Totaken

Over 700,000 humanoids live in Totaken. The city's population is extremely mixed in terms of species; the majority is either Human, Dryad, Half Prism, or Half-Dryad, but there are substantial populations of other species as well. While the Prism population of Totaken is reasonably small, Prism-oriented food can be found easily and cheaply and prisms live dispersed through the general population.   The most clustered and notable population group are the Selkies, who form a distinct cultural-species minority group. The selkies are recent arrivals but have been immigrating in large numbers, as there is a high demand for them - as sailors, merchants, artisans, cooks, scribes, and even day laborers. Selkies are totally contained to the Greater and Lesser Alienages.   While numerically small, there is also a notable Solar community in the Divine District and Greater Alienage.

Totaken is the seat of government for the entire Oteka Republic: the Tlakra, Assembly, Administrative Council, and Aziletzen are all formally housed here. Given Totaken's general financial and political importance the republican government is not above involving itself in local affairs, but for most of the regular operations they leave much of the power and responsibility to the local government.   The city's top official is the Mayor of Totaken, who is elected by popular vote among registered permanent residents every four years in September (around the festival of Sipatli at the autumn equinox). The Mayor handles all executive decisions and has immense power: they choose the Four Administrators who handle the local bureaucracy as well as the local Tano, or district chairpeople. The Mayor's primary check and balance is the Minister of Capital Affairs, an agent of the Central Government of Oteka who is selected by the Assembly and confirmed by the Tlakra to oversee the Mayor's work. The Minister has significant authority but is expected to take a more advisory role, allowing the Mayor to act freely unless they act in a way that contradicts the will of the Republic.    The Four Administrators, also known as the City Parents or City Elders, are all chosen by the Mayor from a pool of competent candidates selected by various priestly and/or government agencies. Each Administrator has their own bureaucratic circle that carries out their will - some of which are quite large. Two of the Four Administrators are Patriarchs (masters of the mobile genders) and two are Matriarchs (masters of the sedentary genders)

• The Patriarch of Crafts is the supreme authority on crafts and commerce, who coordinates between and gives orders to the local craft committees and merchant communes. The Patriarch leads the Council of Crafts, a body representing bureaucrats, merchants, and master-craftsmen: they handle craft quotas, resource distributions for artisans, and labor drafts.
• The Patriarch of Safety is the authority of licensing, policing, security, court administration, and safety regulations. They hold a small council with representatives of the city guard, garrison, local militias, law clerks, and bureaucrats. They coordinate between these groups to maintain public harmony, suppress crime, eliminate corruption, enforce license laws, and to prevent abuse of workers. 
• The Matriarch of Gifts manages taxation and rationing, both taking resources from various communities and distributing them. They work very closely with the Patriarch of Crafts, often sitting on each other's councils and acting as co-administrators. The Matriarch of Gifts manages tariff collection, census administration in the city, and the distribution of food and basic necessities.
• The Matriarch of Waters manages the foundational infrastructure of the city, with a particular focus on fresh water access, sanitation, and canal maintenance. The Matriarch of Waters also handles disease control and public medicine, road maintenance, and other aspects of physical public infrastructure. 

The Tano are the in-betweens that hold the gap between the bureaucrats, mayor's office, priests, and community members. They handle local issues within their community, reporting to the mayor what they can't handle with their own posse. Tanos are not elected here in Totaken, but they can be forced out of office by a public majority vote of no confidence. Most districts complain constantly about their Tanos as being lazy, incompetent, or corrupt, but only extreme cases tend to result in actual votes of no confidence.    The Administrators, Mayor, and Tano all have to deal with many other formal and informal government groups: the central government's bureaucracies of revenue and Abundance, the central military, the central priesthood, and the many elite cliques that control land and resources around the city and country. But in terms of direct legal power and day-to-day authority, the Mayor and their Administrators are the top dogs. The top formal authority here is Mayor Pozi Tlenetup a politically divisive leader with a bold and fashionable personal style contrasted by an odd way of speaking - as if they were always thinking about something more important than where they are right now. Mayor Pozi is a political animal very committed to the Northern Party of the central government, who thinks nothing of playing favorites or distributing rewards to further their faction's ends. Pozi is not particularly empathetic, but they are deeply pious and committed to Totaken's success as a city. They aren't much of a schemer or even a liar (they don't seem to see their political favoritism as particularly immoral and do little to hide it) and they do have a bit of a tendency to gloat about their victories. As a mayor Pozi is fairly popular, especially among the middle classes and elites. Pozi is a capable infrastructure manager and is well-loved among many in the city for their prior work as the Matriarch of Waters a decade ago. Pozi is also well like among teachers, as they are extremely close with the Kata Monks and were raised by a commune tied to the teacher's college East of the city. There are plenty of reasons for some people to have a grudge against this mayor, though; not only have they looked the other way in cases of worker exploitation and abuse, but they have neglected the military infrastructure and generally have done their best to redirect military funds to urban betterment. Plus the aforementioned favoritism.   The current Minister of Capital Affairs is far less divisive than Mayor Pozi - in fact, most of the population don't even know they exist. Minister Amatopa Akakepli prefers it that way. Minister Akakepli is a surly and aloof Haltia with a background in law and legislative advisement. They are a patient and considerate specialist, a perfectionist who prefers to focus on one problem at a time and is easily irritated by the barrage of competing demands that surround the mayor. They are currently fixated on managing the expansion of infrastructure and city services to newly developed areas - to the exclusion of much else. As a proud appointee of the old government, Minister Akakepli has little loyalty to the new Tlakra and is very close with the Tsimtutzin Clique.    To briefly summarize the Four City Administrators: The current Patriarch of Crafts is an idealist with a proud military history as a gunsmith who has become the Mayor's most valuable emissary in smoothing out hostilities with the city's military officers. The Patriarch of Safety is a performative traditionalist who is fixated on keeping the status quo and avoiding any kind of political conflict - they are terrified of civil war and that has become their top political priority. The Matriarch of Gifts throws some of the best parties in the city and is very well connected, which does make cajoling the big cliques easier for her but does insulate her from the common people and general situation. The Matriarch of Waters is actually a South-Otekan who was chased out of the South for her political moderation; she is quite competent but clings to the Mayor's whims and agenda as a political lifeline. Other people think of her as folksy, which she resents but has started to play into. The current Tlakra is Hozek Kuwenyo, a quiet and focused merchant-turned-politician with foreign ties. Tlakra Hozek is mostly busy with the ongoing political crisis, which has frozen the government and locked them out of their full executive powers. Even their representative in city government, the Capital Minister, is an appointee of the prior government who doesn't really belong to their political faction. Tlakra Hozek has forged an alliance with Mayor Pozi, endorsing the mayor as a politician and quietly supporting them materially. The Tlakra is supposed to be above city government, and Hozek mostly keeps their involvement in city affairs subtle.   The current Aziletzen, or chief state priest, is an aloof and popular Half Prism named Moteko Chotlovotzen. Priest Moteko is a former mystic who considers formal matters of state to be beneath them - they see their power as coming from their distance and neutrality. They may be an unorthodox priest to rule, but their wise words and skill with healing magic has given them a kind of mystique among the priests and common people alike. Many wonder when - or if - the Aziletzen will intervene in the ongoing political crisis. To avoid this overwhelming pressure to do something, Moteko frequently leaves the capital and avoids staying in any one place for too long.

The city is mostly defended by a large fortress on the Southestern hill, at the Garrison district, and by Fort Teokali to the North. Layers of small walls contain the city and certain districts, but these are in disrepair in many places and only contain parts of the city.

Totaken is a massive city with a highly diversified economy. Service industries in hosting and hospitality are very pronounced here; many small artisans practice their trades, even as large manufacturing centers have risen on the Western fringes of the city. Carpentry, textile production, milling, smelting, sugar refining, butchery and meat processing, dyeing, and tailoring are all huge industries here, with massive volume from small artisans and large workshops alike. Ship repair and building are huge industries here, not just for local merchants and sailors but for the greater republic, for foreign republics, and even for the Aquatic Sunekans - who use specialized water-facing ships for long-distance transportation. Shipping, cash crop processing and packaging, and transport are all significant industries as well, as coffee, pineapples, papaya, bananas, cocoa, tea, wood, pottery, tobacco, sugar, cinammon, and cardamom are all imported from the countryside, processed, and exported abroad.   Totaken's reputation of academic excellent and tinkering has created its own specialty industries in chemistry, gunsmithing, and clockwork. Book printing, binding, and sale is also a growing and substantial industry. Alchemy is also practiced here and Totaken is the only producer of healing potions in the Sunekan continent: a hefty industry for one city alone.   Trade is perhaps more significant than industry here, though. Totaken is the most commercially active city in the Sunekan continent, as traffic from the Western and Eastern seas and between the surface and aquatic realms converge here. Totaken fosters this commercial scene by supporting commercial collaboration through its Voyager Halls, operating a number of well-maintained city markets, hosting mages from the Darzan University to link the city to the global teleportation circle network, providing land and privileges for the Selkie Khilaia, and supporting financial groups from the Republic of Akatlan for banking and lending. This reputation for commerce and luxury goods has compounded on itself by attracting foreign merchants and exquisite goods. Magic items and Empty Constructs can be found for sale here - at extremely high prices, yes, but they are here.

Totaken's infrastructure is staggering: the Totaken Canal is a miles-long mechanical marvel with multiple draining water locks, a massive water pumping system, canals, reservoirs, water-wheel complexes, and more. The canal is the basis for the sewer and garbage disposal system, which is a multi-layered system of underground sewers (really more of underground canals) and surface waste canals. There are many roads and bridges, though the infrastructure (roads and water) are not fully developed at the city's fringes.

Inner Totaken is a sprawling city, three miles across and covering the entire area between Lake Tlasazoma and the Sunekan Shallows. The city as it currently stands is structured around the Totaken Canal, a massive mechanical waterway operated jointly by the national government and the Undersea Sonoko Federation. The canal divides the city into two halves: the traditionally Sunekan North city and the traditionally more mixed and suburban South city. Before the canal was built in 1830, the middle-South of the city was marshy and prone to seasonal floding, making it essentially an unincorporated area that divided the Eastern alienages, the established North city, and the Southern suburbs. The creation of the canal, which was accompanied by a draining of the surrounding lands and bolstering against seasonal flooding, has essentially drawn the city around it. Since 1830, the Southern city has prospered, even drawing population from the North side.   There are sixteen districts in Inner Totaken across both halves of the city:   Assembly District: Also known as the Republican District or the Government District, this is the formal center of government for both the city and the Oteka Republic as a whole. The Assembly district's grand plaza is a bustling center of bureaucrats, elite powerplayers, priests, and military officers. The Assembly district is walled and tightly regulated: only Sunekans are permitted entrance into the district and all weapons must be registered; if the visitor isn't someone with a particular title, verifiable affiliation, or license, they must turn their weapons over while they enter. Magic in this district is similarly strictly regulated. The district itself is mostly a circuit around five main plazas: the Assembly Plaza, the Tlakra's Plaza, the Administrative Plaza (secular bureaucrats), the Aziletzen's Plaza (priests), and the Mayor's Plaza. Elite housing complexes and a few fine artisans and shops are mixed in between these plazas. The Assembly District is at the top of a hill and is high enough to have never been flooded during even the worst historical storms.   Academic District: The Academic District is land owned and operated by the Cult of Kata, a Sunekan monastic order devoted to education and discovery. This district, at the foot of the Assembly District, was granted to the Kata Monks many centuries ago as a place for teaching, tinkering, and trading - once this was the central hub of a great communication and transportation system that allowed for trade, interpersonal movement, and communication between undersea communities on either side of the city. That system was been almost completely replaced by the Totaken Canal, but the framework remains and has been repurposed by many neighborhoods in different ways. The Academic District is a bustling upper and middle class area, full of shops, artisans, merchants, and mages. The Meskenem School, perhaps the greatest school of natural science, physics, mathematics, astronomy, and engineering, is present in the Academic District. The Monks of Meskenem, the elite scholars of the Cult of Kata who work tirelessly to study the natural world with their companion-scholars underwater, have also partnered with The Darzan University to open the Spiritlock College, a magical university here in the Academic District. Numerous other smaller schools dedicated to subjects such as law, history, language, chemistry, medicine, and advanced crafts are also present. The Academic District's reputation for magic, tinkering, and invention has attracted many merchants, tinkerers, artisans, and gunsmiths who sell high-value specialty goods. The Cult of Kata is extremely picky about who has license to sell goods here, so there is a certain assurance of high quality products - even if they are probably overpriced. The eating here is nice, with many types of cuisine all represented in local pubs and eateries as well as some very nice coffee shops. The venues range from middle class to upper class, but few places here cater to the poor or to serving staff, who generally head down the slop to the Innermarket.   Innermarket: The Innermarket is a bustling commercial center stretched along the Totaken canal. This is quite the cosmopolitan stretch, catering to locals, long-travelling Sunekans, total foreigners, and visiting sailors. There are numerous taverns here, catering to new arrivals and sailors waiting for ship repairs or for finished business negotiations. All economic and social classes are catered to, as virtually anyone can get a license to sell here. Increasingly, though, small artisans are going to the Hundredshops district while the Innermarket has specialized to hospitality and entertainment. Drinking, food, music, theater, even carnivals and novelty acts have become concentrated here. A number of elite clubs and venues cater to business negotiations and merchants, while the local coffee shops are known for pushing cultural and political boundaries to the point of treason and heresy.   Hundredshops: The Hundredshops district is the old workshop district. It remains firmly artisan-oriented, with many weavers, small smithies, carpenters, tailors, and other craftspeople living and working here. The Hundredshops is divided between craft areas, which have their own communities and community spaces. This is actually where the Crafts Patriarch of Totaken spends most of his time, with a large adminstrative complex here apart from the Assembly District - a matter of tradition.   Voyager District: The Voyager District is the financial district of Totaken, a center of negotiation, business coordination, and trade administration. The docks here are bustling, but are far more regimented than in the Grand Docks to the South. This was once a center of exchange, coordination, and commerce between the surface and aquatic worlds - something that is now distributed across the entire Canal system - which has left the district with large semi-aquatic coastal structures and grand meeting halls. Many of these are now Voyager Halls, merchant halls sponsored by the government as spaces for international Sunekan cooperation in trade and goods distribution. The Apatlia Bank and Exchange Group, based in the Republic of Akatlan, has a large branch building here as well, making it a center for loans and banking.   Lesser Alienage: The Lesser Alienage is a recently-built district for foreigners, particularly non-Sunekan foreigners, to live. This small strip of land was set aside less than ten years ago as part of a treaty with the Selkie Khilaia as a place for selkie ships to dock for longer periods of time and forselkies to live permanently in Totaken. While some selkies live in the Greater Alienage on the other side of the city, the Lesser Alienage was constructed as a full Selkie Admiralty apart from the other foreigners. Like many Selkie districts, the Lesser Alienage has also become a center for disconnected foreigners (especially those with selkie contracts), though most of these eventually drift over to the Greater Alienage to the East. The Lesser Alienage has quickly filled out with selkie workers, who are in high demand for foods, crafts, and tutoring here in Oteka. Prior to be given to the Selkies, the Lesser Alienage was a strip of land controlled directly by a clique of powerful merchants that became deeply controversial when it hosted foreign troops in the 1960s - and then was seized by the government in the 1980s. It serving as a Selkie district with other assorted foreigners also serves to paper over a whole historical legal and political battle over the land. Walled off from the rest of the city. Has a separate dockyard for selkie ships.   New Town: New Town is a mixed sprawl of workshops, artisans, urban farmers, laborers, peddlers, and servants. It is the lower-class and working-class district of the North city, a continuous sprawling suburb that is gradually growing further and further North. New Town's boundary with the surrounding farmland is rather blurry; there is enough urban agriculture here to make it a smooth transition rather than a sharp break. New Town has a growing South-Otekan population and is a hub of dissenting politics in the city.   The Divine District: The Divine District is a curious section of the city, a designated area for powerful foreign mages or the representatives of foreign immortals or empires. This is the great embassy to the Suneka, where even hostile foreign powers can safely keep diplomats. This is also a luxurious space for elite socializing, where powerful wizards, ancient Solars, emissaries for Lunar Gods, sagely ghosts, and the descendants of powerful warrior-diplomats all comingle. This district is also built on the ruins of the ancient city of Aknikepru, which are startlingly well preserved in the district's architecture and public spaces. Walled off from the rest of the city.   The Greater Alienage: This is the traditional district for non-Sunekans who are not entitled or wealthy enough to live in the Divine District. All religions and most speech is allowed in this district, which has extremely loose laws. These loose laws make the Alienage also popular for those seeking vices outside of the Sunekan norm, such as certain drugs, high-stakes gambling, prize fighting, and excessive public drunkenness. While most Selkies live in the Lesser Alienage, some servants live here for the cheaper housing and easier access to servant work in the elite districts. Walled off from the rest of the city. Now that the Totaken Canal is complete, the Greater Alienage has also become a kind of second port and second dockyard for the main city, with warehouses, inns, and sailor's vices. Walled off from the rest of the city, though the wall is small and moves every few years to facilitate population growth.    Garrison District: The Garrison District is a military district built out from old fortifications that used to surround the Divine District. The old Southern fort that overlooked the haunted ruins of Aknikepru still functions as the heart of this district, though most of the residents are not soldiers. Many are artisans, gardeners, and service workers whose jobs are tied to military industries. The City Guard have a large presence and major hub here and many bureaucrats work here recording and verifying licenses and censuses. Riots have occured here in the past, as the clerks here also work to count and compile votes in national elections.   East Gardens: The East Gardens are a traditionally semi-agricultural area, which has retained a more spread-out semi-manorial structuring. While this was once tamed marshland turned farmland, the swampiest areas have been fully drained into dense urban veins of housing and shops. This district contains housing across all economic classes, with many servants and laborers living here along with merchants. Much of the land remains semi-agricultural and numerous canals and reservoirs crisscross the area.   Dry District: The Dry District is only dry compared to how it looked two centuries ago. This depressed basin was once the stagnant watery pit that managed to hold bugs and Gem Plague-ridden snakes in some capacity even in the dry season; now it is a drained section of city where the Totaken Canal stores excess water, boats, and machinery. This is the home of drydocks, emergency reservoirs, and the endless crank of mechanical water pumps. Many workers live here: construction workers, porters, day laborers, shipworkers, and mechanics. This is a district with rough edges and bad neighborhoods in places, but it is more proletariat than impoverished.    Southgate: The Southgate District is a very mixed district, with all kinds of social classes and professions living and working together. Most of these groups live in small clusters and nodes, small neighborhoods specialized along occupational lines. The traffic through Southgate is quite sizable, as much of the incoming overland movement of people and goods comes through the great gate this district is named after. From the Southern gate, large open avenues funnel traffic either elsewhere in the South City or towards two massive bridges that cross the Totaken Canal into the Innermarket and Hundredshops. Southgate has numerous taverns, stables, warehouses, mills, and markets: perfect for hosting incoming merchants and processing incoming grains. While Southgate has a few wealthy merchants, these are usually newer money rather than established elites. This district has a bit of a reputation for pickpockets, burglaries, and petty crimes, so the well-established elites generally avoid holding property or spending time there. The art scene here is also good.    Westcreek: The Westcreek district is a centered on a long oblong hill South of the Totaken Canal, which contains a large creek that supplies much of the Southwest city's fresh water. The Westcreeks district is structured by a series of elevated manorial/administrative complexes built on large platforms, which are surrounded by gardens and staff housing. These old platform manors are a modernized holdover from times even before the Suneka took hold, though no one thinks of them as foreign or even ancient here; just iconic and local. Westcreek attracts a large number of merchants and clerks, as well as servants and laborers who work in the Western fringe. This is mostly residential. Westcreek does have a winding canal set aside for laundry use, and as such is known as the laundry hub of the city.    The Great Docks: The Great Docks district is the main Westward port of Totaken, and traditionally the main port of entry. This is an area with a large market, numerous warehouses, many taverns and hotels, and plenty of vices for sailors at port. A small wall and canal cordones this district off from the rest of the city, less to defend and more to help contain and funnel traffic and to create a kind of spiritual boundary around this place as a less-orderly area.   The Packing District: The Packing District is an industrial district and working class residential area dominated by large proto-factory workshops. Small canals jutting off from the Totaken Canal power waterwheels for textile mills and powered saws. Workers work basic assembly lines to build furniter, roll cigars, package cash crops, and countless other small trades. Packing goods for export or re-export is very common here. This district bleeds into the Refinery District, though the Packing District is the cleaner of the two.    The Refinery District: The Refinery District is the fringe of the city, where the filthiest of trades are exiled to. All the waste canals from the docks, Westcreek, Packing industries, even Southgate, all drain here to the large basins where animal remains and industrial toxins are dumped. Butchers, tanners, dyers, smelters, and any industry considered unsafe in its waste are all pushed here. Large proto-factory workshops dominate the district, slaughterhouses and smelters and charcoal-burners. A massive sugar refinery, the namesake of the district, is the jewel of this dubious crown. Housing here is slum-like, though many workers live in the Westcreek, Southgate, or Packing Districts; the city administrators generally consider the core industrial areas unfit for proper housing and have tried to limit exposure to the pollution of the dumping basins. Some labor cliques have managed to create dormitories for their poorest workers here anyways. There are also Yentistevs, or Re-assignment Centers, here that employ troublemakers that have been put into the Ixdopol system as disposable labor.    And that's just the city proper! But no city truly stands apart from its hinterlands. Greater Totaken is a part of the city, and some of the suburbs surrounding Totaken are of import:   Dark green is farmland; black areas are forest, swamp, hills, or unclaimed coast.    Dinyotel: Dinyotel, the large suburb on the Eastern coast, is the port and harbor for the Eastern coast. This suburb is also part of the Totaken Canal complex, and is honestly as much a part of the city as the rest of Totaken. This area is its own mechanical hub, with its own traditional ties to the Cult of Kata and the education-cult; the Cult of Kata holds immense influence and wealth here to this day. The scholar-teacher-monks operate the Dawnside Tower here, a bureaucratic hub for not only teachers in this country but across the continent. Dinyotel even has its own Teacher's College apart from the Academic District. Dinyotel is jam-packed with teachers, clerks, merchants, engineers, aquatic Cephapersons, and middle-class workers. The culture here is nice, if a bit prim and proper for a normal port town. The Republic of Atupan basically has an outpost here. Purple on map.   Lake Tlasazoma: You might think, "this is a lake, not a suburb!" You'd be correct, if a suburb couldn't be underwater. Lake Tlasazoma contains a large underwater pumping station and administrative hub, a grand freshwater-saltwater underwater complex that is factory, temple, palace, and market all in one. This is the artificial capital of the Undersea Sonoko Federation, where the aquatic Sunekans meet in saltwater chambers to discuss politics and trade. Some have worried that, despite the best efforts to keep all this saltwater contained in the lakebed chambers, the canal and water pumps have made the lake far saltier than it once was on average - possibly making the surface lakewater unusable for surface-dwellers if the trend goes further.    Zotochet: Zotochet is the small suburb attached to the North of the Assembly District, which could honestly be part of the city. Zotochet is basically a small independent village commune that has pivoted to cater on the wealthy and powerful; this is basically an elite enclave that is legally distinct for political and taxation purposes. The communal leaders of Zotochet are notoriously mean, exclusive, and obsessed with their town's image: everything must be pristine, serene, and postcard-perfect. If you aren't a servant, being poor in this little suburb is asking for pointed questions by town militia and maybe an arbitrary fine to scare you off. Blue on map.   Fort Teokali and Todetko, North of Zotochet on the lakeside coast are a military center and surrounding town known as a training center and armory for times of war. Mercenaries from the Republic of Tuzek have recently become quite common here as temporary residents awaiting training and assignment as military police. The Keepers of Olkum and Guardians of Hokzin have bases here, which employ the military artisans of Todetko during peacetime. Not everything here is military; there are also several mills here and a lot of agricultural traffic. Dark red and yellow on the map.   Aklatelal, North of Fort Teokali is a small temple and milling complex that has become a kind of suburb-of-a-suburb of Todetko. Orange on map.   Izetnax, East of Todetko and Northwest of Dinyotel, is a fishing and farming village that has expanded rapidly as shipping traffic has increased. Arguably another suburb-of-a-suburb for Dinyotel. Pink on map.   Tsimtusaso, east of the city, is an administrative complex devoted to coordinating logistics for supplying food to the city. At the center is the manorial complex of the Tsimtutzin Clique, a powerful group (clan? corporation? kinda both) that owns and manages many of the mills and much of the countryside. Along with this manorial complex are large grainaries and food storage areas, fortified and decorated as a simple statement: the city needs us to survive. That they also control the freshwater creek that serves the Garrison District is also worth noting.   Achavali, Southwest of the city, is a small fishing hamlet that increasingly hates the city. They are just down current of the pollution basins of the Refinery District, they are increasingly struggling to fish enough to meet quotas without disturbing the aquatic nations, much of their land was legally purchased by speculators anticipating urban expansion, and their surrounding land is barren and seasonally marshy.

Like in many Sunekan settlements, the government holds immense power over people and is very involved in city life. Government officials set production quotas, mobilize labor drafts, distribute necessary goods, and generally structure economic activity and political life here. But while the law dictates that a certain set of politicians should act as the ultimate authority, the government is actually composed of multiple competing factions and institutions.   The City Government: The Mayor and Minister of Capital Affairs are supposed to be the sole legal authorities in Totaken, who delegate their authority to a large group of officials (as described in the Government section). Currently, the Mayor is the dominant political player who mostly lives up to that expectation. The Mayor and their officials are extremely partisan and are virtually synonymous with the Northern Party political faction here in the city. The major exception is the Mayor's Patriarch of Safety, who controls licensing and the city guard, and who is mostly outside of the Mayor's political machine. The other three Offices are quite substantial, though: they handle infrastructure maintenance, taxation, food distribution, sanitation, craft quotas, and other major aspects of daily life.   The Safety Office and City Guard: The Guard are a group of semi-military policing agents, who coordinate with local city watch groups (small-time community militias) and the military garrison. The Guard answer to the Patriarch of Safety, whose Safety Office also employs inspectors (for ship inspections, building safety inspections, and workplace safety inspections) and license officers (clerks who manage who has license for what). The current Patriarch of Safety is extremely political neutral and has been doing their best to avoid scrutiny from the Mayor or the public. Instead, he seems to be preparing the Safety Office for imminent national political violence - which has some guardspeople lashing out and others acting with extreme restraint.   The Order of Kata: The Order of Kata are monks devoted to the great spirit of the Cephapeople who specialize in education, teacher-training, and archive collection. The Order of Kata are not often a political force and usually operate invisibly in the background of Sunekan settlements. In this city, the Kata Monks own large amounts of land and wield substantial economic and political influence. The suburb of Dinyotel is basically a Kata Monk sanctum; the monks also hold immense land and power in the Academic and Voyager Districts of the main city. The Scholar-monks see this as their city and can even issue binding laws in their districts. The Monks keep a few warriors and license officers of their own payroll to enforce their will in the Academic District (mostly to enforce their high standards for sales and business in their controlled markets). The Order of Kata also has a growing number of mages on their payroll, courtesy of their new Wizarding College and their friendship with the Darzan University.   The Southern Party: The Southern party is the dissenting party of the central government; they lack a clear ideological angle and don't have much in the way of party institutions, but instead act as a broad general opposition coalition. The Southern party is completely unrepresented in city government and the Mayor's officials often go out of their way to exclude Southern Party advocates from positions of power - but that doesn't mean they aren't here. Southern Party representatives sit in the National Assembly and Southern-based merchants operate in the city; and while open support for the Southern party is politically punished, an underground political network has formed around these fonts of patronage. This network supports just about any voice of opposition, no matter how ideologically different from mainstream Southern party politicians they might be. In this way, individualists who dream of a brighter future end up getting coin right alongside generally disgruntled poorer workers and totally unhinged xenophobes.   The Military Garrison: A garrison of soldiers under the Tlakra's command operate in the Garrison district, and another group operate a training camp and arsenal North of the city. While their commanders may be Northern Party across the board, many of them are quite angry with the Mayor and city officials who keep pilfering their funding, resources, and labor levies. In general, the Garrison holds a lot of power independent of the city government but is very limited in how it can wield that power: outside of the Garrison district and Fort Teokali, the military cannot act without central government permission or an ongoing emergency.   The Other Monks: The Keepers of Olkum and Guardians of Hokzin have power and presences here, though they aren't the mammoth political forces that the Kata Monks are. They tend to share spaces with the Military Garrison and many people wrongfully assume that the two groups are aligned.   The Aquatic Suneka: The Undersea Sonoko Federation plays an active role in the functioning and maintenance of the canal system and infrastructure of the city, but generally avoids interfering in surface politics.   It is worth noting that the Sunekan priesthood is quite powerful here but doesn't represent a united faction. Rather, Sunekan priests are involved in basically all of these factions. A number of powerful cliques hold power together here. These are not families, but the way they wield power is evocative of noble clans in other continents. While powerful families often participate in these cliques, they are not hereditary. Rather, they operate like elite clubs with their own internal hierarchies.   Tsimtutzin: The Tsimtutzin Clique is the most vitally important clique in Totaken and the one most worth remembering. The Tsimtutzins own and administrate much of the farmland surrounding the city and in neighboring areas, and manage the logistics of transporting and processing the vast volume of food needed for a city of this size. The Tsimtutzins aren't the only clique doing this, but they are the biggest one - and they made huge gains under the last Tlakra, who was a member of this clique. The Tsimtutzins still control large parts of the local and national government. They even have their own fortified granary-manor-town East of the city, Tsimtusaso, which they rule absolutely. While politics is divided between the Northern and Southern parties, the Tsimtutzin would like to crush and subordinate them both.   Kuwenyo: The Kuewnyo Clique is the current rising rival of the Tsimtutzins; the new Tlakra comes from their ranks, and they have feasted on their business competition in the brief time since they were elected. The Kuwenyos are long-distance merchants who manage a great shipping network that crosses the continent. They are particularly involved in Ukaram, where they have extract great volumes of sugar, coffee, cocoa, rubber, metals, and exotic lumber. The Kuwenyos are foreign, from the Republic of Karsitan, but have ties to other republics that have a history of interference in Otekan politics. This has made their ascent extremely controversial. Basically all spice runs through their hands or by their grace.   Setepotatzin: The Setepotatzin Clique operate the great lumber mills and are involved in much of the shipbuilding and carpentry of Totaken. They are a proud and robust clique, very involved in city pride and public ritual and quite influential in the offices of the Bureau of Abundance and Patriarch of Crafts. The Setepotatzin prioritize shipbuilding as their most lucrative connective trade, which puts them into business with shipping companies, aquatic merchants, and foreign government contracts. The Clique also has quite the ego and often claim to be "saviors of the republic" who "drove away the foreign tyrants" for their key role in a major election back in the 1980s.   Sepetuko: The Sepetuko Clique are a big merchant clique involved in metallurgy, smelting, gunpowder, gunsmithing, and food imports. They are a competitor to both Kuwenyo and Tsimtutzin, as they have tendrils in both agriculture and shipping, and the Sepetuko actively encourage them to fight each other. The Sepetuko are at their roots a military clique who were formed and rose to dominance a century ago during the great continental war. They have struggled to adapt to peacetime and there was a political effort a decade or two ago to dissolve them into specialize sub-cliques; the Sepetuko survived the attack but now have a fear of public scrutiny or attention.   Other notable cliques include the:

• Klinatup Clique, who specialize in pottery, stone, and construction. The Klinatup have one of their own installed as Matriarch of Gifts in government, which has been a tremendous win for them. A clique with a hard-partying reputation.
• Tlaqui Clique, who specialize in sugar and sugar refineries - powerful in the refinery district and well connected. The Tlaqui Clique have a history of scandal and labor abuse that has given them a bad reputation.
• Hahato Clique, who specialize in animal product imports and animal coordination. They have deep ties to the Republic of Zitepec that has led to them being viewed with great scrutiny.
• Yuyutu Clique, who specialize in cotton imports, textile mills, and textile trade. Has a reputation for their patronage of the arts and their fondness for the city's coffee shops - they try and curate an image as benevolent philosopher-merchants with a desire for urban beautification and public education. Close with the Kata Cult, which has opened doors for them into printing.

The cliques may be something like merchants, guilds, and nobility in one, but they aren't the only special interest groups with teeth around here. Totaken famously hosts many powerful foreign entities - some of which have broken containment and actively influence the city beyond their quarantined zones. Other countries have also poked their noses into the city, sniffing for loose treasure and power to snap up while the government is free-falling.   Foreign Lobbies: Other Sunekan republics fund illicit influence groups in Oteka, looking to secure a slice of the commercial pie. Two neighboring republics have the most intense and overt espionage machines here:

• The Republic of Zitepec has spies and aligned agents in Oteka's government, particularly in this city. They are present in the military, in the bureaucracy, and in the merchant communes. The Zitepecans have military advisors and auxiliaries present in Fort Teokal, as well as spies and lobbyists in the main city. The Zitepecans have basically taken over one of the resource cliques here, the Hahato Clique.
• The Republic of Atupan has its own network of supporters. While their formal spies are mostly outclassed and outfoxed by Zitepec's, the Republic of Atupan has a bastion of influence in the Eastern suburb of Dinyotel and a number of aligned mercenaries.

The Apatlia Banking Clique: The Apatlia Bank and Exchange Group, based in the Republic of Akatlan, is the largest finance group and banking clique in all of the Suneka. The Apatlia Bank and Exchange group are not very politically active and mostly focus on business, especially the investments and projects between merchant groups that regularly take place in the Voyager District. Technically aligned with the Monks of Ozotl, the Snake Spirit - while Apatlia's leaders focus on business above all, they are sympathetic to investments in hospitals thanks to this monastic connection.   The Selkie Admiralty: The Selkie Admiralty represents the Selkie Khilaia, the grand federation of selkie fleets, in this city. The Admiralty handles selkie affairs in the Lesser Alienage, manages negotiations with the host city, and helps individual selkies navigate the local legal system. The local Admiralty is closely aligned with Clan Manuhel, who have a large estate here in the city: the Estate of Tupua Manuhel, Viceory of Sunekan Seas. The Manuhels are strong here and their patronage organizes the local selkie hierarchy and business scene.   The Darzan Mages: The Darzan University, a global organization of elite mages dedicated to their own enrichment and power, has a presence here. They recruit the most promising local mages and provide educational assistance and resources in exchange. The Darzans are involved in connecting Totaken to the broader teleportation circle network: magical long-distance instant transportation available only to the excessively rich and well-connected. Darzan mages tend to see themselves as above the law wherever they go and love the flaunt their power, making them a faction that everyone else begrudgingly accomodates.   The Brilliant Enclave: A sanctuary of Solars, protected and kept in check by the Emissary of Haru. The brilliant enclave hosts solars of many religions and backgrounds, from the opinionated Ayshans to the isolationist Eastern route solars, who are all drawn to the Enclave's magically sunlit sanctum. The Brilliant Enclave is intended to be a faction representing the will of the Lunar God Haru that keeps the peace in the Divine District and gently lobbies for social improvements here in Oteka. In practice, it has become a kind of solar club where solars of many backgrounds and political perspectives shape the Enclave's agenda through debate, consensus, and freely wielding the Enclave's power in their own name.   The Celestial Gardeners: The Celestial Gardeners are a group of devoted herbalists and workers who practice Alchemy in the Divine District. The central group of Gardeners are essentially their own tiny ethnic group in the Divine District, a group of secluded families that are outside of the Suneka and practice their own microreligion under the eye of the Miraculous One, the chief of the Gardeners. The Gardeners only share the secrets of Alchemy with members of these families and isolate any Alchemists in the Garden. These Gardener families handle a few secret steps, but much of the rest of the work of herb farming, ingredient processing, packaging, cleaning, and transport are handled by the large number of workers that the Garden employs. Traditionally, these workers are from the Alienages, but there is a growing number of poorer Sunekans doing the work as well. The Gardeners process huge amounts of healing potions, which are sold across the Suneka by merchant communes the Gardeners partner with. The Gardeners have a bit of a reputation as a cult, but they also have the protection and support of the Brilliant Enclave and the Otekan government (by treaty) so they easily brush unsavory elements under the rug. The fact that they are most controlling of their own family members also makes their crimes less odious to outsiders.  The Local Neighborhood Militias: A few local neighborhoods have community militias, sworn to the district chairperson (the 'Tano') and active in community mediation and policing. Most of these militias are basically auxiliaries to the City Guard who are given special dispensation for their extra work patrolling and handling paperwork. These militias can be more overtly political and less restrained than the Safety Office, but most of them are glorified part-time city workers at this point. Whether rowdy or docile, these groups are usually aligned with the Mayor and city elites. They are often very involved in the enforcement of the local Ixdopol system (the population redistribution system)   The Illuminated Idealist Clubs: The Oteka Republic has a history of fringe political movements, and the Illuminated Idealists are one of the oldest and most persistent of them. The original Illuminated Idealists of the 1370s re-imagined the Sunekan religion as a vehicle for individual liberation, rationalism, and personal liberties, and rejected Sunekan spiritualism, mysticism, communalism, and government infringement of personal rights. The Illuminated Idealists were persecuted for their beliefs and their schools were destroyed in the late 1400s and purged thoroughly in the 1600s, but small groups of them persisted. Some became Lunar Cults and others became intellectual social clubs that hid their more radical beliefs. Now, with the rise of global cultural influences in the city, new fringe authors have discovered the old Illuminated Idealist writings and old Idealist societies have grown more bold. The new and old Idealist clubs are wildly different and the entire movement is prone to infighting and name-calling. Illuminated Idealism is still a marginal ideology in any form that can serve as a boogeyman for authorities and partisan polemics on both sides of the current political crisis; while some align with the Southern Party, the Southern Party generally hates the movement and only supports them if they expect the Idealists to cause a disruption in the city. The more committed and ideologically firm Idealists have been comingling with the Selkies and Tideweaver warlocks.   The "Southern Party" Roughs: The Southern Party Roughs are a broad umbrella for any gang of dissatisfied urbanites who have a bone to pick with the city government. These groups range from proto-unions to xenophobes to street gangs. Many of them have very little to do with the Southern Party, though some are absolutely funded by Southern-aligned politicians. The Roughs are not common groups but they do have a presence in New Town.   The Mystery Clubs: The Mystery Clubs are groups of Warlocks and non-warlocks who seek the boons that Leviathans sometimes give. These are illegal for the most part, but many of them are harmless and ignored by the government. Many of these clubs dabble in Sunekan Occultism generally, reading bits of poetry by heretics and mystics and discussing the marvels of unfathomable planes and gods. Many transgressive artists, libertines, and fringe thinkers dabble in these social clubs. The current Mayor generally considers these to be harmless and even profitable for Totaken's reputation; The Patriarch of Safety despises them but considers them very low priority. Currently, three Elder Leviathans have a notable presence in these clubs: Tideweaver the Knowledgeable, Yearning Mind the Keeper of Desires, and Elder Night the Mysterious.    The Over-Court of the Heavencircle Game: This is the supreme Cat Government of Totaken, a federation of Jellicle Catsthat rules the city absolutely. The Heavencircle Court splits the city into sub-courts, each of which is devoted to different artistic styles. These many composite courts rise and fall over time and are prone to chaotic dissolutions and reformations. There are three great Jellicle Courts who lead all the rest and ensure that Jellicle dominance is not challenged by any group of strays or outsiders. The smaller courts clash, compete, and subordinate non-Jellicles using their Droogbands - warbands and gangs of Jellicle cats who capture stray cats as labor thralls and clash in violent scuffles. Strays and outsiders enthralled to the Jellicle bands labor as basically serfs who forage, hunt, and labor for their sworn court. Thralls are often branded and or ritually scarred to mark them as pseudo-property. Every year, the Jellicle Courts swear a month of peace for the Heavencircle Game, where each court holds a talent show for their thralls or even un-claimed strays to potentially rise into Jellicles. Most thralls do not participate, though. To add an element of risk and bravery to the Games, all who fail to impress the judges enough to become Jellicles in the talent show are brought to the Finals Game. In the Finals Game, the Courts all gather in the Divine District to feast, dance, perform, and watch the failed performers fight each other in a grand royale. This can sometimes just be a chaotic gladiator brawl in the old ruins and parklands, but it can be an extravagant death game with strange rules. The last cat left standing becomes Jellicle. The strange magic that ascends the elder cats in the Jellicle Ball also heals the Game-winner's scars and brands, often leaving oddly-colored fur splotches where they were healed.    The Warrior's Ring: The Jellicle boundaries are managed and enforced by a group of Traditionalist Cat Communities, who form a ring around the city. These Traditionalist clans are not always on good terms with each other, but have mutual alliances with the Over-Court. The Warrior's Ring is known for being aggressively xenophobic to strays or outsiders who do not instantly assimilate into their culture, religion, and society.    The Comet's Commune: A charismatic outsider hailing from the distant Fire Clans known as Comet Kalzo has arrived in the surrounding area around Totaken, having slipped past the Traditionalist Cats that control the Northern isthmus. The Comet and their followers seek to overthrow the tyrannical order of the Heavencircle and Warrior's Ring - and to replace it with their own self-hating semi-apocalyptic ideology. The Comet has disrupted the invincible image of the Over-Court and has created room for challengers. But will the Comet be triumphant in this revolution? Or can some other Cat with their own vision come out on top?

The history of Totaken is, in many ways, the history of the Oteka Republic more broadly.    Before Totaken there was the Aknikepru, a now-legendary city of astronomy and commerce that was considered a major cultural center in the ancient centuries of the Divine Era and early Modern Era. In 492 ME, the legendary assassin and conqueror Amati seized the city for himself and made it into his private refuge and sanctuary. When Amati's old friend and enemy Yezok the Emperor of Ghosts overthrew Amati, Aknikepru became part of Yezok's new Spiritual Empire of All Suneka. Yezok's local lieutenant, Zizilen the Mad, tried to usurp Yezok from the city of Aknikepru and so the city was utterly razed and a new city was built on the other side of the marsh: the infant city of Totaken. Aknikepru's ruins remained off-limits for centuries; while later regimes built fortifications on the same hill as Aknikepru's grand palace, they made sure to avoid the main mass of the ruins. Eventually, in the 1300s ME, those ruins were re-sanctified as a place to put wayward gods and strange foreign spirits and mages: a kind of magical quarantine zone. The cordoned-off lesser divinities and their representatives used the ruins as a grand embassy for foreign spirits, where all the immortals of the world kept a presence. This is now the Divine District, a wealthy and exclusive part of the city that has actually kept many of the ancient ruins - either incorporated into the architecture visibly, recreated in new styles, or left untouched in open parks.   The early city of Totaken largely clustered around three main nodes: the Palace of Yezok, in what is now the Assembly District, the Western reef-port at what is now the Voyager District, and the Eastern reef-port that is now the suburb of Dinyotel. The early city sprawled uncontrollably in a great suburban network, really more of a collection of small cities than a single lare one. Foreign invasions in the 900s, 1000s, and 1300s all pushed the population together North of the swamps and led to fortifications in what is now the Garrison District, Teokali, and Westcreek. The city began rapidly expanding again in the 1400s after that devastation passed, but shrank again in the 1500s after the Republic of Atupan invaded. The city of Totaken launched a grand rebellion in 1515 and again in 1517, 1521, and 1528, and Atuperan elites began forcibly relocating the rebellious urbanites to more profitable resource-extraction sites in the countryside. In 1620, a rebellion organized by Kata Monks and local priests in the countryside seized Totaken and drove out the Atuperan governor; they did not secure their independence, but did secure a more benevolent and cooperative regional government. After 1620, the city grew again - splintered this time between Westcreek, the Divine District, the Assembly, the Great Port, and Dinyotel.    Totaken as it stands today was really born from the great restructuring of 1800 to 1830, when the Totaken Canal was built and massive water pumping systems were installed across the isthmus. The dividing swamps, which had fragmented the urban geography for centuries, were drained and foreign trade was welcomed into the very heart of the city. Dinyotel, the Eastern port, began to decline as ships began to bypass it in favor of central Totaken. Large populations were relocated by government edict to make way for the new canal and great volumes of labor and resources were funneled in to complete the project. The resulting canal system was more successful than anyone had initially imagined, and soon sucked in all of the surrounding urban centers. Totaken became a gleaming beacon of scholarship, craft perfection, trade, and democracy, with a radical populist government. That radical democratic spirit faded by the end of the century, when a continental war led to radical centralization under the military government.    The greater Totaken fringe has recovered over the 1900s, and suburbs like Dinyotel that were fading are now bouncing back. The city itself is basically overflowing into them: Sunekans from around the continent have petitioned for relocation here and elite cliques from many republics have sent entire villages into Totaken as a way to project commercial influence. While much of the rest of the republic has suffered from foreign interventions and corrupt coups this century, Totaken and its hinterlands have basically lived in a gilded bubble.   The Southern regions of the Oteka Republic have grown to resent Totaken's cultural, political, and economic influence, which they feel has shut their voices from government and has forced change on their towns. In the last few decades, a 'Southern party' of politicians has emerged to represent a variety of dissenting regional and political perspectives. All of them are united not in ideology, but in performative and public disdain for Totaken and its elites. The mainstream culture of Totaken has responded to this (unearned? arbitrary?) hostility by spitting right back with their own condescension, politically radicalizing into their own Northern Party to pursue their own political interests. Newcomers in the city who dislike the status quo sometimes gravitate to the Southern Party out of spite - an increasingly common sight since the government entered gridlock in 2017. The economy of Totaken is still thriving, of course, but the city is increasingly politically divided and infused with a sense of ambient bitterness. The government is broken and some shadowy group or individual is murdering supreme government executives here in the untouchable city, and no one seems to be doing anything. With a frozen government, the powerful seem comfortable to abuse their inferiors more readily. Conspiracy theorists and gossip rags highlight the presence of foreigners and heathens. "Did the Selkies kill Tlakra Itzuko? Are witches in the Alienages plotting against us?" Others ask similar questions about the Southern Party, who seems to be gaining so much from this chaos. And still things continue like normal for most people.

The Grand Plazas: The Five Great Plazas of the Assembly District are all monuments to power of the urban and national elites, which form a grand circuit of statues, public art, monumental architecture, raised temples, and palaces to public government. Museums, music, and food vendors all mix in with the sea of clerks, politicians, warriors, priests, and servants. The massive raised temple of the National Priest is particularly impressive while also being open to the public: it has several raised levels, somewhere between a tower and a step-pyramid covered in intricate art and statues.    The Palace in the Depths: The great center of power for the Undersea Sonoko Federation embedded in the lakebed of Lake Tlasazoma. A great mechanical center of power, literal and figurative, where aquatic priests and representatives from reefs, kelp forests, and open continental shelf alike come together. A center of industry, trade, and political power, closed to many less-privileged. A great mass of tubes, chambers, and pumps, a hidden mechanical heart of the city.   The Sanctum of Meskenem: The great sanctuary of scholars, mages, and military engineers in the Academic District. This is where the Monks of Meskenem, people who devote their lives to the advancement of knowledge and technology, meet and toil. This is also where school administrators of the Academic District meet and hold court. Has a series of underwater tubes and passages connecting to the Palace in the Depths, allowing for shared learning. This is the nervous center for operation and maintenance of the Totaken Canal. One of the two massive libraries in the city.   The Dawnside Tower: A great tower and raised temple of the Cult of Kata, the monastic order dedicated to coordinating education and scholarship in the Suneka. This is considered one of the most important administrative centers and archives of the Kata Cult, controlled by the Octopus-Monks with absolute legal authority. One of the two massive libraries in the city. In the suburb of Dinyotel.   Not all powerful factions are in government, and not all marvels of the powerful are legally sanctified.    The Universities: Several of Totaken's great universities are physically monumental and are premier locations for foreign students. Many other schools are present here that aren't included on this list

• The Spiritgate College: The Spiritgate College is the magical university here in Totaken, with ties to The Darzan University. In the Academic District
• The Meskenem Academy: The great Sunekan school of natural science, engineering, chemistry, mathematics, and astronomy. Connected to the more exclusive and secretive Sanctum of Meskenem. In the Academic District
• The Dawnside Teacher's College: The greatest teacher's college in the Suneka, tied to the Dawnside tower. In Dinyotel

The Temple of Strange Gods: A large and impressive cathedral in the Divine District, with an ancient architectural style and feel to it. It is, in fact, the reconstructed temple-palace of ancient Aknikepru where astrologers once invented the solar calendar and Amati once kept his hoard of stolen crowns - rebuilt with on top of a basis of Samvaran, Calazan, and Runevan architecture. This is the central divine embassy for foreign gods to hold court and maintain offices. Lunar Gods, distant Immortals, and even a few Elder Leviathans keep shrine-offices here with ambassadors. The Brilliant Enclave holds the main chamber here, which was blessed by Haru himself with eternal daylight from a false never-dimming sky 'painted' onto the ceiling. The bodies of the False Architects are interred here, and statues of their Executions surround the Temple as reminders of the Suneka's supremacy.    The Divine Gardens: A walled sanctuary in the Divine District where Alchemy is practiced; a highly-surveilled and tightly controlled center of industry and worship. Herb gardens practically overflow into the busy workshops and temples, where healing potions are produced and packaged for export. The entire complex is one great temple to the Architects, who are believed to destined to be born from the cult's ranks (or, for the Masked One, from the crypt-soil that they keep as a secret garden fed by their ancestor's bodies). Different cult leaders and statues are believed to carry the immortal essence of the Immortals and Lunar Pantheon.    The Apatlia Bank and Hospital: In the Voyager District, there are two blocky buildings covered in statues of snakes. These belong to the Cult of Ozotl, the Snake Spirit of Healing and Sickness. One tower is a bank, the other is a hospital. The bank is a center of finance and business coordination, while the hospital coordinates quarantine and illness procedures in the Western docks.    Manuhel Manor: While the Selkie Admiralty building might be the legal center of Selkie power, the real hub for politics and opulence is Manuhel Manor. This large walled seaside manor in the Northern end of the Lesser Alienage is immediately noticable for its foreign architecture and foreign food growing in the gardens around the estate house. A private dock attaches to the manor, overseen by a small guard tower. While Manuhel Manor is normally closed to anyone without a reservation, it is said that the Viceroy of the Sunekan Seas has commanded their steward to give an audience to anyone willing to take serious action against the infamous Leviathan named Elder Night or the non-Sunekan aquatic polities of the nearby oceans.  The Spiritlock: A fortified and carefully-controlled center for Teleportation Circles in the city, connecting the city to Kiazerov and several other notable cities. A center for bureaucratic surveillance but also a well-furnished and luxurious meeting place with a very high-quality hotel and a small but well-kept hospital. In the Academic District, in the Southeast corner near the Innermarket and Divine District.   The Astrologer's Park: A large public park in the Divine District that contains many ruins of ancient Aknikepru, overgrown by local plants. Ponds and thickets of tropical trees grow around the park area, providing a space for festivals, ceremonies, and meetings for the denizens of the Divine District. This is also the seat of Jellicle power for the cats, where the Heavencircle Games are held every year - not that the humanoid residents take much notice of them. This is a common meeting place for various Divine District ambassadors and factions when they want to meet in a non-official capacity.    The Mariner's Crescent: The Mariner's Crescent is a large semi-aquatic Voyager Hall (business center) that is unusually open to foreign adventurers, mercenaries, and explorers. The Cartographer's Commune has an office here for map making and exchange and many factions send agents to post bounties and notices here for various adventurers. These may be bounties on pirates or job notices for various odd jobs. In the Voyager's District.   The Shrine to Silence: An Ancient subterranean temple site dedicated to Agamine the Lost, which is surprisingly large and well-used even to this day by the priesthood and Cult of Kata. While not everyone is allowed into the deep chambers, anyone can reserve a cell for silent meditation and contemplation. In the Academic District.

Totaken is a pretty prominent tourist destination, with its grand markets and famous coffee shops.    In terms of elite social venues, one might go to:

• The Spiritkeeper Hotel, attached to the Spiritlock in the Academic District. A resting place for newly-arrived teleported elites, highly restricted and very exclusive. Big with The Darzan University.
• Little Paradise, a tea shop, garden, and social venue in the Divine District. Little Paradise is a very ceremonially structured space, built for meetings between local divine ambassadors. Little Paradise famously is one of Haru's favorite tea shops and still makes snacks just the way that the Wandering God likes them - Haru has their own teleportation grove and room here that people pay large sums to dine near, in case the God decides to leave their room.
• The Whispering Gibbon Cafe and Tavern, a popular haunt for politicians and their revenues in the Assembly District. The place to go for intrigue or elite gossip
• Neverweary Cafe and Salon, a much-beloved coffee shop, eatery, art studio, and social venue in the Academic District. A prestigious and exclusive place for visiting merchants, artisans, mages, and artists. 

Other notable venues include:

• The Cerulean: The Cerulean is a prominent hosting center for foreigners, known for its iconic cerulean paint, glass, and tiled roofing. The Cerulean hosts rotating food vendors on the ground floor, which surround the indoor market. On the second floor, a permanent cafe and tavern divide guests between stimulants and fine Totakeno coffees and booze. The second floor had a bridge leading over to the theater next door as well. The Cerulean is the closest thing to a shopping mall that exists in the city, and it is reviled as gauche by some while also being somewhat iconic. In the Innermarket.
• The Shimmer: The Shimmer is a cafe in the Innermarket, with a bit of a provocative reputation. The Shimmer is known for boundary-pushing art pieces and hosting pamphlets that border on heretical or seditious; it encourages debate and discussion that would be tolerated few other places. Shimmer has a number of secret rooms and passages, which are rumored to house all kinds of secret societies. In reality, the Shimmer doesn't host its most illicit activities in the cafe, but in its associated private club called The Enigma in the Greater Alienage. The Enigma is where the Mystery Club meets and the real "subversive" activities and occult dabbling takes place. The Shimmer and the Enigma are owned by a group of Tideweaver Warlocks, who are probably the best-connected and wealthiest warlocks in the city. Under the Enigma Club is a shrine to the Tideweaver, where it is said that communion with the Sphinx of the Seas is particularly easy.
• The Hall of Welcome, in the Mariner's Crescent, is basically an adventurer's bar. Rare to see here in the Suneka.

If you are just looking for a place for your party to shelter, one could consider:

• The Shaded Roost, a tavern in Innermarket that caters to merchants, mercenaries, sailors, travelers, and visiting minor notables. This is a relatively cheap and dependable place, perfect for someone who just wants a safe and comfortable place to rest. The innkeep is rumored to turn a blind eye to 'respectable' crime, as long as it doesn't draw heat to the tavern, damage tavern property, or infringe on the safety and property of other patrons. They are also happy to host non-Sunekans.
• The Journey's Rest is a large tavern and bunkhouse for incoming sailors at the Great Docks. This is a free tavern, with open bunks, bread, and water for any new arrival without a copper due.  Sailors can then pay extra for alcohol, treats, and access to the Private Quarters - clusters small private rooms away from the main bunkhouse, with a small state-licensed brothel between them. Journey's Rest is noisy, can get rowdy, and is pretty bare-bones for those who don't pay. The managers here aren't very patient but they open their doors and spare bunks to just about anyone. The Journey's Rest is one of a number of sailor's housing blocks here in the Port that are supported by the state and communities to house and feed anyone who arrives, no matter their language or culture. Non-paying residents who stay more than four days are usually expected to put in an hour's work every day to help maintain the Rest and may be kicked out if they cause a disruption that they refuse or are unable to pay for. Those who stay for more than a month usually have to negotiate to stay longer, though prolonged sailor's stays are often negotiated and paid for by the vessels that carry them. There are other free housing blocks in the city, but only these portside ones are open to foreigners.
• The House of Roaring Cups is a tavern that caters to merchants, mercenaries, and skilled outsiders in the Voyager's District. More expensive than the Roost or Rest, but open to foreigners and a short trot from the Mariner's Crescent and Hall of Welcome adventurer's halls. Known for its jaunty live music, coffeehouse selection, and tolerant atmosphere.
• The Pike and Banner is a lively and welcoming tavern and feasting hall in the Greater Alienage. Well-established foreign and heathen residents drink here, local festivals are hosted here, and merchants who want to get away from all the Sunekans tend to gravitate here. Not cheap, but not luxurious, and it has a stables. A large red-painted pike hangs from the ceiling of the feasting hall, and is often used to drape banners. In the Greater Alienage.
• The Goatfish is a downright sketchy tavern in the Greater Alienage. It is cheap, it is private, it is good for certain kinds of networking. You definitely won't find guardsmen in here unless something has gone wrong. A place where you might get your stuff stolen if it isn't locked up and chained down; it has a back yard where you could put any animals you have, but should you really?

Now that you know where you're staying, what about the special events?  

• The Tlasoti festival in April is pretty big here, with lots of veneration of Rubeta the clay spirit and Kata the Cephalapod spirit of invention. A day of martial veneration and parades, but also tinkerers and scholars. Here in Totaken there is much ceremonial cannonfire on this day marking the big events, and fireworks at night. Priests carry a large procession to Agamine the Lost through the city this day.
• The Zozla flower dance in June is notable here, as it is in many cities. A big entertainment day, but also a day when the Brilliant Enclave is known to heal the wounded or diseased.
• Tlipicha, in August, marks a massive series of craft festivals here in Totaken and is very much a commercial holiday in this city. Everyone brings their best goods, merchants have competing sales, and buyers flock to the city.
• Sipatli, in September, is a day when foreigners and heathens are barred from leaving their places of residence while the Otekan Sunekans hold a great feast. A day to watch out for.
• Tokatli, in November, is the day of welcome for foreigners, where people from other Sunekan republics and even heathen lands parade openly in a show of unity. Also a big day for sailors, as this is when sacrifices are made to protect them and their vessels from accidents at sea. 

Like many Sunekan architectural styles, Totaken's buildings are often blocky and rectangular at their base and favor neat straight lines and sharp corners. Totaken's roofs tend to incorporate more gentle slopes and domes, as well as buildings that have large gently-sloping platforms embedded into the architecture. Totakeno style often involves large blank stone walls broken up by elaborate facades and veneers, often incorporating repeating geometric patterns. Square columns are often incorporated into builings as well, especially in the front facade areas. Even the poorer districts have a surprising density of stone structures with artistic detailing.    Districts often have their own styles: Westcreek has this semi-pyramidal grand multilayered platform architecture going on, where huge artifical hills with sharp flat protruding terraces serve as the foundations for multilayered manorial complexes and housing complexes. The Assembly District, meanwhile, is extremely symmetrical and prone to tall square towers and sharp pyramidal tiled roofs.    Many buildings are stone, though many are also wood, adobe, and earth.

The climate here is tropical, though it is far from full equatorial rainforest. Seasonal rains are pretty intense, but are managed by the city's intricate flood control system. The air is generally humid, especially during the wet seasons, and warm.