Drik Picture Library

Drik Picture Library Ltd. is a picture library based in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Background

Drik Picture Library was set up by Bangladeshi writer and photographer Shahidul Alam and Bangladeshi writer and anthropologist Rahnuma Ahmed that has been awarded a grant by the Prince Claus Fund. The agency was set up in 1989 to provide a platform for local photographers in the majority world.Drik is Sanskrit for vision. Drik has gone on to provide media services that include web development, video production, print production and exhibitions. In 1998 it set up Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography, and Chobi Mela, the first festival of photography in Asia. Drik uses new media extensively in its activism and introduced email to Bangladesh in the early nineties. It also set up Banglarights, the Bangladesh Human Rights Network, and DrikNews, independent news that extensively uses citizen journalism. More recently, Drik set up Majority World, an unprecedented photo library and agency set up to promote the work of photographers from the Global South and to promote Fair Trade Photography. It is headquartered in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, but also has branch offices in India and the UK.

Xen'drik

Xen'drik is a fictional continent in the Eberron campaign setting of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.

Description

Xen'drik is a jungle continent of vast size and varying climate that lies to the south of Khorvaire. Xen'drik's coastline has been mapped, but its interior remains largely unexplored, and the continent has a reputation as a land of secrets, danger, and mystery. Xen'drik and Khorvaire are separated by Shargon's Teeth and the Thunder Sea.

Sahuagin tribes guard the seas between Khorvaire and Xen'drik. Some tribes attack any who attempt to reach Xen'drik; others work as guides, often trading, assisting, and negotiating deals with explorers and merchants.

Xen'drik was once home to a civilization of giants, with whom the dragons risked sharing ancient magical secrets. This civilization fell into ruin due to a Quori invasion, an elven rebellion and then a war against the dragons of Argonnessen some forty thousand years ago. Current publication suggests these Quori were neutral or good aligned (as opposed to the evil Quori of the current era) and refugees from an unknown cataclysm in Dal Quor who were assaulted by the giants. Dragons of Eberron further suggests that by the time of the elven rebellion, the giants had become so corrupt that they turned to nihilism and decided to destroy the world if they couldn't rule it, at which point the dragons decided to destroy them. Primitive remnants of the giant civilization still exist within the land's jungles and mountains. Tribes of drow, those remaining from the enslaved elves of yore, who worship the scorpion god Vulkoor also live among the ruins of the giant civilization, possessing the most advanced society on Xen'drik. The elves of Aerenal, once ruled by the ancient giants, originate from Xen'drik. There is also evidence of a "vermin king" who held power in the recent past, which is a reference to Obox-ob, a powerful demon lord.