Szebarz, the Island In The Evernight

[brian 333]

A century ago an insane gnome appeared, ranting about an impossible land of eternal night, where a bustling metropolis was a hub of trade between dozens of cultures around the shores of a massive sea. The island, he claimed, is a port and a fortress guarded by an army of merfolk and ruled by a secret society of assassins. He claimed that the only law was to not bring yourself to the attention of the city's rulers, and the only law enforcement was a quick death.

Of course, he was ridiculed and eventually locked up for his own well being. Eventually, he and his ridiculous story were forgotten.

Last year the bard Fuls Steeldrum accompanied a dwarven exploration team into the depths beneath the dwarven city of Vernak-Thab where, after a months-long descent into the unknown, they came to a bay of a dark underground sea. Such bodies are not uncommon in the depths of the world, and few are as large as they appear from the shore. However, after a few days of coastline exploration, otherworldly singing enchanted several members of the party to charge into the sea, presumably to drown. It was only the countersong of Steeldrum which broke the enchantment on the rest, and they quickly ran away to continue their explorations.

Steeldrum is now recruiting other adventurers, hoping to prove, or disprove, the tale of the mad gnome, and find the Island In The Evernight.

He is looking for:
3 boatmen proficient in handling shallow draught boats
6 porters/rowers
2 navigators/mapmakers
1 cook
2 healers
9 adventurers

He anticipatates a six-month journey. He offers a flat salary for skilled tradesmen:
Boatmen 500gp/month
Porters 250gp/month
Navigators/Mapmakers 1000gp/month
Cook 750gp/month
Healers 1500gp/month
Adventurers 1000gp/month/level

He also offers junior and senior partnerships in which each participant can opt for lower, or no salary in exchange for a share of the company profits. These agreements are logged with the Golden Gryphon Society, which is a regional Adventurer's Guild for elite adventurers.

Junior Partnerships
Each 250gp salary reduction buys 1/2 of 1% of the company, which will pay out at the conclusion of the adventure. Quitting voids the contract. Voided contracts revert to salary for time served.

Senior Partnerships are shares in the enterprise. Senior Partners buy in, and do not receive a salary. Every 500gp invested buys 1% of the company, with an equal controlling interest. A maximum of 50 full shares are offered, representing half the value of the company. This pays out to deceased investors' assigned heirs.

The Sea is vaguely octopus-shaped, with seven 'tentacles' of thirty to fifty miles in length central to natural and constructed cavern and tunnel networks. The thirty by fifty mile bulb is where Szebarz is located, and it's ceiling vaults to two miles or more above the surface of the Sea. The Sea is deep and wide enough to have tides, which run to several feet in the east and west tentacles, with seasonal tidal bores in some.

Central to Szebarz is a massive pillar that is about two miles in diameter, and which connects the floor and ceiling.

[Metastachydium]

Szebarz

Sz

How do you pronounce that? The Hungarian way? The Polish way? Heck, some weird, messed-up German way? Is it even a digraph? I need to know.

[brian 333]

Just like it is spelled.

s-ZEB-arz

But don't stress the s. It just softens the z at first


The shoreline of the city is a ring almost twenty miles around, built up with walls, docks, and enclosed harbors. Forts along the perimeter wall control access to the city, but these defenses are penetrated at many points underwater which allows the merfolk to come and go in the maze of canals and natural underwater caves.

Within the defensive wall are countless bazaars and shops which offer items from all around the sea, and beyond. While some merchants maintain guards, most do not, secure in the knowledge that the city assassins will deal with thieves and scam artists.

It is rumored that underwater tunnels lead to an immense grotto within the central column, where the mer-folk king holds court. Some say he is the true ruler of the city.

Other rumors speak of twisting caverns that run through and up the column to the roof, and to caves and tunnels which lead to distant lands. These same rumors claim that the assassins who rule the city also control access to the column, and that uninvited entry will result in death.

The city is built primarily along the outer ring, with some residential areas up-slope from the half-mile band of the commercial zone along the shore. Still, less than 10 square miles of the island are built up, and with a population ebardensity of about two-thousand adult inhabitants per square mile, roughly twenty-thousand beings reside on Szebarz.

[Quizatzhaderac]

Some big picture questions. If the sea was unknown, but the city trades with a dozen cultures on it, are those dozen cultures also on the unknown sea and unknown to the starting culture?

I'm going to suggest that the Szebarzians have some magic way to move ships between the Evernight and the corresponding surface sea above wherever they are.

I'm going to suggest that they keep themselves secret for military security and trade advantage. Also, they get almost all their food through so trade is seen as a literal matter of life and death.

Some suggestions on how this society could actually work. Since mysteries exist to be solved. There are actually three laws.

The first is that the water belongs to the merfolk. This just implies docking fees, and that right of the merfolk to have militias, and other mundane things.

The second law is that Szebarz must remain a secret.
Any who wish to travel outside must accept a geass prevents discussing it with outsiders. They can tell if the geass is resisted. The mad gnome's insanity allowed for a loophole.

The third law is that there shall be no other laws. In practice this means not being so powerful that your word is law. For example landlords employ henchmen to prevent property crimes, but if they act like feudal lords they may wind up dead.

Court is essentially a public debate settled by a vote of the crowd, that technical doesn't have any consequences. For clear cut things a "criminal" might be lynched. Shunning and boycotts are a common consequence. If a powerful person loses in court, and doesn't try to make amends, it's not strange for them to turn up dead. Advocates that effectively and unscrupulously manipulate the courts are also known to wind up dead.

The assassin council
They have an imposing fortress with no visible entrance. If you manage to sneak in, you'll find it's empty 99% of the time. It's usually only "full" for the rare formal meeting. Membership is awarded on the ability to conduct assassinations and agreeing to some Geneva-convection like terms.

Most assassinations are done by groups on the council, but on "private" business, not on council business. The council itself mostly exists to keep a lid on the other members. The council's watch words are "Peace" "Survival" and "Freedom", but each member will say them it their own order.

a hub of trade between dozens of cultures around the shores of a massive sea.

So what to people on shore think when the Szebarzian traders come to visit?

The most simplest thing would be that they always lie and say they're from wherever is farthest away. They always suspiciously have an assortment of goods from around the world rather than the specific place the claim to have come from. This could be used as an opportunity to have the PCs play detective.

ruled by a secret society of assassins.

Little nitpick, a secretive society of assassins; if everyone knows they rule they can't be a secret.

dark underground sea.

Some details that would be relevant when adventuring there:
Are there winds?
Are there currents?
Salt water, fresh, or some fantastic, undrinkable thing?
Exactly how dark is it? Will adventurers (with magic and tools) not be able to see more than 60 ft in from of their moving boat? How is the city lit?
How are they getting boats there?

Eventually, he and his ridiculous story were forgotten.

Big picture, good idea; however we still want it to be in the story somehow.

Is the story in a bunch of bard songs everyone assumes are fiction? Did Fuls Steeldrum stumble upon a dusty tomb in some dwarf's library?

9 adventurers

This is a good opportunity for some tritagonists. The party of PCs, plus some shady, but skilled, adventures. Maybe a jerk the PCs can argue with. Maybe a Szebarzian spy. Maybe some bandits to steal the first treasure you find and run off.

Also, for the "rest" they're probably want as many people as possible who can both row and fight. Only adventures and tradesmen who are very valuable are worthwhile if they don't row.

He also offers junior and senior partnerships

I'm not sure this makes sense unless there's a specific reason to think there will be some kind of tangible treasure to take back.

Maybe the dwarven king of Vernak-Thab (that financed the last expedition) is financing this one as well. A little bit out of curiosity, but also standard dwarven king reasons: evaluating potential threats, finding resources, and building trade routes. The trade routes being especially promising as dwarves generally lack port access. Also, maybe there's political nonsense going on with the humans above the dwarf king, and he'd really like a way to opt out of it.

guarded by an army of merfolk

From what, generic D&D hazards?

I'm going to suggest that the merfolk were the original inhabitants. And live in neighborhoods in the shallows around the island. The city on land started as a sort of lawless zone for terrestrial inhabitants.

[brian 333]

Some big picture questions.

Some answers to the posed questions:

Unknown is a relative term. Unknown to surface dwellers and until recently, to the dwarves.

Trade was going to be addressed later, but essentially there are 3.5 avenues for trade.
1) there are cultures along the arms of the octopus, (septopus?) which trade by sea. Some use vessels of their own, some trade with merfolk, and some trade among themselves, (with varying degrees of violence.)
2) the tunnels in the column connect to other secret tunnels that extend around the continent to other underground societies.
3) within the column are guarded portals to other places, some of which connect distant lands, with the possibility of portals to alternate realities or planes.
3.5) some ships have the ability to portal themselves to distant bodies of water.

The food supply is an issue for such a large and urbanized population. Like all caves, the food ultimately comes in from the outside. However, the food chain in the sea ultimately begins with chemosynthetic bacteria which forms a slime on virtually every wet surface. Rocks exposed to this slime become pitted over the years and crumble into clay. This bacteria affects granite more than limestone, and although it grows rapidly, it can only grow to a thickness of about 1/2 inch, (1cm.)

Similar bacteria dwell in and around hyperthermic vents and, in the deepest depths, on the margins of cold sinks, where dense, highly alkaline water form mirror-like pools and puddles on the sea floor.

This bacteria is usually orange and red, but there are yellow and green varieties. These colors are sometimes absorbed by the otherwise white clams, crabs, and shrimp which consume them. Several of these species specialize in particular varieties of the bacteria, such as the vast mats of clams encircling the cold sinks and the shrimp that thrive in water hotter than the temperature of wood fires. Most simply graze on the bacterial mats in the rocky shorelines and underwater outcrops.

Tiny cave fish also browse on the bacterial mats, as do some aquatic insect larvae. All of these are fed upon by larger species of their cousins, as well as other species, including the merfolk, fisherfolk, and other denizens of the caves.

Bioluminescence is not unknown underwater, but it comes into its own in the biospheres of the walls and ceilings. Vast patches of chemo synthetic bacteria are host to colonies of glow-worms which feed on the various creatures that are attracted to their glow. Spiders create webs which funnel and trap crawling and flying creatures and other predators, including a giant variety of ant lion, build lairs and cling to the ceiling as they hunt.

Among the largest of the non-flying predators is the Electric Spider, whose webs are used to shock and capture stunned prey. Its abdomen flashes in neon pulses of light as it attacks.

Another giant luminescent creature is the rock urchin. It crawls slowly among the glowing patches eating as it goes. The bioluminescent cells travel to the tips of its spines creating a glowing warning to predators.

Occasionally, creatures fall from the ceiling, but most successful hunters have strategies to prevent this. From the floor of the caverns the ceiling appears to be a patchy green fog with dark trails and bright, often moving, pinpoints of light. It is not very bright from the point of view of surface dwellers, but to creatures with low-light vision it is as bright as daylight.

Some of the hunters are adventurers from Szerbaz or the nearby cultures who opportunistically harvest creatures to sell as food in the markets. Urchin and glow-worm are culinary staples, both of which merfolk will trade at ten pounds of shellfish to a pound of ceiling meat.

It is not difficult for such a place to remain secret: distance and difficulty getting there do most of the heavy lifting. The assassins control the portals and ship captains are notoriously stingy with their maps. It is not unlikely that there are prohibitions against advertising the location, but if that is so it is likely to be resolved via elimination of the loudmouth.

Of the three laws proposed, 1 & 3 are assumed. The merfolk do control all traffic on the Sea in the Evernight. They collect tariffs from merchants and keep monsters and invaders at bay. And anyone stupid enough to proclaim laws or declare themselves ruler over the city, or parts thereof, do end up dead. Usually in grisly ways intended to garner notice.

#2 is problematic because there is no central authority or bureaucracy that can be sought when such permission is desired.

I like the idea of court by public acclaim. But I'd add that occasionally people end up dead on the street with their tongues expertly removed, with signs saying, False Witness. Just to make people think twice before raising a rabble without just cause. Of course, this does not bring the dead to life, so those hanged for crimes they did not commit remain dead.

Within the region of the Overnight, there are many rumors about the assassins. Who knows? This one may be true.

The traders who trade along the shores of the Evernight do not have to hide where they are from. All of the regional cultures know of them, and for a fee merfolk will guide them if they do not know exactly where to find them. Most of the shoreline cultures have their own merchants who trade with their neighbors and directly with the city because even if they are at war with It's not hard to find a two mile high, two mile thick glowing column if you are within ten miles or so of it. Trade upward, to the surface, is potentially lucrative but, practically, it goes through so many taxes and tariffs that by the time it gets there it sells at a loss. Cultures closer to the surface like dwarves get better prices and greater variety of goods through trade with the surface cultures. The few who directly trade via portal or similar magics typically exercise a monopoly on those methods to prevent competition.

The 'secret' of Szebarz is not kept by decree or by a desire to be hidden; it is kept by poor modes of transport through the territories of people who compete, often violently, for resources, and by the greed of merchants who wish to maintain their profit margins.

The secret society of assassins is not itself a secret. Who the individual assassins are, where and if they meet, or who their informants might be is the secret. That trader, is she an assassin? An informant? What about her assistant? The real question is, what price will knowing the answers exact?

Winds exist, and typically flow from hot to cold. Surface winds blow toward heat sources and ceiling winds blow toward cold. None are as fierce as on the surface except where constrained by geography, and since most are steady, they are generally useful for sailing in only one direction, and then in places where they are restricted enough to be useful. Trading vessels tend to use oars and poles to move.

Currents, like winds, tend to move in thermo lines. However, there are exceedingly deep places, sometimes several miles deep, which are isolated from the rest. These deep places have their own currents which are not detectable from the surface. Again, like the winds, currents in the sea are magnitudes less powerful than in similar sized surface lakes and seas.

The water ranges from brackish to ocean-level salinity with higher alkaline levels around thermal vents and cold sinks. Metallic content, on the other hand, is lower than on surface seas due primarily to the chemosynthetic bacteria fixing metals within the clay layers created by their constant devouring of rock crystals. Fresh water, often contaminated with living bacteria and microscopic animals and fungi, drips from the ceiling. Occasional fresh water falls rain from above with varying degrees of potability, and streams and waterfalls flow into the sea. Typically, exposed fresh water sources are controlled by some group, so traders find it easier to trade for drinking water than to fight for it.

Light is variable. In the Evernight the ceiling illuminates as intensely as a set sun illuminating the night sky. In the 'arms' of the sea both brighter and darker regions are common. Creatures with low light vision can see as if in full daylight. Standard vision sees little more than shadows and motion beyond thirty feet. The ships are usually crewed by natives to the shores of Evergbright, with low light and dark vision being common. For them, vision is not a problem.

Deep gnomes use the caps of giant mushrooms as barges, and they pay mer-folk with bronze knives and tridents.

Duergar craft steel hulls and bind water elementals to propell them.

Cave Giants use the stems of giant mushrooms to build huge rafts which they paddle.

Humans use anything they can barter from others, but they also have some portal-capable sailing ships which are skulled on the Evernight.

Elves have sailing ships crafted of giant bird feathers or wood carved in feather patterns.

Mag-men carve barges of pumice and row or pole them with wrought iron tools.

Goblins have mushroom-stem dugout canoes, and other races manufacture boats as appropriate for their abilities and opportunities permit.

The expedition will be carrying at least three flat-bottomed portable boats, weighing about eighty pounds each, to carry gear and personnel. These will be twenty feet long and five feet wide, and when ready for use, will be covered in waxed canvas. They are rowed.

The crazy gnome story should be discovered in the preparation phase of the adventure. Perhaps a bard wrote a drinking song about it a generation ago. Perhaps some old dwarven curses make sense in light of the new information. Perhaps there is an old adventurer's diary in an adventurers' guild library. And my favorite: while discussing the upcoming adventure with the healers while buying healing supplies, an aged cleric recalls the gnome's mad ramblings. He may even be able to introduce you to him. (Gnomes lived 750 years in 1st ed, and he may have never been updated to your edition.) The gnome might warm you of the toad people whom you cannot see until they attack, but they smell of sulphur and swamp muck!

The primary limit to the number and composition of the party is logistics. Full members bring in additional cash, and may be able to guide the purchase of additional equipment and party members. A buy-in might include additional boats or boats of a different type, for example. And while members of the party will be expected to face danger, they won't be expendable mooks. Someone has to carry stuff. Perhaps hiring rower/porters with adventurer classes would be a good use of the extra money.

Fuls expects to recoup his investment primarily because he earned the investment in his previous expedition. He knows of several potential honey-holes and intends to exploit them if he cannot find better.

Hirelings may indeed have different agendas. The DM will have to create the characters, and may even choose to retcon if warranted. Example: Porter Dan miraculously survived several encounters. Player Jim's PC got ate by a giant crab. Player Jim could take over playing Porter Dan as a character with PC levels. Example: a streak of bad encounters happen and Rower Joe seems to have always ducked before trouble started. Turns out, Rower Joe is a spy who has been warning allies that the party is coming. His goal is to prevent them from exposing the city and creating an alternate trade route that would compete with existing routes.

And, of course, some characters are just jerks.

The dwarf monarch is interested in purchasing results, but is not financing the expedition. Fuls Steeldrum is interested in profit. So much so that he is willing to share to have a better chance of realizing them.

What lives in the Evernight is a whole Monster Manual of possibility. Your idea of the merfolk as the original inhabitants has merit. But I think this may be an unknowable from the past. You, as DM, may be able to come up with a history that you like.

Three things I did not want, but you may:
1) Drow. In my opinion, they should have remained in Greyhawk. There are too many imitations and shipping companies invested in drow to make them anything but fetish fantasy figures now. Even a builder with pure intentions will have player expectations to overcome.
2) Mind Flayers. Predators of intelligent beings should decimate an adventuring party. (Players seldom find that fun when playing characters they have put time into.) Absent that threat, Illithid become cartoon villains who are sure to get you next time. Which is fine for comic adventures, I suppose.
3) Aboleth. Having a monster that by its nature enslaves others is great. Having a society of them brings all of the issues of 1&2 above.

The things I wanted to bring:
1) Competitive/cooperative societies creating dynamic tensions that players could use, or try to use, to gain advantage.
2) A 'safe' base of operations with an overarching, possibly unsolvable, mystery and a depth of culture and history.
3) A departure from 'Evil Society bent on ruling the world' to allow for 'Evil society organized to optimize cultural survival'. Too many world builders create grandiose schemes for their evil races and forget that Evil as a societal descriptor must first function for preserving and propagating the society before they can have potentially actionable larger ambitions.

More to come.