If You Grew Up In Drakkar

For characters growing up in Drakkar, the write up below is from the perspective of the typical Drakkar citizen and what you’ve most likely grown up hearing there. People from other cities may have different views or different information.


What You Know About Drakkar

“Legends say this city used to be a goldmine. I say it still might be, but you’d never tell under all this grime and soot!”

Drakkar is a primarily dwarven city carved into the sides of the White Winter Moutain Pass. It’s a vertical city requiring use of the plentiful, hewed out stone “ladders” to travel between most points. The slope never reaches a full 90ยบ though, thus granting Drakkar the “Oblique City” nickname. Most homes and buildings are actually caves built into the mountain itself, with the only non-cave buildings being the Khurdak clan house and the shanty slums precariously hanging close to the river below.

Drakkar is populated mostly by dwarves, they’re responsible for running the mining operations there and practically run the whole city because of it. They live at the highest points of the city. There are some gnome families in Drakkar as well, most of which work on improving the existing mining machines. They live on the slope as well, but below most of the Dwarf homes. Finally, there are a few humans as well who mostly do janitorial work on the city. They don’t live in the mountain, but rather live below the dwarf and gnome homes in hanging shacks above the river.

It might seem strange that there are a group of humans almost solely responsible for keeping the city clean, but at any given day it’s hard to tell the soot from snow at Drakkar. The dwarves are constantly burning half of the coal they mine to power the mining machines themselves and for warmth, so there’s a persistent fluttering of soot and snow that needs to be routinely swept away to prevent the whole city from going up in flame.

You’d also know Darrak Khurdak is the current head of the Khurdak clan. While some of the lesser houses do have a say in city affairs, the Khurdaks traditionally have the final say.

While relations between the humans and the dwarves & gnomes are not great in Drakkar (as you’d expect, given how poorly the humans are living), rumor has it that Darrak has been floating the idea of establishing better living conditions and opportunities for the humans there, but has been receiving considerable pushback from the council against this.

What You Know About Ramon

“Drakkar is the only thing keeping Ramon alive, and they’d do well to remember that! This island is colder than a witch’s tit, if it weren’t for our coal shipments every damn week, Ramon would be one big pompous ice cube by now. Not to mention, it was OUR stones that allowed them to build that city in the first place…”

Centuries ago, Drakkar and Ramon supposedly got along great, but with the way things are now it’s hard to imagine that was ever the case. Tensions are high because Ramon is objectively extorting Drakkar’s coal shipments by paying fractions of what they’re actually worth. With Drakkar’s own economy on the low and Ramon’s routine coal purchases being the lifeblood of the city as a result, they have little choice but to accept.

You would know that Ramon has historically been run by the Halsey family, the heads of the merchants guild. While Ivarstead is technically a port city as well, they haven’t sent or received a ship in centuries, leaving Ramon as the only functioning port city on the entire island. While moving into or even vacationing to Ramon has been extremely tough in the past, there are rumors circulating that they’ll ban it entirely and shut down the city from all Agora interactions other than the coal and occasional stone shipments from Drakkar. While Drakkar’s not particularly happy about this, they’d still be able to continue their meager business with Ramon, so they’re mostly indifferent towards the rumor.

What You Know About Lorelai

“That place still exists?”

What most people in Drakkar know about Lorelai is it used to be a hub city servicing trade between Ramon and Ivarstead ages ago (back when island trade was more common). Now? If that place still actually exists, I can’t imagine there’s anyone other than disease ridden thieves there at this point.

What You Know About Ivarstead

“They’re kidding themselves, that old city’s running on fumes. Once their stores of money from the old times finally dries up they’ll wither away like that Lorelai place did.”

All most people know about Ivarstead is it used to be the sister port city to Ramon and traded with the western islands. While Ramon continues trading occasionally with the only other trading island (located close to the east), Ivarstead’s trade vanished completely once the Black Tar Ocean was deemed too dangerous, leaving the city to coast on what remained of it’s once-plentiful money stores. If the city isn’t in trouble yet, it sure as hell will be soon.