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Io’lokar, City
OF KNOWLEDGE
Free City of Argonnessen, Metropolis, Population
46,000
From the moment it appears on the horizon, the city is a beacon against
the darkening sky. Walls of white rise and twist against the highest
reaches of the black peak, gleaming in the day’s dying light. From one
of the great towers that ring those walls, dark shapes shoot up—wyvern
riders, from the look of them, winging into flanking position to shadow
your approach. Atop the closest tower, dragons are perched, watching
you idly. Beside them stand giants armed with mighty greatswords,
the nighttime city beyond them blazing with spell-light as you begin
your descent.
Throughout their long history, the dragons of Argonnessen have built no cities for their own kind. However, some thirty centuries ago, a great nondragon city
called Io’vakas was founded by the Warders—a group
of a dozen dragons dedicated to improving the lot of
Argonnessen’s lesser races. With dragon magic and
the labor of nondragon subjects collected from across
Eberron, the Warders built a walled enclave deep in
the south of the Vast. Under the tutelage of their
draconic lieges, the citizens of Io’vakas—the Gate of
Knowledge—became enlightened dragon worshipers
with an advanced understanding of nature, science,
and magic.
 Today, Io’vakas is a mass of shattered stone jutting
up from ground made barren by dragon fi re. But each
morning as the sun rises above those ruins, it refl ects off
distant towers against the slopes of a bare peak to the west.
This place is very much alive; it is Io’lokar, the City of
Knowledge—risen from the ashes of Io’vakas a thousand
years ago.
 Even among the nondragons of Argonnessen,
Io’lokar is often thought of as myth. Beyond the dragon
continent, many experienced adventurers have never
heard of it. Argonnessen is a land of high-level and
epic campaigns, and nowhere is this fact refl ected more
than in the City of Knowledge. From the highest to the
lowest, the Io’lokari are unequaled warriors, brillant
sages, powerful spellcasters, and masters of the arts of
a dozen races.
 Most NPCs in the city have levels in three or more
classes—a primary vocation (often handed down from
parent to child), secondary vocations taken from interest, and a spellcasting class (typically adept or sorcerer).
Children here take their fi rst class levels by early adolescence. The Io’lokari are the masters of vocations both
great and mundane, and all reap the benefi t of their
advanced society. A lowly clerk living in the Freeward
might well be a 7th-level expert/8th-level adept whose
accumulated knowledge would make a Morgrave professor weep.
 The people of Io’lokar do not have access to the
full power of dragon magic. The fate of the giants of
Xen’drik has ensured that no nondraconic culture will
ever be granted such a boon again. Nonetheless, magic
permeates every corner of the city and every one of its
people, and a fi rst visit to Io’lokar can induce awe in even
jaded explorers.
 Within the city, spell-light is infused into the air
itself, rising and falling according to the time of day
and the presence of passersby. Residents and visitors
alike within Io’lokar’s walls can access the powers of
fl ight (as a fl y spell) and short-distance teleportation (as
dimension door), though teleporting into or out of public
spaces is considered somewhat rude. Magic tempers the
climate and the seasons, feeds the city’s people, and
hones the skills of its scholars, artisans, and workers to
unnatural levels.
 The Io’lokari are not given to ostentation or casual
displays of power, however. The city has no floating
towers or wanton exhibitions of sorcerous might.
Though its walls and buildings are reinforced by arcane
power, they were raised one stone at a time. However,
within these nondescript apartments of multicolored
marble can be found collected lore rivaling that of 
Morgrave, Wynarn, and Korranberg combined—
all the product of a humble working-class people
whose lives more closely resemble those of lords
and kings.
Leadership: The Masters of Io’lokar.
 Demographics: 14% human, 13% dwarf,
12% goblin and hobgoblin, 11% elf and halfelf, 11% changelin, 10% orc and half-orc,
10% halfling, 10% gnome, 8% shifter,
1% other.
Economics: None (see the Commerce
in Io’lokar sidebar).
HISTORY
The creation of Io’vakas thirty centuries
ago was preceded by centuries of debate and
anger among the dragons of Argonnessen.
With the Chamber still in its infancy, most
dragons opposed the Warders’ plans for
empowering the lesser races. The idea of
sharing even a small amount of draconic
knowledge was anathema to many dragons,
the fate of Xen’drik still sharp in their
memories. In the end, though, the Warders
prevailed. Io’vakas was built in the Vast with
the tacit blessing of the Conclave and the
Eyes of Chronepsis, and for two thousand
years, the city thrived. Then the yuan-ti
came from Sarlona, and the doomsayers
proved correct.
 When the serpent folk arrived in
exile, the best among them were invited
to Io’vakas. There, they joined the other
nondragons of the city in a bountiful
life that included worship of the fifteen
ascended spirits of the Sovereigns—a gift
of faith to the nondragons from their
dragon masters. However, at least one
sect of the Io’vakas yuan-ti sought more
power than the Sovereigns could grant.
In secret, this group claimed the direct
worship of the Dragon Gods—and the
deepest mysteries of dragon magic—for
themselves.
 When this blasphemy was eventually
discovered, the dragons who opposed the
Io’vakas experiment demanded a swift
and final response. Refusing to distinguish between those who transgressed
and the bulk of the loyal yuan-ti, or even
the Io’vakas citizenry as a whole, draconic
might was unleashed. Under a storm of
lightning, frost, and fire, Io’vakas was
leveled. A dozen or so yuan-ti escaped to
the catacombs beneath the city; the rest of
the serpent race, including all the priests,
was destroyed. From ruined Io’vakas, a
pathetic few nondragon survivors fled
to the plains beneath a sky darkened by
gathering rogues, anxious to add these
so-called scions of knowledge to their
own herds.
 Then Arnaarlasha, a noble gold dragon
great wyrm of the Warders, descended to the
Io’lokar,
City of Knowledge
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DRAGONS OF ARGONNESSEN
42
wasted plain. She and a dozen elder dragons loyal to her
formed a protective cordon around a thousand desperate survivors of the city. On foot, they shepherded their
charges across hostile territory to the slopes of Mount
Erishnak, a granite peak in the center of Arnaarlasha’s
own adjacent territory. To the assembled rogues and the
Soldiers of the Light who had pounded Io’vakas and her
inhabitants to rubble, Arnaarlasha declared the surviving nondragons free subjects of her dominion. Over the
year that followed, high on the mountainside, Io’lokar
was raised.
 Arnaarlasha never spoke of what drove her actions
that day on the plains, nor will she ever do so. Four
hundred years ago, the great wyrm’s death marked the
city’s darkest hour, and a turning point. Within a day,
Io’lokar was besieged by a coordinated attack of rogue
dragons intent on claiming Arnaarlasha’s territory and
razing the city. Beneath arcane defenses honed over
six centuries, the city’s mages stood fast. Alongside the
Keepers, fl ights of wyvern riders launched themselves
from the Moontowers, harrying rogues in the air as they
rained arcane fury against their reinforcements on the
ground. After four days, the rogues retreated. Io’lokar
stood fast, and its victory in the Battle of Arnaarlasha’s
Fall is celebrated to this day.
 Throughout the great battle, the Eyes of Chronepsis and the Light of Siberys were conspicuous by their
absence, a display of indifference they maintain to this
day. As long as the Io’lokari are careful to stay within
the boundaries of behavior proscribed for them when
Io’vakas was new, the Conclave seems content to leave
the city be. However, both the Io’lokari and the Keepers
accept that the city exists at the Conclave’s whim. If any
nondragons seek the forbidden lore of dragonkind once
again, or should any yuan-ti presence be again tolerated, no force of will or lesser magic will be enough to
save them.
LIFE IN IO’LOKAR
In the twelve hundred years since, the City of Knowledge has grown from a mountainside fort (part of
what is now the Freeward) to its present form. Within
its walls, scholars, crafters, and artisans from a dozen
non dragon races live side by side in common cause and
culture. Though the Warders long ago stepped back to
let the Io’lokari run their own affairs, the city remains
dedicated to allowing nondragon culture to flourish
on its own terms.
 Even after three thousand years, however, many
of the city’s sages believe that the Warders had a deeper
purpose in their creation of a nondragon city within the
dragon continent. In the same way that the dragons are
said to shun Sarlona because they have seen that land’s
destruction in the unfurling of the draconic Prophecy,
some suggest that the Prophecy predicts the eventual
destruction of all nondragon life on Eberron. Whether
this destruction will come at the hands of the quori, some
unknown magical or natural disaster, or through the
actions of the lesser races themselves remains unknown.
Either way, Io’lokar (and Io’vakas before it) might have
been created as a safe haven for humanity—a place in
which the scions of Sarlona, Xen’drik, and Khorvaire
might live on.
 Today, the city is home to the some of the finest
crafters, artisans, and spellcasters in the world. However, mercantilism does not drive the art, craft, and
magic of Io’lokar as it does in Khorvaire. Though the
city has no effective gold piece limit, coin has no value
here. Gems have use as currency only if they appeal to
an individual Io’lokari’s eye. All Io’lokari work toward
the continued survival of the city and the betterment of
their own lives.
THE IO’LOKARI
With the exception of the kalashtar, all the advanced
nondragon races of Eberron were present at the creation of Io’lokar, and they remain a part of the city to
this day. The descendants of lesser races gathered by
the dragons of old from across Eberron, the Io’lokari
have long since developed a culture all their own.
Given names are a unique blend of Draconic and a
dozen other languages, while surnames are unknown
here. The folk of the city have an in-depth knowledge
of their own genealogy (a necessity in such a closed
population); an Io’lokari knows which of his fellow
citizens he is closely related to. Even so, he and his
relatives are considered full family to the elves,
orcs, changelins, and all the other races they work
alongside. Likewise, the goblins and dwarves working side by side in the Freeward would be culturally
unrecognizable to their distant kin in Darguun or the
Ironroot Mountains.

For the people of the City of Knowledge, wealth lies
in the life of learning and wonder that each new day
brings. Goods and services are traded on the basis of
effort alone—a day’s labor from a city street sweeper is
considered equal to a day’s labor from the highest-level
spellcaster, warrior, or sage.
 Many high-level adventurers from Khorvaire have
trouble adjusting to the idea that wealth built up over a
lifetime is all but worthless in Io’lokar. In the taverns of
the city, the Io’lokari drink for free, trading their day’s
work for the labor of brewer and barkeep. Visitors to the
city have no such capital, though PCs can typically trade
a fi rst night on the town for tales or songs of the outside
world. Characters staying longer in the city need to establish what goods or services they can offer that are worthy
of barter.
 The Io’lokari want for very little, but fi ne jewelry,
magic weapons, magic armor, and wondrous items usually retain their value in the city. This value is relative,
however, and does not scale in the same way as gold piece
pricing. A tavernkeeper willing to barter a month’s lodging for a magic weapon makes no distinction between
a +1 dagger and a +5 holy vorpal short sword of wounding. Either
option satisfi es his desire for a magic blade, and is thus
fair trade for the PCs’ need for a comfortable room and
good food.

(voir dragons d'eberron)