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Of the Lands and Regions about Solis

Solis stands at the mouth of the Dal where it spews forth into the Inner Sea, a great meandering artery that is the lifeblood of the City States inland. The Dal is a treacherous river, with many hazards for the unwary sailor. Shifting shallows, enshrouding fogs and dangerous rip tides all make her difficult to navigate, especially in her lower reaches. But upstream she is sluggish, wide and deep, with many tributaries and branches making her the ideal highway.

But where there are highways, there are highwaymen, and the Dal is no exception. Perhaps the most notorious of these robbers is Solis herself. Sitting on a great rockey outcrop, she commands views across the river, deep into the Hinterlands and out to sea as well. She is in the ideal position to take advantage of this great trade route.

Many years ago, Solace, as she was then called, was a prosperous and rich city, the pride of the City States, seat of the Sea Lords of Solace. They commanded great fleets and protected traders from pirates and enemies. Solace was a safe haven with deep anchorage and Royal protection. All manner of cargoes passed through her bonding houses and market places. You could walk the dock and never hear the same language twice in one day, so varied were her visitors. Once, Solace was the hub of a great trade network that spanned the Inner Sea and all teh Known World, once she was the jewell of the Trade Coast. Once, but that was long ago, and things have changed.

The Sea Lords became greedy. Already they were rich. They lived lives of luxury and still they were not content. So as time passed, they squeezed more and more out of their neighbours upstream. Taxes multiplied, dock fees rocketed, the cut went deeper and deeper until finaly, the City States could take it no longer. Armies marched upon Solace, under banners of many Lords, with pike and bow and swords of shining steel. But Solace was not worried. She had a fleet that could outflank her enemies. She had high walls and guarding cliffs. She had warehouses full of grain and her wells were sweet and abundant. So for many years she wore her enemies down, tightened her grip on them held them at her mercy.

All along, the City States had acted alone. None would trust the other, none would work together, and none would prosper. And still Solace prospered. Then one day, from the high castles, a watcher saw the begining of the fall of Solace. Inauspicious that day, and not given a second thought. It was one boat. One small skiff making its laborios way down river, against the incoming tide, skirting the marshlands and shoals where Solace' galleys could not go. And in her were three men, each with equipment such that army engineers might carry, measuring rods, compasses, devices for divining and calculating. Artifacts for measuring angles and slopes, to estimating distances and heights, for measuring the depth of the sea and the strength of the currents. And they put them to good use.

Within a year, ships began to report a small fortress being built on the coast south of Solis, across the great yawning mouth of the Dal. It was small, and ringed with wooden fences, atop a small raised mound looking out from the Isle of the Damned, the only dry spot amid march and morass. None took too much notice, as the waters around the isle were a graveyard of sunken ships, wrecked on the moving sands and shoals that made the water foam in storm force. And none really noticed as the fortress grew steadily bigger, until one day there was a great smoke billowing from within its fences and flames that could be seen clearly from Solace. When the fire faded, the wooded ramparts were gone, and suddenly, clearly to be seen, were the great white stone walls of a large fortified city.

And beyond this new city of stone there was a scar cut into the land. Every day this scar grey longer and wider. Great clouds of dust hung in the air about it, and the sun glinted off metal all along its course. It meandered as a river through lowlands and dales, hiding behind hills only to appear again, its head surging on like a serpent in persuit of some unfortunate prey. And at its end sat another new town, on the banks of the Dal, some 50 miles from Solace, where the waters ran deep and the tides were not so fierce.

A Road, some said, to link the two new cities. Until on the final day that Solace stood as Lord of all she surveyed, there was a mighty tremor that shook even the foundations of Solace herself. A terrible smog hung in the air blotting out the shining spires of the seaward city. A low rumble and roar was carried on the wind to the ears of those watchers on the upper towers of Solace, and in the distance, sunlight glinted and flashed along the man made serpent, roaring and foaming up, up up towards the fortress on the Dal, like a brand of burning fire. Until, after 2 days there was a great glint in the distance, a shimmering new river, like to the Dal herself, only man made and orderly, with no more twists than needed to achieve its goal. And on the tongues of sailors was rumour of a new harbour by the Isle of the Damned, protected by a sea wall and great breakwater and watched over by cannon on the ramparts of a great castle. They called this place Dal Haven, and Solace called her Death.

No longer was there a stangle hold on the City States. No longer did Solace control the flow of trade into the upper reaches of the Dal. This new city, with its orderly boulevards and tree lines avenues offered safety and prosperity to the ships that docked. Taxes were low, and incentives were high. Within a season, Solace lost half her trade. With a year, she lost half the rest. Within five, she was in ruins, Sea Lords now prowling the waters as pirates, much as the city had been herself. Soon, all that was left were the poor, the villains, pirates, thieves, murderers, outcasts and any that would not be tolerated in the civilised Hinterlands along the newly prosperous Dal. Canal trade brought new life and new hope and the Canal damned the city of Solace. Solis, they called her now, Soulless, dark, misbegotten, ugly, Where once she thrived, now she festered. The Lords that once danced in her marble halls given way to much more sinister lords whose halls were dark and dangerous. The scourge of the Inner Sea called Solis home now.