Editing Acrozatarim/Gazetteer (section)

=The White Bay=

Eastern Drakkath is dominated by the wide White Bay, so named for the white stone of many of the cliffs and islets.  Here is where the Central Basin's mighty rivers drain out into; here is where several powerful city-states hold sway over coast and maritime trade.  The peninsula of ancient Sukumvarang, original heart of the Drakkath Empire, frames the northern part of the Bay.  The White Bay sends questing fingers of water into the surrounding hills and plains, meaning that travelling from one part of the Bay to another by ship actually requires navigating round long peninsulas and tongues of land.  Innumerable islands stud the White, and further out where the Bay gives way to the Marble Sea the city-state of Pharam Sung stands sentinel.

The White Bay remains as vital to the Drakkath as it did in the days of the Empire.  The ports and the waterways that reach far further into the Central Drakkath Basin are vital for trade and transport, and the city-states have thus flourished in the centuries since the Dawn War as a main hub through which traders travelling the east-west routes from far Ara and Vekath to the Masked Kateni cities and the lands beyond the Desolation.  Of all the Drakkath, the coastal cities are perhaps the most thriving, bustling markets filled with learning and travellers.  Of course, all this wealth and power leads to pride and rivalry; there has been no little conflict between the cities and the surrounding powers, and it has sometimes been a great struggle for these coastal states to retain their independence.

As with elsewhere, the Bay bears the scars of the past.  Most of the city-states are the inheritors of the old Imperial port-towns, or are seated nearby to where the old ports were destroyed.  Tidal waves and landslides devastated much of the coast here during the Dawn War, to say nothing of actual battle, and in many places it is quite possible to see the ruins beneath the waters when the sky is clear and sea calm.  A few Dawn era buildings still survive in the White Bay cities, rebuilt and repaired over the ages, but there is little true Elder technology remaining; some of the islands, however, still play host to slumbering eldritch devices or patches of warped reality.  The Bay and the rest of the Drakkath coastline did not suffer the same way as the Fractured Coast did, at least, and is less littered with lethal relics and mementoes of the Elders' madness.

Fishing is a major industry in the bay, covering the full spectrum of everything from simple fishermen netting edible sea creatures to the specialised arcane hunts and dives for such bizarre aquatic creatures as the glittering deepsun or the aqueous and terribly dangerous bayemot; the produce of the Bay is a major source of strange materials, with new and unknown creatures caught in the nets most years.  Rumours consistently arise of the presence of a small kraken, one of the grotesque marine servitors of the Elders, which occasionally poaches a fisherman or two; but if one is present, it is being careful to conceal its presence from the concerted searches by city-state hydromancers.

Festivals around the Bay often feature the water; yearly thanks are given to the ancestors, to Ishrak and to the sea by the fishermen, usually involving sacrifices tossed into the deep or floating lanterns released onto the waves.  Common rituals also involve pouring a decanter of fresh water into the Bay as a libation for ancestors and those lost at sea; it is also an offering to appease Kevayek, as well as in honour of a lesser-known Younger God called Qinjao, a patron of those who make their living on the sea and who was a great admiral during the Dawn War.  He may be an alternative aspect of the mighty naval god Tshunyak of far Vekath; the people of that land consider him the spouse of Ishrak.

There are other, stranger inhabitants of the Bay than just humans.  The most well-known are the sahuagin septs who ply the waters; they are extremely dangerous and canny.  Despite their ferocious reputation, few actually live as reavers and pirates, but there are a minority who willingly aid marauders - it's rare that a sahuagin ever commands a pack of sea-bandits, though.  Still, cross the sahuagin at one's peril; many of the smaller villages have old agreements to offer tribute to the waters in return for being left alone by the sea devils.  It has been known for sahuagin to serve as mercenaries in the maritime feuds and conflicts between city-states, although most of the city-dwellers shudder at the notion, and rulers which do make use of sahuagin services tend to be sure to make great offerings to Ishrak at her grand coastal temples afterwards.  Sahuagin are also sometimes employed as scavengers to seek out lost treasures in the lost, sunken cities or to hunt specific rare water-creatures; one small sept has quite a name for itself as hunters of elementals and spirits of the deep.  And, indeed, there are stranger deep beings than the sahuagin - the insane brine elementals, monstrous sirens and the frankly bizarre grindylow.  Most of these eerie entities are only rarely seen in the Bay itself, especially due to the warding efforts of the Nine White Temples of Water - nine isolated monastery-enclaves out on small islets, where the adherents live in ascetic discipline.  Each Temple maintains an eternal choir of adherents whose carefully trained and tuned voices are believed to calm the surrounding waters and ward them from sinister presences, in particular those of Elder servitors.  Even the sahuagin tend to keep a distance from the Temples, although in the past some septs have made active attempts to assault and destroy some of these enclaves.

There is a rare breed amongst the people of the Bay, a caste of water genasi who are bestowed with a title that is, in full, the Azure Envoys of Shore and Shoal.  Water genasi are slightly more common than other types of genasi in the communities around the Bay, although still very rare; many families send children born with the water lineage to the strange floating temple of Pharam Istishia.  There they are trained to serve as intermediaries between land and Bay, trained in certain arcane and spiritual practices to enhance their elemental nature.  These elemental knights are some of the few people who the sahuagin septs are willing to engage in negotiations with, and so the Envoys are both welcome in all the city-states and often serve as actual advisors to city rulers and sea-captains; they cut a striking sight with their traditional azure and gold robes.


==Sukumvarang==

'''Icons''': Hierophant Prachatra of the Temple of the High Host

Although the Imperial Palace itself did not survive the Dawn War, the legacy of the Drakkath Empire has survived most strongly in the ancient Sukumvarang Prefecture, now one of the largest of the new Drakkath nations.  It is a major maritime and cultural power in the region, generally seen as a spiritual centre for the south-eastern reaches of the continent and destination for pilgrims from distant lands.  It is a major rival and obstacle to Huronese expansion south, especially since Sukumvarang is the ultimate prize for anyone seeking to claim the mantle of Emperor.

The northern regions of the peninsula serve to protect the nation from land assaults; high mountains and extremely rugged foothills offer a perilous approach for any foe seeking to challenge the Sukumvarang legions, who are themselves highly adept in the forested landscape.  The spine of these mountains reaches south down the heart of the peninsula for some distance before giving way to the flat, forested lowlands that run to the coast; it is here that the bulk of the Sukumvarangese people live, and here where their great cities and towns are to be found.  Phusaratham, the capital of the Drakkath Empire, still stands at the point of the peninsula, albeit with many of the structures and edifices of that era long since lost to the ravages of time.

Sukumvarang is a land of order, its hills and fields well-regulated under the watchful Republic that rules.  Truth be told, the nation would eagerly become the heart of a new Empire if it could, and it now has the resources and manpower that give some the hope that this will soon become a reality.  The last centuries have seen frequent clashes, finally resulting in the conquest of the former Suruni city-state of Dalwreath, but further expansion has faltered in the face of the Huronese threat and no small amount of internal conflict between major political parties.  The temples also hold a great deal of sway here; innumerable shrines to every aspect of every Younger God conceivable can be found here, and the Sukumvarangese make a great deal of the worship of all the Younger Gods as the High Host.  This is in part thanks to the Glorious Defence during the Dawn War, when a great number of nascent Younger Gods protected the Imperial Seat from annihilation - one can walk ancient collonades and roads in Phusaratham that were literally the spot that a divinity stood upon, and see strange, corroded flagstones where Urazel drove a spear through the wretched Ashurnagan's chest or the bright crimson stains where Churaphrat tore her own head off to spill forth the Army of Crimson Rage from her blood.  Walking the land of Sukumvarang is to feel, even more than elsewhere, a truly direct link to the divine past.

Sukumvarang is a place of learning, although a great deal of its knowledge is split amongst the priestly enclaves and orders - groups and factions that often bicker with one another.  Many hold scraps of arcane and eldritch lore that only the chosen may partake of, creating a sacred caste of mage-priests who are considered the most steeped in the mysteries of the divine.  Even this fractiousness, though, hasn't prevented successive Hierophants from establishing a firm grip on their insubordinate flock of temples; and it is here that the greatest of religious efforts are put, with entire conclaves of priests entering into weeks-long philosophical efforts to better understand reality and the world.  Some say that the deeper chambers under the Temple of the High Host have been the setting of some truly strange theological experiments, and the current Hierophant is known for his delving into the secrets of the divine.  Three years ago, a fire claimed one wing of the Temple, and was seen to burn in coruscating rainbow colours; the rumour has it that this was a failed attempt to forcibly invest divine power into a recipient, possibly as an endeavour to directly contact the Younger Gods.  Restlessness amongst some wings of the priesthood and public has grown as knowledge of the experimental theology has spread; even Sukumvarang only sanctions going so far.

As well as the extremely rich resources, fertile soil and repositories of art and culture, the Sukumvarangese possess a larger amount of intact Dawn-era technology than most of the neighbouring countries.  Much of it was scavenged as the Empire collapsed, and much of it is not very well understood, but it's no secret that the Temples hold quite a number of eldritch devices and edifices in their power.  The two old Mercury Towers that stand to either side of Phusaratham's harbour are reputed to have fearsome and still-active defence systems that the Port Authority know how to deploy against would-be invaders, while the immense Shouting Wheels are still put to work gouging great mines in the mountains and hills.

The country is a wealthy one; it is also the producer of a dizzying myriad of different drugs and mind-altering substances, cultivated in temple gardens and in great fields of dizzying hues.  Sukumvarang culture is one where such substances are very commonly used; priests enter meditative trances, scribes rub orange paste into their eyelids to keep them awake and sharpen their perceptions, warriors drink deep of pain-numbing brews and the leisurely enjoy rich, sense-enhancing smoke-liquids.  Those practicing chemistry, herbalism and alchemy find much to learn in Sukumvarang.

There are an unusually high number of genasi, aasimar and tieflings in Sukumvarang, particularly in the upper echelons of society; bearing such lineages is favourably looked upon.  This is because of the old Imperial claims to right to rule from elemental infusion; historically, the Imperial Families were mostly bearers of such lineages, particularly genasi, and practices were encouraged that resulted in more such touched children being born amongst the aristocratic and ministerial castes.  Historical accounts vary on whether Rangkun Yun, the First Emperor, was blessed with elemental might before or after Gilam chose him to enforce order in the Drakkath region; whatever the truth, from its earliest generations the Imperial Family was recorded as being made up of genasi.


==Pharam Sung==

'''Icons''': The Silver Warder, Khala (all Silver Warders taken this name)

Beyond the embrace of the White Bay, out amidst the cruel waves of the Marble Sea, Pharam Sung rises from the depths as defiant white walls upon rocky cliffs.  From here it dominates the nearest trade-lanes, eternally glaring at the surrounding sea from its fortified edges where panopticon-towers vigilantly watch with unnatural scrutiny.  Pharam Sung is a naval power and a slaver-state, a city of prisons and strictly delineated districts.  It is also the heart of Aasorian worship.

Pharam Sung is an uncompromising nation and this has won it no end of conflict with its neighbours; its depredations, and those of the Silver Warder herself, have earned it even more mistrust.  However, it remains a vital figure in diplomacy and negotiations because it serves as a jail for a great number of prisoners from around the world, whether political or due to their dangerous nature.  As well as the somewhat more conventional panopticon-prisons and prison-hulk ships, the Aasorian warders guard deep vaults that are heavily protected with eldritch defences against both intrusions and attempts to escape.  The city is also a major slave market, dealing with captives shipped from the Drakkath, the northern lands, Ara and Vekath; it is hence quite rich.

Of course, the oddity of Pharam Sung is that everyone in the city is a slave.  Every single person has some bond of slavery that ties them to another; lower castes are literally the slaves of higher castes, who are in turn slaves to ministers or generals or high priests, who are in turn slaves to councils or arms of state; even the Silver Warder herself is a slave.  Most Sungese wear signs of this in the forms of symbolic manacles or neck-clasps, increasingly ornate and non-functional as they rise in status, although there is nothing ornate about the chains that bind the Silver Warder to Aasor.  Some consider this institution of slavery to be only an affectation, but it is rigorously enforced by Sungese culture and the legal system.  No man or woman in Pharam Sung is free.  They are all, ultimately, enslaved to the great edifice that is Pharam Sung itself, in service to Aasor.  This is no affectation, for Pharam Sung is not a kind city or a place of mercy.  Silver-clad templars enforce order with brutal efficiency, and even the mightiest minister suffers the same as the lowest labourer should they transgress the duties and limits placed upon them by the Sungese code.

No-one is entirely sure of the full catalogue of just what the Sungese have hidden in their warded jails.  Innumerable slaves toil on the docks and in the thin soil of the island's farms, and hundreds of prisoners sent to the island by distant lands (along with significant payments) languish, forgotten and despairing.  But in the deep, where Elder-tech bore-cells are literally surrounded by solid rock until called up into secure containment bays, there are weird and dangerous things, including beings imprisoned in fields of true void, entities that must be starved of light to contain their power and insane magi held in arcane earthing engines.  Of course, no one believes the Sungese just wordlessly guard these beings; no, it is presumed that they glean all they can from them, and thus build new and stranger technologies and hoard startling revelations about reality.  The panopticons are just one aspect of Sungese power that is not fully understood by the other nations; the networks of thaumineered overseer-watchers are an example of thaumaturgical engineering rarely matched elsewhere.

Ultimately, as a naval power, Pharam Sung relies on its stout defences for the protection of the city rather than a vast army; it is the fleets of the state that are responsible for keeping foes away from those walls.  Pharam vessels follow a series of very tightly defined patterns and rarely deviate from these designs.  They are well-crafted and swift, largely built as boarders in order to take captives, but the grim island lacks much in the way of timber and so one of the state's major imports is wood from the Eastern Drakkath Plains and the Central Basin.

Pharam Sung is known to have developed relationships with all manner of far-away lands, often covert and secretive deals to accept prisoners and keep them far from the lands that have exiled them.  Not all prisoners in the city are treated with indifference; some nations pay a great deal for the relatives of monarchs or dangerous but brilliant individuals to be secreted away and kept in luxury.  Still, this network of quiet pacts lends the Sungese government an unparalleled understanding of world politics, even if the divine imperatives of the Silver Warder so often serve to prevent them making effective use of this knowledge.  They are also known to have pacts and agreements with a number of undersea polities; the local sahuagin septs are generally kept in line and other, weirder entities have also met with envoys.  It is believed that the Sungese have a number of pacts with beings of storm and wave that they use to attack the trade routes and maritime efforts of rival nations.


==Shatter==

Smallest of the White Bay's city-states, Shatter was once Shamur, a port less than half a league from the settlement's current location.  Shamur suffered catastrophe when the lesser Elder God Tervinzarak was metaphysically mortally wounded during a battle on its Chariot; said Chariot ended up crashing into the coast, causing tidal waves and reducing Shamur into a pile of mud and rubble that spilled into the Bay.  The Shatter of today is built on and around the crippled hulk of the Chariot and the remnants of its former pilot.

The Chariot itself sticks out from the shore at an uneven angle.  Where it meets and punches through the cliffs, more conventional buildings spread and sprawl away from it, but the bulk of the city is a rather ramshackle array of structures that cover the warped surface of the Chariot's deck, spill out from the great rents that tore its flanks apart, stack level after level of abodes within the creaking spars and girders of its innards and climb the sides of the immense smokestacks and towers that rise from its top.  Where the hulk's carcass hits the water and begins to sink, innumerable pontoons and piers spread out to form a floating harbour.

Shatter is not generally a place of the rich or the wealthy.  Even now, there are those who fear the consequences of dwelling in and on an Elder's personal sea-throne and who keep clear of the city; most of those who dwell here were once, perhaps generations ago, of refugee or outcast origin.  But the centuries have brought strength and tradition to the city, and the Chariot has still not collapsed under the parasitic weight of the shanties and shambles that encrust it like barnacles.  Still, the innards of Shatter are not a place for the faint-hearted; quite apart from the claustrophobic nature of the dwellings crammed amongst bulkheads and insane pieces of architecture, there remain ancient eldritch guts to the thing that have never been safely disassembled or removed, and occasionally lumps of engine or metaphysical manipulation devices sputter and spark with brief but devastating energies.

Shatter is ruled by a semi-demarchy; a single Prince is elected every decade by a randomly selected committee from amongst the city council, itself made of men and women who captain a vessel, own property of at least a certain value or who have bought their position with an appropriate donation to the city.  After nine years, the elderly Prince Urthane is coming to the end of his service, and new elections will soon stir the deck-gangs of Shatter into their most beloved past-time - politics and campaigning.  As well as the Princedom, any number of lesser political seats are also elected by a random lottery of people from the common population.

Shatter was, of course, heavily looted and scavenged soon after the Dawn War ended, but a bizarre piece of machinery that was not taken before the city established itself was the Organist Painter, a large device the size of a factory that appears as an assemblage of spidery bronze limbs, immense fluting pipes and gurgling vats.  It may originally have been some sort of life support for the Elder God pilot, but now it's been repurposed to printing, painting and dye processing.  As such, Shatter is a brilliantly colourful place, a myriad mess of colours, and during election campaigns (and there are many) the Organist is turned to a frenzy of often ridiculous and absurd propaganda-printing.  It is technically illegal to repaint or poster the carcass of Tervinzarak, but a particularly notable election campaign for a Prince eighty years ago had the dead, preserved god-horror dressed up in an immense paper image of the Prince's chief political rival.  This is fondly remembered by the populace as one of their greatest moments of creativity, even though it resulted in the Lady of Grim Mercy's outraged priesthood having the Prince tried and executed for such desecration.

Amidst the usual riot of shrines and temples clinging to the rusting hulk's flanks, the most powerful cult in Shatter is that of Churaphrat.  The famous priestess Mailu Tien established the temple before Shatter was even truly inhabited, and today it forms a partial covering around the immense, withered husk of Tervinzarak that still squats in its seat atop the Chariot, great snaking cables and tubes puncturing its warped meat to tie it into its steed.  Even just looking at the lesser Elder's corpse for too long causes headaches, meaning that top-deck-walking Shatterites have a habit of keeping their gazes low.  The temple is a monument to Churaphrat, a cold declaration that even Elders cannot match her cold grasp.  Cult practices are rumoured to include chipping at the thing's calcerous talon-hairs and grinding at its elephantine skin to produce substances that are then ground and processed to form sinister drugs and poisons. Of course, even just the corpse of an Elder is a dangerous, reality-warping thing, and the temple has had to be rebuilt three times.


==Khamar==

Proud Khamar, it is said, does not bow its head.  An old port with a defensible harbour, Khamar did not fall into the waves during the Dawn War; it has never been conquered by another city or nation; revolution has never dislodged the line of Khamar Princes.  This is a traditional and ordered place, where things are not changed without careful appraisal and thought first.  A great tome, the Khamar Codex, dictates the laws and cultural taboos of the city, and to change them requires someone to die.

Khamar is stable and rich; its power is moderate, greater than shambolic Shatter but less than mighty Iril.  Its merchants ply the waves far and wide, and the cartels of its economy are not mediocre but neither are they as influential as those of Tergona.  Many see Khamar's conservatism, its unwillingness to change its laws and embrace new ways, as its weakness.  But as any Khamarite would tell you, you must think carefully before you take steps into the unknown, because it costs.

While Khamar is ruled by a Prince and, below him, a merchant council, it is commonly held that the Khamar Codex is the city's real ruler.  Its origin is not entirely clear - it may be Elder technology - but the first Khamar Prince, a very powerful mage, took control of the city in the aftermath of the fall of the Empire and installed the Codex in the city's palace.  The artefact extends its influence across the entire city, subtly encouraging a certain mindset amongst the populace and enforcing the cultural and legal norms written into its pages.  It is even possible for the Prince to directly focus the book's power on a particular district or even person, increasing the consequences for transgressing the laws written into the book all the way up to instant agony or even death.  Sometimes, the book does this of its own volition, seemingly according to whim.

It is not possible to remove the book; it has also remained resistant to attempts at destruction, usually retaliating viciously enough to discourage further attempts (one unfortunate is still decorating a wall nearby the book, petrified and half-sunk into the masonry as a statue caught in eternal agony).  It is possible to rewrite what is in the book, though.  The scribe must use their own blood, and may add, cross out or amend up to one law, one page of culture or one paragraph anywhere within the tome's pages.  They then die, slain by the book's arcana.  Of course, there have been those who have attempted to use a hapless intermediary to make a change, generally by forcing a slave to take up the strange, ivory-and-pearl quill and write on their behalf; these usually (but not always) result in the instigator of the change, not the slave, dying.  This means that to change how the city works, someone must actually die.

As a result, an odd caste of scribe-monk has arisen in the city.  The elderly who feel their time is coming to a close, the despairing who have lost purpose in life, the mortally sick and the truly devoted take up the mantle of the Crimson Scribes, cloistering themselves away in the spiralling heights of the Red Reach in the docks of Khamar.  Here the ascetics prepare themselves for death by legal progress, praying to Lliras and Churaphrat and meditating on what is to come.  Eventually, the call happens, and a single monk departs to the halls of the palace to ink a new law or change that is necessary for the city's good, then passing away.

Outside of Khamar, the Codex is largely reviled, although tolerated as an unfortunate element of the environment when passing through the city; the gates of Khamar hang with great bronze plates etched with summaries of the current state of law and culture.  However, the Codex encourages a stable, conservative, slow-paced culture that many find appealing, willing to trade the risks of life outside the city in return for the safety within - who would dare commit crimes when doing so might kill one in an instant if the Codex happens to be paying attention?  It also makes the city rather challenging to conquer or invade.

Khamar is also noted for the sheer luxury of its Princely court, the accumulation of literally centuries of decadent wealth with little desire for change.


==Tergona==

A Suruni-dominated city-state, the port of Tergona is a startling departure from its rival Khamar - and that after only being free of Khamar rule for a century.  Tergona is a lively, bustling port that is the heart of several particularly strong Drakkath traditions of theatre and poetry, and has embraced a mildly cut-throat form of political and economic competitiveness that can make internal matters rather exciting.  Several eastern Drakkath mercenary companies have their headquarters in Tergona, and it is known for its hireling privateers who are just as willing as the mercenaries to take on a contract - the phrase 'Tergona pirate' is used to describe one who opportunistically turns to violence or theft for profit even if it isn't their usual trade.

A number of coral reefs ring through the waters around Tergona, each a beautiful mishmash of bright colours beneath the waves; only on closer inspection can one see that these reefs appear to have grown atop the old walls of the original Drakkath port that once stood here.  At the furthest reach of the reefs stands the shattered, ancient form of an old Umbral tower, its eerily biological form apparently hit with something powerful during the Dawn War; now, it serves as the basis for a lighthouse.  Several much newer constructions also reach out of the waters, although these look abandoned and rusting - a series of thaumineered storm-towers that were part of an il-fated weather-control ritual two hundred years ago.  The port itself, safe behind the coral-covered carcass of its sunken former incarnation, has undergone a population explosion over the last hundred and fifty years and washed out from beyond the old walls to cover the surrounding landscape and river delta.  Around it, the fertile lands have proven well suited to the cultivation of grapes and rice, and so Tergona rice wines and grape wines are known for their quality.

Ruled by a merchant council requiring an appropriate level of wealth to partake in, Tergona welcomes an entrepreneurial spirit of getting things done amongst its people.  Tergonese culture encourages working hard, playing hard and above all living smart, embracing life and valuing one's wits.  A certain level of unspoken agreement prevents Tergonese politics from getting out of hand - it is strictly illegal for mercenaries to be hired for work inside the city-state other than as guards or defence of the state, for example, although they can accept what contracts they like that take them outside of Tergona.  In recent years, agreements between Tergona and Adhur have led to an increasing role for Solanthaari-sponsored enforcers holding legal status within the city on the basis of specific contracts or agreements that grant them the right to carry through the consequences of said contracts being broken.

Donation to the shrines and temples is seen as an almost necessary gesture amongst the Tergona rich and powerful, and hence several particularly grand complexes have been constructed in the city - particularly the Storm House of Ishrak and, more recently, the white-walled temple to Solanthaar that dwarfs its previous incarnation.

It is not a secret that the Shadowfury, before she became who she is now, came from Tergona.  Her involvement in Tergona throwing off Khamar rule is not entirely clear, but some say she was responsible for the grotesque murderer of the then-Khamar-appointed governor of the city, which first triggered bloody Khamar retaliation and in turn sparked full-on rebellion. In this city, at least, the Shadowfury is sometimes spoken of with admiration as well as fear.  She tends to be portrayed as an ambiguous figure in plays and poetry, and rumours of actual cults devoted to her continue to circulate.


==Iril==

'''Icon''': Tewlcroghen Pendarme, the Merchant Prince

Glorious Iril, jewel of the White Bay, is the most powerful city-state of the eastern Drakkath.  With a large navy and wealthy aristocratic merchant Houses, Iril has shaped the struggles and conflicts of the White Bay and the other cities look to it for guidance.  Now, though, unrest has rocked the upper echelons of society as the royal family has been brutally deposed by the aristocrats, dissatisfied by the expensive ambitions of the king.  Now a council of House representatives decides the city's future, struggles to deal with those Houses that would see the old throne restored, and finds that one man has risen above others in deciding the fate of Iril - Tewlcroghen, the patriarch of House Pendarme.

Iril is a populous city but, as elsewhere, the waters claimed a greater port during the Dawn War.  Still, the present harbour is ever filled with vessels, particularly those trading on the east-west route, and the city grows ever wealthier with each merchant that makes landfall here.  In the new, uncertain future of the city with the death of the king, however, Iril has certainly grown more tense; tempers flare, old alliances are broken, and there are more murders and assassinations.  Still, no-one really fears that there will be true anarchy or a further collapse in government - after all, Tewlcroghen is working behind the scenes, and all know that the old, wily politician will manage affairs.  The Houses that opposed the coup have mostly now either been suppressed or learned to fall in with the new regime; the toppling of several of them has opened new opportunities amongst the lesser castes in the city, and it seems the hard core of the conspirator Houses are encouraging the creation of new, young Houses that they can trust to support the council rather than restoration of royal blood.  It certainly helps that Tewlcroghen expended a vast amount of his personal fortune to contract nearly half of Tergona's mercenary companies to support the new establishment during these early months of change.

Once, red was considered a faux pas amongst Iril society due to the old story of a curse laid on the Irilli royal family; this was rather turned against them when the conspirators wore red for their regicide and to identify their pact's troops to one another.  Now, red is quite in fashion, and the new flag of the city has the same design as the old but stained crimson.  The old superstition about red has just reinforced the overthrow; after all, things are just as the old curse said they would be.

The marines of Iril's navy are said to be the finest in the world, and with good reason.  Ironically, the previous monarch had shifted more and more responsiblity for shouldering the burden of the navy's expenses onto the merchant Houses, meaning that when the coup came, the marines knew precisely who was paying them and stood aloof rather than going to the defence of the royal family.  Two generations ago, a dragon marauding the Bay was hunted down by a coalition of city-state naval forces, and it was the Iril marines who claimed the beast's skull; for a long time, it hung over the throne, but has now been relocated to the Turquoise Hall at the water's edge where the Iril naval command is situated.

As is evident from the common names of Iril citizens and Houses, the city-state is mostly made up of Suruni people.  Society is divided into fairly orderly units - the aristocratic merchant Houses, the artisan collectives, the lower-caste mercantile cartels, and so on down to the labourer halls.  The legal system mostly places weight on these units of society rather than the individual - that is to say, rights and duties stem from belonging to such.  Citizens of Iril who lack membership of such a unit lack rights and duties, and are thus looked down on and vulnerable.  Family and fraternity are important in Iril; you need someone to watch your back here.