Port Damali

Port Damali, founded as simply Damali, is the largest city on the Menagerie Coast and one of the eight city-states of the Clovis Concord. It is located among a cluster of hills where the Tyodan River meets the Lucidian Ocean. Established around 400 PD through a diplomatic agreement between Marquesian explorers and Ki'Nau leaders, it is the original Marquesian colony in the Coast. It later became one of founding cities of the Concord and, eventually, the nation's unofficial capital. Nicknamed the Jewel of the Coast, Port Damali is characterized as a lively, colorful, multicultural place that attracts travelers from across Exandria. However, for all its lavishness, its outer wards are dense slums.

The city is home to a massive port and a skyport, the only in Wildemount. These established Port Damali as a central city for commerce and as global hub between the continents of Exandria. However, its strong connection with the Myriad, which is deeply embedded in its guilds, has also enabled an equally successful criminal underworld. Nearly all local commerce is influenced by the Myriad, and Exandria's slave trade is centered in the city. Enforcement of the law is often lax, creating a reputation that "most anything is legal" in Port Damali.

Port Damali is the hometown of player characters Fjord, Calianna Mordsson, and Twiggy, and Taryon Darrington moved here after the events of Campaign 1. It is also where non-player characters Delilah and Sylas Briarwood and Anna Ripley initially fled to after their escapes from the Dwendalian Empire.

Description
Port Damali, the largest city on Wildemount's west coast, is located on a series of leveled hills where the Tyodan River meets the Lucidian Ocean. It is surrounded by farmsteads, and tents and ramshackle houses stand at its outer edge. The five interior wards of the city are connected by the Prism Path, a set of winding roads made of smooth, multicolored stones collected from the Lucidian Ocean.

As a major hub of trade and travel built around a massive port, Port Damali is an energetic center of commerce and culture, earning it the nickname the Jewel of the Menagerie Coast. The opulent inner city contrasts with the squalor of the outer wards, despite the latter's best efforts to add color. The city's cultural diversity is reflected in a dizzying array of architecture, ranging from historical styles to thatched homes or clay domes in the Tumbledowns. It is a busy city at the center of a series of trade routes by land, sea, and sky to transport goods throughout Wildemount and Exandria, and the constant visitors have ensured the city is full of inns, taverns, and underground markets.

Until 835 PD, many businesses were heated and powered by steam-powered engines beneath the streets. For decades, the system was powered by an imprisoned marid, unknown to most of the city's residents. The marid was freed after the Mighty Nein freed another marid in Nicodranas. The engines were powered by druids and mages as Marquis Lapidus searched for another energy source or a replacement for the engines.

Points of interest

 * Driftwood Asylum, orphanage located on a beach. Fjord was raised here.
 * , located in the Gilded Esplanade. It is a "grandiose, if gaudy" building. Items and buyers from across Exandria make their way here; it's rumored to be visited by those from the Outer Planes when especially powerful artifacts are at auction. It is managed by Lord Gabriel Rymmer, and his influential family receives a portion of all sales.
 * Library of the Cobalt Soul
 * , temple dedicated to Avandra in the Crescents
 * Skyport, located in the Gilded Esplanade and the only one in Wildemount. It occasionally receives skyships from Marquet and Tal'Dorei, and many skyships from Emon arrive via a stopover at Whitestone.
 * , temple dedicated to Pelor in the Crescents

Interior wards
Each ward is located at a slightly different elevation.
 *  is a market district located between the Crescents and the Tumbledowns. General commerce and trade within the city is housed here, and the district contains both new and old businesses. It is also full of bards and performers, lending the busy district "an air of lively irreverence". It is named after the decorative strings of streamers and beads hung over each intersection.
 *  is an affluent residential district located at the center of the city. Families of the local competing guilds and well-connected nobility trying to be near politics or the Gilded Esplanade live here. The Pearl Shrine and the Sunfall Sanctuary are also located in the Crescents. It is named after seven large, moon-shaped statues gifted to the city by the Alkamar family at its founding.
 * , located between the Crescents and the Larboard Light, is the district most associated with Port Damali. It is an extravagant and "sparkling" district full of prestigious artists and performers, various recurring festivities, and markets selling expensive goods and high-end global imports. The Exalted Collection Auction House and Skyport are located here.
 *  is the harbor located in the south of the city. It is a massive, upscale port that is "as lavish as docks come" and sees dozens of ships and many visitors to the city daily. The marquis' office is found at the northern end.
 *  is a residential district in the northern part of the city. It also contains some smaller temples. Most homes here are cramped and are built in different styles, including clay domes, thatched huts, and wooden shacks. The district has "a pleasant patchwork atmosphere even in the more run-down regions" through the combination of the Prism Path and the variety of Exandrian cultures represented by the varied architectural styles.

Culture
Port Damali is characterized as a lively, colorful, multicultural place that attracts travelers from across Exandria whose cultures combine to create the local society. Many temples to the Prime Deities are found here, notably the Pearl Shrine to Avandra and Sunfall Sanctuary to Pelor, as well as notable, hidden shrines to the Betrayer Gods.

Government and crime
Like other cities in the Clovis Concord, Port Damali is governed by a marquis. The marquis in 835 PD was Olesya Lapidus, who works with the other marquises to keep the Concord independent from the control of the Dwendalian Empire. The city is a center of naval power, as a quarter of the Clovis Concord's fleet (nearly one hundred warships) is concentrated near the city. Most business is overseen by a series of powerful guilds.

However, Port Damali is infamous for its lax enforcement of the law, which is easily bought like any other good; even access to Lapidus can be purchased. Port Damali is a "pivotal nexus" for the Myriad. Many key members of local commerce are either members of the Myriad or in debt to it, allowing the Myriad to control most elements of the city. The Myriad is also deeply embedded in law enforcement, so crime is often allowed to flourish and illegal goods and services are easily found. With heavy control from the Myriad, the city is also the center of Exandria's slave trade. All this has cultivated a reputation that "most anything is legal" in Port Damali, and this "roiling underbelly of crime, murder, and corruption" is often said to be regrettable but necessary.

Demographics
As the unofficial capital of the Clovis Concord, Port Damali has the largest population on the coast at 82,110 by the year 835 PD. It is fairly diverse, with only 51% of the population being human. Halflings make up 16% and elves make up 15% with other races making up 18%.

Background
Damali, later called Port Damali, was founded as an outpost in about 400 PD after a diplomatic agreement between an expedition of Marquesian explorers, who desperately needed supplies, and Ki'Nau leaders, who accepted trade items of gold, spices, and silks. This made it the first Marquesian colony in the Menagerie Coast. Marquesian settlements flourished throughout the Coast in a "tentative" peace with the Ki'Nau people in the years after. Conversely, Uk'otoa, who protected and was worshiped by the Ki'Nau, wished for the Marquesians to worship him as well; he was sealed beneath the Lucidian Ocean shortly after Damali was founded.

When J'mon Sa Ord came to power, Damali and the other cities took opportunity to petition J'mon for independence. Eventually, the demand was granted. In about 435 PD, Port Damali became one of the founding city-states of the Clovis Concord, and in time, it rose to become the nation's unofficial capital.

The city rose to become a center of trade and commerce both globally and on Wildemount, capital of free trade outside the Dwendalian Empire. Expeditions that later founded Whitestone and the Wanderman Assembly originated in Port Damali.

Port Damali has been led by multiple generations of the Lapidus family, who rose to prominence when they began maintaining a privateer fleet. Their protection of the city has seen consecutive members of the family as marquis of Port Damali, latest of whom is Olesya Lapidus.

Before Campaign 2
Vandran, a Revelry captain and warlock of Uk'otoa, left the Revelry after his boatswain and fellow warlock Avantika attempted to sacrifice him to Uk'otoa following a divergence in views about their patron. He fled to Port Damali with a Cloven Crystal and maintained a low profile there for a time before rebuilding his life. He sold the crystal at auction in the city and used the money to purchase the Tide's Breath. He captained the Tide's Breath as a merchant vessel with Port Damali as home port.

Shortly before the events of Campaign 2, Fjord and Jester Lavorre briefly met in Port Damali shortly before the Tide's Breath left port there. On the Tide's Breath's return trip, it was sabotaged by Sabian and sunk over the Diver's Grave. Sabian returned to Port Damali to raid Vandran's warehouse with Fjord arriving at the warehouse soon after. Because Fjord's survival of the sinking was met with suspicion, Fjord left the city and pursued Jester to the next town over.

Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein
The Mighty Nein briefly visited Port Damali at its Cobalt Soul archive in using a Teleportation Circle linking it to the Rexxentrum archive. However, because their unannounced arrival was shortly after an attack on the Zadash archive, they were met by an older archivist and heavily armed zhelezo, who anxiously shot Jester with crossbows when she began casting Enhance Ability. After the archivist confirmed the party was indeed traveling with an expositor of the archive, Beauregard Lionett, they were allowed passage back to Zadash. However, they were banned from the Port Damali archive. The ban was lifted some time later.

Trivia

 * Caleb Widogast knows the Teleportation Circle sigil for the Port Damali archive.