Hidden City of Kírât

• Districts: Vapari (mercantile), Kisana (field & farm), Basahi (royal), Sarya (tavern & inn), Yodai (guard/soldier), Nirmani (industry), Kali (arts & theater), Lapriya (arbory & temple)
• Walls & Gates: Oasi Gate (outermost wall, around Kisana), Ganizon Gate (second & third walls between Yodai & Kisana, garrison), The Funnelweb (spiraling half-walls between Nirmani & Vapari), Lespri Gate (sixth wall & seventh walls, between Sarya & Kali), Dènye (eigth & ninth final walls sequestering & cutting between Basahi & Lapriya)
• Environmental Sights: Fields of Dragon's Breath, Reformation of Goldleaf & Petta (temple to ancient Sunjatti lovers, followers of the Sightless Eye), Khuthd’s Rest (tavern named for the dragon), Dynna’s Bakery, Dhulo Parda Kavo (catacombs beneath the citadel), Pujari Roz (temple gardens), Samjvadi Ductway (aqueducts through every district that once extended beyond Oasi Wall), Undercity Gaol, Aha Kusah (sewers & plumbing throughout the city), Farfade Arenyen (elven inn), Widowspun Center or the Funnelweb (street market in Vapari), Utsava Square, Cara Devata (temple of the (shifter) gods), Mhavvair Asshara (temple to the elfhen father god), Nyikaam Arena, Shukaar Vole (bordel), Dasan Monument (statue dedicated to slaves of the 2nd era), Hall of a Thousand Paths, Widowbreaker's Spear (monument), Inn of No Seasons, Carapace Market, Pavitra Oasis, Dhunē Tāla (washer's lake, for laundry), Spinarata, Skull of the Undead Tyrant, Edge of the Bloodwood, The Unnamed Mountains (outside the walled city)

Kírât is the original home of the First People of Sunjatta, born to the gods Hargraven and Imidr - the Sunja Tribe of shapeshifters. It was once a sprawling kingdom nestled into great grasslands bursting with life, but the Mad Queen's War saw the Sea of Long Grasses burned to ash. The resulting devastation changed the landscape forever, morphing it into an unforgivingly arid desert riddled with giant spiders, widows*, undead armies, liches, manticores, colossi, and other existentially trying creatures. For thousands of years, despite the odds, they cling to life, to existance, serving as a beacon of hope to those on the brink of death, those unwanted and deserving of a second chance. It cannot be found, but it may find you.

• Economy: Participatory, mercantilist, extremely isolationist
• Economic Trades: Multi-style arms, multi-style carapace armor, monster ingredients, alchemical ingredients, dragon's breath, canaemery, ale, wine, widow carapace, rare magical tools, jewelry, spidersilk textiles, knowledge, gold, fool's gold, various gemstones, turquoise, tableware, hunters, ceramics, dragonglass
• Government: Isolationast, imperial, councillary - The Imperial Family are largely figureheads with veto power; The Imperial Council rules absolutely otherwise and is comprised of the governors of the Eight Courts (district gates), the warlord generals, head of the Merchant's Guild, Dhulo Parda's high priest, (a) Makari representative, head of the Blacksmith's Association, captain of the Citadelian Guard, the Lord-Protector, Arch-mage of the Citadelian College, and assorted nobles.
• Allied States: Manj Figi, J'verdien, Makara, Chimeria, Breslin, the Barrowfells, Vaga, the Nyktish Caravan, Frea, Aefre, Miraglas, Luvia, Arjani, Vitale, Vollen, Braxii, Daep Ban Ettin, Oslona, Scarburn, Kavast
• Neutral States: Celesaad, Ordinia, Norhaven, Yuurei, Phaesta, Aranea, Paea, Riona, Fyria, Gwynnere, Khaven, Kopari, Seralta, Brygga, Nouxfret, Adamant, Askarra, Zuri, Nilmyrion, Nuradan, Kaleen
• Enemy States: Mythakris, Myrrdin, A'virda Fahl'Tir, Xanthe, the Black Isle, Sahir, Strigane**

*Widows are different from the standard giant spider, as both the males and females of the monstrous species are larger and bear the upper half of a humanoid; They can 'speak', cast spells, seduce, and destroy in a blink.

**The Kírâti people will be at odds with Strigane until the Red Hand are permanently removed from power and no sooner.

A city built upon the backs of all those cast out of their homelands, unwanted, displaced, or wholly feared by the peoples of Sunjatta, Kírât sits hidden in the Dustveil – which spans from the depths of the furthest easterly reaches of the Diremark to the crux of the Stormlands of Chimeria far to the west – as a monument to Sunjatti undesirables. The streets are cobbled with dusty sandstone carven from desert mountains and solidified spider nests, and every house, home, tavern and hovel is built narrowly to fit; but so, too, are they fashioned of sand and stone, ashen-orange and twilight adorned in cactus wood and flags of spidersilk, red ochre and turquoise in-lays resembling gossamer webs along every doorway in the city, and in the looming shadows cast by a waning sun, there is both heart and great reproach to be seen within the worn architecture itself. Along towering walls reaching far into the sky were great statues of something old and wretched with too-large and too many eyes and even more limbs - countless, some might say - and their figures imposing, foul, but it is widely understood these statues serve as warnings, deterrents against the pitiful beasts plaguing the Dustveil, or even the likes of strange wildlings and the inevitable horns, drums, and trumpets of war.

Before the city lies hundreds of miles of vast, treacherous desert fraught with ceaseless drought and gargantuan spiders of a mindless breed, which the hardened peoples of Kírât have taken to slaying since first settling in their hard-won castle-city of sand. With iron and blood, courage and wondrous spirit, the people of Kírât rule over the Dustveil, pushing legions of spiderlings and widows into their holes, and the Stormlands and forestry beyond the dunes, much to the dismay of what few elves still maintain their posts at the end of the East Road, the Adamantine Gate, leading into the Fhal'Tiran forest - and they were certainly, previously few. (edited)

Rains in the Dustveil came on rare occasion and each heralded a new beginning - the Kírâti New Year - and many of the dwarves, humans, elves, and beastfolk living behind sandstone walls would rush out into the streets with barrels and buckets and pots to catch the rain, and a feast of desert rice, fell goat, and cactus fruit would be had in the downpour with the glow of witchlights strewn above on the rooftops. The streets would echo with elfsong and hearty laughter and smoke would brim and billow free of shop windows, tavern chimneys, and the braziers burning at every corner. Taken by the promise of a new beginning, many would dance arm-in-arm and all about the city square around the sandstone fountain, overjoyed by such bounty, but all would bow their heads and give thanks to the gods above, and the feast would carry on merrily. The peoples of Kírât were not known for spirited parties nor any kind of particular extravagance, but exceptions were often made at the start of their new year, and in the roaring of the aqueducts, precious water would be allocated to what few crops they could manage to grow. Canaemery, Black Foil, hopflower, and Dragon’s Breath bloomed in the hot desert sun, and such petals and leaves of verdant green, murk and mud, pale yellow, and breaths of crimson would become the very basis of all trade in and out of Kírât - of which elves and dwarves and men and the odd beastfolk alike would spin into pipeweed, poisons, and ales of a harsh and fiery sort. Such was appreciated and often hoarded at the behest of travelers and merchants wishing to spend their coin on the best Kírât had to offer - although, those of a wiser disposition in so treacherous a land would quite beg to differ - and many were left with riches of little use, wandering a festive city with nothing to show for it. (edited)

They all were equally left in awe, for Kírâti people were not known for any particular sort of extravagance, generosity, nor grand celebration. They were tough, and with calloused and scarred hands they continued forward as if no party or jubilant feast had ever come to pass. They reaped the rewards of their patience and due diligence, and set aside their gleefulness for every day ahead of them was often violent, terrible, and rife with that which no other people could contend. When twin moons rose high above the endless sands, both round with the fullness of silver light, widows would climb out of their burroughs and the undead would claw free of sandpits, underground caverns, and dunes, and all would trample over one another in search of sustenance - or an end to their pitiful unlife. Hideous creatures, these legions of the darkest corners of the desert, made their way to Kírât, the only settlement for hundreds of miles plump with what they sought, and they would unleash upon them floods of venom and accursed arrows, battering the gates and thrusting their rusted swords and fangs against sandstone walls until, at last, they would crumble. But the people of Kírât were of a resilient and steadfast nature, and such was perhaps more highly valued than anything else at all.

Their adversaries would be met with swift judgment, cold steel and dragon glass, the rawness of magic unknown and ancient, the secrets of the world that’d shunned them. Death was not an option for them but a definitive consequence for all those that dared bring to harm any under the Kírâti banner. The piercing scream of a hail of arrows set free by the elves would herald a first strike and scores of dwarves armed with warhammers and great swords would follow; Beastfolk would come barreling out of the cracks, their truest of shapes seen by the numbers scattered across the battlefield in silver light staining the desert a ghostly hue, and men would ride on their backs with swords, shields, and bows at the ready; but all would stand prepared to defend their home with their lives, as kinsman, as brothers, united not by fear but determination and the will to protect their way of life with their lives. They would not fall to the likes of the shamblers crowding the graveous dunes, nor the spiders whose fangs glistened with fell venom, and their children, their wives, their mothers, sisters, cousins, and all those who kept the hearth warm would live to see the first streams of golden light when the sun should rise above sandy hills and reveal to all the blood that had been spilt. Precious few of their own would be lost in the tides of battle, strewn about in pieces, unrecognizable and delivered home on carts with their weapons to serve as heirlooms, reminders of their sacrifice in grand halls, but the putrid carcasses of the spiders were to be looted, their venom taken to the alchemists, their silk to the seamstresses, and the rest to feed all those who’d gone hungry.

And so, too, would graves have been dug beneath the city, remains placed in dark tombs and winding catacombs lit only by flickering flame, and a lament would be sung by their kin, a haunting echo cutting through shadow like a knife piercing flesh. All would bow their heads in sorrow, adorned in blackened dress, and the sound of weeping would yet mingle with the agonizing song marking their passing. Shawls of woven spidersilk would then be pulled over the dead, long and wispy, and blooms of dragon’s breath would be set upon their heads as crowns – for in their fall, they would be given the highest of honor no other would have given. In life, they were but soldiers, knights, exiles cast out of their homelands as unwanted, unneeded, or wholly despised, but in death, they would be honored as kings. Many would give fleeting words to express their grief, some unspoken and merely cried out, before the dead would be sealed away in the darkest reaches of the city they built. Such pain was not shouldered by their families alone. Rather, all those who flew the Kírâti banner would bow their heads in turn in the days to follow and stories would be shared with great joy, for the dead would never have wished for their kinsman nor their families to sink into despair but remember them instead. It would not do for a people with so few joys to be robbed of what little they’d had, and while Kírâti people were not known for any particular sort of extravagance or song or dance, a party both of mourning and remembrance would be had for the lost and the bereft, for the dead were to be honored as kings.

Among all things, the people of Kírât felt much more deeply than any might expect, for they stood to lose far more than they had, and as the days came and went, their very lives hung in the balance and they met such losses, such hardships and turmoil, with a strength of heart none else could ever have hoped to covet for themselves. Perhaps it is due to the strength of men, the wisdom of elves, the spirit of the dwarves, and the cleverness of the beastfolk; Or it is the willingness of all to see beyond circumstance and difference and gaze upon the crest of any dune and bear witness to the greatness they could achieve through perseverance, shared ground, honesty, and oaths fulfilled. But no matter what it was that tied them all together, they nonetheless braced the city walls and watched over their lands as though the lives they’d lived before were but forgotten, lost to the ever constant and inescapable ebb and flow of time. Hardened by sandstorms and an onslaught of vicious undead and widows, by the arid sands and blistering sun, their ability to survive is brought on only by a sense of duty rejected by their former homelands, and unfathomable experience and willful cooperation. Unexpectedly, most of those who dwell in Kírât are elves, abandoned and forgotten by their hidden Fhal'Tiran kin, banished to the twisting, swirling, ever-changing dunes of the Dustveil, and there are none among their ranks spared any mercy. It is as unexpected a thing as any, for many would think the elves a source of wisdom and utmost maturity - but they send away and discard their own anyway. How cruel, then, that they should banish their people to lands they are not known to withstand, to suffer the harsh winds and days-long sandstorms, sweltering heat and unforgiving journeys through hundreds of miles of it all.

Sédalín Sevaaris no longer remembers the oath he swore, driven mad by a grief of his own, and through the terribly long passage of time, his rule has waned, and so, too, has he left in ruin his people. He’d exiled many of his number to the Dustveil, or wherever else they may have gone – it was no concern of his, to be sure – and as such, Kírâti numbers have been bolstered with the skill of elven craftsmanship, magic, and battle prowess, lending strength to not only their fellow elves, but the dwarves, men, and beastfolk who reside there. Such is priceless, such is kept close and adapted to the needs of all. Weary are they who take the West and East Roads into Kírât and they arrive weakened and parched by their nigh impossible journey, but they are willing, taken in by their fellow exiles, gifted a freshly cooked meal and a bellyful of mead or precious water, and thus the opportunity to live among them – to win back the life that’d been taken from them. Second chances were offered to all those who collapsed in the shadow of the city’s walls and with clay carafes and blankets of woven spidersilk are they ferried beyond the gates into the heart of the city, where healers and alchemists would see to any wounds and especially those burning and festering as would be caused by any blade of the undead or venomous fang of a widow. Merciful are the people of Kírât, despite their unmatched toughness, for even the roughest and hardest of hearts may soften under the right circumstances.

Not all who wander into the city are troubled or aggrieved; Some may even be merchants or mere travelers lost among the sands, and such are welcomed with the promise of coin to be spent; though, as one might expect, it is a rare thing in fact to find a Kírâti willing to part with even a small portion of their hoards of Dragon’s Breath ale or reserves of Canaemery beyond the keeper of Khûthd’s Rest. Spidersilk tapestries, expertly crafted swords, hammers, shields, and carapace armor, enchanted blades and cloaks, staves and wands, spellbound tomes and the guidance of herbaflorists, and perhaps much more were open to wanderers, drifters, adventurers, and merchants, but there were none with so cool-burning a hearth as Fuäd, short and stout as he with a wispy white beard and cropped wiry hair, nor so open as to share his supply of prized ales and pipeweed.