Rock of Bral

The Rock of Bral was one of the asteroids making up the Tears of Selûne,  which orbited the planet Toril behind its moon Selûne.

Government
The Rock was ruled by Prince Andru, grandson of a bandit king named Cozar, but several other factions wielded power as well.

Defenses
The Rock was heavily fortified. It included a system of nine ballista towers on the topside that protected the city. Each such stone tower was hexagonal and 25 feet tall. Atop the tower was a dwarven-built heavy ballista. Each ballista was set in a special mount that permitted it to be aimed any direction, including straight up from the gravity plane. A complicated counterweight mechanism within the tower aided the fifteen crewmembers in reloading it, such that it could fire once every ten seconds! Each ballista had an effective range of 2,000 yards, which was over a mile and well beyond the extent of the Rock's air envelope. A squad of crossbowmen and shieldbearers were tasked with protecting the ballista engineers, and each tower was stocked with 50 heavy crossbows and hundreds of crossbow bolts for this purpose. The crossbowmen fired in volleys of 25 bolts at once in regular spaced ranks.

Notable Inhabitants
Gamalon Idogyr of Tethyr lived on Bral for several decades in the 14 century DR and met and married his wife Mynda there. Gamalon maintained a curio shop on the Rock. Elminster Aumar and Haedrak Rhindaun III had also traveled there on occasion to visit him.

A beholder known as Large Luigi, who might have had more collected knowledge than any other entity in the many crystal spheres, lived on the Rock, working as a bartender.

Locations
The asteroid contained only a single city, named Bral, which was one of the most cosmopolitan cities in any crystal sphere.

Despite the Rock being a haven for pirates, it was also home to the only temple to Tyr, god of justice, in Realmspace that did not lie on the planet of Toril. The Pantheist Temple of Tyr was home to priests who held a number of non-standard religious views, but nevertheless they felt compelled to fight crime and injustice wherever they found it. Thus, they waged a number of crusades and wars on crime on the Rock of Bral. Needless to say, the Tyrrans and their god were not popular on Bral.

History
Humans had only been living on the Rock since the 12 or 13 century DR. The original inhabitants were unknown, but cavern expeditions into the center of the asteroid revealed artifacts indicating that mind flayers lived in the Rock around the sixth century, and beholders more recently than that. Scholars believed that the beholders had exterminated the mind flayers and that the beholders had destroyed themselves in infighting. Neither the illithids or the beholders had any records of their past settlements on the Rock&mdash;unless they were simply hiding that knowledge for some reason.

After the illithids and beholders, a clan of about 200 dwarves seemed to have settled the Rock. Their ruins appeared to have been from the tenth century. They left no tombs or memorials and seemed to have vanished without a trace, with pots still in the fireplace and blades still on the anvil.

Captain Bral, a space pirate, "discovered" the Rock of Bral near the start of the 13 century. He planted trees and crops and lived within the caves that later became the docking caverns. Bral assembled a group of pirates known as the Black Brotherhood, and over time, a small town developed on the surface of the asteroid. When Bral was finally killed by the elves, the pirates of the asteroid town named the settlement Bral in his honor and the asteroid the Rock of Bral.

Over time, the population of the Rock shifted, until by the end of the 13 century, there were more merchants and shopkeepers on Bral, selling goods and ale to the pirates, than pirates themselves. At this time, the pirate Captain Cozar literally purchased every piece of land on the whole asteroid from the merchants until, by the end of only several months, he owned the Rock of Bral. Next, he evicted any pirate who would not lease land from him or operate a legitimate business. In this way, Cozar became the first prince of Bral, and established the House of Cozar.

Miscellaneous
Rock of Bral cuisine had some unique dishes. The kitchen in Harper's Hold, lying in Waterdeep, Toril, had cookbooks with recipes from all over the Realms and other worlds, including from the Rock of Bral.

Appearances

 * Novels:
 * Into the Void (mentioned only)
 * The Maelstrom's Eye


 * Adventures:
 * Skull & Crossbows
 * Under the Dark Fist