Ephylla

Ephylla (meaning 'the return') was founded at the beginning of the Seventh Cycle, by refugees from the conflict on Casiphon who had survived by fleeing to the islands off the coast, and the city still holds close political and cultural links with the settlements off the coast. It is located near the mouth of the Sarantes River, built onto a large rocky island on the south side of the river delta. The location had long been a hill-fort when it started spreading across the flat plain between the hills and the river and sea.   The Taorminite empire captured the city after a long and bitter siege only a hundred years before the current time, and then built a large castle for a permanent garrison (the Calaret's Bastion), which was later converted to the governor's palace. It took decades before the stubborn Rythi acquiesced to their imperial overlords. The empire nevertheless improved the harbours to use the city as a naval base and trading station. Since the Breaking of the Pact, the city has become a subject-ally of the much more powerful city of Mabag Pachamel Grith, and now its dockyards and harbours are reputed to be used by the pirate fleets that prowl the Emel Sea on Grithi orders.   The current rulers of the city are an elected human council, though they are heavily advised (or controlled) by Grithi tieflings, who are rumoured to privately demand they fall in line with their homeland's policies.   As with most of the coast of Ryth, Ephylla has a cool dry summer and autumn with a little rain in winter and much more in spring. The Sarantes River, however, floods regularly during the summer months from the plentiful snowmelt of the Bezaphde Mountains.   The tribes of inland Ryth are of a different culture than the coastal Ephyllistae, having migrated from the deserts of Eyl-Thoul, and are primarily grazing nomads who ride horses from place to place. Ephyllae has a mixed population, with a majority of humans from both the coastal and inland peoples, Taorminite halflings and humans, Cathayan humans, gnomes and dragonborn from the across the Ischindar Sea, and no few tieflings from Mabag Pachamel Grith.