{{:thefreelands:lazklennar-card.png?600|}}

__**Population**__: Approximately 150,000 before the fall; current population unknown\\
__**Nicknames**__: Occupied City, Triad City, The Wounded Crown, The Burned Harbor\\
__**Primary Race(s)**__: Elves, Eladrin, Other Humanoids\\
__**Location**__: [[worldmap:thefreelands|The Free Lands]]\\
__**Current Status**__: Occupied by **[[organizations:thetriad|The Triad]]**\\
__**Former Leadership**__: The royal house of Laz’klennar; the Prince in Exile\\
__**Occupying Powers**__: **[[majornpcs:lordkarumantha|Lord Karumantha]]**, **[[majornpcs:scylla|Syclla]]**, and Triad-aligned forces\\
__**Known For**__: Maritime trade, fine art, herbs and alchemy reagents, druidic magic, silver harbor works\\
\\

===== Overview =====

**Laz’klennar** was once one of the great elven coastal cities of the Free Lands: a harbor-city of white terraces, mirrored waters, old groves, fine artists, druidic orders, and sea-borne wealth. Its docks served merchants, herbalists, alchemists, shipwrights, and noble houses whose lineages reached back into the deep memory of the elves.

After the events of a campaign in the , Laz’klennar is no longer merely a proud maritime city. It is an occupied city, taken by the **Triad** after the arrival of the **Black Ark** and the five-day siege that broke its harbor, scattered its defenders, and sent thousands of survivors into the surrounding woods.

The rightful ruler is now commonly called the **Prince in Exile**, while the city itself is held by forces associated with **Lord Karumantha**, **Scylla**, and the broader Triad war machine.

===== Sigil =====

{{:thefreelands:lazk-sigil.jpg?275|}}
===== Description =====

Before its fall, Laz’klennar was famed for beauty without softness. Its harbor was lined with pale stone quays, silvered mooring towers, and arched sea-gates carved with vines, stars, waves, and old elven victories. Gardens grew along rooftops and balcony courts. Druidic groves stood beside alchemical markets. Music, painting, herbalism, and maritime law were all treated as noble disciplines.

Since the occupation, much of that beauty remains, but it is changed.

The harbor districts are scorched. Many old ships lie burned, sunken, or chained into Triad service. The palace terraces are patrolled by mercenaries and cold-eyed officers. Several noble homes have been seized as barracks, interrogation houses, or command lodges. The great market still functions, but its ledgers now serve the occupiers, and every warehouse clerk knows which questions are dangerous.

Beyond the city walls, the refugee roads wind through the forest toward hidden camps, sympathetic settlements, and the strained safety of places such as **[[thefreelands:sharlore|Sharlore]]**.

{{:thefreelands:lazklennar1.png?800|}}
====== History ======

==== The City Before the Fall ====

Laz’klennar grew from an old elven harbor settlement into a city of terraces, sea walls, groves, and high houses. It traded in fine art, rare herbs, alchemical reagents, crafted luxuries, maritime contracts, and druidic services.

Unlike harsher fortress-cities, Laz’klennar trusted in layered defenses: sea walls, harbor chains, warded groves, old magic, ship patrols, noble champions, and the assumption that any attack large enough to threaten the city would be seen long before it arrived.

That assumption failed.

==== The Black Ark ====

Following the death of Caribdis and the Triad’s withdrawal from portions of the Corsair Seas, reports began to spread of a moving island in the western seas. This fortress became known as the **Black Ark**: a mobile port, castle, and war platform used by the Triad.

The Black Ark’s most infamous weapon was the **Hammer of Vigilance**, an ancient arcane cannon said to be capable of destroying a sea-bound vessel in a single volley. Few powers could approach the Ark directly. Even the Githyanki of [[corsairseas:chaskallabay|Chaskalla Bay]], who attempted to overrun it, were thrown back with heavy losses.

When the Black Ark turned toward Laz’klennar, many assumed the city would face siege engines, war galleys, and mercenary landing parties.

Instead, the Triad brought something worse.

{{:theblackwake:blackark.jpg?400|}}

===== The Five-Day Siege =====

The Black Ark arrived outside Laz’klennar’s harbor and began a bombardment and assault that lasted five days. The opening attack shattered portions of the harbor defenses and set parts of the docklands aflame, but the true horror of the siege was the creature later known as **the Abomination**.

The Abomination was not merely a siege beast. It was an engine of despair.

Laz’klennar’s champions managed to slay it, only for the creature to return again the next day. This cycle repeated again and again. Each victory became temporary. Each dawn brought renewed terror. By the fifth day, the defenders were exhausted, the harbor was broken, and many of the city’s strongest protectors had been killed, scattered, or spent beyond usefulness.

On the fifth day, Triad soldiers and mercenaries attacked alongside the returned Abomination. The remaining defenders were overwhelmed.

|| "The harbor was always our pride, its silver docks and mirrored waters, but during the siege it became a burning graveyard. The Triad’s war galleys swept in first, hurling fire that clung to the waves like oil. Then came the Abomination, dragged toward us by chains of frost and shadow. I saw it fall on the second day, collapsing onto the shattered quay with a sound like mountains splitting. We celebrated too soon. In the early light of the third dawn, the corpse inhaled, and its eyes glowed as if something inside it refused to let go. Each rebirth brought more terror, more screams, more broken timbers. By the fifth day even the bravest had stopped cheering when we struck it down, for what is victory when the foe you kill will rise tomorrow? Laz’klennar’s ships burned, and with them the spirit of our people."- **Testimony of Captain Merelion Starwake, Harbor Guard** ||


{{ :theblackwake:falloflazk.png?500 |}}
==== The Occupation ====

After the city fell, Lord Karumantha, Scylla, and Triad-aligned commanders moved to claim Laz’klennar. The occupation was swift, disciplined, and deliberately symbolic.

The Triad seized the harbor, the palace approaches, the noble archives, the alchemical markets, and the major druidic sanctuaries. Surviving defenders were killed, driven underground, or forced to flee. Some noble houses surrendered. Others burned their own records rather than let the occupiers use them.

Many citizens chose the woods over life under Triad rule. These refugees now form scattered camps, hidden enclaves, and political factions throughout the nearby forests and settlements. Sharlore, already old and cautious, has become one of the most important destinations for displaced elves from Laz’klennar.

[{{:thefreelands:traidpatrol.jpg?600|Triad Patrol}}]
===== Current Status =====

Laz’klennar remains occupied.

The Triad controls the harbor, gates, major roads, and visible institutions. Its forces include mercenaries, surviving naval crews, informants, foreign agents, and commanders loyal to Lord Karumantha and Scylla. The Black Ark does not need to remain in the harbor at all times for its threat to be felt; the memory of its arrival is enough to shape every negotiation.

The old population is divided into several groups:

  * **The Occupied:** Citizens who remain inside Laz’klennar and attempt to survive under Triad law.
  * **The Collaborators:** Merchants, minor nobles, and officials who work with the occupiers for profit, survival, revenge, or fear.
  * **The Hidden:** Resistance cells, sheltered families, druids, smugglers, and oathbound retainers operating inside the city.
  * **The Exiles:** Nobles, soldiers, artists, priests, and common families who fled after the fall.
  * **The Forest Camps:** Refugees hiding in the woods near old roads, druidic sites, and ruined watchposts.
  * **The Sharlore Refugees:** Those who reached Sharlore and now strain its food stores, politics, and patience.

===== Geography and Layout =====

^ The Silver Harbor | Once the pride of Laz’klennar, the Silver Harbor was known for mirrored waters, pale quays, slender mooring towers, and ships whose carved prows were treated as works of art. Now the harbor is a wound. Burned piers, chained vessels, Triad patrol boats, wrecked warehouses, and scorched stones mark the place where the city’s spirit broke. Some of the old harbor chains remain, but they now serve the occupiers. |
^ The Burned Quays | The Burned Quays are the most visibly damaged portion of the city. Charred pilings, sunken cargo, broken cranes, and collapsed customs houses remain from the siege. Triad guards patrol the area heavily, both to control smuggling and to prevent citizens from gathering at the old memorial sites. Resistance messages sometimes appear here at dawn, painted in ash and seawater. |
^ The High Terraces | The upper city rises above the harbor in layered terraces of pale stone, garden courts, slender bridges, and old noble houses. Many of these estates were seized after the fall. A few families were allowed to remain as hostages in their own homes. The highest terraces are now associated with occupation command. |
^ The Green Crown | The Green Crown is the ring of groves, gardens, and druidic sanctuaries that once marked Laz’klennar’s spiritual heart. Some groves have been sealed. Others are watched. A few remain untouched because Triad soldiers sent into them never returned. Local rumor says that the oldest trees still remember the city before the harbor, and that not all of them accept the occupation. |
^ The Outer Woods | The woods around Laz’klennar are crowded with refugees, deserters, scouts, and agents from several powers. Some paths lead to Sharlore, Wallhaven’s protectorate road, hidden elven camps, or abandoned druidic shrines. Others lead nowhere safe. The Outer Woods are also where most escaped citizens first learned that exile is not freedom. Food is short, winter is feared, and every camp must decide whether to remain hidden, move on, or fight. |
^ The Abomination’s Scar | A rough path of broken stone, collapsed walls, and disturbed earth marks several places where the Abomination passed during the siege. Some wounds in the city have not healed properly. Animals avoid them. Druidic magic behaves strangely near them. Fires burn blue or gutter out without wind. No one agrees on what became of the Abomination after the city fell. |

===== Economy =====

Before the fall, Laz’klennar’s economy depended on maritime trade, fine art exports, rare herbs, alchemical reagents, druidic services, luxury goods, and noble patronage.

Under occupation, the economy has become harsher and more controlled.

The Triad taxes harbor trade, seizes strategic materials, monitors alchemical reagents, and uses the city’s remaining warehouses for military supply. Art, jewelry, books, and heirlooms from fleeing families have entered black markets across the Free Lands and Corsair Seas. Some pieces are sold by desperate refugees. Others are stolen by collaborators or occupation officers.

Current economic conditions include:

  * Restricted harbor trade.
  * Triad seizure of ships and warehouses.
  * Shortages of food, medicine, and clean reagents.
  * Smuggling through the Burned Quays and forest roads.
  * Black-market sale of elven artwork and noble heirlooms.
  * Exiled nobles funding privateers, spies, and rescue missions.
  * Increased demand for smugglers able to move people or supplies past Triad patrols.

===== Culture and Society =====

Laz’klennar’s culture was built on memory, refinement, artistic discipline, reverence for old groves, and the belief that beauty was a civic duty. Painters, herbalists, shipwrights, poets, druids, and navigators all held honored places in society.

The fall shattered this confidence.

Inside the city, public culture is muted. Songs are sung quietly. Old festivals are either forbidden, monitored, or turned into hollow civic performances under Triad supervision. Noble etiquette survives, but now carries the tension of hostage courts and hidden loyalties.

Among the exiles, culture has become portable. Families carry miniature shrine icons, wrapped paintings, fragments of harbor stone, pressed leaves from old groves, and water from the Silver Harbor sealed in glass. Refugee children learn songs about places they may never see.

Common traditions among the displaced include:

  * **The Ash Cup:** A mourning rite in which survivors mix campfire ash with water and swear to remember the burned harbor.
  * **The Unmoored Lantern:** Small lanterns are floated down streams to symbolically guide lost souls back to Laz’klennar.
  * **The Fifth Dawn Silence:** Refugees observe silence at dawn in memory of the fifth day of the siege.
  * **The Green Oath:** Young elves swear before a living tree to return, rebuild, or avenge the city.

===== Government and Factions =====

==== The Prince in Exile ====

The Prince in Exile is the surviving symbol of Laz’klennar’s legitimate rule. Whether loved, blamed, pitied, or politically useful, the Prince gives the scattered people of Laz’klennar a name around which to organize.

The Prince’s court is not a palace court. It is a moving coalition of surviving nobles, envoys, druids, guards, scribes, and desperate petitioners. Its greatest challenges are food, legitimacy, and the question of whether liberation is possible without destroying what remains of the city.

==== The Triad Occupation ====

The Triad holds Laz’klennar through fear, bureaucracy, informants, mercenary strength, and control of the harbor. Lord Karumantha and Scylla are the names most commonly associated with the occupation, though lesser commanders handle much of the daily cruelty.

The occupiers do not rule like ordinary conquerors. They prize strategic value: docks, ships, reagents, hostages, maps, sea routes, arcane sites, and political terror.

==== The Hidden Green ====

The **Hidden Green** is a loose name for druids, scouts, healers, and forest-wise citizens who aid refugees and resist the occupation. It is not a single organization so much as a network of favors, groves, signs, and old loyalties.

The Hidden Green is strongest in the Outer Woods and weakest inside the harbor districts.

==== The Ashen Quay Cells ====

The **Ashen Quay Cells** are resistance groups operating in and around the Burned Quays. They sabotage cargo, move people through ruined warehouse tunnels, mark collaborators, and smuggle messages to exiles.

Some are patriots. Some are criminals. Some are both.

==== The Collaborator Houses ====

A handful of lesser noble families and merchant houses have accepted Triad rule. Some claim they are protecting the people who remain. Others have clearly profited from confiscated estates, seized art, and occupation contracts.

Their names are spoken carefully in public and cursed freely in exile.

===== Notable Figures and Groups =====

^ Name ^ Role ^ Description ^
| The Prince in Exile | Displaced ruler of Laz’klennar | The surviving symbol of lawful Laz’klennar. Struggles to unite nobles, refugees, druids, and foreign allies. |
| Lord Karumantha | Triad commander | One of the principal powers associated with the occupation of Laz’klennar. Feared for strategy, contracts, and ruthless patience. |
| Scylla | Champion of Icengrim | A Triad champion linked to the conquest. Her name is associated with cold discipline, terror, and the final seizure of the city. |
| Captain Merelion Starwake | Former Harbor Guard | A survivor of the siege whose testimony about the harbor and the Abomination has spread among exiles. |
| The Abomination | Siege horror | The creature unleashed during the five-day siege. It was slain more than once, only to return again. Its final fate is uncertain. |
| The Hidden Green | Refugee and resistance network | Druids, scouts, healers, and guides who shelter survivors and keep forest routes open. |
| The Ashen Quay Cells | Urban resistance | Saboteurs and smugglers operating through the ruined harbor districts. |
| The Collaborator Houses | Occupation-aligned locals | Families and merchants who serve, accommodate, or profit from Triad rule. |
| Sharlore Relief Circles | Refugee aid groups | Elven families, priests, and civic leaders in Sharlore trying to manage the influx of displaced Laz’klennari. |

===== Points of Interest =====

^ The Silver Harbor | The old heart of Laz’klennar’s maritime power. Now heavily patrolled, partially burned, and filled with seized ships, wreckage, and watch posts |
^ The Burned Quays | Ruined docklands where the siege left its clearest scars. Smugglers, ghosts, scavengers, and resistance cells all move through the area |
^ The Palace of Moon and Root | The former seat of Laz’klennar’s ruling house. Its upper halls are now controlled by Triad commanders, while sealed lower chambers are rumored to contain royal archives, heirloom weapons, and escape passages |
^ The Green Crown | A ring of sacred groves, terraced gardens, and druidic sanctuaries. Some are occupied, some abandoned, and some dangerously awake |
^ Starwake Watch | A damaged harbor tower named in old records for a family of sea captains. It became a symbol of failed defense after the siege, but resistance cells now use its silhouette in coded messages |
^ The Abomination’s Scar | A broken route through the city where stone, soil, and magic remain disturbed. No patrol enjoys being assigned there after sunset |
^ The Refugee Roads | Unofficial routes through the woods used by fleeing citizens. Some lead to Sharlore, hidden camps, or Wallhaven’s protectorate roads. Others are traps, dead ends, or hunting grounds for things drawn by fear |

===== Services =====

Services inside Laz’klennar are dangerous, restricted, or controlled by the occupation.

Available services may include:

  * Licensed harbor trade under Triad oversight.
  * Alchemical materials, if approved by occupation authorities.
  * Black-market food, art, medicine, and documents.
  * Smugglers willing to move people through the Burned Quays.
  * Hidden Green guides in the Outer Woods.
  * Forged travel papers.
  * Quiet healers serving refugees and resistance cells.
  * Informants selling news of prisoners, collaborators, and patrol routes.

Refugee camps outside the city may offer:

  * Basic healing.
  * Guides to Sharlore or other settlements.
  * News from the occupied city.
  * Shelter for elves fleeing Triad rule.
  * Recruitment into resistance bands.

===== Adventure Hooks =====

  * A noble family in exile hires the party to recover a sealed heirloom from the Palace of Moon and Root before the Triad finds it.
  * Refugees arriving in Sharlore claim the Abomination has been seen again near the Burned Quays.
  * A collaborator house offers the party a fortune to escort its children out of the city, but the exiles want the family tried for treason.
  * The Hidden Green asks the party to escort a convoy of sick refugees through forest paths that have begun shifting at night.
  * A surviving harbor ledger proves which foreign merchants aided the Black Ark before the siege.
  * The Prince in Exile needs proof that one of the old druidic groves still recognizes the royal bloodline.
  * A Triad officer is secretly selling stolen Laz’klennari artwork through Corsair intermediaries.
  * Resistance agents believe the Hammer of Vigilance has a weakness hidden in Laz’klennar’s old naval archives.
  * A refugee child carries a fragment of the Abomination’s broken chain, and several powers are hunting for it.
  * Sharlore’s leaders ask the party to determine whether a wave of new refugees includes spies, deserters, or worse.

===== See Also =====

  * [[theblackwake:bwaftermath|Black Wake Aftermath]]
  * [[thefreelands:wallhaven|Wallhaven]]
  * [[thefreelands:sharlore|Sharlore]]
  * [[worldmap:thefreelands|The Free Lands]]
 
===== Media =====