Hax
Hax (pronounced /hæks/), the City of Adventure, is one of the cities that make up Eidecia.
The City of Adventure is a place where daring exploits are always there for the doing, where dangers and treasures are never far away or hard to find. There's some sort of monster-filled "dungeon" beneath every major building, and many minor ones, and the city is dotted with mysterious towers and fortresses filled with traps and treasure.
Because of all these opportunities for exploration and escapades, many intrepid Eidecians immigrate to Hax to make a name for themselves there, considering it the ultimate site for adventure and heroic exploits. Not everyone, however, feels that way; as some see it, if the perils of the dungeons and towers of Hax serve no real purpose, and nothing is really accomplished by braving them and questing within, then all the deeds and escapades of the adventurers who pass through them are likewise empty and meaningless, and those who truly seek a purpose and a significance to their lives are better off seeking it elsewhere. There are also those, however, who theorize that exactly the opposite is the case—that anything that happens in Hax is a prototype of sorts, and that all adventure and derring-do anywhere else is necessarily a reflection and an echo of something prefigured in Hax, and that thus, far from being meaningless and unimportant, the adventures that take place in Hax are ultimately and indirectly the most important of all.
Surroundings
Hax is located on a tropical island, far from other land and cloaked by mist from outside view (though from within Hax the sky overhead does often look sunny). The ocean around Hax is filled with dangerous monsters and treacherous currents that discourage travel by ship, let alone swimming, and some of its denizens possess magical rays or other abilities that make them a danger even to those flying in the sky.
Despite the hazards, there are those who have braved the sea's perils to see what lies beyond. The answer is, apparently, not much, or at least not much within two thousand kilometers or so. A few scattered islands exist within that range, but none of them seems to have much in the way of civilization, though some do have other strange contents of interest. About twenty-two hundred kilometers from Hax is the nearest island with any sort of civilized society on it, a city-state calling itself Kludom, which seems to bear a surprising level of magical and technological advancement given its isolation. The nearest actual continent is even farther, not less than three thousand kilometers from Hax at its nearest point. In any case, while Hax itself lies in a little-trafficked area, other parts of the world it seems are very much inhabited, by advanced civilizations that have even mastered travel between worlds and even travel between planes; the fact that these other civilizations don't seem to have had much to do with Hax seems to owe to some rhegus on the island that prevents its discovery. Some of those few Hactians who've interacted with their comundanes have reported that they call their world Fi, which has since come to be the name commonly used by Hactians on the rare occasion that they have occasion to refer to the world in which the city is located—although it's far from clear whether "Fi" is really a widespread term in the rest of the world, or just one in use among one particular small population, or even whether it's really a name for the world at all and not for instance an interjection meaning "What?".
The island itself—and that's what the people of Hax call it, simply "the Island"—has more to it than just the City of Adventure, as well; Hax covers about a third of the island, the rest of it mostly jungle, with some tall mountains in the center. The uninhabited part of the island is nearly as dangerous as the ocean, however, roamed by enormous beings, anomalously including dinosaurs, or creatures very like them, although many of these dinosaurs have magical powers. The Island does apparently have native inhabitants, but little is known of them; they seem to want little to do with Hax, and there's enough to do within the City of Adventure that few inhabitants of Hax have had much to do with the islanders.
Geography
The City of Adventure is divided into a number of wards, each named after a particular color. The difference between wards does not merely indicate the color of the buildings, however—in fact, while the associated color does tend to feature prominently within each ward, by no means are all or even necessarily the majority of the buildings within a ward of that color. Each ward does seem to have a particular theme, however, which in some way seems semantically linked to the color. The Red Ward, for instance, has a lot of fire and lava in its dungeons; the Blue Ward has many water areas; the Green Ward is full of plant life (much of it carnivorous or dangerous for other reasons).
Like most eidopoles, Hax is surrounded by a wall, the only gaps, aside from the gates, being two large sections facing the sea where wharfs and jetties extend into the water, forming ports that are little used except as the locations of dungeons hidden in warehouses and derelict ships. A third port, High Harbor, lets out to the Heartsea, and here ships actually do come and go from other eidopoles. (As the name implies, High Harbor actually does have a higher water level than the other ports; there are two canals connecting them, but the Clockwork Canal works through a series of locks, and the Madman's Canal through an enchantment controlling the water flow.) Four main gates lead into the city from the land side, named after the wards they border: the Orange Gate, the Gray Gate, the Turquoise Gate, and the Lavender Gate.
Governance
The leader of Hax is an entity known as the Godknight, who appears heavily armored and bedecked with talismans of all sorts, though the specific talismans, and even the specific armor, changes between his appearances. The Godknight is completely covered by his armor and other accouterments, and no part of his flesh is visible, if indeed he even has flesh—it could be that he is some sort of animating force inhering in all his equipment, and that the armor is empty, or filled with something unexpected. At times the Godknight may take off a piece of his equipment and trade it for another object he decides he wants, but this is rare, and only done on the Godknight's initiative and never on someone else's request. Even more rarely, the Godknight may give away part of his equipment without asking anything in return, but this is apparently only done when he has reason to believe the recipient will use the object in a way that will greatly benefit the city.
Like most of the leaders of the eidopoles, however, the Godknight generally takes action only in matters of great import. Most of the everyday running of the city is done by officials called Questors. The Questors get their name from the fact that they operate mostly by assigning quests. While they may send specific people on quests (with severe penalties for failure to comply), more often the Questors call for general quests for items or services that they feel the city needs. At times they may organize quests that seem purposeless, perhaps simply to keep the citizens ready or to better single out the worthiest (or maybe, as some claim, just for the Questors' private amusement). Prospective new Questors must have completed at least three quests in the past, and before being accepted as Questors they must complete another special quest.
Economy
Hax exports principally gems and precious metals, of which its dungeons seem to have an inexplicably limitless supply, much of it already minted into coins. Aside from the treasures in its dungeons, Hax produces few material goods of value. There are many enchanters in the city who cater to its population by making talismans to help them in their adventuring, and smiths who make weapons and armor, but most of their output is sold internally, with only a small fraction exported. Hax must import nearly all its food and clothing, as well as most of the non-precious metals used as raw materials by the smiths.
Hax's monetary system is based entirely on precious metal, and in particular on one type of precious metal, called "adamant", which comes in several varieties of different value. Most valuable, and rarest, is black adamant, which is indeed completely black unless held at just the right angle for some light source to reflect off its mirror-smooth surface. Next in value is the almost as rare white adamant, which not only has a pure white color but actually glows in the dark, albeit not indefinitely; after having been exposed to light for long enough, white adamant gives off a soft glow for about an hour before its stored light is expended. After that comes the substantially more common gold adamant, which looks much like a brighter version of its metallic namesake, and then silver adamant, likewise. (Regular gold and silver are plentiful in Hax's dungeons as well, but not usually in coin form, and they are not so readily accepted as legal tender, though they are easily sold to traders who resell them in other eidopoles.) The least valuable variety of adamant is pearl adamant, which has a shimmering, nacreous appearance. Of course, as in all the eidopoles, moneychangers do exist, and a magical changer talisman will also do in a pinch.
In speaking of prices and coinage, the "adamant" is often left off of the metals' names; thus if one speaks in Hax of "gold coins" or of something costing "twenty silver", it's generally understood that it's gold adamant and silver adamant that are meant. (Black and white adamant are rare enough that they are seldom named in prices; a price is far more likely to be quoted as "twelve hundred gold" than "twelve black".) If one speaks of a gold necklace or a silver figurine, on the other hand, that almost always means actual gold and silver, not adamant. Adamant of any color is very difficult to work and reshape, and while adamant jewelry and statuary do exist, they are extremely rare (and extremely valuable!). Adamant alloys are even rarer; in fact, so difficult is adamant to admix with other metals that many adamant alloys are much more valuable than an equivalent mass of either of their component metals.
Naturally, Hax is full of shops that cater to its adventuring population, selling or renting gear and talismans they're likely to need, hiring out mercenaries and other helpers, providing healing and other services. So many are those who come to Hax to seek fame and fortune and then either die in the dungeons or leave when they find themselves not cut out for the adventurer's life after all—but only after having spent all they had with them on supplies they thought they'd need—that this is a very significant source of income for the city.
Dungeons
The dungeons are perhaps Hax's most notorious feature, mazes of corridors and chambers filled with traps, monsters, and treasure, and filling apparently the space underneath virtually every building in the city, and within many of the buildings as well. Actually, the exact spatial relationship between the dungeons and Hax proper remains uncertain; the dungeons often seem significantly larger than the space they externally appear to occupy. This could be a simple multum in parvo effect, and many scholars believe it's just that, but others think the dungeons occupy another plane entirely that Hax somehow links to, or perhaps that each dungeon is a pocket plane of its own.
The monsters in Hax's dungeons don't necessarily conform to any apparent logical ecosystem. Some dungeons are filled with carnivores without any apparent food source, the creatures apparently relying on magical sustenance. Plants grow underground with no sunlight to support them. Apparently the enchantments of the dungeon provide all the nourishment they need. Somehow, when the monsters in a dungeon are slain, the same or similar monsters return later. It's not completely clear whether this is the same monsters resurrected, or different monsters somehow spontaneously generated in their place; there is reason to believe that both processes occur, perhaps in different dungeons. Similarly, traps disabled eventually reset, even if there's no logical way they should be able to do so. The source of the treasures in the dungeon is even more mysterious than that of the creatures. Somehow,
The dungeons also have many features that dispense boons, either magical or material, by the expenditure of adamant. These features have come to be referred to collectively as sinks, though there is seldom cause to refer to them collectively at all, as they have little in common aside from the fact that they take adamant and give something in return. Sinks may take the form of fountains that adamant coins must be tossed into, statues into the eyes of which they must be placed, or virtually anything else. What they give in return may include the dispensation of food or weapons or other material objects, but more often their rewards are less tangible: enchantment of objects to turn them into talismans, or the enhancement of existing talismans, the bestowal of beneficial epodes, even the granting of information. The benefit granted by a particular sink is not necessarily obvious by looking at it—nor, for that matter, is the means of activation, or even the fact that it is a sink at all. Though a sink's nature can be discovered by some divinatory magics, more often they're found by trial and error, or, more often still, by reference to a record of the sink by someone who's encountered it previously. Indeed, sink maps are a common and profitable item of trade in Hax, though not all can be relied on.
A particularly common type of sink is that that provides healing to the person donating the adamant. Some sinks, indeed, go farther, and provide not just healing but resurrection of a dead comrade the donor specified. Farther still, some sinks resurrect the donor himself, the adamant paid in advance; upon the donor's death, he is then restored to his full faculties in the sink's vicinity. This only works once, however, for each time the price is paid. These so-called anacalea exist even outside the dungeons, and many prudent adventurers refuse to venture into the dungeons without donating to an anacaleon to ensure their restoral should they meet with mischance within; travelers to Hax from elsewhere save their money to exchange there for adamant for just this purpose. Some adventurers, however, see anacalea as a coward's recourse, and prefer to save their adamant for other expenditures.