A Brief History of Carsepolis

Ephrain of the Tomes, Salamonis, 2448 AC

It is not clear precisely when the port city of Carsepolis was founded, but evidence suggests that there has been at least a settlement on the same site since prior to the fall of Arkhosia. A surviving fragment of the reports made by Arkhosian explorer Ahzad the Frequently Lost describe a small fishing town in a natural harbor on the desert coast that tallys with present-day Carsepolis.

“Some eighty flightes out of Arventus we came acrosse a small towne of men. The called themselves the Carseps and said that this was their home. It is a fine place indeed for a citye, with deepe waters surrounded by high cliffes to the north and south and shallowe beaches to the west. There is a high peninsula in the centre of the bay, connected to the shore by a small spit of lande. On the highest point of this they have built a temple, grande to them but of course smalle and crude by our standards, to the God of this place who is named by them Maradurk.

They are a rich people for the area. They have many metal swords and a number of fine boats which they use to fish and to hunt for the whale. Freshe waters flowing from the hills to the north, which they take as a blessing from Maradurk, allowe them to growe crops. They have cattle numbering fifty and an equal number of camels and sheepe.

They warned us not sail too far south, for if we did we could come to the broken landes of the Illiacs, which they say are haunted by the ape and the wraithe.”

An Arkhosian 'flight' is a measure approximate to the distance that a dragon could fly in a day (for a comprehensive, if rather dull, discussion see The Measure of a Dragonman: Weights, Volumes and Lengths in Ancient Arkhosia by Vallenger the Blue and Gray). If we take take Arventus to refer to what is now Arventine then this squarely places the settlement described by Ahzad in the location of Carsepolis. The description of the bay matches Carsepolis well. It is likely the fresh waters described refer to streams flowing from the vast freshwater lake underneath the high lands north of the city. It is of interest to note the similarity between the name of the City-God of the Carseps, Maradurk, and the ceremonial name Marduk that is taken by the Tyrant of the present-day city upon ascension to the throne. It seems reasonable to suggest that the latter is a corruption of the former, although it does not appear that the modern inhabitants of the city realise the origins of this name.

The rise of the city as a trading power came after the fall of Nerath, with the resulting vacuum creating many opportunities for the canny merchant. The first records of trade with the Empire of Everessemme are from some three-hundred years ago and this seems to be the point at which the city became rich and the merchant classes began to gain power. This money also allowed to the city to construct a powerful navy and impose some form of control on the pirate infested Illiac Archipelago, further filling their coffers as trade began to flood in from Heliopoli.

The rise of the city was not uncontested. It's enforced pacification of the land trading routes angered many of the desert-dwellers and Arventine was most displeased at the emergence of a potential competitor. All of this came to a head in 2279 AC when Lotar of the Red Sands, a powerful invoker of Melora, managed to unite many of the desert tribes in a war against Carsepolis. The city folk were shocked by the size of his army and the speed at which it came out of the desert. Caught unprepared and with only crude fortifications to defend them, the bulk of the Carsepolite army was routed and soon most of the city was in flames, with only the Old Gates district, protecting the approach to the central penninsula standing. An earlier treaty with Arventine promised military aid in the event of an invasion, but relief never game. Arventine had decided to let its rival burn. Some even suggested that Lotar himself was an Arventinian stooge. The siege persisted for months – Lotar's army was unable to take the bridges to the Old City and although the Carsepolite army was unable to retake the city, their fleet ensured that the citizenry remained fed. Still, the morale of the Carsepolites was not steady – more soldiers flocked to Lotar's army with each passing month and it was clear that they could not hold out forever. The siege was finally ended in its ninth month in a desperate act by Massinissa, an Avenger of Erathis. In the dead of night Massinissa snuck ashore in a small boat and crept through the enemy lines to Lotar's tent, where he slew him in single combat, albeit at the cost of his own life.

With Lotar dead, his army crumbled. Most soldiers who not slain by the resurgent Carsepolites simply melted back into the desert. If the invasion had been planned by Arvenine, or if their denial of relief was simply a callous act of opportunity will never be known, but Arventine's desire to curtail Carsepolis was not fulfilled. Although much of the city was in ruins, its navy, both merchant and military remained intact. With the desert tribes now utterly broken the city's dominance of the land trading routes was completely uncontested. Trade began to flood in again and the city was rebuilt quickly, complete with high walls to thwart any future invaders. None have threatened it since.