Darujhistan

Darujhistan: Legendary city on Genabackis, largest and most influential of the Free Cities, situated on the south shore of Lake Azur and peopled mainly by Daru and Gadrobi populations; the only known city to use natural gas as an energy source.

GotM, Glossary

"They had a mission ahead of them, one that would take them right into the heart of Darujhistan. The city was the next on the Empire's list, the last Free City, the continent's lone gem worthy enough to covet."

GotM, US HC, p.122

'Darujhistan – the greatest city in the world.'

GotM, UK Trade, p.71

"His mission this night had been as a Roamer, patrolling the city's rooftops which, except for the occasional thief, were the assassin's sole domain, the means by which they traveled the city for the most part undetected. The rooftops provided their routes on missions of unsanctioned political...activities or the continuation of a feud between two Houses, or the punishment for betrayal. The Council ruled by day under public scrutiny; the Guild ruled by night, unseen, leaving no witnesses. It had always been this way, since Darujhistan first rose on the shores of Lake Azur.

GotM, US HC, p.140

'the T’orrud Cabal – Darujhistan’s secret rulers'

GotM, UK Trade, p.323

'There are three hundred thousand people in Darujhistan'

GotM, UK Trade, p.477

'From the wharf sprawled along the shore of the lake, upward along the
stepped tiers of the Gadrobi and Daru Districts, among the temple
complexes and the Higher Estates, to the summit of Majesty Hill where
gathers the city’s Council, the rooftops of Darujhistan presented flat
tops, arched gables, coned towers, belfries and platforms crowded in
such chaotic profusion as to leave all but the major streets for ever
hidden from the sun.

The torches marking the more frequented alleyways were hollow
shafts that gripped pumice stones with fingers of blackened iron. Fed
through ancient pitted copper pipes, gas hissed balls of flame around the
porous stones, an uneven fire that cast a blue and green light. The gas
was drawn from great caverns beneath the city and channelled by
massive valves...For nine hundred years the breath of gas had fed at
least one of the city’s districts.'

GotM, UK Trade, p.130-1

"The D'Arle estate was third from the summit of Old K'rul's Avenue, which climbed the first of the inner city's hills to a circular court tangled with weeds and irregular, half-buried dolmens. Opposite the court rose K'rul Temple, its ancient stones latticed with cracks and entombed in moss."

GotM, US HC, p.140

'Inland from Gadrobi District’s harbour the land rose in four tiers climbing eastward. Ramped cobblestone streets, worn to a polished mosaic, marked Gadrobi District’s Trade Streets, five in all, which were the only routes through Marsh District and into the next tier, Lakefront District. Beyond Lakefront’s crooked aisles twelve wooden gates opened on to Daru District, and from Daru another twelve gates – these ones manned by the City Watch and barred by iron portcullis – connected the lower and upper cities.

On the fourth and highest tier brooded the estates of Darujhistan’s nobility as well as its publicly known sorcerers. At the intersection of Old King’s Walk and View Street rose a flat-topped hill on which sat Majesty Hall, where each day the Council gathered. A narrow park encircled the hill, with sand-strewn pathways winding among centuries-old acacias. At the park’s entrance, near High Gallows Hill, stood a massive rough-hewn stone gate, the last-surviving remnant of the castle that once commanded Majesty Hill.

The days of kings had long since ended in Darujhistan. The gate, known as Despot’s Barbican, stood stark and unadorned, its lattice of cracks a fading script of past tyranny.'

GotM, UK Trade, p.143, US HC, p.148-9

'it has managed to survive three thousand years.’

GotM, UK Trade, p.320

The Tyrant Kings: the ancient rulers of Darujhistan

GotM, glossary

‘The history of Darujhistan,’ he said. ‘I am just beginning the fifth volume, which opens with the reign of Ektalm, second to last of the Tyrant Kings...Usurper of Letastte and succeeded by his daughter, Sandenay, who brought on the Rising Time and with it the end of the age of tyrants.’

GotM, UK Trade, p.271

'A massive stone disc in Majesty Hall marked the Cycle of the Age, naming each year in accordance with its mysterious moving mechanisms...the wheel was in fact a machine. It had been a gift to Darujhistan over a thousand years ago, by a man named Icarium.'

GotM, UK Trade, p.420

"For nine hundred years the breath of gas had fed at least one of the city's districts. Though pipes had been sundered by raging tenement fires and gouts of flame reached hundreds of feet into the sky, the Grayfaces had held on, twisting the shackles and driving their invisible dragon to its knees."

GotM, US Hc, p.138