A Little Deci Myth

[Sire Halfblack]

A Little Deci Myth
Extracted from The Realm of Glass

“-and that’s one for Stav.”

“Stav?” Asked Wire Kendry. “Who the hell is Stav?”

Backslide looked at Kendry curiously. “Stav, the city, y’know?”

“No.” Wire Kendry said sternly as he looked at the divided piles of loot. “I don’t remember any Stav on this job. There was you on the roof, me in the house and, oh yes I remember now – no one else!”

“Look, you’re new here. Deci’s Stav, the city. It doesn’t really have name, Syav’s just what we called him in our house – me dad told me about him.”

“Well he didn’t tell me.”

“Yeah well. Me dad said that Deci used to be this brigand camp years ago. All the thieves and bandits used it as an’hang out, y’know, a neutral town where the Republic never bothered to come. Well, the town only became what it was because of a spirit what nicked part of the city from Halgar.”

“What, this bloke Stav stuffed a few churches and the odd shop in a bag and carried them all the way over here?”

“Nah, its meta-wotsit. Forical. The first City-Spirit stole bits from other cities and brought them ‘ere, then we ‘ad a city-spirit and things went on from there. No one knows what the spirit was called – me dad just called ‘im Stav. Each job in the city yer put’s a little aside for Stav.”

Wire Kendry looked at Backslide and very deliberately took the single note set to one side and placed it in his own pouch. “You’re barking.”

Backslide watched Kendry leave the decaying house they’d taken over and collide with a small man in very dapper clothing. Before Backslide could introduce Mr. Tamary to Kendry the newcomer pushed Ulis out of the way with a snarl. Three paces down the street a lump of stone guttering fell to the street and crushed Kenry’s head to a pulp.

“Told yer.” Muttered Backslide and wandered into the street to rifle Kendry’s dead body.

[Sire Halfblack]

History (2nd Age)
Extracted from The Realm of Glass

Deci was barely a village at the start of the 2nd Age and it was sometime in the first century that it was taken over by a band of brigands for the winter. For successive years they returned and the people within, far from resisting found it easier to just let them take what they wanted. This continued for five years until the headman of the village invited a second group to shelter there. The two bands met, fought and battered by the conflict were easily mopped up by the villagers who had been practising with bow and staff all summer…

It might have ended there, but the villagers were of an enterprising nature and having just gained the sum loot of two brigand bands for no loss to themselves began to make plans. They used the loot to buy supplies and instead of working the fields that year worked on their fighting skills some more. When, two years later, yet another band came upon them they let them in for the winter, but at a tithe of one tenth of their captured wealth. Obviously the birgands laughed but when three of their number were immediately shot they left quickly.

Time went by and eventually a further bands from the north actually took them up on the offer. They were safe and fed for the winter, the only fights being between themselves after the villagers ruthlessly killed the first person to turn on them. Over the course of fifty years Deci grew as the wealth came in along with the clientele. Trappers took up the offer and the traders on the way to Halgar bought their wares. The less scrupulous traders ‘fenced’ the stolen goods found there for sale in the capitol and the village became a town.

By IM321 the town had gained something of a reputation. So much so that Baron Stolgolis sent his household guard along to bring the town under control. The guard entered, saw an awful lot of people having a great deal of fun, which they couldn’t afford, were made a better offer and promptly agreed to join with the townsfolk as a rough and ready city guard. Naturally the laws within were vastly different to those of the normal Republic and so not only was their job easier, but they began to make money in pay-offs such that their positions became not only reasonably wealthy but also sought after!

Brigand bands will be brigand bands however and soon the town was extended as the settled bands began to keep together for safety. Venturing forth over the countryside the brigands rarely bothered with camping out and actually settled within the frequently extended palisade.

In IM452 the Republic sent a Legion to collect taxation from the town. This had the effect of recognising the town as a member of the Republic by default. The people paid up and the Legion left happily only to be attacked three days later by a small army of bandits. The town elders tut-tutted about the shocking lack of law and order in the locality…

By this point hunted wolfsheads were hiding out in the town, surprised that no one gave a damn about who they were. Murderers fleeing from Halgar and Alguz justice soon learnt that in the town due process of law was a thing of myth. They would practise their art, be found, tortured and killed. The law of the town became ‘don’t be caught’ and social evolution gradually ensured that only the really good scum prospered. The original brigand bands evolved into guilds and conflict was common, even at some points encouraged.

As with most of Labyrinthia, the land was riddled with caverns and it became clear that a strong Drowe presence existed beneath the streets. The Drowe were surprised that, for the mot part, they weren’t viewed as evil to be hunted down. Rather, they were merely prospective customers. The Drowe population swelled as members of their race – hated in the Republic, sought safety within the ever increasing town. Numerous links have been made with the Drowe and city ever since, a state of affairs that exists to this day.

Whilst Halgar was the seat of adventurer employment, Deci became the place to find ‘darker’ hirelings. Indeed, many of the people who the large number of Halgar mercenaries sought to track down could be found in Deci itself.

In IM752 the gangs and guilds were forced to band together and form a limited peace. The rebel tribesman Cavrin attacked and eventually took the city. Deci had a long held cultural reaction to this however – they made them welcome. The horde’s loot was spirited away, the water poisoned and the leaders assassinated. Six months later and the tribal rebels left the city over the course of a single night.

The town was almost the size of a city however and as reports of Cavrin’s failure reached Glorianave and Kessleharn each sought to absorb the city. Taxation was taxation after all. The city elders however played both sides off against the other and within the year instead of paying taxes they were accepting ‘grants’ from each Magiocracy that ensured that the tactically located Deci was really on ‘their’ side.

Deci never applied for Settlement status – it was granted by both Kessleharn and Glorianave due to the town’s loyalty through many hard years…

When House Amora was banished from Glorianave it took up residence in Deci. This has often been thought to be the reason for many of the traits so commonly found in that bloodline. When he assumed the throne, Cerus Amora did not forget the city he knew so well. He confirmed it’s appointment as a full Imperial City and promptly despatched five full Legion’s to the city. The Legion’s did not wear uniform, but wore ‘colours’ (such as worn by the gangs) of Imperial purple. The Empire did not invade and subjugate the city to Imperial will, it just showed that it was the biggest gang in town. The city elders grudgingly began to pay their taxes, but only under the condition that it wasn’t taxation but was in fact protection money…

[Sire Halfblack]

Extracted from The Companion Issue 6 Vol 6
Nov 2004
By Alan Morgan

Deci
In IM1004 With about four fifths the urban population of Halgar, Deci had a greater number of people within its walls than even Scarlene. Unlike the other great cities however Deci has a minimal number of citizens in the rural lands that abut and surround it. The imbalance is the result of both the city’s unusual growth and the thin, rocky land that surrounds it. Arguably the most famous of the Imperial Cities, Deci was actually the last of those possessed of such status to join the Empire and it was never part of any real Magiocracy, nor the Republic, despite the attempt in IM 452, or even the Principalities before that.

Little more than a village in the early days of the Second Age, Deci was successively attacked and taken over by brigands of every stripe. Within a century it was a town, one with ramshackle yet high walls and an extremely rough system of laws and justice based about various codes and traditions decided by the then Mocker Lord, Robber Baron, Mouse Lord, or one of a dozen titles invented by the current ruler. So far north as to be of little interest to the Heartland’s centralised societies elsewhere it prospered in population over succeeding centuries due to the arrival of more wolfsheads, attacks and settling by various tribes and even those exiled by the Princes and then the Republic. Indeed it was the latter that lead to the emergence of some kind of stability as the brigand leaders wed their daughters to those exiled holders of the Blood. Justice became harsher, more simplified and the old rule of the strong over the weak just took on the veneer of civilisation.

Nevertheless the city was not ruled by one person, nor even a single family. Rival groups assembled in a crude council and over the years each developed different areas of control and expertise in craft and trade as well as crime. It was not until IM 752 though that the city truly united, if only for a short time, when it was attacked and taken by the tribal hero Cavrin. Part of an uprising against the demands of Magiarch and the cities Cavrin used Deci as his base but in half a year his horde had been poisoned or lured away, his treasure was stolen and his people scattered and divided.

Even when House Amora was exiled by Glorianave it came to Deci and there prospered. Such a time though, the Magiarchal Wars, are the cause of much of the cities current woes. Refugees came to Deci by the thousand and by the time of the establishment of Empire the city had tripled in population, if not in actual geographical size. It had not only been swamped by those fleeing the result of the Magiarch’s conflict but had sustained less direct assault at the hands of the same. Where once it had been able to support itself through trade, raid and even some farming this was no longer possible and for a good fifty years now Deci has either been under the rot of famine or desperately fending it off.

Deci is very much a traditional fantasy city in the manner of Lankhmar and Sanctuary.

The People and the Land of Deci
Deci people are hard, wiry and have a foul reputation amongst those of other settlements. The rich and powerful are often fat whilst most everyone else is terribly gaunt as there is never, ever enough to eat. A hard city to grow up in the city does breed people able to take care of themselves and even in the best parts of town the culture is for people to gang together. It is of course a nonsense to say that everyone is a thief, a murderer or an assassin in Deci, the city simply would simply crawl up it's own arse and expire within ten years if this were the case but it is true to say that just about everyone is not adverse to such. Swiping a pie left out to cool or using a knife against the bigger man aren’t crimes to the citizens as much as they examples of good, plain common sense.

Much of the city is taken up with the West Quarter, more commonly known as Cheapside. Here there is little law other than that imposed by the Kallah or the stronger gangs. Almost exactly as the city once was in its earlier days, and often with about the same population, Cheapside is nearly a museum of the city's past. Here poverty and injury exceed those found in any other city for the division between rich and poor is nowhere more obvious than in Deci. But this seems to drive people on and it is true to say that more mercenary adventurers come from Deci than nigh on every other city put together.

Perhaps the most curious Quarter though is the Heights. Due to some local foible, natural or supernatural, the Quarter had collapsed into the catacombs below on no less than six separate occasions in the city’s history. Each time more of the settlements underbelly has been exposed to the open air and thereafter more buildings have been built on top. The result is that the Heights are as much a vertical Quarter as a horizontal one. The top most layers are home to the Nobility and the truly grandiose houses and buildings of the city, as the rebuilding meant that they were the newest in a city crowded and where land is at a premium. Below them though stretch the streets of a Quarter that goes up and down, rather than along. In place there are streets four or five levels below the city’s surface but still, in parts, open to the night air. Very odd, but of course very Deci.

Often unseen by visitors and mercenaries, many of the city’s people, outside of Cheapside, work industrially for poor wages, brutal masters and simple rewards. As many, if not more, are members of the city’s reputed Hundred Guilds and though the more powerful have been recognised by the city of late it is true to say that there are many such bodies that have not even been noticed by the city’s leaders. The gang culture lends itself very well indeed to Guilds.

Deci works different hours to other cities. It is a night-time settlement with hours of business and typical activity being almost exactly reversed, hour-to-hour, than elsewhere. There are both a lot of drow, orcs and citizens more comfortable about the shadows in Deci and this had led to the mannish folk being somewhat pallid, sickly looking wretches. The influx of fresh blood over the last century though means that if one accepts the underlying culture of criminality there is otherwise no real, stable civic character as such.

Naturally, colourful clothes are not common. Most being old, patched and handed down through many generations the majority are a sort of washed out brown or grey. Even the Nobles dress "down" in the sort of black favoured by they and adventurers. The Nobility of the city are again unlike those found elsewhere. Though of the Blood theirs is mingled with that of the cities ancient brigand leaders and the cities Houses are a markedly chillier bunch than those found elsewhere.

The city does have a solid trade foundation. There are an awful lot of traders in the Empire who come from Deci, the city producing ideal stock for the sort of tough, cunning men and women who range about the Empire. Most include the city on their regular route as firstly they know what to bring and what to take and secondly… well secondly they get to show off to the people they grew up with in the same manner as home-grown adventurers. The city does have resources of course, unlike the farms of the Heartlands Deci’s rural folk are often small time miners amd prospectors. The city itself might own a few mines but most of the cities material comes from independent gatherings who work their secretive holdings jealously. Likewise, with such raw metal about the city has long since been the home to a great many darkened sweat shops that turn out all manner of material goods from spades and hinges to nails and toe-caps. Just not food!

It is also a very, very crowded place. Even with the city doing its best to improve the housing for the citizens mostly still live in a variety of oddly shaped houses, lofts, garrets and jumbled tenements studded with dozens of lop-sided squares, bridges and crumbling alleyways. Deci people are not shy, not decent and live, eat and rut wherever it is possible to do so in what passes for privacy amongst the shared rooms or well-roamed rooftops.

Manners and modesty are for the Nobles and the dead.

Why Mercenaries Adventure in Deci
Because there is always someone hiring! The city is such a chaotic slum that events can be swallowed whole with hardly a whisper troubling those scant streets away. Whilst the Council is noticeably dedicated in some areas there has never been any real control exerted over those looking for a few able hands and indeed how could they? Traders and Guildsmen needing something sorted out quietly often come to Deci or spread the word to their peers that they are looking for a few a few willing swords. Of course it is also easy to dispose of any treasure acquired.

The city is also sat in the midst of a somewhat desolate, rocky series of hills and dead fields, dank streams and sickly winds, i.e. the North. Villages are scattered and though brigands find themselves dead inside three months from the city's dedicated hunters there is otherwise a lot of ground standing empty. The lack of people and brigands mean that trolls and other hearty mercenary fodder can be found in abundance and of course the Brekken Mountains, and thus the edge of Empire, can be seen smudging the far horizon on one of the city’s notoriously infrequent clear days. Deci doesn’t need the Mittlenacht to contain it’s lost villages and hidden valleys, it’s got all the room for them to be such under their own merit. Most of the rural gatherings mine the land of its resources and live in palisaded huddles or amongst the ruins of fallen and forgotten towers. A mercenary could probably find work just by taking a good stroll about the hills of Deci.

Probably the best reason though is that adventurers are something to which many people aspire in Deci. Whereas elsewhere mercenaries might be viewed as lax scum, murderous thugs or a necessary evil in Deci they are heroes to even the lowest grubrat! The people aren't interested in heroic tales or daring myths but they do want to be rich, feared and fat. And some of the most famous are very much all three.