Editing Acrozatarim/Gazetteer (section)

==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.