Explorers tell stories of a city hidden deep in the jungles of Q’barra—a wondrous citadel of obsidian and brass. According to these tales, the city is filled with treasure and guarded by a dragon fused with an ancient demon.


Carved into the side of an enormous volcano, the ancient city of Haka’torvhak—“the throne of the holy dragons”—serves as the center of the Q’barran lizardfolk religion. In the Age of Demons, it was one of the great citadels of the fiends and the site of a massive battle between the fiends and the dragons. In the end, the most powerful fiends were bound in the fires deep beneath the city and draconic guardians were left to watch over the place for eternity. The current guardian, the black dragon Rhashaak, has been corrupted by his post but remains bound to his duty.

A stunning metropolis of brass and volcanic glass, Haka’torvhak extends deep into the volcano behind it. Powerful magic shields the city from the threat of an eruption, but smoke still rises from the mountain peak. Rhashaak’s blackscale lizardfolk guardians live in the jungle around the base of Haka’torvhak, but only priests, sacred warriors, and living sacrifices are allowed into the city to gaze upon the countenance of the living god. The city contains a vast hoard of treasure assembled from millennia of sacrifices to the dragon guardians, as well as hidden artifacts from ancient times. In addition to the blackscale lizardfolk and the black dragon, a wide range of half-fiend and half-dragon creatures spawned over the centuries protect the city and its treasures, not to mention dinosaurs, lesser fiends, and other foul beasts.


Fixed in the ancient obsidian mountainside of a volcano in central Q’barra, this imposing citadel was the site of a titanic clash between demons and dragons at the end of the Dragon-Fiend Wars. It is said that when the stars align and their light shines through the Ring of Siberys, a wanderer in the jungle can push aside the creepers and gaze up into the night sky to see vrock bodies falling, their demonic limbs flailing in a rain of dragon fire. In another part of the sky, a dragon howls in pain, scored by a balor’s whip, while in still another corner of the firmament, a marilith and a couatl shriek, wound in each other’s coils.

The name Haka’torvhak means “throne of the holy dragons.” The half-fiend black dragon Rhashaak was placed here to guard against the rising of the demons bound for eons in the slumbering volcano, but he has become as much a prisoner of the place as the demons he guards. The lizardfolk that roam the Q’barran jungles worship Rhashaak, even as he chafes in his chains.

Lands: The jungles of Q’barra are among the most inhospitable known to the common races. The pirates of Lhazaar consider the entire Q’barran peninsula cursed. Quicksand, assassin vines, tendriculoses, fiendish shambling mounds, head-hunting lizardfolk, and acid geysers are but a few of the dangers concealed by the dense jungle undergrowth.

Getting There: For those unable to avoid the dangers of Q’barra altogether by means of teleportation, the simplest route to Haka’torvhak is above the jungle by Lyrandar airship. This route is also the safest by far, for traveling above the jungle only exposes one to yrthaks, glidewings, wyverns, and the occasional acid geyser that manages to top the trees. Those who cannot travel magically to the throne of the holy dragons are best off sailing to Adderport, hiring three or four local guides, purchasing digester-skin boots (to wade through the acid pools), and striking off on foot through the jungles to the northeast.

Appearance: Even after eons, the jungle has done little to diminish the glory of the demon city. Gleaming black and crimson as the sun climbs above the Sea of Rage, the city looks serene, even welcoming, from a distance. Up close, however, one can see the leering demon countenances graven into glass walls, the wicked spikes lining ancient battlements, and the poles impaling the living sacrifices of the lizardfolk. Smoke still rises from the volcano, but formidable magic shields the city from temblors and lava flow.

Features

Much of the city is deserted, with Rhashaak allowing only his blackscale lizardfolk priests, their living sacrifice captives, fellow fiends, and dragons within its glass walls. Those parts of the city that are still in use teem with fiendish life and house great stores of treasure.

Once, grand thoroughfares crossed the demon citadel, but Rhashaak has long since converted these now-crumbling byways into kennels for dretch. The dragon enjoys maintaining a stable of the lesser demons for amusement, and when he becomes especially frustrated with his duty, the hapless creatures suffer the brunt of his hatred for demonkind.

In their worship of Rhashaak, the blackscale shamans go to elaborate lengths to present their offerings to the fiendish wyrm in a pleasing manner. Their grisly ceremonies are held before a densewood sacrificial bier. Ornately worked with bloodstone and sardonyx, the bier weighs 400 pounds. If it could be transported to Sharn or Fairhaven, it would easily fetch more than 3,000 gp at a Wayfinder Foundation Relics and Antiquities auction.

Also of great interest and value to those brave (or foolish) enough to enter the obsidian citadel are the ancient armories of Haka’torvhak. The fiends were bound in the burning heart of the volcano when the dragons and couatls vanquished them ages ago, but not so their weapons. Left behind were swords, glaives, spetums and crossbows, all crafted by demon mages to be anathema to dragonkind.

Even as a half-dragon, Rhashaak cannot stand to be in the presence of these weapons, and he considers their existence offensive. Accordingly, rather than keep these treasures with his own hoard deep in the volcano, he has left them under dinosaur guard.

Rhashaak’s elite half-dragon troops are billeted when they are not conducting some mission for their lord. He frequently equips them with potions of alter self and sends them to spy in Adderport, Gatherhold, Regalport, and Sharn. If Rhashaak wants to test the strength of an opponent, acquire some item, or display his power in a distant court, these are the agents he sends.

Rhashaak has no wish to see the entire city fall into ruin, no matter how much he dislikes his surroundings. No dragon wishes to see its charge decay during its reign. There are also valuable items and magic here that Rhashaak has no desire to let wander into the world at large. At the same time, the dragon cannot trust all such guardianships to the primitive lizardfolk, nor does he wish his half-dragon troops to do the job—his duties for them are far more important.

To that end, Rhashaak keeps a variety of creatures to act as guards, setting them to lair in various parts of the city in hopes of making any incursions very shortlived. Megaraptors and tyrannosaurs are only two examples of the dangerous local fauna the dragon has pressed into service. Add in the dretch, who both comb the streets and suffer for the dragon’s amusement, and entering the city becomes an exercise in caution.

More than any other location in Haka’torvhak except the Dragon Throne itself, the Demon Glass Hall is the center of Rhashaak’s exile. This chamber is his window onto the world. Bound to the volcano and the demon city, he thirsts for news from outside his narrow domain. His blackscale lizardfolk worshipers bring him what information their swamp-addled brains can comprehend, but that is not nearly enough for the wyrm. Rhashaak has thus gathered here and affixed to the wall with sovereign glue all the demon glass fragments from Haka’torvhak’s libraries.

In these fragments flash scenes from across Eberron—a demon sprinting across a field of obsidian shards, a rakshasa smoking a hookah, a human sailing a launch through spraying whitecaps, and on and on by the thousands. Most of these visions are from the past, but a viewer within the hall can sometimes glean useful current information from the bewildering array of shards. With a successful DC 20 Intelligence check to locate a single suitable fragment of demon glass, a viewer who speaks and reads Abyssal can then attempt a DC 20 Knowledge (arcana) and a DC 20 Knowledge (history) check to bring to mind legends about an important person, place, or thing (as if under the effect of a legend lore spell). This ability is usable once per day while gazing at the demon glass.

If a demon glass is pried from the wall, it loses this legend lore ability. For more information on demon glass, see page 112.

Whether adventurers are foolish enough to want to find Rhashaak or simply trying to avoid him, if the wyrm is not currently lingering in the Demon Glass Hall, he will almost always be found in the Holy Throne of Dragons. In this great chamber piled high with the treasures of three ages, Rhashaak contemplates his dark fate.

Full of self-loathing, the black wyrm despises demons and his forced watch over them, and yet he knows that he has been corrupted by his post. His many days in the Demon Glass Hall are spent watching the world for a sign that the Prophecy will soon release him from his bondage. On other days, he is not content to allow the Prophecy to take its course, and works toward his own salvation. His highest hope in this regard is the worship of the blackscale and poison dusk lizardfolk. If their faith is strong enough and their numbers multiply sufficiently, Rhashaak believes that he will undergo deification and join the Dark Six.