The Triplet Cities are a series of ruins found on the hilltops along the west bank of the great river at the Second Cataract mentioned in Shadow Games. They were once cities named Odd the First, Odd the Second, and Odd the Third. Two hundred years before the modern Annals, these cities fought the Pastel Wars against the Paingod, the violent sorcerer-king of Cho'n Delor, the nearby rival city on the east bank of the river. At the time, the Black Company numbered more than 6,000 strong and was in service to the Paingod. The Triplet Cities prevailed against the Paingod and the Company, but stories persisted through modern times that the three cities had sacrificed themselves to bring the Paingod down.
The descendants of the survivors of the bloody Pastel Wars evidently founded the walled city of Idon, located downhill from the ruins of the Triplet Cities and beside Second Cataract itself. The survivors of the defeated Black Company went north to the Third Cataract and took a commission with a city called Goes, the rival of Thresh.
Two hundred years after the Pastel Wars, a new generation of the Black Company traveled south under the command of its recently-elected Captain, Croaker. The ruins of the Triplet Cities were visible to him, but he ignored them and chose to investigate the ruins of Cho'n Delor instead, where his Company forebears served so many generations ago.