Tros Zoas
This fortified seaport holds the distinction of being built on the foundation of the oldest known city-state in Akadonian history — Xantallan. The famed explorer and military conqueror Koshag of Ur came to this island roughly 18,000 years ago aboard his flagship and founded his capital on what would later be known as Pontos Island at the site where he and the 1,200 soldiers who accompanied him aboard 18 warships first landed. From this launching point, the merciless warlord and his troops routed and enslaved the island’s small population of indigenous humanoids. Koshag reigned over his new kingdom for 19 tumultuous years. After his death and interment on the mainland of Akados, the stronghold Koshag founded descended into chaos and disrepair. A series of powerful storms leveled most of its stone fortifications and flooded portions of the surviving buildings beneath seawater. Less than a century after its creation, the citadel, whose original name has been lost to the annals of history, was virtually uninhabited save for a handful of stragglers occupying pockets of the Ruined Fortress.
When the Hyperborean fleet set sail across the Pontine Straits to bring Pontos Island under its heel, it encountered sporadic, disorganized resistance. The remnants of Tros Zoas almost immediately succumbed to their new conquerors who appreciated the value of a fortified seaport on the island’s southern coast. They rebuilt the crumbling coastal fortress in short order, bolstering its defenses and harbor in the process. After the Hyperboreans left Akados, the Kingdoms of Foere stepped into the breach and gained control of the citadel in what felt like a seamless transition of power from a political and cultural standpoint. Tros Zoas stamped its place in history when Overking Yurid gathered his crusader fleet in the port in 2970 I.R. to set sail for Khemit. After Maximilian d’Varago Pontos took command of a large portion of the Foerdewaith fleet in 3215 I.R., and declared himself Emperor of the Oceans Blue, Tros Zoas took a prominent role in the Kingdom of Oceanus’ future ambitions.
The seaport’s location on the southeastern coast of Pontos Island granted the emperor’s newfound state easy access to the Sinnar Ocean near the Matagost Peninsula. Tros Zoas rapidly expanded from a fortress of a few thousand to a heavily fortified naval installation boasting more than 16,000 permanent residents, half of whom are sailors and marines in the Oceanic navy. In addition to housing its naval forces, a garrison of 1,000 infantryman, archers, and cavalry rigidly maintains order within Tros Zoas’ imposing walls and in the largely untamed wilderness outside its 30-foot-high walls and outer moat. In keeping with the kingdom’s maritime roots and traditions, the laws of the high seas also prevail on land, especially in its most populous seaport. The captain of any ship in the Oceanic navy has the legal authority to mete out justice regardless of where the perpetrator committed the punishable offense, even if the individual is outside the captain’s chain of command. However, in a strange twist, Tros Zoas grants safe harbor to a handful of pirates the Kingdom of Oceanus clandestinely finances for a share of their ill-gotten booty. These discreet and savvy privateers predominately operate in the Pontine Straits or on the open seas far from Oceanus. To ensure their silence and loyalty, the kingdom requires their families to reside within Tros Zoas under the veiled threat that some harm would come to their loved ones if they betray their ties to the kingdom.
Grand Admiral Lucrecia Lacibeles administers the fortress’s civic and judicial branches as well as nominally commanding the portion of the Oceanic fleet stationed here. She also occupies a religious position as the Divine Mistress of the Seas. In this capacity, she serves as the titular leader of the Church of Quell, Tros Zoas’ patron deity, whose temple serves a dual role as a shrine dedicated to the sea god and a fully functional lighthouse at the edge of the harbor. While Lacibeles openly worships Quell, she secretly venerates Dagon in a small shrine tucked away in a dark corner of her secure keep built above the city’s infamous dungeons where prisoners languish and suffer under some of the most unspeakable conditions in Akados. Despite the settlement’s emphasis on crime and punishment, smugglers seeking to export Oceanus’ high-tech equipment to foreign states frequently ply their trade on the docks and wharfs alongside Tros Zoas’ longshoremen and shipwrights.
Settlement
Tros Zoas, City of
Type
Fortress
Owning Organization
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