City of Death: Lands in Shadow
On a peninsula that juts out into the Crescent Bay stands the northernmost member of the Confederacy of Nine Cities, Azūl, the City of Death. Steeped in dark tales, Azūl is a place few dare seek out let alone explore and earned its sinister reputation from its founder, the Witch-King Ashrakal, and from the Black Hand, an insidious guild of assassins who ascended to power in the city by bending the decadent and corrupt Guild Council to their will. Now, Azūl’s people live in terror of the assassins, who have infiltrated every level of society, their blades sharp and smeared with poison to dispatch anyone they deem traitor to the Mistress who rules.
In this entry in the Lands in Shadow series, City of Death examines one of the most sinister and frightening members of the Confederacy of Nine Cities. As with other installments, the information presented should serve as a starting point for bringing the city to life in your game. The details provided about the city and its inhabitants serve to spark your imagination for further developing the city to your liking. You should change anything you need to make this city yours.
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One of the most feared and hated traditions of magic is Necromancy, for it exists in flagrant opposition to the wheel of life, allowing the living to refuse Father Death’s call and remain in the world long after the body has failed. The undead of Urth trace their origins to this sordid art, many standing as examples of misguided and botched experiments to bind the soul to the world. In many cases, the efforts simply failed, and the magic used functioned instead as an animating force, power that imbued cold flesh with mobility and made these rotting puppets subject to their caster’s will. While more powerful magic came of these initial efforts, many necromancers still rely on these crude spells to create servants, soldiers, or even disturbingly, lovers.
Five days sailing east of the Northern Reach’s city of Gateway, if the wind favors you, there rises the first of a series of sixteen islands arrayed over the Auroral Ocean in a massive crescent that stretches southwards over hundreds of miles. The cultures across the islands are diverse, yet they all regard themselves as one people, the Tide Born, and owe allegiance to a single nation: the Kingdom of Sails.