Dioz City

Dioz, the largest settlement among the Lost Islands of Dioz, is a good-sized city of several thousand souls, built on a small rocky island that commands most of the trade routes here. The Countess Orczaza, a pirate captain who settled herself here with her fleet years ago, accepts tribute from most of the other settlements. Her navy, consisting of a dozen or so ships of the line and an array of frigates and sloops, is by far the most powerful force with the Lost Islands, and her will prevails.

The city of Dioz houses about a thousand souls. It’s not a big place, but it does pretty well. The little island it’s situated on suffers no monstrous predators, and makes for good farmland. There are sufficient landing places elsewhere on the island that the Countess Orczaza had a wall built. She’s a cautious lady. There’s plenty of trade, as the Countess has a reputation as a wealthy and fair dealer, and so cargo comes swarming in, seeking the famous Dioz gold. Local industry produces notable goods, mostly silk, and some of the tradesmen here make well-known finished products.

Hachitoro is a blacksmith known for his fine craftsmanship. He produces high-quality muskets and pistols, most of which the Countess purchases to equip her crews.

A collection of silk farms provides a portion of the wealth of Tan Zu Hsia, an aging widow who rules the underside of Dioz City with a jewel-bedecked fist. While she is constantly on the alert for weakness in the Countess, and savage in her criticisms of Orcaza’s rule, she is one of the most loyal supporters of the Countess. She is also the owner of the Nugget, the most infamous of taverns in Dioz. Widow Tan makes as much money running prostitutes and dice games as she does producing silk, and many shipments bring a few new slaves for her to train.

Fallrin the brewer is a native from Kostalya who learned beer making from an old pirate hand long ago. A massive black man with a deep gravelly voice, Fallrin is a keen scientist and constantly looking to improve his brewing systems. He has assembled a great workshop where fine valves and other products are made, working in concert with Hachitoro. The Fallrin Brewery is a maze of pipes and tubes and pumping fluids of every description.

The shrine of Agwë is run by a former pirate named Hillrose. He was a topman in one of the Countess’ ships when he experienced a vision of the sea as a living thing, and has since devoted his life to praising and placating the waves. The shrine has a pool out front which Hillrose fills every morning with seawater lugged up from the shore bucket by bucket.

Fan Liu is an astrologer/sorcerer who built a huge tower, the tallest structure in town, promising the Countess he would be able to foretell significant events for her. He did famously foretell the destruction of Sanzorec, but as per usual no one heeded his words.

The Dragon Eye Clan is housed in a large complex built on the hill in the west end of town. Beneath their fortified quarter lie the city catacombs, long labyrinthine tunnels where the citizens of Dioz have interred their dead for decades. Few will venture within, and fewer still at night, but many claim that within the catacombs lie passages out to sea, up into the ninja headquarters, and to many other parts of town as well. It’s possible that the Widow Tan uses some of these passages for her nefarious purposes, but it’s also likely that many remain undiscovered, haunted only by the dead…

(Note: map from Fantastic Maps released under a CC-BY-NC-SA License )