophisticated; they are a large gang of violent street toughs who simply rob passers by in the streets. Gangs of muggers sometimes gather to assault
high-ranking nobles or wealthy merchants protected by bodyguards, but usually they operate in twos or threes, brazenly attacking in broad daylight on busy streets and fleeing the scene with their ill-gotten plunder. In a city where thievery is looked on as just one more trade, muggers are regarded as villainous scum. Unfortunately, they are villainous scum who enjoy strength in numbers, and openly defy the authorities at every turn. Worse yet, the high-ranking members of the Muggers’ Guild are often devotees of Herum, the brutal ape-god, and seek his blessing by administering vicious beatings in the course of their work.
PRIESTS OF THE BROKEN GATE Cultist of Cthulhu
At any given time, several small cults are flourishing in Quodeth, dedicated to various unsavory gods or demons. The Priests of the Broken Gate are the latest such group. They teach that a great god of justice and redemption—the “One Who Waits”—is coming to
sweep away the old order and bring new hope to all who suffer. But first, the god’s human followers must break down the gate that keeps this great day from coming. Most Quodethi assume that the talk of “gates” is some kind of metaphor about the followers of this belief overcoming their own limitations and misdeeds. After all, the Broken Gate brothers urge their followers to abandon their families, undermine the oppression of the existing social order, and surrender themselves to the worship of the One Who Waits. Those who participate in the rituals seem to open themselves up to the dreams and whispers of the cult’s patron: Great Cthulhu. Madness slowly consumes those who listen too long to the teachings of the Broken Gate, and the gate of which the dark priests speak is nothing less than the titanic seal that keeps Cthulhu imprisoned and dormant.
RED FURIES The Red Furies are unique among Quodeth’s thieves for one simple reason: They are all female. No men are permitted to join the guild, and on the rare occasions when males have tried to infiltrate the guild through disguises or have tried to exert authority over the guild, the Red Furies have punished the offenders . . . severely. Suffice it to say that no man in recent memory
has tried to break the Red Furies to his will. Other than this unusual requirement for membership, the Red Furies are a typical Quodethi thieves’ guild—secretive, violent, and fiercely protective of their territory. They are second only to the Seven Knives in strength and reach, and have spies in many ports around the Inner Sea. In Quodeth, they control the Temple Quarter, and they have a strong presence in Old Quodeth and the Bazaar Quarter as well. There is a good deal of bad blood between the Red
Furies and the Seven Knives, and the current Queen Fury—a brilliant assassin named Evondra—is quietly looking for allies to take down the Seven Knives once and for all.
THE SEDARNELS Decadent Noble House
The Sedarnels are one of the oldest noble houses in the city, tracing their history to the centuries before the Atlantean conquest, when they vied with House Paland and other rivals for the Peacock Throne. They maintain a small fleet of merchant galleys that
specialize in long voyages to distant and mysterious lands. Sedarnel ships call in places such as Katagia, Orech, and Akal-Amo, dealing in luxuries such as gemstones, delicacies, medicinal herbs, fine wines and brandies, and other cargoes of small size and
high value. The Sedarnels have always regarded Tiamat as their protector and patron, and in return their far-voyaging ships seem to avoid many storms or perils that destroy their rivals time and time again. The head of the house is Princess Jania Seldarnel .
She is married to a prince-consort by the name of Luth, who is ten years her junior. Jania is a soft-spoken woman of forty-five who delights in gossip, intrigues, and petty displays of status and wealth. She and the other Sedarnels pay little attention to
family interests, leaving them in the hands of their retainers and agents. Most of Jania’s relations are busily engaged in throwing away vast fortunes—the debauchery of the Sedarnels is infamous in Quodeth and the cities nearby. Strange to tell, Princess Jania is now desperately searching for some lost family heirloom said to have been seized by the emperors of Atlantis long ago. She
is sponsoring expeditions to all the corners of the globe to find the “Diamond of Thought,” although why the Sedarnels have only now started looking for something lost a thousand years ago, only Princess Jania could say.
THE SEVEN KNIVES Powerful Thieves’ Guild
While each of Quodeth’s thieves’ guilds is powerful in its own territory or sphere of influence, the Seven Knives are the first among equals. They control most of Quodeth’s commercial districts, raking in vast amounts of gold from their relentless campaigns of
extortion and organized crime. Worse yet, they are the preeminent assassins of Quodeth, and regard all other killings for pay as a direct attack on their prerogatives. The only check on their power is the possibility that several guilds might ally against them
if the Seven Knives become too aggressive. The Seven Knives are so named because their leadership consists of a council of seven master thieves and assassins—the Knives. The identity of each Knife is a closely guarded secret, but they include some
very surprising individuals, such as a high-ranking priestess of Ishtar, a prominent nobleman, and a city magistrate. The Second Knife is the only member of the group to show his face to the rank-and-file, and serves as the spokesman for the group. This is the
immensely fat Hiroom Jarth, whose agile mind and personal elusiveness are in no way impeded by his great girth. Hiroom is known to retain the services of a mysterious sorceress known as the Auspex.
TEMPLE OF SHADOWED SERPENTS Priests of Set
Compared to the sprawling Golden Hall of Mithra, the Temple of Shadowed Serpents is a small, poor temple indeed. Set has never been a popular deity in Quodeth, and the priests of Set therefore keep something of a low profile. Instead of competing directly
with the priests of Mithra or Ishtar for influence in city affairs, the Setists of Quodeth follow a more secretive path. They quietly recruit influential nobles and merchants with honeyed words and promises of multiplying their wealth and power, while making a
show of publicly tending the needs of the poor and downtrodden. A number of Quodeth’s wealthier individuals including no less a personage than Niram Terinth, a member of the Royal Council and master of the city’s mint—are secretly devotees of Set. Through them, High Priest Yezin Rhond masterminds conspiracies, murders, and all sorts of sinister schemes designed to erode the power of Quodeth’s other temples and civic institutions. Only when all is in darkness will Quodeth turn to Set, and Yezin Rhond works to
hasten that day.
THE VORZINS Proud Atlantean Noble House
Over the long centuries during which Atlantis governed Quodeth, a large community of Atlantean nobles and merchants naturally grew within the city. Even after Quodeth’s Kalay nobles reclaimed the Peacock Throne, many people of Atlantean descent
remained among the city’s richest and most powerful nobles. House Vorzin is an excellent example of an expatriate Atlantean house. Arrogant and elitist in the manner of a family clinging to high lineage and dreams of past glories, the Vorzins are at the forefront of Quodethi society. They represent the “old money” of Quodeth, and control vast estates of grainfields and vineyards in the countryside. The head of House Vorzin is Duke Baerad Vorzin, a bluff, vigorous man of sixty who served as a general and makes a show of embracing the martial virtues. He fights constantly to see to it that younger Vorzins and Vorzin cousins are appointed to important posts, married into suitable families, and awarded the richest offices and titles. Duke Baerad has no interest in claiming the Peacock Throne, seeing it as an empty honor, but he is very serious about making sure that House Vorzin controls all important affairs in the city. If Vorzin has a weakness, it is the family’s centuries-old rivalry with the Sedarnels and the Marsesks, who likewise seek to bring the most important positions in the city under their control. Duels between young members of these families are not uncommon.
ZEMAR PHAW Dread Wizard
Quodeth is home to more wizards than any city other than Thran or perhaps Imystrahl, but that means there are perhaps half a dozen spellcasters known to reside in the city. Of this handful of rare and mysterious figures, none are so powerful, famous, or
widely feared as Zemar Phaw, Prince of Conjurors. His home is the dark edifice known as the Palace of a Thousand Doors, and he seems perfectly content to occupy himself with his studies and summoning so long as he is not disturbed—Zemar Phaw does not
tolerate interruptions or thieves. As far as anyone can tell, Zemar Phaw has lived in Quodeth for at least two hundred years. It is commonly assumed that he is a human whose sorcery has prolonged his life greatly. In fact, Zemar Phaw died decades ago and exists now as a lich. Due to his reclusive habits, none in Quodeth know the truth. On the rare occasions when the authorities seek his advice and Zemar Phaw chooses to answer, he employs conjurations or sendings to carry his words.
History
The history of Quodeth begins much earlier than most of its people suspect. The first city to stand on this spot was a nameless jumble of leering monoliths and blasphemous temples, home to a race of froglike creatures—Deep Ones, perhaps, or some sort of
amphibian troglodytes. A terrible convulsion of the earth threw down this forgotten city ages ago, drowning most of the ruins beneath the waters of Sarvin Bay. Thousands of years after the nameless city was drowned, but still thousands of years before humans came to Thule, the serpentmen of Nessk raised a citadel here to guard the mouth of the Quosa. This sprawling stronghold was named Bhnaal Pruth, and it stood for many long centuries until the elves of Imystrahl (a young and vigorous people in that day) laid siege to the place and razed it in the year –1124 AR, more than a thousand years before the founding of Atlantis. Ruins
of Bhnaal Pruth and the nameless city that preceded it can still be found in the sewers and foundations of modern Quodeth or beneath the marshy islands of the shoreline nearby. The human part of Quodeth’s tale began a few centuries later, when the earliest Kalay tribes landed on the shores of Sarvin Bay. A more or less permanent barbarian encampment slowly grew around the mouth of the Quosa as more and more Kalays decided to remain in the rich lands of southeast Thule instead of pressing on into the wild interior. By the year -240 AR, the camp had become a permanent town with wooden walls, and the local chieftain, a fierce warrior named Jal Dror, took the title of king and named his city Quodeth—literally, “Shoulders of the Quosa.” Over the generations, the town founded by Jal Dror grew into a city, and the barbaric Kalays settled and became the civilized Quodethi. During the centuries that Atlantis was growing strong, so was Quodeth, and it became the largest realm in eastern Thule. Quodethi legions broke the elven realm of Sersidyen, ending the time of elven dominion over the human kingdoms of Thule. Fierce campaigns were also waged against the cyclops tribes of the Zinandar Mountains and the degenerate troglodyte-kingdom of Vhaug, driving these old peoples out of the Quosa Vale and the lands nearby. This era of Quodethi conquest came to an end
during an era of civil wars between rival dynasties, the Palands and the Sedarnels. The Palands eventually emerged the victors, but only by allying themselves with overseas patrons—the mighty empire of Atlantis.
For forty years or so, the Palands ruled as kings with Atlantean support, but in 1449 AR, King Abhenon Paland sought to throw off the yoke of Atlantis and drove Atlantean diplomats and merchants out of Quodeth. A little less than a year later, Atlantean soldiers returned. Quodeth fell to the legions of Atlantis in a lightning assault, King Abhenon was forced to abdicate, and the Atlanteans installed an imperial viceroy to rule from the Peacock Throne. Quodeth remained under Atlantean rule for the next five centuries. With Atlantis overseeing the city’s defenses and foreign relations, the Quodethi nobility turned their energy to commerce and trade. Quodeth grew rich, and appointment to the office of Imperial Viceroy in Quodeth became one of the most presti-
gious postings in the Empire. But, in 1906 AR, the era of Atlantean rule came to an end when Atlantis was destroyed. The remnant of Atlantean power survived in Quodeth for a generation or two, until Lord Yero Paland (a descendant of the last Quodethi ruling
house) mustered the strength to depose the Viceroy Iundamos and name himself King of Quodeth in 1946 AR.
Several more Paland kings followed King Yero, but the Paland dynasty came to a final end in 2022 AR when the Jandar barbarians launched a massive onslaught on Quodeth. Queen Nadersha was killed in battle at the gates of the city, and although thebarbarians were finally thrown back, Nadersha left no heir. House Marsesk took the throne after ten years of rule by an ineffective council of leading nobles. The Marsesks lasted for five kings and queens, but were deposed by the Onther family in 2087 AR. The
Onthers proved to be corrupt and debauched, wasting vast amounts of money on ever more hedonistic entertainments and revels.
The excesses of King Zafid Onther were so great that a charismatic high priest of Mithra, the High Curate Jhom Arn, personally led an uprising to remove Zafid from the throne in 2130 AR. Another dynastic struggle threatened to break out between
powerful families such as the Marsesks, the Sedarnels, and the Vorzins. However, the High Curate managed to avert years of chaos and feuding with a compromise: giving the throne to a minor noble family, House Hazeda. The rival houses contending
for the succession were mollified by the fact that neither of their enemies could claim the prize, and each hoped that a weak monarch would be easy to influence.
Now hundreds of years after the sinking of Atlantis. The current occupant of the Peacock Throne is Queen Deyane Verix Hazeda, a young woman who has ruled for just a few years. Most of Quodeth’s educated classes understand that she is merely a figurehead . . . but even so, rumors swirl constantly about the lords and princes who entertain designs on the throne.
Tourism
Quodeth’s soldiers patrol the city’s neighborhoods to prevent riots, arson, and unchecked banditry in the streets. These patrols are somewhat infrequent and stick to the better neighborhoods, since the authorities don’t really care what goes on in the poorer
quarters. When patrolling soldiers happen to encounter serious crimes in progress, they intervene, but few criminals indeed are stupid enough to commit their crimes in the plain sight of the Peacock Throne. Criminals apprehended in the act are dragged
swiftly before a magistrate and sentenced. Unfortunately, everyone in Quodeth knows that justice is for sale. Guards won’t be sent out to arrest a malefactor or investigate a crime unless someone pays the magistrate to order the guards to act. In practice, rich
merchants and wealthy nobles can buy the protection of the Peacock Throne’s courts, while the rest of Quodeth’s people must do without. A far more effective police system is administered by the city’s gangs and guilds, who have a vested interest in protecting their territory from the depredations of rival gangs. They keep a careful eye on crime within their territory, and do not hesitate to administer swift (and usually lethal) justice on non-guild-members who try to prey on “their” ground. Robbery and murder within the guild’s territory is subject to the guildmaster’s approval. Despite this, appealing to the local guildmaster for justice is rarely wise thieves don’t have any sense of responsibility toward the people who live in their territory. The only complaint likely to be acted upon is robbery by some other thieves’ guild. It’s not unusual for thieves to sneak into other guilds’ territory to victimize people their own guildmaster won’t care about, so defending against these opportunists is something a guildmaster takes seriously.
Maps
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Quodeth
Founding Date
-240 AR
Alternative Name(s)
Largest and richest of the cities of Thule, Quodeth is known by many names: City of Merchants, City of a Hundred Bridges, City of Beggars, City of a Thousand Sails, the Peacock City, City of Golden Morning, or simply the Gateway to Thule.
Type
Large city
Population
70000+
Inhabitant Demonym
Quodethi
Location under
Included Locations
Owner/Ruler
Owning Organization
Characters in Location
Comments