The smell of salt in the air, the clamor of bells and merchants hawking their wares. Gulls wheel overhead, diving for the unsecured food of naïve tourists while locals look on and laugh. Sun-bleached sails are visible from near any intersection in the tiered city; all roads lead to the sea in Port Kesh.

Notes

Kesh is a major port, the primary entrance by sea to the continent of Iskander. It is a hub of both cultural and mercantile exchange. It is nominally an isolated city-state, but it exerts significant influence over nearby settlements.

• The Kesh harbor contains a forbidden holy ruin. Some say that visiting a place too holy for a person means that something holy will visit Port Kesh in turn - and not with good intentions.
• Their strict adherence to tradition has ensured that rituals and practices that honor their deva have been preserved. The people of Kesh specialize in weather- and water-manipulation. Their magic is more potent, but still requires many practitioners to effect change.
• The Drowned Legion is the local name for the mythical monstrous horde of spirits or ghosts which lies at the bottom of the north outlet from the harbor. Keshites believe that disturbing the massive shipwrecks there will bring the wrath of the Legion down upon you; they will stalk you for the rest of your days, and if ever you are out of sight of land, they will attack and capsize your vessel – dooming all aboard.
  • The people of Kesh used to bombard the harbor floor every year to keep the Legion at bay; now they give offerings of food. Sailors used to believe that making offerings/sacrifices at the drowned temple would keep them safe on their voyages, but now they scorn these tales.
  • The Legion has been dormant for ages, but with magic waning, some believe their return is imminent. Isolationists welcome their coming, willing them to wreak havoc on the port and bring an end to Kesh’s modern culture of travel and trade. The isolationist sect believes that their traditions are what keep their magic strong and wish to preserve their inherited ways of living through any means necessary(?). The ocean, particularly around the ruins of the Drowned Legion's ships, has begun to bubble at night.
• There are deva who hide among the people of the city, using human clothes to disguise themselves and change their form. They integrate into society for benevolent or at least benign reasons, but if they are ever scorned, they would be a potent enemy. They do not heal people directly, but they manipulate events using their powers and their assumed social positions to help. This help is usually viewed as good luck since it is done anonymously. Only a select few senior magic users can see the devas for who they truly are using artifacts, and the knowledge of their presence is a closely guarded secret.
  • The druids and deva of the city are hiding the fact that their magic is waning and that it will get increasingly difficult to forage and farm in the coming years.

Tags

[influential], [spiritual], [ill-omened]

Notable Encounters

• The Fellowship landed in Kesh in Session 0, and received a task from Orr Dradesh to investigate the thefts of the Unakh-Drakken to the northeast.