Nahrim

Overview

Nahrim, capitol city of Rihsama rises from a basalt headland where trade winds strike the coast and split into singing alleys of vanes and sails. The city is a thesis made stone: Domes and courtyards married to innovative engineering and magical wind technology. Scholars debate in coffeehouses wired with aeoliphones (wind-organs that carry announcements), and cranes hum as sky-lifts hoist people, wagons—even whole dhows over the city wall in measured procession.

Nahrim has no gates. Approach by road or sea, and you ride the wind-machines.

Geography & Layout

• The Crown Wall: A cyclopean ring wall with no apertures at grade. Every breach is vertical: lift shafts, lock terraces, and wind galleries.
• The Seven Lifts: Monumental tower-cranes spaced around the ring. Each lift can raise caravans or barges whole; counterweighted by wind-sails and arcane turbines.
• The Spiral Locks: Ship-locks step up the cliff like a glittering helix, fed by tide-basins and wind-pumps.
• The Scholar’s Quarter (Al-Qalam): Colleges, archives, observatories, precision-lens workshops, and the Great Aerarium (academy of windcraft and mechanics).
• Harbor Below / Aerium Above: The lower harbor does cargo; the upper Aerium Docks service wind-skiffs and tethered air-kites used for survey and courier work.

Government & Law

• While home to Rihsama Council of Scholars, they are not typically involved in the daily administration of the city
• Wali Safiya al-Khazeen (Governor): an engineer-administrator who earned her chair by redesigning Lift Three’s braking lattice after “the Near-Runaway.”
• Diwan of Lifts & Locks: Twelve seats—liftwrights, lockmasters, aeromancers, astronomers, treasurers, and two merchant scholars.
• Customs of Paper: Nahrim inspects books more than blades. Contraband includes plagiarized theses, forged navigation charts, and dangerous wind-harmonics.
• Dueling for Citation: Licensed academic duels (first blood) settle priority disputes; illegal to duel a non-scholar.

Economy

• Shipyards & Liftwrights: Wind-rigs, lock gates, precision gearwork.
• Optics & Instruments: Lenses, sextants, astrolabes, “wind-gauge” recorders.
• Paper & Ink: Acid-free scrollstock hauled city-wide by pneumatic “wind tube” posts.
• Coffee & Spice Bourse: Midday auctions settle prices for the whole coast.
• Arcano-Industrial: Aeolic turbines and pressure-glyph pumps keep the locks and aqueducts alive.

Magic & Technology (Windcraft)

• Aeoliglyphs: Carved sigils tuned to prevailing winds—power bells, beacons, pumps.
• Sirocco Batteries: Bastions vent compressed air as nonlethal crowd control and ship-stop blasts.
• Lens-Bastions: Sunlight focused through spellglass for signal and defense (flash-code & dazzling arcs).
• The Quiet Choir: Wind-organs on the wall that can sing a city-wide alarm or relay encoded messages.

Society & Culture

• Scholarly Vibe: Every café has chalkboards. Apprentices quote footnotes. “Prove it” is a greeting.
• Dress: Loose black, sand, and indigo; engineers wear sash-colors for their guilds (liftwright red, lockmaster teal, aeromancer white).
• Faiths: Temples are discrete; Nahrim prizes plural debate over proclamation. (Whispers persist of Beekeeper cells courting the bereaved; the Diwan audits amber merchants ruthlessly.)
• Festival of First Wind: Annual ceremony where the Wali releases the locks to a full tide while the Quiet Choir sounds the city’s chart.

Defense

• No Gates: At street level, none. Entry is scheduled, metered, recorded.
• Redundancy: Every lift can fail safe; every lock can drain to a sump; three separate wind feeds per tower.
• Wall Wards: Anti-levitation and anti-phase aeroglyph nets lace the stone.
• City Watch: The Blue Vanes—engineer-guards who can diagnose a gear scream faster than they can draw steel.

Notables & Hooks

• Wali Safiya al-Khazeen: Quiet, relentless, keeps a slide-rule where others keep daggers.
• Master Tareq of Lift Three: Thinks the lifts should sing in just intonation; might be right.
• Professor Laleh Ruhbani (Optics): Missing after publishing on spellglass fracture—last seen near the lock helix at night.

Quick Stats (for WA sidebar)

• Population: ~310k (city), multi-ethnic, scholar-heavy
• Demonym: Nahrimi
• Leader: Wali Safiya al-Khazeen.
• Exports: wind-rigs, lockworks, optics, charts, coffee, spellglass
• Imports: hardwoods, ore, rare resins, grain
• Districts: Harbor Ring, Lift Quarter, Al-Qalam, Aerium Heights, Brass Market