Kingir, the Civilized Land (KIN-gir)

The most populous race are the Gutians, who wander the northern reaches nomadically and represent 38% of the peoples of Kingir. After them, the Anunnaki number 25% of the total inhabitants, then the Wild Men consistute 18%. Scorpionfolk make up 7%, and other races make up 12%. The Strata Diocletiana runs from Susa to Palmyra through Kingir, and the bulk of the other races are generally on this Imperial road. It should be noted that the Imperial Road patrols tend to be wights bound to protect the road and those peacably on it while native undead are ghouls, specters, and wraiths.

First, a Temple is built to the city’s deity and the land assessed and divided into parcels. The temenos, the park district around the Temple, holds the courts and administrative buildings, most especially the bills of ownership for each parcel in a city. The Temple maintains all property records, and those families who bought land directly from the Temple are recorded, the Elders of a city. Technically, every landowner in a city is a member of the clan that originally purchased the land from the temple, and these direct buyers form the Elders, a council of local interests. Familial relation goes with the land unless the landowner then officially buys the property from the temple a second time, forming the legal bill of sale and coincidentally joining the Elders. These property owners, those who purchased directly from the Temple, are all equal with an equal voice in governance regardless of the amount of property owned, be it a single residence or a vast swath of land. The Elders, single representatives of each landowning clan, form the body that decides the public works of each city and arranges funding. The Elders can set tax rates, assign the city’s public offices, and even arrange for work projects. They are fiscally responsible for overages, unless they contracted heading projects for bearing the expenses. The anniversary of a city’s founding is observed with the Akitu, the week long Renewal Ceremony where all is created new-the General Assembly meets then and ratifies or overturns the decisions of the elders and appoints the officers of the city. The General Assembly is supreme, and only it may overturn it’s decisions. It must declare war, for example, and ratify treaties for them to be valid, though the Elders may initiate a treaty well before the Akitu. Everyone with permanent residence in the city has a vote in the General Assembly, even females. It should be noted that Assembly votes are the only exception to the law restricting women that a father or husband may nullify a contract within ninety days of being signed. Of the offices of a city, the first is the lugal (lit. “big man”), commander of a city’s military. Endingir is the lugalanki, “big man of heaven and earth”. Technically, as greatest of the lugallim, he controls many cities, and this office in those cities is held by an officer subordinate to Endingir. The Temple is headed by a Hierophant who conducts worship, which is a lifelong post once elected, unlike the Secretary, the Temple Administrator who is elected annually. These two individuals will be Powers in any city, if not actually running it. The Secretary conducts all the Temple’s business and controls the resources generated by the Temple. He is required to maintain the religious ceremonies of the Temple though the Hierophant conducts such services. The edubba is the academy of any city, trainers for the professional class and middle management. The School Father is supreme in the edubba and is elected by the School Brothers, the faculty. Edubba training generally produces bards with Perform (oratory) for their “music” abilities, and the bonus of having access to a clerical domain as arcane spells, gaining the domain’s power and access to those spells as spontaneous spells in addition to others known. They may spontaneously cast these domain spells so long as they have a spell prepared or slot available to be traded for a domain spell at the proper level. Unlike clerics, they do not receive a bonus spell slot at each level for domain spells. (In Kingir, Edubba is a first level feat for natives-it is taken at first level or not at all. Anunnaki automatically have it as a bonus feat. Edubba is only available to those raised in Kingir.) The lugal appoints Royal Judges, who try criminal cases, and they are either confirmed or denied by a vote of the Elders. Powerful lugallim need not worry about the vote. Civil cases are Temple matters, and their judges are under the Secretary, who does not need the Elders’ approval but accepts that Elders may sit if they desire, pending his sanction. In each city, only the Temple records are official documents (admissible in court, even the court of another city), recording the Law and contracts for the massive Temple court system. Laws are announced at the end of the Akitu Festival and appointments confirmed, land is allotted and settled, and the fresh start to the New Year begins, along with the terms of office, ratified by the ensi, who implements the designs of the Elders. He is a city administrator who does the bidding of the Elders. Some have used this post to rule, but that is true of every office in Kingir’s cities.

The cities are walled with a twisting maze of streets save for one main road from the barracks to the gates kept clear by law. The lugal maintains an army with what the Elders can afford or be coerced into granting.

Kingir cities have truly amazing water delivery systems in place, allowing each household it's own internal access to water and making the vibrant gardens for which Kingir is famed possible. All other amenities are personally owned, constructed, and maintained. The edubba system is operated by the temple requires tuition to access and students work to supply themselves with equipment needed for education, learning largely by copying tablets for future students. The temple allots shops and houses for craftsmen productive enough to meet their needs and all take in as much additional work as they can handle. Residents supply all their own needs, most homes having small mills to grind grain to flour. Many of the services that have enlarged to industries elsewhere are still produced in the household here.

Cities maintain storehouses for emergencies as do private citizens. Kingir farms and ranches are fairly productive, with oxen used where onagers cannot suffice. Pork is a delicacy, so many ranches are devoted to dire boar. Fisheries are dug and stocked, and it is likely fish were harvested and not caught for the table. The date palm grows abundantly, and the Anunnaki artificially fertilize these for their fruit and the sweet lal they milk the trees for.

Kingir was founded when the sun rose over Eridu atop the Mound of Creation. The Mound was built up over the Tomb of Apsu, who Enki poisoned, and the city built upon that, but by Annunaki reckoning, anything before the sun rose over the Mound of Creation on the completed city was pre-Creation, when all things were yet nameless and poorly understood. Other gods built other cities along the same lines as Enki, but the maintenance of these cities and their mines and other industries required for the standard of living the gods desired tired them, so Enlil summoned them all to his city at Nippur to address this issue. The god Enki, builder of the First City (Eridu) then formed the sentient races out of the clay beneath Nippur and spoke life into them using the magics he commanded as god of wisdom. The gods took the best of these as slaves and used them for all things, including sexual gratification. The resulting hybrids filled the land, trained by the apkallu, the fish-sages he had created as archivists for his own great knowledge. The apkallu were known to rise up from the rivers at dusk and teach throughout the night, teaching all the skills and arts of civilization to these creatures. This was acceptable to most of them, but the woman Loruhama, who found herself dissatisfied and reached into the realms beyond the gods' with her powers, seeking the Elder Powers who predated them, even Anu himself. Bartering her fertility for power, she became the first witch and instructed others in her practices, collecting up the Elder Powers who would barter freely and passing this knowledge on to those who would listen. Those pure creatures intermingled with the descendents of the gods as well as the offspring of Loruhama and her followers, ultimately becoming the Anunnaki.  The Anunnaki prospered and multiplied, becoming a numerous and noisy people, which displeased the gods, who decided to flood the lands and destroy them all, but the god Enki warned Utnapishtim, king of Shuppurak, and bade him create a floating cube containing the seeds of Life.

The cities here are fortified with stout walls and housing of mud brick. Entryways are in the roof, so a family under siege could draw up their ladders. At night, the ladders are raised until the first person leaves a residence. The wealthiest homes will have a second story, and the Anunnaki use their roofs for gardens and leisure areas.

Temperate hills, desert, mountains (full ecology). Kingir is hot and dry, and salinization is a real problem, centered mainly at Tiamat, the salt marshes at the coast of the Iranshar Gulf. Tiamat is a vast and grim salt marsh yielding to salt flat as one moves inland. Coastal Tiamat is a nightmare realm, where clutches of dragon eggs are tended by monstrous hags and odd dragonkin. No one knows who lays the eggs in their nests-they are found here and either eaten or raised to adulthood by the hags. The swamp is said to be the remnants of Tiamat’s generative organs, cast here during her dismemberment. This stretch of land takes up the southeastern portion of Shinar just before the Gutian Belt of Larsa, Lagash, and Girsu marks the edge of Tiamat. From these cities to the Burunon and Idiglat rivers is the richest farmland of Kingir, Shinar and Akkad, the south and central regions. In the north, the plains roll into the Silver Mountain range at the Idiglat which couple to form an insurmountable barrier (thus far), though the western cities are under constant raid by Gutian nomads and largely independent as a result. Northern Kingir, particularly in the west, is large expanses of wilderness locked in war between the Wild Man and Gutians, with Anunnaki largely on the defensive in those fertile plains.

Kingir has few natural resources other than mud and clay. The quarries at Mosul produce the finest marble in the realm, but most building is done in mud brick, and Endingir finds a better price for his cedar in the Purple Ports. Other than rumored remote valleys in the Silver Mountain range where gems grow on metal trees, there are no metal deposits in the land. Smiths and metal goods have to be imported, but Anunnaki craftsmen are renowned enough their work calls a higher price than the raw materials.