Blackgrove Refuge

The Exchange - The Vulkoorí trading settlement of Blackgrove Refuge is a refreshing patch of shade amidst the dangers of Xen'drik's forests. Drow, kreen, and frogfolk trade and work alongside each other, learning from each others' cultures and creating opportunities for families and adventurers alike. In recent years, the Refuge has also become a site to organize against colonial presences on Xen'drik; while its people are primarily concerned with the day-to-day affairs of the present, Blackgrove Refuge is beginning to be a symbol of Xen'drik's future.

Blackgrove Refuge Size: Large Town (25,000-50,000 people)

Population: Mostly Vulkoorí drow, with some Súlatar and frogfolk; Ko, thri-kreen, and giantkin move through the area but rarely stay as long.

Government: The Refuge began as a trading settlement with no authority beyond the Tanaq family of Qaltíar enforcing resource and land usage restrictions. As the purpose of the settlement has changed in recent years, its government is currently in a trial period, approaching the end of the third year out of nine. Four Assemblies oversee different parts of the settlement; the Aquasa Assembly oversees trade and diplomacy, the Kaxat Assembly oversees defense and resistance, the Pylan Assembly oversees public and environmental health, and the Vasaq Assembly oversees community work efforts and education. The Tanaq representative has veto power in the Pylan Assembly and tiebreaker power in the Aquasa Assembly.

Age: Roughly 400 years

Purpose: Trade, Social Exchange, Anti- Colonial Resistance

Organizations: The Aquasa and Kaxat Assemblies work against colonial interests in Xen’drik alongside druid circles such as the Unbound Brigade. The Pylan and Vasaq Assemblies employ adventurers as part of daily life. The Le-Tek kreen pack uses the local manifest zone as a graveyard and hatching ground, and works with the Tanaq to preserve the land, while the Outsiders’ Circle offers opportunities for Khorvairian and Sarlonan adventurers to work towards reparation.

Blackgrove Refuge is in a perfect spot for a trading community – a Syranian manifest zone that enforces peace that opened up at the confluence of the Hydra River, creating an ideal neutral ground with an easily discoverable location (at least, by Xen’drik standards). The spot is situated in the overlap of the Tanaq Qaltíar drow, Net Sluwingir frogfolk, and Le-Tek kreen territories, who have been using it to meet and exchange goods and information for generations. When a band of the Erez Hantar’kúl family discovered an ancient Sul’at site hidden under the water, the ensuing boom camp blossomed into an established trading settlement.

The Refuge has changed or flickered out a few times due to shifting zones, but the Tanaq made an agreement almost a century ago with a Na’qalla settlement looking to place a new population in order to stabilize the local Durash'ka Tul. Most citizens of the Refuge give at least a mumbled version of Na’qalla prayers to remind the land of who lives on it, and it hasn’t seen shifts for many decades. The underwater Sul’at site has been picked over for useful magic, but Súlatar still come seeking historical information and magic item components from Qaltíar hunts, and ko traders enjoy having a location where they can seek out their groundling cousins.

Woven Refuge. As the black mangroves that give the Refuge its name are unsuitable for shaping homes due to their blinding poisons, the drow of Blackgrove Refuge have woven their homes from rattan and bamboo, setting them on stilts over the more open shores of the Hydra River. Without the leaf canopy of the forest, the drow use brightly colored fabric overhangs to protect their eyes from the sun, and the market platforms and meeting halls are awash in shimmering hues even without drow dancing lights drifting through them.

The Refuge is a place of music, laughter, and conversation, where dialogues and ideas grow and change and flow as days go by. While the Refuge is too recent for its solé grove to have awakened to full sapience, its people can still consult the memories of the dead, and the solé is listening. Growing Resistance. Over the past few years, as Khorvairian adventurers have flooded Xen’drik in the wake of the Last War, the Refuge has also become a gathering point for anti-colonial resistance efforts; the Assemblies are an attempt to make the settlement useful to the people gathering to figure out ways of repelling the presence of Stormreach.

The way that the Storm Lords think about the Shattered Land is at once familiar and alien to the Vulkooridal – an example of the behavior that invites the Du’rashka Túl and a bizarre way of thinking about resources as things to be consumed rather than sustained. It’s a danger unlike most of the perils that tau’Xen face on a regular basis, but the drow are nothing if not courageous and clever – and they’re well aware that the world responds to heroes.