Eberron - Rising from the Last War

0

SHARN, CITY OF TOWERS

I

'VE BEEN HERE A WEEK, AND IT'S STILL HARD

not to feel overwhelmed by the city. The towers

rise up until they disappear into the clouds. Lights

gleam in a thousand windows. Slrycoaches work

their way through the maze of bridges connecting the tow­

ers, and up above I can see the burning ring of an elemen­

tal airship.

Distracted by the sights in the slry, I nearry walk into a

warforged as it brushes past me. It's my first time seeing

one, but then there are so many things I've never seen in

this place. Over there, a tattooed elf haggles with a masked

ha I.fling, arguing about the price of lizard meat. Beyond

them, a gargoyle watches from a high perch. I gather my

senses and keep moving.

It's not un til I reach the lift that I realize the warforged

stole rrry purse.

-A newcomer to the big city

All the major themes of Eberron are manifest in the

great city of Sham. It's a place of magic, with sky­

coaches circling mile-high towers and mystic forges toil­

ing endlessly in the bowels. It's a place of adventure and

intrigue. A fallen angel is gathering minions in the ruins

below the city. A gang war is gaining strength in Calles­

tan. The corpse of a murdered aristocrat has just been

discovered in a floating mansion. A Cannith artificer is

experimenting with a planar gateway-and something is

about to go terribly wrong. All of these adventures and a

hundred more are waiting in the City of Towers.

This chapter details the city for players and DMs alike.

The DM can find additional information about the city in

chapter 4.

THE SHAPE OF SHARN

Sham is the largest city in Khorvaire, with a population
of half a million people. Humans make up about a third
of that number, and dwarves are a sixth of it; the rest is
a blend of every race found across Khorvaire. Halflings,
elves, and gnomes all have a significant presence in the
city, but even kalashtar and changelings have communi­
ties in Sham. Beyond the permanent population, tens of
thousands of people pass through Sham every day. Ref­
ugees from the war still find their way to the city, along
with tourists, spies, merchants, and folk hoping to find
their fortune in the grandest city in Eberron.

Sham stands above the Dagger River and its eastern

tributary, the Hilt. It's an important port for anyone deal­

ing with Aerenal, Xen'drik, or Sarlona. Mountains line

the shores of the Dagger, and Sham can't spread out. So

instead it has grown ever upward.

The city is primarily made up of these quarters:

• Central Plateau


• Dura
  Menthis Plateau


• Northedge


• Tavick's Landing
  At the hub of each of these quarters is a cluster of
  enormous core towers. A web of bridges and platforms
  connects many of these vast spires, and smaller turrets
  sprout from the edges of the core towers. The district of
  Skyway floats above the highest towers, while the tun­
  nels of the Cogs stretch out below the lower city.
  In between those extremes, each of the quarters is
  divided into an upper ward, a middle ward, and a lower
  ward. Each ward is made up of a number of districts, so
  that the location of a place in Sham can be expressed
  with a combination of a ward name and a district name.
  More information about each of the wards and the dis­
  tricts in them appears later in this chapter.

AFTERMATH OF WAR

Far from the front lines, Sham never fell under siege

during the Last War. Regardless, the war's impacts af­

fected the city's citizens and continue to even today.

PHYSICAL DAMAGE

Although Sham was never subjected to a sustained

assault, it didn't avoid damage. On many occasions,

commandos and saboteurs launched significant attacks

inside Sham. The most infamous of these was the

Aundairian attack that brought down the floating Glass

Tower, devastating the district now known as Fallen. In

any of the lower or middle wards, you might encounter

evidence of the conflict in the form of a shattered bridge,

a building collapsed by an arcane explosion, or an area

some say is haunted because of the large number of peo­

ple killed there during the war.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SCARS

There are places in the city that house people who suf­

fered because of the actions of other nations. For exam­

ple, many of the residents of Dura hold all Aundairians

responsible for the destruction of Fallen. In another

district, folk could hate the Karrns for an undead attack

that occurred during the war, and a different group

CHAPTER 3 I SHARN, CITY OF TOWERS