The Battle of Drums

A Conflict Fought with Non-Standard Weapons

When you see it on a map the Grey Well seems to be a lake, while Mud Street could be a river connecting it to the narrow ocean know as Sorrowful River. What is there is not water at all, but a sort of clay, or mud. Toxic to many species, of hard smell and unstable consistence. There is some water in moving lakes on the surface and bellow the Grey Well, but the region is avoided by humans and most other humanoids.
Ground is constantly moving, and most the fauna in this vast realm of clay is of hydrous nature. Beings of a matter so similar to the mud where they exist that many believe they are like cells in the vast organism of the Grey Well, and Mud Street.
There is only two nations in this region, or close to it. One is perhaps the strangest human nation on Planet Sharitarn: Shokraa, The Crab City. The second is a non-human city of Galdasar.
What makes Shokraa unique is its location, on the back of a giant monster ("kaiju" its race is called by Altair) that has the general appearance of a crab. So large that Shokraa City lays comfortably on its back, and occupy only a small portion of it. Each kaiju has a shape, but all are extremely large. Most faced destruction after the Vortex brought them, some still walk free and are avoided by the populations of Sharitarn, only Shokraa has a city living on him.
The mighty crab is not under control of those who live on him, they can influence the behavior of their host in some extent but with great difficulty and not very fast.
Fortunately for them, and for the inhabitants of Sharitarn the Shokraa has consistent preferences and habits. It seldom leaves the mud surface that composes Grey Well and Mud Street, and has not moved far from it in one hundred thousand years. It do used to attack cities located close to the Well and to Mud Street, what was solved by the citizens of those places dying or abandoning the region.
Twin Towers was placed by the Fairy People, the pixels, as part of an accord with Mage's Brotherhood. The nation exists to filter the substance of Mud Street and protect the waters of Sorrowful River. The powerful magic of pixel people keeps Shokraa from move south and enter the Sorrowful. The crab can look for other paths certainly, but the kaiju don't seems interested in do that very often.
The founders of Galdasar looked for a place where they could establish a home, after they fall on Sharitarn, avoid or escape slavery in humans hands, and regroup. They noticed that high hill next to the vast mud surface and assumed the nauseating smell should be the reason why no one else had claimed the land. There was fertile enough land, animals to hunt, enough clean water nearby, and they could endure the attacks from hydrous predators that raise from the Mud Street barely every night. Industrious people, they designed simple but effective barriers to keep most hydrous outside their streets, most the time. Even managed to tame some.
Neither the humans not the pixels did much effort to explain for those newly arrived people the real reason why they had no close neighbors north to the Vortex Line.
The Asar believed the Shokraa to be some sort of legend, a fable whose moral they had not grasped yet. They grasped it when the island emerged silently, so close to their homes that run would make no sense. So large that fight would be ridiculous. 
The huge claw attacked, taking large pieces of their buildings, crashing people inside. The Warriors of Shkraa city moved mounted in giant frogs and flying serpents, capturing the free women of Galdasar to slave them. And by doing so saving them from certain dead. 
The Warriors and the shamans of Gladasar attacked the raiders as well as they could, but they where confuse and unprepared. 
At some point the Temple of Prosperity was demolished by a distracted leg, while the crab moved up. The Elderly Asar on Sharitarn had been inside this temple, Grand Gran Mother Taktahalla. 
When the Elderly Asar in a community die is costume among them to sing the person's name, family and deity of devotion. Most citizens where too occupied fighting, or panicking, but some realize that all was lost and understood that die well was the only dignifying option. So they ignored the city falling apart, and the monster moving among them, and the human warriors hunting their wives, sisters and daughters. 
The drums begun spontaneously, coming from one direction, and them another, and soon all temples and corridors where vibrating in the same rhythmic song. The sacred celebration of Gran Gran Mother Taktahalla. 
Took some time for the warriors involved in fight the frog runners to notice they where regrouping and that their defenses seemed less futile. One moment later they realized why. 
The mountain above their heads had stopped. It was not destroying their city anymore. 
Shkraa stopped for a long pair of hours, and the Warriors of Shkraa city stopped as well, retreating to their own nation. They had never seemed nothing like that, and where too confuse to keep the hunt. Some warriors and warlocks of Galdasar launched their on raids against the astonished Shkraa City, to rescue Asar women just captured by the humans, or catch human females and make the adventure cost something to the enemy. 
Then the might crab begun its dance. It moved following the sacred requiem, and as the music died the kaiju dance moved away, back into Mud Street. 
The Asar rebuild their nation, with larger drums and a architecture designed to amplify their song. And the Shkraa helped them in that, since their music had provided the humans who live in the kaiju an important clue about how to communicate with their host. The Shkraa wanted to learn more about the Asar drums and their language, and had a lot to teach them about the land here they had established their home. 
The music does not work always, but it works often enough to allow the Asar to keep their home where it is. And that event attracted the attention and interest of the Pixels who live in the other side of the Vortex Line nearby. Providing the Asar their second friendly nation on Sharitarn. 
So, before the Battle of Drums Galdasar was a totally isolated nation. Hopping only to stay hidden and forgotten by the native humans and other powers of Sharitarn. After it, the city of Asar people gained two business partners, and allies.  
One last thing to mention, perhaps important to avoid confusion: there is nothing magical about the Asar drums, or their language. There was only happy coincidence involved, and sound waves. 
That particular melody, made from the name and specific elements of Grand Gran Mother Taktahalla's life attracted the attention of Shkraa. The requiem for any other Grand Gran Mother or Grand Gran Father would not have the same effect. 
I say so because it was tested in other occasions. And because if was magic the Battle of Drums could not qualify as a "battle fought whit non-standard weapons" since magic is the very definition of standard weapon in the conflicts between high powers on Sharitarn.