Perched high in the jagged arms of the North Mountains, Drachenburg is a city-state hewn from cliff-face and legend. Its sheer granite walls and natural battlements have defied every siege for centuries, earning it a reputation as the unbreachable bastion of the north. Austere towers rise like teeth from the rock, their iron-banded windows watching the world below with quiet vigilance. Within, the people of Drachenburg live by principles as enduring as the stone they shape: independence, craftsmanship, and the solemn dignity of self-rule.
Drachenburg trades in stone, steel, and silence. Its neutrality is not merely policy—it is ritual, upheld by generations of Lugals and etched into the city’s very identity. This reputation has made Drachenburg the preferred ground for international negotiations, where emissaries from rival nations gather in the Hall of Dragons to speak beneath vaulted ceilings. The Hall, seated at the heart of Mediborough, is the city’s central court, where five elected Lugals—each representing Northborough, Westborough, Eastborough, Southborough, and Mediborough—govern in tense consensus.
Yet beneath the solemn stone lies shadow. Whispers speak of a seedy underbelly—thieves’ guilds that move through the underground, and sealed vaults that prefer to stay shut.
Drachenburg’s origins are carved as deeply into myth as into stone. Long before it became a city-state, it may have been a refuge—a fortress carved into the cliffs by desperate hands fleeing collapse, famine, or some other threat. The mountains offered no mercy, but they offered protection. What began as a last bastion became a cradle of endurance, where survival bred a culture of stoic pride and fierce independence.
Though the city now speaks the Common tongue, its dialect carries the cadence of old Hesan. Linguistic residue lingers in the clipped cadence of Drachenburg speech: final consonants are hardened, vowels narrowed, and compound words favored over borrowed terms. A Drachenburg mason might say steinbind instead of “mortar,” or felszorn for “rockslide”—terms that evoke both precision and poetic severity. Scholars place the city's foundation somewhere around 500 to 800 years ago, but debate whether Drachenburg was once a pre-imperial culturally Hesan kingdom or simply a haven for those displaced by natural and political events. Either way, the city’s identity is resolutely its own: austere, self-governed, and unyielding.
Craftsmanship is revered, not just as art but as proof of the city project. Stonework, metallurgy, and civic architecture are expressions of civic virtue. The masons of Drachenburg build for permanence. Their neutrality is not passive but principled, forged in the belief that endurance outlasts conquest. This ethos permeates every borough, from the high halls of Mediborough to the wind-scoured terraces of Northborough.
A mysterious force—never formally identified—surrounded Drachenburg for three days, making no demands and launching no attacks. The city remained sealed, its people waiting in disciplined silence. On the fourth morning, the besiegers vanished. No banners, no bodies, no trace. To this day, the Silent Siege is commemorated with a citywide fast and the tolling of bells at dawn. Scholars suggest that this harkens back to the city's foundations, or an event that transitioned Drachenburg from a fortress of survival, to a city way of life.
A coalition of lowland warlords, emboldened by a rare alliance, attempted to breach Drachenburg’s defenses during a bitter winter. They brought siege engines, tunneling crews, and even skyhooks to scale the cliffs. The city responded not with counterattack, but with silence—closing its gates and retreating into the mountain. After six weeks of attrition, the invaders succumbed to frostbite, infighting, and starvation. The siege ended without a single Drachenburg casualty.
In the wake of an early imperial Hesan succession crisis, rival claimants to the imperial throne met in Drachenburg’s Hall of Dragons. The negotiations lasted 93 days, punctuated by duels, walkouts, and one dramatic poisoning attempt. Ultimately, the Ember Accord was signed, establishing a truce that seemed to hold Hesa's internal tensions between north and south until this day. Drachenburg’s reputation as a neutral ground was sealed in legend.
To the nobility of Westborough, the Iron Web is a rumor—a boogeyman used to explain why property crime is oddly low and why the sewers never clog. To the people of Southborough, it is the only law that matters. The Web is not a traditional thieves' guild; it is a sprawling, decentralized syndicate that has woven itself into the city's essential infrastructure. Led by Lugal Silas "The Mole" Gunt, the organization controls the "unseen flow" of Drachenburg: waste management, subterranean maintenance, smuggling, and information.
Their structure mimics the city’s sanitation system. The "Surface Runners" (beggars, street urchins, and peddlers) act as the eyes and ears, gathering secrets like loose coin. The "Pipe-Walkers" are the muscle—hardened smugglers and laborers who control the tunnels and enforce the Web’s territorial claims. At the center sits the "Cistern," a council of lieutenants who report directly to Silas.
The Web operates on a philosophy of "Symbiotic Parasitism." They do not strangle the host; they keep Drachenburg healthy so they can feed. They suppress violent crime because it brings unwanted guards. They repair the city’s foundations because a collapsed tunnel helps no one. In exchange, they exact a heavy, silent tithe on all illicit trade. If you want to move contraband, you pay the Web. If you refuse, you don't get arrested—you just disappear, likely to be found clogging a grate in the Vinster Walt weeks later. They are the rust on the iron, inevitable and enduring.