Port Nyanzaru is a port in northern Chult that was an Amnian colony until five years ago, when it gained its independence. With Mezro’s destruction, it is the major trading center for all of Chult. The small port city is located on the Bay of Chult, at the mouth of the River Soshenstar. A wide variety of both mundane and exotic goods can be found in Port Nyanzaru. The majority of foreign trade within the city takes place in the Grand Souk. The port is protected by a high stone wall and designed with defense as a priority, due to the many pirates in the waters of the Shining Sea.
Until the Year of Rune Lords Triumphant (1487 DR), Amn controlled all mercantile activities in the city, and people unaffiliated with a trading company were forced to live in shantytowns outside the walls. During the chaos of the Sundering, the city won its independence from Amn due to the influence of a consortium of seven Chultan traders backed by the Triceratops Society. With help from the Society, the traders then rose to the title of merchant princes and have ruled the city since as a council where each has equal vote. Goldenthrone is the seat of governance for the merchant princes.
Inhabitants
Port Nyanzaru is inhabited largely by humans of chultan descent. A few tabaxi live in the city, working as minstrels or guides out of Port Nyanzaru. Chultan Shield dwarves live in the port, including albino dwarves, and some Yuan-Ti can be found, though they are distrusted by the locals.
Dinosaur Racing
The city is famous for its weekly dinosaur races through the streets. Dinosaurs are painted in bright designs, and their riders try to steer them along a course that winds around the harbor and the city’s four hills. Spectators are seldom injured, but it’s a dangerous sport for the dinosaurs and their riders. A typical race day has three races: one for four-legged beasts, one for two-legged beasts, and one no-holds-barred “unchained” race. Many of the dinosaurs involved are juveniles, since fully grown versions can be too large and too difficult for riders to manage. The dinosaurs are stoutly muzzled and have their claws and horns blunted in ail but the unchained race. The four-legged race is dominated by young ankylo-sauruses and triceratopses, but dimetrodons have also done well when paired with Small riders. Most competitors in the two-legged race are hadrosauruses and deinonychuses (again with Small riders). The unchained race sees racers on anything, including young allosauruses and very young tyrannosauruses. Raising a dinosaur to be a racer is difficult and expensive. Most owners aren’t willing to lose one–especially a fast one–to a novice racer’s inexperience resulting in injury or a bloodfest. Therefore, becoming a racer either requires years of training, or the purchase/provision of personal mounts.
Betting
Characters can bet on the dinosaur races to help fund a jungle expedition or earn some extra cash. The racers, the available odds, and the chance to win are listed in the Betting on Dinosaur Races table. Bets can range from 1 cp to 500 gp. Once bets are placed, roll a die for each bet. Losing bets cost the full amount of the wager. Winning bets pay out according to the table. Bets can be for a dinosaur to win, place, show, or do something specific during the race (like attack another racer or throw its rider), so many bets can win in the course of a single race. Losers are expected to pay up in a timely fashion. Port Nyanzaru bookies never forget a debt; even a year away on an expedition into the jungle isn’t long enough to erase an unpaid gambling loss.
Locations
Port Nyanzaru is a city of walls within walls. Burgeoning wealth has driven the city’s richest residents to raise defenses against the jungle’s dangers, and possibly against the dangers they perceive from the city’s less-well-off districts, which all lie out-side the main wall. The walls are impressive barriers of massive, fitted stone. Like other structures in Port Nyanzaru, they’re decorated with colorful paintings of geometric designs, animals, and mythic figures.
The city is defined by four steep hills. The western-most hill, called Temple Hill because it’s home to the temple of Savras, is completely walled off from lower ground. A wide stone bridge crosses on arched columns from Temple Hill to Throne Hill, site of Goldenthrone. A second bridge connects Throne Hill to the southern slopes, site of several merchant princes’ villas. East of the harbor, the Hall of Gold gleams atop the city’s taIJest hill, Mount Sibasa, which is connected by bridge to the neighboring Ykhvazi Hill (pronounced yick-ul-WAH-zee), site of the Grand Coliseum. Steep, stepped streets and terraces surround each hill.
Outside the main walls are three slums: the Old City to the southwest, where many buildings are remnants of older, pyramidal construction; Malar’s Throat to the south, where buildings cling to the walls of a lush can-yon spanned by rope bridges; and Tiryki Anchorage to the southeast, where explorers and river folk gather.
About half the city’s population lives crowded together outside the walls, where they’re always exposed to sudden attacks by carnivores or undead. A volunteer citizens’ brigade keeps watch for approaching danger. When residents of the outer wards hear the long blast of warning horns, day or night, they scramble for the safety of the Market Ward and Merchants’ Ward until the all clear sounds.
Old City
Three ancient, vine-covered ziggurats tower above this crumbling ward. The whole district is a juxtaposition of ancient and decaying (but still occupied) stone struc-tures interspersed with flimsy new huts and longhouses of bamboo and thatch. The Old City is run by “beggar princes” in a mocking parallel to the merchant princes of the city proper. The Old City is run down but it isn’t a slum or a haven for thieves. Most of the residents are lower-class laborers or struggling artisans who can’t afford the higher rents of homes inside the city walls.
1. The Beggars’ Palaces are the two largest ziggurats of the Old City. Shops and tenements of bamboo are jammed onto the terraces of the ziggurats in wild pro-fusion. The upper levels are cleaner and less crowded than those near street level. A narrow wooden bridge connects the upper levels above the press and noise of the street.
2. Executioner’s Run can be found following the road through the Old City where it splits around a rectangular, stone-lined pit 15 feet deep, 50 feet wide, and 200 feet long. Velociraptors, panthers, or other hungry beasts are set loose in the pit, then convicted criminals are dropped in at one end. Any criminals who make it alive through the gauntlet of carnivores to the far end of the pit can scram-ble up knotted ropes and win their freedom, along with the adulation of the crowd.
3. The Refuse Pit is an enormous sinkhole serves as the city’s garbage dump. Every type of refuse gets tossed here, up to and including dead bodies. It’s a festering scar of garbage, rancid water, and vermin. Rats, insects, and ravens abound. Ghouls are sometimes seen prowling through the pit in search of fresh corpses. Although the level of refuse in the pit rises and falls, the pit never gets full. This is thanks to an unknown number of otyughs living at the bottom and eating their fill daily.
Merchants’ Ward
The western half of the city is called the Merchants’ Ward because it’s the site of the Grand Souk and because many of the merchant princes’ villas are there. In general, this is the upper-class section of the city. The majority of the city’s merchants and traders actually live and work in the Market Ward.
4. The Goldenthrone palace serves as the meeting place for the merchant princes of Port Nyanzaru and is recognized as the seat of the city’s loose government. It was built decades ago by an Amnian trader and is one of the most opulent structures in the city, rivaled only by the grander temples and the merchant princes’ villas. An honor guard of eight Chultan gladiators is always on duty, to keep away loiterers in the daytime and thieves in the night. Goldenthrone is the best place to meet any of the merchant princes without an appointment.
5. Each merchant prince has a private villa in the city. These residences have beautifully plastered walls adorned with bright murals, patios and arcades festooned with fresh flowers, garden courtyards open to the sky, and enormous cisterns equipped with water wheels to power fountains, fans, and kinetic sculptures.
6. The Grand Souk, or market, is one of the three beating hearts of Port Nyanzaru-the others being the jewel market and the Red Bazaar. True to its name, the Grand Souk is the grandest of the three. Traders from up and down the Sword Coast come to this market to buy timber, spices, medicines concocted from jungle plants, dinosaur skulls and claws, iron, tiger pelts, carved ivory, Batiri and grung handiwork, colored feathers, tropical fruit, monkeys, plesiosaur meat, and all the other riches of Chult. Business begins before the sun comes up, and dealing doesn’t stop until well after darkness edges across the city. It’s a noisy, jostling, aroma-rich circus. Guards are numerous, but less numerous than the urchins and pickpockets. Street performers and tabaxi minstrels add to the cacophony. Colorful awnings protect the market from sun and rain but also trap the heat and smells.
7. The Temple of Savras honors a deity of wizards, fortune tellers, diviners, and those who unfailingly speak the truth regardless of whether listeners want to hear it. His symbol is a monstrous eye, or a crystal ball filled with eyes. Savras’s temple is one of the oldest, grandest buildings in the city. The tiled roof of its great dome resembles an un-blinking eye, staring skyward. A deity devoted to revealing the truth might seem to have a weak draw in a city of merchants, but Savras was widely worshiped in Chult long before the Spellplague.
8. The boxy stone Temple of Gond looms behind the royal docks. It’s popular among Port Nyanzaru’s many artisans, craftspeople, smiths, ivory carvers, and hydro-engineers. Where most such temples have a forge as a centerpiece, this one features an immense fountain whose water jets shift continually to create amazing shapes. It’s all done with nozzles and valves moving on cams, driven by the city’s plentiful water pressure.
9. The Temple of Sune is isolated atop a rocky formation in the sea, reachable only by an elevated causeway from Temple Hill or by boat. Steep steps wind up the cliff from the temple’s small harbor. When seen from a distance, the temple’s roof seems to float in midair-an illusion created by mirrors lining the outside walls. Inside, Sune’s faithful and casual visitors alike can partake of public baths, receive lessons in applying makeup and styling one’s hair, and learn to dress in a manner that suits the individual’s body, profession, and the climate.
10. The Jewel Market is intentionally styled as a miniature, more exclusive version of the Grand Souk. Its chief business is buying and selling the rich supply of jewels that are dug out of Chult’s mines, but many other rare luxury items are also traded here. This market is largely secure against pickpockets and thieves, thanks to the privately hired security agents patrolling it openly.
Harbor Ward
Port Nyanzaru’s harbor can accommodate ships of all sizes. The enclosed eastern portion of the harbor is reserved for the use of the merchant princes, but the rest of the docks are available for use by any ship.
11. The Royal Docks refer back to the age when Chult was ruled by true kings and queens instead of merchants. Now these docks are reserved for the exclusive use of the merchant princes and those diplomats, dignitaries, and influential foreign merchants whom the merchant princes want to flatter with privilege or impress with magnificence.
12. The statue at the center of the harbor represents an an-cient Chultan king in full regalia, resplendent in a loin-cloth of leopard skin and a headdress of feathers, shells, and tyrannosaurus teeth; draped in a cape of girallon fur and monkey tails; and wielding the traditional oval shield and yklwa of Chult. Residents call it Na N’buso, the Great King. The statue isn’t nearly as ancient as the mythic king it portrays. It was erected just five years ago, when Port Nyanzaru won its independence.
13. Outside of the sturdy, airy Harbormaster’s Office is a bulletin board that provides the names and whereabouts of several wilderness guides The harbormaster is a half-gold dragon named Zindar.
14. A flame burns atop the Lighthouse day and night to guide ships through darkness, fog, and rain to the harbor. Various powders can be added to the fire to create thick columns of colored smoke that can be seen from Fort Beluarian and from the mines along the Bay of Chult.
15. Fort Nyanzaru contains a winch for raising and lowering an immense iron chain stretched between the fort and the lighthouse. When the chain is raised, no ship can sail into or out of the harbor. The chain hasn’t been raised against attackers in decades, but it’s used occasionally to prevent a ship from slipping out of the harbor with criminals or contraband on board.
16. The Warehouse District sees goods of every type being shipped into or out of Port Nyanzaru stored in its warehouses. Canals are cut between the rows of warehouses, allowing ships to be towed by harnessed dinosaurs directly to the desired warehouse for easier loading and unloading. A large ship can easily block a canal, so good traffic management is required; that’s one of the harbormaster’s responsibilities.
17. The Dry Dock–Port Nyanzaru isn’t famous for building ships, but many vessels that come here wind up needing hull repairs, especially those that had runins with typhoons, pirates, or Aremag the dragon turtle. It’s easy work for dinosaurs to drag ships out of the water into the drydock so holes can be patched and barnacles scraped off.
Market Ward
The Market Ward is where most of Port Nyanzaru’s regular shops are located and where most of its trades-folk, merchants, and other middle-class residents live and work.
18. No one knows how the Red Bazaar got its name. One story is that the label comes from the huge slabs of dinosaur meat sold here and the resulting buckets of blood that stain the rain-washed gutters, and that’s probably as good an explanation as any. The residents of Port Nyanzaru shop for their daily needs at the Red Bazaar. Unlike the Grand Souk, which deals heavily in durable goods and luxury items, the Red Bazaar deals in everyday needs: locally produced meat, vegetables, tropical fruit, tej, light tropical clothing, insect repellent, rain catchers, and other household goods. The buyers and sellers in the Red Bazaar are predominantly locals. Two noteworthy inns are located near the Red Bazaar:
- The Thundering Lizard caters to a raucous clientele, and a bed for the night costs 5 sp.
- Kaya’s House of Repose is much quieter, and this a bed for the night at this upscale location costs 1 gp.
19. The Fish Market–Seafood is a staple in Port Nyanzaru, both because catching fish is easier and safer than hunting dinosaurs, and tender fish tastes better than tough reptile. The fish market is a great place to buy the day’s meals. Prices are higher in the morning, when quality and selection are also better.
20. The Grand Coliseum‘s stone arena is the site of gladiatorial games (usually nonlethal, but accidents happen), bloody animal combats, and spectacular circuses. Statues of the arena’s greatest champions line the tops of the Grand Coliseum’s walls, including one of the city’s current merchant princes (Ekene-Afa). Events are held on most afternoons; only special shows are held after sundown, as the coliseum depends on natural light. During the week, the bill features qualifying matches, consolation bouts, and other small events. Major events, championships, and special ex-travaganzas are staged on holidays. A holiday show might include a battle between “heroes of legend” and “pirates” (all portrayed by gladiators), a bloody match pitting vclociraptors against tigers, or even a contest of mages battling captured ghouls, skeletons, or zombies.
21. The magnificent Hall of Gold is a temple to Waukeen, but residents call it the Hall of Gold for its shining, golden roof and for Waukeen’s focus on trade and wealth. Mount Sibasa is the highest point in the city, and when the sun is shining, light glinting off the temple roof can be seen for miles out at sea. Some city residents swear that the roof is sheathed in pure burnished gold, but it’s only paint. A wide stone bridge connects Mount Sibasa to the Grand Coliseum on Yklwazi Hill.
22. Public Bathhouse–Port Nyanzaru is a very clean city thanks to the cleansing rain, and its residents are also scrupulous about hygiene. Most would be repulsed by the thought of a day without a bath. Dozens of small bathhouses across the city operate like private clubs, but the public bathhouse is open to everyone and is run by the priesthood of Sune (see area 9). It’s both egalitarian and elegant: wealthy merchants and dock laborers rub elbows in the tiled baths and marble-floored changing rooms. There is no charge, but bathers are requested to leave a donation to the temple of Sune befitting their station in life. Because Chultans are justifiably proud of this facility, even the poorest try to leave at least a copper piece in the giant clamshell by the entrance. Many independent masseurs and masseuses are on hand to massage weary muscles.
23. The Dyeworks–Along with cleanliness. Chultans love colorful clothing. Textile weaving is not one of Chult’s native industries, because the jungle isn’t suited for growing cotton or raising sheep. However, the jungle and the sea provide everything necessary to concoct vibrant dyes in a rain-bow of colors. Merchants import light, plain fabrics, which are dyed in vibrant colors and patterns at the dye works before being sold locally or exported back to the regions where the cloth originated.
Malar’s Throat
This region outside the city walls is Port Nyanzaru’s slum district. Two sheer, jungle-draped ridges flank a deep ravine. Ramshackle buildings cling to the sides of the ridges, each structure seemingly built atop the lower one’s roof. During heavy rain, runoff pours down the ravine, through Ubtao’sJaws (the large gate in the city wall facing Malar’s Throat), and down the paved streets to the harbor, often sweeping along unattended baskets, dead animals, and even clumsy or unlucky Chultans in its tow. Foot bridges of rope and bamboo hang above the ravine. Some of them are 200 feet long or longer and sway a hundred feet above ground, terrifying the faint of heart.
24. Tymora’s Temple is built like a sturdy blockhouse of heavy stone. It’s not an elegant structure, but residents rely on it to be a safe refuge when floodwater pours down Malar’s Throat or when the alarm horns blow and there’s no time to reach the safety of the city before undead swarm up the ravine. The people who live in Malar’s Throat don’t consider themselves especially lucky, but what little luck they have, they attribute to the Lady’s presence among them.
Tiryki Anchorage
This district east of the city is populated by animal trainers, river folk, explorers who need inexpensive lodging, and other rough-and-tumble sorts. Smugglers prefer the unregulated docks of the anchorage over the policed and inspected docks of the harbor, despite the shortage of dock workers and beast-powered cranes to assist in loading and unloading. Unlike Malar’s Throat and the Old City, Tiryki Anchorage has no fortified temple or ancient stone ziggurats where residents can take shelter against undead or carnivores. Most people dash for Tiryki Gate when the alarm sounds and hope to get through before it’s locked ahead of them.
25. The Dinosaur Pens are where most of the beasts of burden in the city are trained and penned up at night. Ankylosauruses and triceratopses are the most common in that role. Dinosaurs trained for street racing are also stabled here. Most Chultan handlers work with the same animals day after day.
Rumors
While unconfirmed, it is said that Harbormaster Zindar, the half-gold dragon harbormaster of the city, pays tribute to a powerful dragon turtle living in the Bay of Chult. In exchange for this monthly pay, the dragon turtle keeps all other sea monsters from harming the port and hindering trade.
