Daggermark
The City of Assassins is the heart of the region controlled by Daggermark. The inner curtain wall surrounds Dagger Home, a small hill upon which the wealthy of the city maintain their villas and estates. Each neighborhood in the city has a citizen-captain who represents the neighborhood in complaints to the authorities—those being either the current ruler or the assassins’ guild. Hostility between neighborhoods is common, especially between those populated by the descendants of Yenchabur and those primarily comprised of other River Kingdoms denizens. While this enmity hasn’t broken out into open fighting, it has been the source of several high-profile assassinations of neighborhood captains. The city is home to the Daggermark Assassins’ Guild, a school for the Yenchabur method of assassination—chief ly, assassination that’s quiet and clean—as well as the Daggermark Poisoners’ Guild. The former is run by Lady Janna Smilos, a descendant of Galtan nobility, and the latter is run by Tragshi the Herbalist, an elderly half-elf with golden-tan skin who hails from lands far to the east and wanders the city with dozens of venomous snakes crawling about her person
History
The largest city in all of the River Kingdoms, Daggermark has maintained enough political and economic stability to secure an abundant supply of food, a rarity in the chaotic Broken Lands region of northeastern Avistan. Daggermark is so stable that it even has a thriving industry and is wealthy enough to mint its own currency. The main reason for this stability are the two guilds for which the city is so famous: the Daggermark Assassins’ Guild and the Daggermark Poisoners’ Guild. These two organizations often work hand in hand, as the assassins favor the use of poisons, believing that only amateurs leave behind an obvious cause of death. Few bandit lords would be stupid enough to attack Daggermark for fear of being found poisoned, strangled, or having succumbed to some other seemingly “accidental” death.
With almost 30,000 inhabitants and the deadly guilds that keep bandits and troublemakers at arm’s length, Daggermark is large enough to have a substantial amount of crops and livestock, forges turning out arms and armor, and even its own coinage. The city proper has both an inner and outer wall; the inner section is called the Dagger Keep, and is home to the wealthiest and most powerful of the city’s captains. The ruler is Martro Livondar, although the dwarven Lord Captain Jallor Clovesh commands half the army, and no one dares ignore the sister guilds of assassins and poisoners. Daggermark fields by far the largest army of the kingdoms, with more than 1,500 veteran foot and cavalry.
Most of all, though, Daggermark attracts applicants to its schools for poisoners and assassins. Those who learn these trades in Daggermark are feared throughout Golarion. The current head of the assassins’ guild is Lady Smilos, whose assassinations included the use of magical poisons, curses, and fatal misadventure through monstrous encounters.
Her equal partner in the poisoners’ guild is the elven druid and herbalist Tragshi, a golden-skinned maiden from the east with a lilting voice and strange notions of what constitutes the worship of nature. She is always accompanied by a dozen venomous snakes, which slither beneath her robes disconcertingly.