Larakesh

Past the tall alabaster columns of ancient stone, surrounded by 300 foot cliff sides, sits the ancient city of Larakesh. Crowded streets and a sweaty busy market mark the days; while dark quiet streets and busy warm bars and inns mark the nights.  Larakesh has the sounds and smells of a city filled with life untouched by the wars to the south. 

Entering the city is open during the day. Paid mercenaries provide protection from the Atra, and hiring a guard is not uncommon.  There are two large factions - the Aydin Clan and the Aljamjama.  A mercenary guard costs 30 gold for the day and insures the party from pickpockets or robbery.  They can also serve as a guide.

Staying in the city after sunset requires the procurement of pendants from either the Aydin Clan or the Aljamjama. There are one week, two week, and permanent resident pendants (which must come with the permission of the Atra, Ezkeet.

Larakesh, nearly hidden in a "u" shaped cliffside, began as a small encampment of refugees after the cataclysm built over the ruins of an ancient woodland metropolis.  Surrounded by the endless sands of the Northern Deliverer Barrens to the west and ancient jungle over the cliff to the east, the city has grown slowly over 2000 years only managing 2500 permanent residents. However, after the beginning of the Sycharian Great War in 2017 AF, it grew to over 9,000 people. It became a trading haven, for legal and illicit goods including slavery.  Built around a central bazaar encircling the massive 50' statue of the dead bull god, Mak' Ha, most buildings are hollowed out ruins of ancient structures that may have been homes in the millennia before the cataclysm.  These buildings are filled with small shops, tents, and merchants hawking everything from food to ancient elven artifacts (most fake). 

The atra of the city, or chief of the commerce, is a rough, aging leonin warrior named Ezkeet. Once a champion fighter, Ezkeet rules the markets, guilds, and gangs with a powerful mercenary force that patrols the ever more violent sandstone, narrow walkways. Drugs, sex, and other illicit activities are all frowned upon but Ezkeet allows them to exist as long as merchant and buyer citizens are safe and no death is unearned. The sale of elven artifacts is strictly forbidden.  All remnants of the Khaori are confiscated and held in the Museum of Graak.  Only replicas are legal for sale. However, there is a underground brisk business in small minor artifacts - rune stones, stones from the ancient ruins, old maps, arrow heads, and small weapons - prized by the Doheaga church and the nobles of the Northern Kingdom.

The weather is perpetually hot except for the powerful storms that arise from the Ischarlin Wilds flooding the streets of Larakesh and refilling their cisterns.  The city relies on trade for meats and harvests fruit from the nearby jungles. Noble Col Insanlar traders and nomadic Changcao frequent the bazaar and many have stayed to run businesses of their own.  Drowlings who escaped from the Northern Kingdom after the Slave Revolt of 2019 AF have built a community on service to the local residents, blacksmithing, and scribe work. 

The church of the Doheaga has a unity temple in the city, but most of the residents are iconoclasts.  There is a local faith in the primal gods that is quite strong.  Recently, the growing Church of the Blood King has made inroads in the city and has built a tent temple in the sands outside the city. Ezkeel considers them a cult and sees them as a danger to the relative peace of the city.  Malevolent magic (magic that harm another or controls their mind) is punishable by immediate execution. There are no jails - only banishment into the jungle or the desert. To return means death.  Ezkeel wants nothing to do with the wars to the south and care nothing for Sycharian politics. 

Larakesh is a haven for the forgotten, the refugee, and those wanting to start over with a new name and new life.