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Darujhistan Worksheet

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 4 months ago

Darujhistan, born on a rumour

‘In the Early Cycles in this Realm, three great peoples

struggled for dominion, none of them human as we would know human.

Bowing out early in the struggle were the Forkrul Assail, or the Krussail

as they are now known. Not through weakness, but . . . well, disinterest.

The remaining two peoples warred endlessly. Eventually one fell, for they

were a race of individuals, battling as much among themselves as against

their racial enemies. They were called the Jaghut, though the term has

degenerated these days to Jhag, or Shurl. While losers in the war, they did

not disappear entirely – it’s said some Jaghut survive to this day, though,

thankfully, not on Genabackis.

‘So,’ Mammot cupped his hands around his tea-cup, ‘Darujhistan was

born on a rumour. Among the indigenous Gadrobi hill tribes survived

the legend that a Jaghut’s barrow lay somewhere in the hills. Now, the

Jaghut were possessors of great magic, creators of secret Warrens and

items of power. Over time the Gadrobi legend made its way beyond the

hills, into the Genabackan north and the Catlin south, to kingdoms since

crumbled to dust in the east and west. In any case, searchers came to the

hills, at first a trickle then hordes – entire tribes led by power-hungry

shamans and warlocks. Every hillside was laced with trenches and boreholes.

From the camps and shanty-towns, from the thousands of

treasure-seekers arriving each spring, a city was born.’

‘Darujhistan,’ (GotM, UK Trade, p. 271-2)

Darujhistan: Legendary city on Genabackis, largest and most

influential of the Free Cities, situated on the south

shore of Lake Azur and peopled mainly by Daru and

Gadrobi populations; the only known city to use

natural gas as an energy source. (GotM, Glossary)

Kruppe:'Darujhistan, the mystic jewel of Genabackis'(GotM, UK Trade, p.130)

'Darujhistan and environs:

Despot’s Barbican: an ancient edifice and remnant of the Age of Tyrants

Hinter’s Tower: an abandoned sorcerer’s tower in the Noble District

Jammit’s Worry: the east road

K’rul’s Belfry/Temple: an abandoned temple in the Noble District

Phoenix Inn: a popular haunt in the Daru District

Quip’s Bar: a ramshackle bar in the Lakefront District.

The Estates (the Houses)

The Old Palace (Majesty Hall): present site of the Council

Worrytown: the slum outside the wall on Jammit’s Worry'

(GotM, Glossary)

'the city of cities'

Kruppe: 'The Council of Darujhistan consists of various noble houses, of which virtually one and all possess interests in mercantile endeavours.'(MoI, UK Trade, p.145)

'the T’orrud Cabal – Darujhistan’s secret rulers' (GotM, UK Trade, p.323)

'it has managed to survive three thousand years.’ (GotM, UK Trade, p.320)

'There are three hundred thousand people in Darujhistan' (GotM, UK Trade, p.477)

'Darujhistan – the greatest city in the world.' (GotM, UK Trade, p.71)

'From the wharf sprawled along the shore of the lake, upward along the

stepped tiers of the Gadrobi and Daru Districts, among the temple

complexes and the Higher Estates, to the summit of Majesty Hill where

gathers the city’s Council, the rooftops of Darujhistan presented flat

tops, arched gables, coned towers, belfries and platforms crowded in

such chaotic profusion as to leave all but the major streets for ever

hidden from the sun.

The torches marking the more frequented alleyways were hollow

shafts that gripped pumice stones with fingers of blackened iron. Fed

through ancient pitted copper pipes, gas hissed balls of flame around the

porous stones, an uneven fire that cast a blue and green light. The gas

was drawn from great caverns beneath the city and channelled by

massive valves...For nine hundred years the breath of gas had fed at

least one of the city’s districts.' (GotM, UK Trade, p.130-1)

'Inland from Gadrobi District’s harbour the land rose in four tiers climbing

eastward. Ramped cobblestone streets, worn to a polished mosaic,

marked Gadrobi District’s Trade Streets, five in all, which were the only

routes through Marsh District and into the next tier, Lakefront District.

Beyond Lakefront’s crooked aisles twelve wooden gates opened on to

Daru District, and from Daru another twelve gates – these ones manned

by the City Watch and barred by iron portcullis – connected the lower

and upper cities.

On the fourth and highest tier brooded the estates of Darujhistan’s

nobility as well as its publicly known sorcerers. At the intersection of Old

King’s Walk and View Street rose a flat-topped hill on which sat Majesty

Hall, where each day the Council gathered. A narrow park encircled the

hill, with sand-strewn pathways winding among centuries-old acacias. At

the park’s entrance, near High Gallows Hill, stood a massive rough-hewn

stone gate, the last-surviving remnant of the castle that once commanded

Majesty Hill.

The days of kings had long since ended in Darujhistan. The gate,

known as Despot’s Barbican, stood stark and unadorned, its lattice of

cracks a fading script of past tyranny.' (GotM, UK Trade, p.143)

'The Tyrant Kings: the ancient rulers of Darujhistan' (GotM, glossary)

‘The history of Darujhistan,’ he said. ‘I am just beginning the fifth volume, which opens with the reign of Ektalm, second to last of the Tyrant Kings...Usurper of Letastte and succeeded by his daughter, Sandenay, who brought on the Rising Time and with it the end of the age of tyrants.’ (GotM, UK Trade, p.271)

'Darujhistan’s army is a contemptible handful of noble sons who do nothing but strut back and forth on Whore Street, gripping their jewelled swords' (GotM, UK Trade, p.137)

Re: The Wheel of Ages...

'A massive stone disc in Majesty Hall marked the Cycle of the Age, naming each year in accordance with its mysterious moving mechanisms...the wheel was in fact a machine. It had been a gift to Darujhistan over a thousand years ago, by a man named Icarium.' (GotM, UK Trade, p.420)

Finnest House

'Think of the word “Finnest”. Its meaning, as the T’lan Imass know it, is “Hold of Ice” ' (MoI UK mmpb, p.172)

Suicidal Poets of Darujhistan

Invisible in all his portions

This thick-skinned thing has borders

Indivisible to every sentinel

Patrolling the geography of

Arbitrary definitions, and yet the

Mountains have ground down

The fires died, and so streams

This motionless strand of sharp

Black sand where I walk

Cutting my path on the coarse

Conclusions countless teeth

Have grated – all lost now

In this unlit dust – we are not

And have never been

The runners green and fresh

Of life risen from the crushed

Severing extinctions (that one past

this one new) all hallowed and self-sure

But the dead strand moves unseen,

The river of black crawls on

To some wistful resolution

The place with no meaning

Inconsequential in absence

Of strings and shadows

Charting from then to now

And these stitched lines

Finding this in that . . .

Excerpt from

The Black Sands of Time

(in the collection Suicidal Poets of Darujhistan)

edited by Haroak

(MT, UK Trade, p.503)

Where are the days we once held

So loose in our sure hands?

When did these racing streams

Carve depthless caves beneath our feet?

And how did this scene stagger

And shift to make fraught our deft lies

In the places where youth will meet,

In the lands of our proud dreams?

Where, among all you before me,

Are the faces I once knew?

Words etched into the wall,

K’rul Belfry, Darujhistan

(MT, UK Trade, p.210)

'The Flaying of Fander, She-Wolf of Winter, marks the Dawn of Gedderone. The pristesses race down the streets, strips of wolf-fur streaming from their hands. Banners are unfurled. The noises and smells of the market rise into the morning air. Masks are donned, the citizens discard the year's worries and dance across the day into the night.

The Lady of Spring is born anew.

It is as if the gods themselves pause their breath..'

Faces of Darujhistan

maskral Jemre (b.1101)

GotM uk mmpb p.570

Among the founding families of

Darujhistan, there is Nom.

The Noble Houses of Darujhistan

Misdry

(HoC, UK Trade, p.110)

The night held close

as I wandered