Helgrin's Back[]
Zebesht is an ancient city perched high on a narrow set of mountain ridges which radiate out from a volcanic artesian lake. This distinctive landmark, known as Helgrin's Back is, in fact, a dead titan's body laying sprawled out amidst the Celestial Range. Legend has it that a dead titan god name Helgrin lays interred within this formation. The history of this primordial titan is unknown. However, it seems to have met its demise fleeing some primeval foe of greater power through the Celestial Range, only to be be speared in the back, falling face first amidst the Celestial Mountains leading up to Mount Celestial. Zebesht has been build upon the ridges of its back, legs and arms, with the volcanic, atesian lake Murien welling up from the mortal wound through its heart. Zebesht, due to its close proximity to Mount Celestia is primarily inhabited by Draconics, Dragonborn, Drakkin and Trogans. It is unclear who originally built the original settlement, but the stone work of the Great Puma Citadel bears the telltale signs of ancient Jeppri or Trogan origin. The largest population is Dragonborn, including the ruling class of the city.
Helgrin's Back is a landform of ancient geological and elemental power. It's proximity to Mount Celestia ensures it is brimming with volcanic and geothermal activity and Helgrin's very body make it a place where elemental power is warped. For this reason, the major industries of Zebesht are mining magical minerals and crafting or artificing magical items.
Lake Murien and the Waterfall Canals[]
At the heart of Zebesht is Lake Murien, an volcanic upwelling of sulphiric water that is magically clensed as it rises through Helgrin's Back. This lake is small across, taking perhaps 15 minutes row across by boat, but is incalculably deep. The water is warm on the surface, but the further one dives the more acidic and roiling it becomes. For this reason, steam continually rises off the lake drifting across the ridges of the town, shrouding it in a muggy mist. The water is a deep azure hue and is prone to mirage. From Lake Murien runs a navigable canal along each of the 5 ridges of Helgrin's Back. Each canal is big enough for two transport skiffs to slide past one another, while their punters jockey for position. These canals are crisscrossed by rickety wooden bridges with steep inclines, allowing skiffs to pass below. At the end of each canal, it careens over the ridge's edge in a beautiful azure waterfall rigged with any number of water wheels used to power the manufactories, smithies and foundries within the city.
Zebesht is a narrow city that exists on each side the five canals, with no back streets to be found. One canal runs to the Great Puma Citadel at the head of Helgrin's Back. Four more radiate out to Helgrin's arms and legs. A city wall rings the entire city outlining the silhouette of Helgrin - with the buildings of the city pushing up against it. Below the walls, a precipitous plunge to the glacial valley below.
City of Towers and Family Guilds[]
Since space is such a precious resource in Zebesht, the city has taken on a unique cityscape comprised of dozens of fortified towers running along each side of the Waterfall Canals. Zebesht has a tense history of rivalry and in-fighting among its noble houses and aristocracy. This has lead to each noble house, no matter how minor, fortifying its holdings, building ever upward in a spat of vertical rivalry. Most towers are 6-7 stories and include living quarters, storage for supplies and animals, and space for family business. The tallest of the most prominent families in the city can range up to 20 stories high and include space for retainers, hosting elaborate parties, grammar schools, and art collections.
For this reason, there are no traditional guilds within Zebesht, per se. Instead there are specific families or syndicates of families who attempt to monopolize certain trades, with the guild being indistinguishable from the noble house. So each smithy, workshop, laboratory or merchant house is zealously guarded and operated by a family guild.
Because politics and business are inseparable, Zebesht has developed the strange custom of family guilds being able to adopt other family guilds, which is akin a larger family adopting a minor house and absorbing their family business. When Family Guild adoption occurs, it is usually initiated through a marriage pact, with the wider Family Guild being ceremonially and legally adopted into the patrilineal noble house. It is also common for major noble house to gift minor houses as part of doweries or sell them off to pay debts. For this reason, the political allegiences and fault lines in Zebesht are complex and always shifting.
The Major and Minor Houses[]
The are 6 recognized Major Houses in Zebesht and 36 recognized minor noble houses. The 6 major houses have established a oligarchic control over the city and govern through a council known as the Commission of Great Houses. It is possible, but difficult to be recognized as a new minor house based on wealth, prestige and property and industry owned within the city.
Great Puma Citadel and Acropolis[]
At the head of Helgrin's Back stands an ancient acropolis, known as the Great Puma Citadel. Scholars believe it was originally raised by the Jeppri or Trogons who originally colonized Helgrin's Back. It is built of form-fitting megalithic blocks that have withstood the test of time through countless earthquakes and eruptions, despite their crude construction and lack of mortar. The Great Puma Citadel gets its name from the shape of the compound atop the acropolis, which is in the crude form of a crouching puma when viewed from above. The original citadel has since been greatly expanded to become the major defensive bulwark of the city. The Great Puma Citadel doubles as a military, religious and political nerve-center of the city, combining an ancient complex of draconic shrines with a city hall built into the bones of the ancient citadel. All fronted by a parade ground that doubles as large vendor market. The Commission of Great Houses meets within the town hall. During times of communal unrest - one or two the major houses often barricade themselves within the Citadel in protest as the others besiege them.
See of the Ancestors and Outcast Colony[]
At the right foot of Helgrin's back - beyond the city wall, on the treacherous slopes of Helgin's Back lies the city necropolis, known as the See of the Ancestors. This is considered simultaneously the most sacred and profane precinct of the city. This is where the draconic ancestors lay interred in cliffside caves and dungeons carved deep into the cliffs and a dizzying honeycomb of grottos and stairways crisscrossing the cliff face. It is a hallowed place where the noble houses and family guilds inter their sacred dead and venerate their holy ancestors. So it is a place of frequent pilgrimage. However, it is also considered a place of peril. There is no public prison in Zebesht. Instead, the judicial system works formally through a system of civic fines and banishment. Informally, it works through vendetta. Those who are banished from the city for a limited sentence often take up residence within See of the Ancestors, in part as penance to purify themselves by living among the Living Dead and also in part to remain close to their kin within the city who frequent the See as part of regular private and civic ritual. Overtime a permanent Outcast Colony has evolved within the See with its own clan structure, customs and ways. This Outcast Colony sees itself as independent of the Great Houses and the City of Zebesht, but readily welcomes and adopts anyone outcast from the city. In recent years it has become a center of resistance to the established order and increasingly turned to banditry.
Mining Residuum[]
On the left foot of Helgrin's Back is one of the most productive mining operations in Zebesht, The Fireseam Mine. This mine is resplendent with the rare mineral, Residuum, known for its ability to enhance magical properties. This mine as increasingly attracted outside magical attention and investment into the city. Including two newly recognized minor houses, the Malcant and Zebai Houses of Amyran origin.