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Description

The coat of arms of Zeiggard was adopted extremely late in the eternal city’s seemingly never-ending history, during the reign of the Nameless & Deathless Empire. The greatest and most terrible of the dark lords, the 77 Nameless & Deathless Emperors extended their rule over large parts of both Outland and Orcneas. From the latter subcontinent they picked up the heraldic tradition, eventually exporting it to Outland in turn.

The arms shows the cold void of the firmament, with the sun being devoured by a mythical creature known as ‘the beast of Zeiggard’. Exactly what this ‘beast’ is meant to be is disputed by different dwarfish, elvish, and trollish accounts. Whatever its exact origin, the beast has symbolised Zeiggard for untold millennia, and is nearly always used to represent the city.

The shield is topped by a mural crown, the traditional ornament of a city state. Its colour is green, reflecting the colour of many of the slimy stones from which the oldest parts of Zeiggard are built. The crown bears an additional three shields, displaying the runic symbols for ‘elf’, ‘troll’ and ‘dwarf’, the three primordial races that have inhabited the city for countless aeons.

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I have realised for a while that something has been missing from Outlandish Tales, namely a prominent city-state. This is perhaps one of the most important fantasy tropes, with the city-state being the default setting of many works of fantastic fiction. This is natural, given how a single city state can be used has a easily developed and contained setting for a story, or for an rpg campaign. Think Ankh-Morpork, Lankhamar, New Crobuzon, Braavos, or Marienburg.

But, naturally, I wanted to put my own spin on these classic tropes.

There are two big fantastic city tropes that have always bugged me, and the first is that the city is nearly always a great power (if not the greatest power) in the setting. This is naturally based off the example of the Venetian republic, a natural consequence of the millennia-long obsession western civilization has had with that most urban of cities. But historically, city-states had trouble in competing with established, reasonably well run empires. Rome had to turn into an empire to assert itself over the known world, while Venice ultimately failed owing to the rise of the French, Austrian, and Ottoman monarchies. Zeiggard might be the richest, largest and most important city in the world, but it isn’t capable of matching the massive territorial empires of the superpowers.

The second annoying trope is that of the ancient Lovecraftian city, and why it is always abandoned. Now, I understand the reasons for this. Abandoned cities are inherently eerie, given how alien it is for human structures to lack people, and make for wonderfully spooky settings. But many incredibly ancient cities are still inhabited. While Ur and Akkad may now be abandoned, people still live in Jerusalem, thousands of years after its foundation. Zeiggard was originally a city of the primordial races, built millions of years ago and continuously inhabited by them ever since. While the young races have colonised the city, it remains dominated by primordial culture. A major influence for me along these lines was the incredible multiversal city of Throne from the brilliant webcomic ‘Kill Six Billion Daemons’. Seriously, it is one of the best and weirdest fantasy cities I have ever encountered.

Both of these tropes, plus some other varying loopy ideas, led me to Zeiggard. The city is located in a gigantic tunnel that stretches across the Outlandish Channel between Outland and the Heartland. If you took the channel tunnel, made it much, much bigger, and then put the city of the Elder Things from ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ in it, you would get an approximation of Zeiggard. But Zieggard isn’t abandoned, in fact it is the largest city in the world with a population larger than most countries (outside of the superpowers obviously). Sitting as it does on the nexus of multiple trade routes of global importance, its economic importance is beyond any other city in the world. Zeiggard is nominally run by an international condominium appointed by the superpowers, plus the Commonwealth of Arkenthrall and the Hebog dynasty (a relic of the age when both were great powers in their own rights). But since these powers spend most of their time vetoing each other, actual control of the city has devolved to its nearly incomprehensibly ancient judicial authority, known simply as ‘the Doom’.

Description

The coat of arms of Zeiggard was adopted extremely late in the eternal city’s seemingly never-ending history, during the reign of the Nameless & Deathless Empire. The greatest and most terrible of the dark lords, the 77 Nameless & Deathless Emperors extended their rule over large parts of both Outland and Orcneas. From the latter subcontinent they picked up the heraldic tradition, eventually exporting it to Outland in turn.

The arms shows the cold void of the firmament, with the sun being devoured by a mythical creature known as ‘the beast of Zeiggard’. Exactly what this ‘beast’ is meant to be is disputed by different dwarfish, elvish, and trollish accounts. Whatever its exact origin, the beast has symbolised Zeiggard for untold millennia, and is nearly always used to represent the city.

The shield is topped by a mural crown, the traditional ornament of a city state. Its colour is green, reflecting the colour of many of the slimy stones from which the oldest parts of Zeiggard are built. The crown bears an additional three shields, displaying the runic symbols for ‘elf’, ‘troll’ and ‘dwarf’, the three primordial races that have inhabited the city for countless aeons.

-----

I have realised for a while that something has been missing from Outlandish Tales, namely a prominent city-state. This is perhaps one of the most important fantasy tropes, with the city-state being the default setting of many works of fantastic fiction. This is natural, given how a single city state can be used has a easily developed and contained setting for a story, or for an rpg campaign. Think Ankh-Morpork, Lankhamar, New Crobuzon, Braavos, or Marienburg.

But, naturally, I wanted to put my own spin on these classic tropes.

There are two big fantastic city tropes that have always bugged me, and the first is that the city is nearly always a great power (if not the greatest power) in the setting. This is naturally based off the example of the Venetian republic, a natural consequence of the millennia-long obsession western civilization has had with that most urban of cities. But historically, city-states had trouble in competing with established, reasonably well run empires. Rome had to turn into an empire to assert itself over the known world, while Venice ultimately failed owing to the rise of the French, Austrian, and Ottoman monarchies. Zeiggard might be the richest, largest and most important city in the world, but it isn’t capable of matching the massive territorial empires of the superpowers.

The second annoying trope is that of the ancient Lovecraftian city, and why it is always abandoned. Now, I understand the reasons for this. Abandoned cities are inherently eerie, given how alien it is for human structures to lack people, and make for wonderfully spooky settings. But many incredibly ancient cities are still inhabited. While Ur and Akkad may now be abandoned, people still live in Jerusalem, thousands of years after its foundation. Zeiggard was originally a city of the primordial races, built millions of years ago and continuously inhabited by them ever since. While the young races have colonised the city, it remains dominated by primordial culture. A major influence for me along these lines was the incredible multiversal city of Throne from the brilliant webcomic ‘Kill Six Billion Daemons’. Seriously, it is one of the best and weirdest fantasy cities I have ever encountered.

Both of these tropes, plus some other varying loopy ideas, led me to Zeiggard. The city is located in a gigantic tunnel that stretches across the Outlandish Channel between Outland and the Heartland. If you took the channel tunnel, made it much, much bigger, and then put the city of the Elder Things from ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ in it, you would get an approximation of Zeiggard. But Zieggard isn’t abandoned, in fact it is the largest city in the world with a population larger than most countries (outside of the superpowers obviously). Sitting as it does on the nexus of multiple trade routes of global importance, its economic importance is beyond any other city in the world. Zeiggard is nominally run by an international condominium appointed by the superpowers, plus the Commonwealth of Arkenthrall and the Hebog dynasty (a relic of the age when both were great powers in their own rights). But since these powers spend most of their time vetoing each other, actual control of the city has devolved to its nearly incomprehensibly ancient judicial authority, known simply as ‘the Doom’.