Overview: The second largest city in Taldor, Cassomir is home to both Taldor’s Imperial Navy and the Imperial Shipyards. Strategically located at the mouth of the Sellen River, Cassomir also serves Taldor as a trade city, connected as it is to all of the kingdoms that call the shores of the Sellen River home. Trade ships from every nation of the Inner Sea and many beyond can always be found at anchor in Star Bay off Cassomir as the Taldan Imperial Navy performs routine searches and taxation. All craft that attempt to access the Sellen River without first being boarded and searched by the Taldan Imperial Navy are hunted down and either confiscated or sunk. Cassomir also acts as Taldor’s gateway to the Verduran Forest, a semi-autonomous region of Taldor that the empire controls but, thanks to the Treaty of the Wildwood in 3841 AR, largely ignores.
Society: The average Cassomir resident is a salt-of-the-earth, nose-to the-grindstone laborer or merchant. Cassomir’s proximity to the Inner Sea, its port, and its intense naval presence mean that most social life in the city revolves around sea trades: fishing, ship construction, seamanship, imports—if it’s related to the ocean, it’s a career held in high esteem in Cassomir.
Hard daily work gives the average Cassomirite a gruff exterior, a no-nonsense attitude, and a stubborn resolve to finish whatever needs to be done. Shiftless layabouts, vagabonds, criminals, and all those who don’t earn their keep through muscle and grit are looked upon as second-class citizens. Even those who spend their days in a manor house ordering their servants about or who stand on street corners barking out orders to the masses are regarded in Cassomir as arrogant, boastful, and corrupt.
Cassomirites are a religious people as well, revering Gozreh above all others, though a small minority of the city still reveres Aroden and refuses to accept his death. When the fishing season begins anew every spring, Cassomir’s priests of Gozreh lead a solemn procession through the streets, banging a lone drum and chanting in ancient Azlanti a prayer for protection and calming of the sea. Trailing behind the priests, in a line that stretches out for several blocks, come the wives of Cassomir’s fishermen, their faces painted red in remembrance of those who died at sea. They sing the old chant at the top of their lungs and carry buckets of red paint, splashing it at every street corner and emptying it in the sea at the end of the procession. Only by doing this do the citizens of Cassomir believe their fishing vessels to be safe from the rolling waves of the eastern Inner Sea.
Important Sites and Facts:
Quickfall Abbey – At the beginning Cassomir was once a simple merchant harbor centered around this holy site. It was once used by the worshipers of the dead god Aroden and now stands in ruins
Admiral’s Fen – As Cassomir soon grew to become the naval heart of the empire, so too did its desire for ships, and soon the small harbor was expanded and improved and dozens of dry docks were added for the construction of enormous vessels of war. An increase in naval traffic caused the navy to petition the Grand Prince to further expand Cassomir, draining a portion of Blackwood Swamp south of the Imperial Naval Shipyards to make way for a new castle and its surrounding neighborhoods. This area of Cassomir became known as Admiral’s Fen, as every attempt to plan and order the streets, buildings, sewers, and sidewalks here was thwarted by the swamp, its wet and murky fingers always reaching back into Admiral’s Fen to tilt a building or open a sinkhole in the middle of a busy road.
Grayguard Castle – Constructed just 200 years ago, this black-walled structure surrounds an enormous temple that once served Aroden and is now shared by the many faiths of Taldor. Grayguard Castle also serves as the home of Cassomir’s governor and is the official residence of the Grand Prince when he visits the city—something he does at least once a year so that he might get a personal tour of his newest ships.
Dog’s Teeth – Cassomir’s most recently designated district is a series of craggy, rocky islets just off the coast of Grayguard Castle. The district’s ramshackle collection of huts, battered wooden structures, tents, and occupied caves make up the heart of wanderer and adventuring culture in Cassomir—a dirty, harsh, and battered little collection of rocks in which the right person, with the right money and the right names, can get just about anything an experienced adventurer might desire.
The Wildwood Peace - Nearly a thousand years ago, the druids of the Wildwood Lodge approached the emperor of Taldor and presented a simple request: give the Wildwood Lodge some autonomy to protect the last dominion of the blackwood trees, and in exchange the druids would ensure that Taldor had ships for the duration of the empire. Tired of losing patrols to fey raids and largely unable to control the forest anyway, the emperor agreed.
Today, the portion of the Verduran Forest that resides within Taldor’s borders is still a semi-autonomous prefecture of the Taldan Empire and the monarchy still honors the Treaty of the Wildwood. Once per year, the city sends a diplomatic delegation to the Isle of Arenway, the home of the Wildwood Lodge, to reaffirm Taldor’s peace treaty with the druids. In a simple ceremony, the diplomat sets foot on the island beach in front of a senior druid and exchanges a bag of seeds for one arm’s length piece of fine wood, then returns to his boat and sails downriver back to Cassomir.
Cassomir’s Locker – The district known as the Imperial Naval Shipyards has been built and rebuilt numerous times in the city’s history. The constant construction, combined with the region’s natural tendency to sink into the marshy soil, has given rise to a series of connected vaults, sewers, abandoned basements, and flooded tunnels known locally as Cassomir’s Locker. The Locker is said to be filled with crocodiles, human-sized rats, and giant insects, and ever-present rumors hint of a Darklands city even farther below. The city council declares these fantastic tales just that—implausible ramblings of the mad—but the citizens of Cassomir still find it curious that all known entrances to the Locker are either heavily guarded or permanently sealed.
