Zargyod's Fists

"Zargyod's Fists" is the title given to two substantial rocky shoals in the Sea of Jars, some two hundred yards offshore on either side of the mouth of the Chondolos River. They have been used as fortifications by the city of Chogyos since the time of the Chogyan Hegemony.

History

Although the Chondolos River is deep and navigable for most of its length, the sea around its mouth is shallow and contains several shoals that presented a danger to shipping in the early days of the city of Chogyos. For many years, therefore, crews arriving in Chogyos for the first time (and often many times thereafter) required a pilot boat to guide their ship into the port. This involved passing between two large, forbidding outcrops of black rock which were more or less invisible after dark. Chogyos was a wealthy market with an appetite for goods from other cities, not to mention a virtual monopoly on sought-after ginger, and was thus a necessary component of the trade networks on the Sea of Jars, but actually getting a shipload of goods to or from the city was a prickly problem.
This changed in the early days of the Chogyan Hegemony, when Chogyos was able to use its naval superiority to establish power over the cities of Elpaloz and Ramoros and its wealth to buy the co-operation of corsairs from Loros. While the corsairs used their coercive leverage to secure the cooperation of the peasantry along the banks of the Chondolos, tribute from the other cities fattened Chogyan coffers. The clerisy of the deity Zargyod, who had for a number of years been providing pilot boats to the city's port, lobbied for improvements to the port that would make trade easier. Members of the secular government were initially sceptical about this, arguing that the shoals around the city aided in its defence in a time when attack from the opposing alliance of eastern cities led by Pholyos was seen as an omnipresent threat. The clerics responded by suggesting that causeways between the existing port facilities on both sides of the mouth of the Chondolos would in fact aid the defence of the city by forcing any attacker from the sea into a narrow, easily-defended channel, the marine equivalent of a defile. After some consideration the government agreed to the expenditure of the money and resources it would take to build these structures.
The construction of a causeway is heavy miserable work and progress was initially slow; records suggest that two years after the project was launched only a dozen or so metres of the structures had been completed. It was at about this time that a naval flotilla arrived back from an engagement with an eastern fleet with a large number of prisoners taken along with their ships. The plan was to ransom these prisoners as usual, but the clerics of Zargyod proposed a different idea; that they should be offered their freedom in exchange for completing the causeways. Once the structures were complete, they would be free to go, giving them an incentive to get the job done. The large majoirity of the prisoners evidently took this deal, and it appears that the causeways were complete within the next three years. What is not at all clear - for the records actually make no reference to the point - is where the prisoners went after their release.
The efficacy of the construction of the causeways to the two islands marked the beginning of systematic indentured labour in Chogyos. It also allowed for the further fortification of the islands, which had become known as the Fists of Zargyod in recognition of the role of the clerics of the god in their absorption into the city's infrastructure. Over the next several years the two islands were built up with stone walls and battlements around their seaward sides, becoming fortresses of a sort. Though these defences were never tested by an actual foreign assault, they remained an important element of the military thinking of Chogyos throughout the remainder of their hegemony.

Modern era

After the decline of the Chogyan Hegemony in the second century BWR the upkeep of the fortifications tailed off. Over the intervening centuries these problems have been sporadically but never incisively addressed, and the current fortifications are clearly scaled-back iterations of much doughtier structures evident by the wave-eroded remnants of larger buttresses around the coasts of the two islands. 
This is not to say that the Fists of Zargyod have been neglected, merely that their perceived primary function has changed. The Chogyan cult of Zargyod changed focus with the Wesmodian Reformation rather than disappearing, and so did their holdings. In their modern, largely secular iteration as the Commercial Guilds the cult saw the Fists of Zargyod as less of a defensive measure than as a way of controlling traffic in the port, and considerable resources have been expended refurbishing the islands in this pursuit. Large beacon towers have been constructed on both islands, which now serve as lighthouses; ships can enter the port by sailing between the two lights. In doing so, however, they will be expected to pause to be boarded by agents of the Guilds on boats launched from small stone jetties on the Fists, who will register their arrival and take stock of their cargo. This information will be dispatched to the Chogyos Customhouse by means of couriers stationed on the Fists, who will be most of the way to the mainland on the scrupulously well-maintained causeways before the visitors are allowed to proceed to the wharves proper.
By this mechanism the Commercial Guilds maintain an especially tight stranglehold on trade in Chogyos, and therefore on their status as the de facto government of the city. This is a state of affairs that the local aristocracy has no problem with, so long as the resulting trade remains buoyant - as it tends to do.

Landmarks

Since the land area of these two islands is only a few hundred square yards apiece, they lack the space for any particular landmarks. This being said, their capacity as the former home of architecture commissioned and overseen by the cult of Zargyod lends them interest to archaeologists studying the history and procedures of that institution. It seems highly likely that both islands were once home to shrines of Zargyod, probably constructed at an important transitional period between his veneration as a sea god and as a god of fortune and wealth. Getting access to the islands to search for remnants of such structures is problematic, however, as they remain the fiefdom of the Guilds, who are not always willing to allow snooping. If any thaumatologists have found anything on the islands, they have yet to publish their research. 

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Type

Outpost / Base