Marquet

Marquet is one of the continents on the world of Exandria, located south of Issylra and southwest of Tal'Dorei. It is where Campaign Three will start.

Geography
Centuries after the Calamity, Marquet is a continent of deserts and mountains. It is a U-shaped continent. On the northeastern part of this "U", the city of Shamal lies on the pebble-beached Bay of Gifts. Beyond the port, the Aggrad Mountains spread for hundreds of miles before giving way to the immense Marquesian Desert that covers approximately 70% of the overall land area of the continent. Ank'Harel, surrounded by a web of smaller villages, is alternately described as being near the center of the Marquesian Desert or only a day-and-a-half's foot travel from the Aggrad Mountains, making it relatively close to the northern shore relative to most of the continent. To the far south are scrubland and marshes leading to the mountains surrounding the Suuthan Volcano, presumably the Smouldercrown Mountains, a volcanic range approximately 250 miles south of Ank’Harel. There are few bastions of civilization to be found.

Shumas is a region in Marquet. It's unclear what relation this has to the Vault of Shumas, a hidden temple in the Aggrad Mountains that belonged to one religion from the beginning of the Age of Arcanum until just before the Calamity, when it was brutally taken over by another religion's adherents.

Notable places

 * Ank'Harel is a large, central oasis city in the Marquesian Desert.
 * The Vault of Shumas, in the Aggrad Mountains, was a religious sanctuary taken over by followers of Zehir. It was here that Arkhan found the Wreath of the Prism.
 * Shamal is a bustling port city on the northern coast on the Bay of Gifts, and is home to the Dalen's Closet beach resort.
 * The Scaldwind Sands were once the domain of Thordak and his armies.
 * Shandal is a small village south of Ank'Harel where Shaun Gilmore's parents live.
 * In the Smouldercrown Mountains was a hidden ziggurat that served as a second portal for members of the Remnants to get into the Shadowfell.

Demographics
Individuals native to or descended from Marquet tend to have darker hair and skin than those from more northerly climes.

Many desert elves emigrated from Marquet to the Menagerie Coast following the banishment of Uk'otoa. Only small numbers of dwarves from Marquet visit the Menagerie Coast as travelers or sailors, but one of the dwarves on Rumblecusp, Alana, hailed from Marquet.

When Vox Machina visited Ank'Harel, it was mostly populated by humans; they saw only one elf, and saw no dwarves or goliaths, but they did see dark-skinned halflings, a few half-elves, some half-orcs, and a couple of tieflings. Tiefling entertainers from the Menagerie Coast sometimes tour Marquet.

The Duneburrow goblins are known to inhabit the Marquesian deserts, and frightening stories about them are told on the Menagerie Coast.

Culture

 * The Marquesian language is spoken by many humanoids on the continent, and became the language of the Clovis Concord elite and of the pirates of the Revelry due to Marquesian people settling in the Menagerie Coast.
 * Merchants of import, such as those present for the Harvest Close Festival Victory Pit tournament in Zadash, wore outfits consisting of very light linens of a dull egg-shell white, with trims of gold and purple, paired with deep blue pants.
 * Gambit of Ord is a Marquesian card game.
 * An antiwar folk song from Marquet, Let the Sword Grow Rust, is a code-song used by the Golden Grin.
 * An example of a weapon with a Marquesian flair is a Scimitar of Speed, a finely crafted weapon with pearlescent gems embedded in the hilt.
 * The Cobalt Soul maintains at least one satellite archive in Marquet to collect information and artifacts.

History
During the Age of Arcanum, Marquet was the lush home of a prominent civilization. During the early years of the Calamity, warring nations on the continent turned the verdant landscape into ash and desert.

Three to four centuries after the Divergence, Marquesian explorers and traders had a seminal influence on other continents. Over on Tal'Dorei, a legendary spicemonger from Marquet named Abdar helped to fund the construction of Emon in the fourth or maybe fifth century PD, and a major district of the city still bears his name. Around 400 PD, an exploration vessel from Marquet reached the Swavain Islands and first established trade with the Ki'Nau. The Marquesians soon returned and established a colonial outpost called Damali on the Menagerie Coast, the beginning of what would eventually expand into the independent Clovis Concord. A secret sect of Marquesian worshipers of Zehir brought about the banishment of Uk'otoa, who had been a guardian of the Ki'Nau, and an influx of Marquesian travelers to the Menagerie Coast soon followed, including elves who helped found Gwardan.

At that time in the fifth century PD, the great city of Ank'Harel had just been founded under the rule of J'mon Sa Ord. When J'mon Sa Ord was declared emperor in Ank'Harel, the Marquesian colonists of the Menagerie Coast demanded independence, and the emperor eventually granted it. At the time, the red dragon Thordak tyrannically ruled over half of Marquet from his base in the Scaldwind Sands. Thordak, with his feral armies of kobolds and other serpentine followers, attacked the city when it was perhaps 100 or 150 years old, but after a two-week battle, his armies were defeated and Thordak was wounded, and as he fled north over the ocean he was struck down and fell into the sea. He was presumed dead for nearly two centuries before his confrontation with Emon's forces in 794 or 795 PD.

Around 820 PD, the Myriad crime syndicate established a satellite cell in Marquet.

After the Vo villagers of Rumblecusp recovered their memories, many had places to which they wanted to return, and five locations across Exandria were chosen to get people closest to where they wanted to go. One location was on the western coast of Marquet. This location had a beautiful village with tall, bright-white towers and an exterior wall upon a hillside teeming with vegetation, near a cluster of tropical trees.

Behind the scenes

 * The culture and architecture of Marquet's cities is broadly inspired by 12th-century Turkey, and its outlying villages are reminiscent of early Palestine.