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Dejagore Battle Green Ronin Campaign p142

Artwork from The Black Company Campaign Setting depicting Dejagore at the time of the Battle of Dejagore

Dejagore (also called Jaicur by its natives and Stormgard by its captors) is a major, fortified city in the southern continent. It first appeared in the Annals at the end of Shadow Games, during the Battle of Dejagore. As the site of the notorious Siege of Dejagore, it was a central location in both Dreams of Steel and Murgen's supernatural flashbacks of Bleak Seasons. It was also the birthplace of the Black Company Captain, Sleepy.

Dejagore is located about 300 miles south of the larger city of Taglios, and about 200 miles south of the surging Main river that is found between both cities. It is 400 miles north of Kiaulune (formerly "Shadowcatch").

Dejagore was primarily a Gunni city but also featured a noteworthy neighborhood of newly-arrived Nyueng Bao De Duang pilgrims. When the Black Company first arrived in Taglios, Dejagore was not only already a part of the Shadowlands, but the headquarters of one of the four Shadowmasters. The city's master was the mysterious Shadowmaster called "Stormshadow"... who would be exposed to be Stormbringer (one of the fugitive Ten Who Were Taken from the distant northern continent).

"Dejagore" is the name for the city in the Taglian language, and for that reason is the the most common in most of the Annals. The exception is Water Sleeps, the Annals for which were written by Sleepy, a native Jaicuri who referred to her home city by its original name.

Before Shadow Games[]

Dejagore

Conjectural map of the lands around Dejagore

Years before Shadow Games, the conqueror called Stormshadow razed the original city of Jaicur. She then forced slave labor to undertake a massive rebuilding of the city, which she made her headquarters:

First Stormshadow raised a mound forty feet high on top of the ruins of captured Jaicur, at the heart of a plain she had flattened absolutely by slaves and prisoners of war. Earth for the mound came from the ring of hills completely surrounding the plain. With the mound complete and faced on its outer sides with several layers of imported stone, Stormshadow built her new city up top. And that she surrounded with walls another forty feet high. She did not overlook the latest theories about towers for enfilading fire and barbicans to protect her elevated gates. [...]

Dejagore has four gates. Each stands at one point of the compass rose. Each is at the end of a paved highway running straight in from the hills.

Stormshadow raised an earthen mound around the old ruins forty feet above the new floodplain, and built a new city above the old, calling it Stormgard. She raised walls at its pinnacle another forty feet above the hill itself. The result was a tremendously impressive fortified city. Despite its increased height above the new floodplain, the city was still actually below the level of the country beyond the hills, where modest rivers ran to both the west and the southeast.

Shadow Games[]

Battle of Dejagore by Didier Graffet

Battle of Dejagore by Didier Graffet

Main article: Battle of Dejagore

After the Black Company defeated a major Shadowmaster army at the Battle of Ghoja Ford, they continued southward to Dejagore ("Stormgard"). There, they encountered its impressive walls – behind which Stormshadow remained hidden – as well as an unexpected and sizable military camp commanded by Shadowspinner. The Company and their Taglian armies captured the city the following night, but would be defeated in battle outside the walls the next day. This was the 2-day Battle of Dejagore which took place at the end of Shadow Games.

Dreams of Steel and Bleak Seasons[]

Main article: Siege of Dejagore

The Siege of Dejagore was then maintained by the Shadowmaster called ShadowspinnerMogaba, the ranking officer of the Black Company, along with his Nar, formed a faction which was in general opposition to Old Crew of the Black Company. Mogaba assaulted the Shadowmaster armies so aggressively that they were forced to reroute nearby canals and form a lake around Dejagore and eventually flooded the city. Those inside of Dejagore suffered miserably due to disease and starvation, while the feud between the Nar and Old Crew factions increased and soon came to include the Old Crew's new allies the Nyueng Bao, who were also trapped in the city.

During this time, future Company Annalist and later Captain, Sleepy, was rescued from rapists in her family like Rafi by the sergeant called Big Bucket. She began her membership with the Black Company shortly afterward, disguised as a young Shadar man.

Siege of Dejagore by Didier Graffet

Siege of Dejagore by Didier Graffet

The Old Crew populated a secret warren of tunnels under their section of Dejagore to access the old city below, on top of which the new city had been built. Under the direction of their reluctant leader Murgen, they maintained portions of it to hide within. Meanwhile the Nar occupied the bastion, where Mogaba committed human sacrifice and cannibalism.

Dejagore remained under siege after Lady killed Shadowspinner and took command of the Shadowmaster's bedraggled army. She did this to support her claim as Captain of the Black Company and to prevent Mogaba from escaping and pressing his claim. The siege was eventually ended once Croaker resumed the Captaincy. Dejagore was slowly restored to its previous state and repopulated. Dejagore would benefit immensely after the Rock Road linking it directly to Ghoja and Taglios was paved.

Soldiers Live[]

Sometime after the events of She Is the Darkness, Dejagore became part of Soulcatcher's Taglian Protectorate, a wide-ranging empire. Sleepy and her Black Company army recaptured it during Soldiers Live using key intelligence from a local shopkeeper, Sugriva Singh, the older brother of Aridatha Singh. The operation went so smoothly that the only injury sustained by the Company was a single broken arm.

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