CASCAVEDA – City of Wizards

  • Ruler: King Beldazeem (blue dragonborn)
  • Population: 20,000 (50% general peasants, 20% scribes, 10% wizards, 8% sages, 5% sorcerers, 5% warlocks, 2% Tinker Gnomes)

Also known as the City of Wizards, Cascaveda is a skybound metropolis with a huge population of spellcasters. Built into and out of a massive earthberg six miles in the sky, it is also the only place in the world where Tinker Gnomes may be found.

Cascaveda, City of Wizards

The city itself is a wild agglomeration of buildings in all kinds of architectural styles clustered all over every angle of the largest earthberg in the world, hovering six miles above the ocean just south of the Zenobi Mountains. Many buildings and apartments are adorned with windmills or byzantine clockwork projects of the Tinker Gnomes and the surrounding sky is dotted with skyships from ports all over Zenobia coming and going.

Levitating gondolas ferry people from place to place all around the rock while clockwork messenger pigeons (an invention of the Tinker Gnomes) flit about delivering missives and small packages. These artificial birds share the airspace with real pigeons and other birds during the day, while bats issue forth from caves in the rock by night.

That’s just the surface world. Within the earthberg there are catacombs and chambers, galleries and forgotten hallways, even some twisted caverns that are said to link up to the Underdark. And then there are the apartments and residences of wizards who have enlarged their interiors by magical means. There are many more dimension and spaces to Cascaveda than what meets the eye.

Law and order are almost non-existent. Nearly every transaction is covered by a contract between parties. Respect (and fear) governs most people’s actions where everyone knows somebody who knows a wizard and most everyone defers to their judgement. Disputes between spellcasters are judged by King Beldazeem who favours wizards over sorcerers or warlocks.

The city is served by a largely kobold slave caste, but as slavery is not outlawed in Cascaveda, some people own Humans, Halflings and Goblins. Warlock familiars such as Imp and Quasit can be found alongside their animal counterparts all over the city running errands for their masters and infestations of Mephits and Gremlins pop up at random all over the place.

There are a lot of mercenary security groups and a few thieves guilds running protection rackets all over Cascaveda, but since virtually nothing is actually outlawed, many gangs simply harass tradesmen and low-level magic-users when they feel like they can get away with it.

In the political landscape of the Skyrealms, Cascaveda has remained Neutral throughout its existence and maintains only a token patrol force of a dozen skyships. This Royal Navy mostly acts as escort for King Beldazeem when he goes sailing.

Features

  • Cost of living is high: all items in PHB are triple the listed price (including inns and taverns)
  • Magic markets have items for sale to discerning buyers
  • Gremlins, Mephits, Imps and Quasits are common pests
  • Kobolds make up a large slave population
  • Magical gondolas taxi people around, 2-6 passengers at a time for 5 gp/passenger
  • Clockwork messenger pigeons cost 1 gp/message, 5 gp/item up to 5 lbs
  • Docking for airships is 20 gp/day, refitting 100 gp/hull point


The Skyrealms

There are five major powers that rule the skies above Zenobia.

  • Cascaveda – largely free, independent city-state
  • Belvary – a loose confederacy around and east of the Zenobi Mountains
  • Kuth – Chaotic Evil Sorcerer-Kings who are usually too busy in-fighting to
  • be a serious threat, but provide safe haven for pirates.
  • Lagrasso – An alliance of sky barons over Thalizar and Virzen.
  • Sebitarn – The southernmost reach, dominated by the Guild of Freemerchants based out of Kamanora.

History

Millennia ago, the earthberg was the site of a palace inhabited by a Cloud Giant named Casca. She was slain by adventurers led by Sir Rygan, a paladin devoted to freeing the slaves toiling in the mines that honeycombed the landmass, digging out the precious ore levitanium which allows skyboats to fly without dirigibles.  

Sir Rygan and his comrades established a fortress and converted parts of the Cloud Giant’s palace into barracks while mine tunnels were repurposed for living and storage. The trade in levitanium was lucrative, but threatened to get out of control by exploitive prospectors moving in to fill the power vacuum left in the giant’s demise and, if too much were removed, the earthberg would lose buoyancy and crash to the ground six miles below.

In the 700 years since then, the earthberg has attracted settlements and grown as a major strategic power in the Skyrealms. Always careful to maintain its political neutrality, Cascaveda resisted any early attempts at capture by the other four powers of the Skyrealms, and its large population of spellcasters makes it an unappealing target today.

Wizards, Sorcerers and Warlocks, the practitioners of the Arcane Arts and therefore often outcast antagonists of traditional religious powers, gravitated toward Cascaveda over the centuries. Then the Tinker Gnomes came. Nobody remembers when they first started showing up, some say they came from some deep dimension of some forgotten mine within the earthberg, but they are a splinter of regular Gnomes who, intrigued by the concentration of magic, took up residence to get a closer look at what was cooking and take a hand in it.

Shopping

You can buy just about anything in Cascaveda, and a great deal of things you can’t buy anywhere else, such as readily available magic items.

Using the Magic Item Tables in Xanathar’s Guide on page 140-141, anything on
the Minor Items, Common list is freely available for 3d4 x 100gp. Other items are available as listed below.

  • Healing Potions (reg: 50gp, greater: 100gp, superior: 200gp)
  • Bag of Holding: 1000gp
  • Cloak of Protection: 5000gp
  • Decanter of Endless Water: 1000gp
  • Dimensional Shackles: 2000gp
  • Driftglobe: 500gp
  • Gem of Brightness: 500gp
  • Gem of Seeing: 5000gp
  • Immovable Rod: 2000gp
  • Keoghtom’s Ointment: 500gp
  • Periapt of Health: 1000gp
  • Periapt of Wound Closure: 1000gp
  • Ring of Feather Falling: 500gp
  • Sending Stones: 500gp
  • Spyglass: 300gp
  • Rope of Climbing: 1000gp
  • Windfan: 2000gp
  • Scroll of Protection: 500gp
  • Scrolls (spells): 500gp/level

Any other items are DM’s discretion and typically involve a few days of looking around, making inquiries and waiting for replies.

There are no universities in Cascaveda, ironically. Instead, there are countless libraries and bookshops which must be scoured for scraps when researching spells. There are also many clubs and associations where wizards trade and share spells. Membership in any of them is mostly a matter of rapport.

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