I've been yearning to write and I love the color and energy of setting and story above all else. I present to you a slice of life from the Hadar city of Barazzt, rendered in creative prose! This is torn from the mind's eye, and is in no way a reflection of how this city may be portrayed in official lore. Please feel very free to message me if you've got an idea you think is a worthy write - if you think it is, you're probably right!
The City of Colored Glass
In the district of Isstztfa sits the Rainbow House, one of the greatest schools of glassmiths in all the world. The most eminent glassmasters practice their craft there and from the sun's rise to set they work their glass blooms in roaring furnaces and shape them on black marble marvers. They say that in that Rainbow House, some several hundred years ago, worked one of the greatest glassblowers to ever live. He was Al-Allar, and his name was Paas.
When Paas lived, the Digmaan of Barazzt ruled without challenge. He had conquered or felled all of his rivals and, for the first time in living memory, a single Cro-Allar sat at the fore of Barazzt's teeming masses. This was such an accomplishment that the Digmaan sought a grand testament to his victory; a crown jewel for his reign. He proclaimed that he would build a great tree of glass at the heart of the city and he commissioned the Rainbow House to make it so.
The Digmaan spared no expense. He emptied the treasure vaults and set the districts of alchemists to work. They relished all of their skill and provided their rarest, most expensive dyes to stain the glass. For the tree's importance, Paas - the Digmaan's chosen glassmaster - allowed only himself to touch it. He labored for three dozen years. Such was his dedication that, in the twenty-second year of his labor, when his children came to him and declared that he must allow his apprentices to share his burden or they would leave, he said nothing and turned from them to finish shaping a leaf he had begun some days ago.
Paas labored until he was satisfied. At the end of his thirty-sixth year of work, the polished tree gleamed like a god-given gem. When he had polished the final leaf, Paas beheld his creation and cried its name before the gods: Blissthrism, the Star Sapling. He breathed a shuddering breath, smiled, and died with joy in his eyes.
The Star Sapling stands as tall as a dozen men with a span as wide as seven chaise-carts laid end-to-end. It displays a thousand-and-one different colors in bands of striated light, which shift depending on how the sun embraces them. In Blissthrism's radiant heart, where the light has been filtered by uncountable glass leaves, colors glow that exist nowhere else. When confronted by the mountain breeze, the tree whistles hauntingly - a mournful keening that rises, falls, and rises again like a choir of sad flutes. The glass leaves have their own chorus. Some say that among the world's more beautiful sounds is the peal of glass, and here they jingle in a cascade of thousands with every puff of jungle air.
Under that glass tree lies a Mu-Allar on the grass in a gentle repose. His scales are a dusty blue and his feathers dyed a brilliant white, but under the Star Sapling he is all the colors of the world. In this twilight, the Star Sapling is cast in shades of red, orange, and purple - a dusky autumn rainbow that dances through his white feather-mane. His nostrils flare and his eyes twinkle with wonder. Oh, so this was magic!
What sights, what sounds, in this city of colored glass!
The City of Colored Glass
The city of Barazzt sits on the pitched side of a jungle volcano. Every so often, the volcano belches its protest and its sour sulfur hangs in the air as dark, angry clouds. There are hidden paths in these jungles for those that know where to look. The roads all lead to Barazzt - in these lands, it is a city from which all things go and to which all things inevitably come back again.
In Barazzt the tradition of the reptile-race of Allar remains a guiding star. In this city, Allar culture has never dulled; it has had a thousand years to bury its roots deep into the mountain rock. Barazzt is a jungle city, but the canopy cannot hide it; it is a bird of paradise dancing in the undergrowth. Foremost, Barazzt is a diamond, but covered in dirt - a brilliant beacon of exotic culture ringed by the suffocating shanty-camps of refugees from the Chrysant War.
From an eagle's view, Barazzt spirals out like a jungle leaf: each of its districts is a blade attached to the stem of a grand central boulevard. There are districts by caste and by craft, by purpose and by function. There are great trade corridors, military forts, and the glittering stained glass towers of Cro-Allar and their noble ilk. There are neighborhoods of stone where the Allar crowd in their compact homes and districts where little chimneys belch alchemical smoke into the air. And then there is a district unlike all the rest, where no man walks until the sun sleeps.
Today, at twilight, it buzzes. The night-market stalls, with alchemical lamps twinkling, were already open. In waves, other shops hummed to life, and scattered folk of many colors came forth. Then came dawdling groups of workers to staff the stalls; then the scent-oil men with their colorful bandoliers; the artisans with their tools; cargo-carts filled with salted fillets from the Snake Bend Sea; small squadrons of Mu-Allar warriors on patrol with their shields and spears; an endless night-time bustle in this sub-district of Isstztfa, the Zasta word for "God's Hollow".
Later in the night the sounds of crowded streets build to a festive roar. Little pockets of Allar loiter excitedly around alchemy stalls. They're drawn like eager butterflies to the sugar-tradesmen, who pull their sweet stretchy candy on metal hooks. In a place like this, where night feels like a hazy fever dream, word carries mostly through tales. Stories have a habit of slipping their leash - they abscond from mouth to mouth and eventually cross from tales into legends.
There is one such legend in Isstztfa, and it involves a glass tree and a lonely hill.
In Barazzt the tradition of the reptile-race of Allar remains a guiding star. In this city, Allar culture has never dulled; it has had a thousand years to bury its roots deep into the mountain rock. Barazzt is a jungle city, but the canopy cannot hide it; it is a bird of paradise dancing in the undergrowth. Foremost, Barazzt is a diamond, but covered in dirt - a brilliant beacon of exotic culture ringed by the suffocating shanty-camps of refugees from the Chrysant War.
From an eagle's view, Barazzt spirals out like a jungle leaf: each of its districts is a blade attached to the stem of a grand central boulevard. There are districts by caste and by craft, by purpose and by function. There are great trade corridors, military forts, and the glittering stained glass towers of Cro-Allar and their noble ilk. There are neighborhoods of stone where the Allar crowd in their compact homes and districts where little chimneys belch alchemical smoke into the air. And then there is a district unlike all the rest, where no man walks until the sun sleeps.
Today, at twilight, it buzzes. The night-market stalls, with alchemical lamps twinkling, were already open. In waves, other shops hummed to life, and scattered folk of many colors came forth. Then came dawdling groups of workers to staff the stalls; then the scent-oil men with their colorful bandoliers; the artisans with their tools; cargo-carts filled with salted fillets from the Snake Bend Sea; small squadrons of Mu-Allar warriors on patrol with their shields and spears; an endless night-time bustle in this sub-district of Isstztfa, the Zasta word for "God's Hollow".
Later in the night the sounds of crowded streets build to a festive roar. Little pockets of Allar loiter excitedly around alchemy stalls. They're drawn like eager butterflies to the sugar-tradesmen, who pull their sweet stretchy candy on metal hooks. In a place like this, where night feels like a hazy fever dream, word carries mostly through tales. Stories have a habit of slipping their leash - they abscond from mouth to mouth and eventually cross from tales into legends.
There is one such legend in Isstztfa, and it involves a glass tree and a lonely hill.
When Paas lived, the Digmaan of Barazzt ruled without challenge. He had conquered or felled all of his rivals and, for the first time in living memory, a single Cro-Allar sat at the fore of Barazzt's teeming masses. This was such an accomplishment that the Digmaan sought a grand testament to his victory; a crown jewel for his reign. He proclaimed that he would build a great tree of glass at the heart of the city and he commissioned the Rainbow House to make it so.
The Digmaan spared no expense. He emptied the treasure vaults and set the districts of alchemists to work. They relished all of their skill and provided their rarest, most expensive dyes to stain the glass. For the tree's importance, Paas - the Digmaan's chosen glassmaster - allowed only himself to touch it. He labored for three dozen years. Such was his dedication that, in the twenty-second year of his labor, when his children came to him and declared that he must allow his apprentices to share his burden or they would leave, he said nothing and turned from them to finish shaping a leaf he had begun some days ago.
Paas labored until he was satisfied. At the end of his thirty-sixth year of work, the polished tree gleamed like a god-given gem. When he had polished the final leaf, Paas beheld his creation and cried its name before the gods: Blissthrism, the Star Sapling. He breathed a shuddering breath, smiled, and died with joy in his eyes.
Under that glass tree lies a Mu-Allar on the grass in a gentle repose. His scales are a dusty blue and his feathers dyed a brilliant white, but under the Star Sapling he is all the colors of the world. In this twilight, the Star Sapling is cast in shades of red, orange, and purple - a dusky autumn rainbow that dances through his white feather-mane. His nostrils flare and his eyes twinkle with wonder. Oh, so this was magic!
What sights, what sounds, in this city of colored glass!
