Port Telluria

**Port Telluria** (previously **Drukafaren Tyn**) was a mercantile megalopolis, and cultural capital of the Central Lands. It was an oligarchy, ruled by the richest noble families, the representatives of which came together as the Cloudclad Table of Ten as per 1152 A.T., and later the Cloudclad Table of Nine as per 1153 A.T. since the passing of Aerd Sinlán.

Port Telluria was a city-state founded on an island that spanned roughly six miles (10 kilometers) from north to south and seven and a half miles (12 kilometers) from west to east in the Middle Sea, one of the bodies of water in the Central Lands. It was located in the southern hemisphere of the planet Telluria. It was the only city in the known world to have a population exceeding a million inhabitants.

## Government

Port Telluria has known many forms of government since its inception, from a monarchy when the dwarves ruled, to aristocracy, to eventually an oligarchy by the later years After Thulduk. The oligarchy is known as the Cloudclad Table.

### The Cloudclad Table

The Cloudclad Table was a general assembly of the richest and most influential citizens of Port Telluria, overseen by a neutral party in the form of the Church of Telluria's archbishop. The Table gathered twice per month in the floating Cloudtop Castle, a bastion chained to the northern coast of Port Telluria's surface. During these gatherings, laws could be passed, people could audition to the Table's members, and political intrigue could be discussed.

Notably, a position at the Table could be bought by potentially anyone with enough wealth, requiring a yearly contribution of 250.000 gold pieces to the Table's treasury.

### Notable Representatives

Within the Cloudclad Table of Ten, as per 1152 A.T., three families were by far the richest and influential:

**The Sinlán Family,** whose extensive lineage consisted of elves, gnomes, humans, and tieflings, dealt in ironworks and foodstuffs, and controlled a majority of the trade within the Middle Sea. They were represented by Aerd Sinlán, who died by the hands of the Vanguard group known as the Heroes of the Night in 1152;

**The Munhinn-Noire Family,** which consisted of a dwarven lineage that could be traced back all the way to the days of Drukafaren Tyn and the dwarven monarchy, but which also contained halflings and orcs, owned the banks as well as Port Telluria's largest commerical business in the Mirage Portal Magic Shops. They were represented by Veda Munhinn-Noire;

**The Feathertip Family,** which was a lineage of kenku, who have long dealt in magical expertise and who were in control of Telluria's largest and most influential magical academy, the Crow's Nest Academy.

Other seats at the Table were filled by less notable but still influential nobles, including Max Kethvinac and Manaan Riverwatch.

### Church of Telluria

One other quintessential group was the Church of Telluria, represented by the archbishop of the faith, Saint Faelyne the Goodhearted. Members of the Church of Telluria would act as neutral judges during Table meetings.

## Geopolitics

Port Telluria sat on a wealth of natural resources, mostly platinum, gold, iron and silver, that throughout the centuries had been mined and sold, leading to the very expansive boom of Port Telluria as a trading hub, and resulting in the many deep layers of the city below the surface, most of which were unoccupied or abandoned. It was said the dwarves and duergar of old first populated the island, possibly arriving first from the Underdark as opposed to over sea.

## Notable Locations

### Cloudtop Castle

Cloudtop Castle was located to the northern shore of Port Telluria's surface. It was sat upon a large chunk of bedrock that was floating by way of enchanted brumestone, and kept from drifting in the winds by way of five large, heavy black iron chains mounted to the land below. Cloudtop Castle was were the Cloudclad Table, the city's governing body, gathered and held council meetings. It knew its own special guards in the Castlewatch, a branch of the City Guards.

### Hiwraeden Monastery

Hiwraeden Monastery was the central base of operations for the Church of Telluria, located near the heart of Port Telluria's surface. It was a large building of off-white hewn stone, said to have been built by Saint-King Bennar Gleidr during the founding of Drukafaren Tyn as a task given to him by Batha. The building has many purposes, housing the archbishop and the Inner Circle, as well as providing a center for learning of the Church of Telluria's holy scriptures.

### Crow's Nest Magic Academy

The Crow's Nest Magic Academy was Telluria's largest and most influential known magical academy. It was located near the south-west of Port Telluria's surface. It was made of black stone, hewn so impossibly precise that the walls looked and felt perfectly smooth. A large stone statue of a crow stood over top of the main entrance gate, its wings spread so as to invite the erudite of society in. Seven mages' towers stood in the center of the triangular structure of buildings, a tower each for every Mistress or Master Teacher of any one of the magic schools they represented.

### The Pit

The Pit was a large concavity in the south of Port Telluria's surface, as the island was a large atoll that was later dammed in to house more people. It held the sea out by way of the Port Telluria Dam. It was the most densely populated part of Port Telluria's surface. The Pit reached so deep, it lined up with layer -6 of Port Telluria's multi-tiered underground superstructure. It was home to such locations as the Colosseum, Saria's Bathing, and the Deep Gate. It also had an extensive sewer system running below it.

### The Colosseum

The Colosseum was a large arena located in the Pit, which could host an audience of up to 40.000 people. It hosted regular matches between gladiators and sometimes featured battles between gladiators and monsters as well. Surrounding it were large open fields in which gladiators regularly trained and sparred, like the minotaur Kaenos and ex-member of the Heroes of the Night Krevaz Pauldan.

### Skyport Docks

The Skyport Docks were situated somewhat east of the center of Port Telluria's surface, south of Hiwraeden Monastery, and consisted of a large number of towers which functioned as docks for commercial and private airships. It at one point held the airship of the Vanguard's mercenary group the Heroes of the Night, The Eclipse.

## History

### Founding

The city of Port Telluria was first founded around -1500 A.T. as Drukafaren Tyn ('City of Telluria/Earth' in Dwarvish), a dwarven city, by dwarven Saint-King Bennar Gleidr. Drukafaren Tyn started out as a large mining operation due to the resource-rich soil, but as more and more wealth was generated, depleted mines had to house people and merchants, which caused a city to come into existence.

Two of the very first notable structures to be built in Drukafaren Tyn were its Temple to Batha, which later became Hiwraeden Monastery, and the Leyline Plummet, which connected the surface of the city to Upperdark Telluria, roughly 3 miles underground.

### End of Monarchy

At around a year before the event later dubbed 'Thulduk' or 'Doom', a young Dwarf boy, Darron Gleidr, of the royal family of Gleidr was set to be the next king of Drukafaren Tyn. His father, Umgram Gleidr III, had met an untimely demise due to disease. Umgram's death destabilized the kingdom, as many citizens and leaders saw the 14 year old Darron as too young to be a capable leader. It wasn't long before nations from Megiddon and Kingsveldt declared war and sailed their fleets upon Drukafaren Tyn, hoping to take advantage of the political ineptitude of King Darron in war and take the resourceful island for their own. King Darron, still grieving for the loss of his father and overwhelmed by the declarations of war and civil unrest within the city itself, relied heavily upon the help of his father's right hand man and army captain Thodor Brighthammer. Thodor, an experienced tactician and general in war saw this as an opportunity to overthrow the king, supported and persuaded by other captains and nobles. During the battle of the White Bay, he slew King Darron and made it seem like the king had fallen in battle; however, loyalist nobles had discovered Thodor's treachery and had him assassinated as soon as he had set foot in Drukafaren Tyn again, leaving the city truly without leadership. A civil war erupted, mostly due to the disagreements amongst the nobility, and not long after, Drukafaren Tyn had become an aristocracy. Over the centuries, the city became more and more of an economic and mercantile powerhouse, changing its name to Port Telluria as Common replaced Dwarvish as the city's native tongue and the population diversified. Along with this economic growth, the city slowly morphed from an aristocracy to an oligarchy.

### Name change

Port Telluria was founded as **Drukafaren Tyn**, literally Dwarvish for 'City/Land of Earth'. When the monarchy fell with king Darron Gleidr, Common took over as the lingua franca of the city, and the more literal interpretation of the name Drukafaren Tyn was adopted and bastardized, with 'Telluria' being a Common synonym for 'Earth.' Port Telluria's name later came to have a second, slightly different meaning, for when the city passed a million inhabitants a few centuries After Thulduk, another common interpretation of the name became 'The Port or City that represented the whole planet Telluria', with the city being a grand cultural melting pot. Some would say this name spoke to the arrogance of Port Telluria's inhabitants, and that it was proof that its citizens deemed themselves to be at the center of the world.