Pezzack

Pezzack

(City)

Nation

Independent; claimed by Cheliax

Region

Devil's Perch, Archduchy of Hellcoast

Size

Large town

Population

4,800

Demographics

4,600 humans, 70 halflings, 56 dwarves, 30 gnomes, 24 aiuvarins, 20 other

Government

Anarchy

Alignment

Chaotic neutral

Demonym

Pezzacki (also plural)

Adjective

Pezzacki

Leader

Habar Curl, Brucks, Vedra Sawndannac, Amalia Wraxton

Source: Towns of the Inner Sea, pg(s). 34-43

Pezzack is a town in western Cheliax on the Sallow Coast of the Arcadian Ocean. Nestled in Devil's Perch among the Menador Mountains, the isolated town has long been a seedbed for sedition against the infernal government far way in Egorian. The crown has responded with several naval blockades and year-long sieges that have left the settlement quite isolated from the rest of the country, and moved the seat of the Archduchy of Hellcoast from Pezzack to Belde.

History

First Ashes

When the diabolic Thrice-Damned House of Thrune ascended to rulership after the Chelaxian Civil War, Pezzack was the only town to remove its imperial ruler and become an independent settlement loyal to Aroden. Cheliax's retaliation was brutal and thorough, with Hellknights razing Pezzack in what would become known as the First Ashes. The re-installed Chelaxian leadership burned the town's poverty-stricken tenements, banned weapon ownership, and hanged dissenters; the destruction of Pezzack was so thorough that it squelched rebellions across the empire.

The surviving Pezzacki rebuilt the town alongside Galtan and Andoren immigrants, many of them fans of the Chelaxian satirist Indageous Vonor and his Glass on the Hill theater. The Chelaxians never fully extinguished Pezzack's rebellious culture, and between Vonor's seditious writings and the freedom-minded newcomers, Pezzack became a haven of revolutionary thought in Cheliax.

Second Ashes

Chelaxian oppression and Pezzacki unrest again came to a violent head in 4710 AR. The satirical, blasphemous play Abrogail I slandered the late Queen of Cheliax, and military Governor Gracchian Tauranor attempted to shut the debut production down. The cast refused, and as soon as Gracchian successfully ordered the immediate deaths of Vonor and popular actress Valeria Minish, the audience and city rebelled. Tauranor died in the Glass on the Hill with the Hellknights. Neighboring strix—long-time foes of Pezzack's incursion on their fishing sites—then decided to take advantage of the ensuing chaos and rained flaming logs on the town, burning it to the ground once more.

Chelaxian blockade

Governor Vedra Sawndannac and the Chelaxian Navy blockaded Pezzack, trapping more than 100 ships in Fat Harbor in an attempt to choke the life out of the rebellion. After five years, the people of Pezzack are weary but unbowed, rebels control most of the city, the stranded merchants built a shantytown out of their scuttled ships, and the town lies mostly in anarchic ruins. Pezzacki from Galt demand the blood of the town's Chelaxian loyalists, while Amalia Wraxton—the author of Abrogail I and fugitive from a Chelaxian death sentence—leads its idealists in an ineffectual propaganda campaign for freedom while preparing a sequel to her play so inflammatory that it would spread Pezzack's rebellion throughout Cheliax.

Geography

Pezzack's rocky surroundings naturally limit its size, but the town is still characterized by a few distinct areas:

The Burrow

A rumored underground theater supposedly housing Amalia Wraxton's Fine Company troupe.

Docktown

An ever-shifting mess of mostly derelict ships converted into semi-permanent housing and storefronts, dominated by the multi-storey Tubmarket galleria.

Fat Harbor

The town's blockaded harbor is littered with debris from Docktown's stranded ships, and its slender inlet called the Pinch is clogged with wrecked ships.

Gold Street

A ruined mercantile district once owned by Chelaxian loyalists but mostly looted and abandoned. Only Vim's Smithy and the Pezzacki thieves' guild continue to operate near it.

The Guts

Underground sewer tunnels that snake through Pezzack now house most of its poorest remaining residents.

Mountaingate

Pezzack's only land route is guarded by a triple-gated fortification of dwarven design, and the rebels have filled its spaces with garbage to make it completely impassable.

Shorewall

A rebel-built fortification facing the Chelaxian Navy blockade credited with sinking two of the empire's ships, further blocking Fat Harbor in the process.

The Tenements

Much of this dense group of wooden shacks was never completely rebuilt under the blockade for lack of materials, leaving it a desperate and dangerous part of town.

Whaler's Point

A rocky peninsula that encloses Fat Harbor, the Point is home to Pezzack's provisionally allowed whaling industry.

Other notable locations include the hangman's post of Traitor's Hook, the loyalist-fortified Governor's Manse, the Academy of Applied Magic, the ruined Glass on the Hill, and several defense towers designed to fend off strix incursions.

Notable inhabitants

See also: Category:Pezzack/Inhabitants

Among Pezzack's notable survivors, rebels, and loyalists are:

• Auntie, proprietor of Auntie's and the Siren's Call brothel
• Meliar Aructus, vengeful cleric of Asmodeus who tortures the soul of Gracchian Tauranor
• Brucks, cambion self-proclaimed mayor of the makeshift Docktown built on Fat Harbor's stranded ships
• Habar Curl, militant Galtan commander of Shorewall
• Cessia Florianthus, head of the Pezzacki thieves' guild
• Hazzleton and Mimzy Berryblack, who run Berryblack's Underground Delights and mushroom farm
• Old Madge, a noodle vendor who employs the Licktoad goblin Snapjack
• Sanda Malferixian, headmaster of the Academy of Applied Magic
• Lorrin Meese, proprietor of The Inkwell inn, and his iron golem Chankings
• Kalizandrex Poppo, professor at the Academy of Applied Magic
• The Printsmith, a mysterious producer of pamphlets and propaganda in spite of decades of Chelaxian prohibition on printing presses and the years-long blockade
• Noose Ramsmaul, head of the Whalers' Guild
• Darjan Tauranor, son of the deceased governor
• Kallador Vim, one of the town's few working smiths
• Valia Wain, loyalist cleric of Iomedae
• Bonnifer Zoot, alchemist and owner of the Alchgarden

References

Paizo published a map of and major article about Pezzack in Towns of the Inner Sea, p34-43.

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.