The infernal heat keeps the people asleep all day
and so, as night falls on Ersod,
the city and tourists come out to work and play.
In the City of Endless Nights, as the moon rises over the chilled sands, the glow of the gaslamps and magical braziers turn the cityscape a hue of violet as god-fearing merchants open their food carts to hung-over customers and wayward priests, from across the sea and desert, seek out carnal delights in the brothels-- taking part in act that would curl the beards of any king in Thule. Across the courtyard, a fire-breathing tiefling juggler collects coins from a crowd of children while his partner picks the pockets of their wealthy parents. And, as a gypsy tells the fortune of a young noble couple traveling on their honeymoon, a curious djinn watches and considers how he will benefit from the misfortune he is envisioning for them.
By the time the sun rises in the east, the city will fall all but silent again, until the day's heat wanes.
That is a Zafarian city today. But to understand the present, we must look to the past...
The two large southern continents of Sublanarya are referred to as Hamutia because, for thousands of years, both continents were under the hold of the Hamutian Empire. The Hamutian Empire was a polytheistic monarchal empire in which two kings, two siblings (male or female), ruled on either side of the Hamutian Sea. This empire was built on military conquest, control of valuable resources like drinking water and arable land, and the institution of slavery. It was a powerhouse that survived the Wyrd Wars and continued to dominate the region afterwords. But, as time came to pass, so did the union between Western and Eastern Hamutia.
A civil war broke out between two sibling kings; the western king Ptah-hotep and her brother Jahangari II. Even the Hamutian Pantheon itself split. To the west of the Hamutian Sea, the land became known as Ptah-Hamut, ruled by the all-mighty Pharoah, and to the east lies Raj-Hamut, ruled by the more democratic Rajah and his council of princes. As the war waged on, the slaves of the Hamutian Empire took advantage of the chaos to revolt.
The slaves escaped to the sea and colonized coasts to the north-west of Ptah-Hamut. They had no singular traditions or identity, having been bred from generations of defeated tribe speople and criminals from throughout Hamutia, and so they forged a new cultural identity. They called themselves the Zafarians or "The Unbending." They lived of the inner sea, which came to take their name, and became a prominent nation of merchants. They named their new home on the coast Nadjabad or "the Place of Hope".
And they weathered many small wars against Ptah-Hamut, especially as that lands became entrenched in an even more despicable state.
During the Second Dar Age, a snake cult took control of the pharoah's court and put their god-king, Apep, above all others on Narya. Eventually, the cruelty of the snake cult caused a second slave rebellion. They overthrew the insane cult and reinstalled the pharoah to his throne. As a reward for their nobility, they were offered their freedom. But many of the freed slaves did not wish to continue to be part of a system that continued to perpetuate slavery and instead left for Zafaria. This second wave, bringing their engineering and combat skills, from being forced to build complex architecture and fill out the armies of the snake cult, built walled towns and forts in the mountains of Jalatia on the south-western peninsula of modern day Albyon.
They joined the nation of Zafaria and together the free peoples of Jalatia and Nadjabad have become a small but powerful nation by controlling the Great Western Isthmus and the Zafarian Sea.
Today, the Nadjabadi and Jalatians are one of the most progressive cultures in all of Sublanarya.
Freedom is the promise of Zafaria. A collaboration of former
slaves who rebelled against their masters, Zafaria, made up of the
mountainous peninsula of Jalatia and the desert coast-line of Nadjabad,
is a place where all peoples are free and equal. People are free to live
their lives, as they see fit, without the oppression of government or
gods, and every man, woman, and child can seize the opportunities that
come with this freedom. Few nations welcome outsiders so willingly.
Especially the beaten, the tired, the poor, the homeless, and those
tossed aside by neighboring nations are welcome to the shores of
Zafaria. These people bring their traditions and their values and add
them to beautiful hodge-podge of cultures and creeds. Between the
white-squared clay buildings, they form a mosaic of broken tiles from a
thousand worlds in a thousand colors. And yet...
In Zafaria, coin is king.
While
this is a land of opportunity for all, it is not equal opportunity. If
anything, those who come to Zafaria are prey for the true sharks that
haunt the waters. Pirates, thieves, and crooked merchants rule Zafaria
and take advantage of the constant influx of new victims, new targets,
and new labor. While freedom is free in Zafaria, life is cheap.
Resources are not as abundant as in more verdant regions of Sublanarya
and locales are more apt to knowing the ins and outs of taking advantage
of opportunities in the markets. Poverty is common, as common as the
starvation and disease that are common in the clums of every village and
city in Zafaria, and thus the cycle of crime is perpetuated. The only
law is made-up of local militia organized by the wealthy merchant
families and far too often are they more interested in catching thieves
than preventing the kind of cruelty that turns desperate men cruel. That
is the price of freedom in Zafaria. Every man for himself. Despite
perpetrating slavery being illegal under penalty of death throughout the
Zafarian Sea, ships with new slaves find their way to Hamutia every
day.
As any Dhole will tell you, "it is a dog eat dog world".
