The Dragon's Tail

Where all the Roads of Acciphere Start and End

You're lost. The sun is beating down on you, and you really want to rest somewhere.
And then suddenly you come across something amazing.
A huge wall stands between you and the other side. Two guards check you for weapons, and you come out clean. The gates open, and they make a welcoming gesture as you go in.
The road slowly changes from sand into laid brick. The place is very lively, unlike the desert behind you. Tents both small and large litter the area, and you hear shopkeepers arguing and seeselling exotic goods that you never even thought existed. Your stomach grumbles as it smells the sweet aroma of the bakery towards the next alley.
Your scruples get the better of you, and you go get a well-baked piece of bread. You ask the shopkeeper, "Where am I?"
The shopkeeper replies, "The Dragon's Tail. Where all the roads of Acciphere start and end."

The Dragon's Tail is one of the largest trade hubs of Acciphere, lying on the Dragontail Route. Joining the Ice Kingdom and Garfaxin Kingdom, this market hub contains everything out of the ordinary. It's a vast market, with various areas selling various items from all around the world. In fact, it's so large that people have known to get lost in it and never find their way out again.

Defences

Since it's such a bustling and huge marketplace where exotic goods come for cheap, there's bound to be some greedy eyes waiting for a chance to steal as much as they can. Just to prevent this, guards are simply everywhere. You can find them patrolling the various walls, cleaning the arrow-holes that were once used for defending, or simply sipping tea in the local bakery. The Council of Elders have made sure to appoint only the best guards, since the Dragon's Tail is a very huge and important trade post in the entirety of Acciphere.
New technological achievements have also made their way into the defences of the Dragon's Tail, evidently shaping the outer areas. Always packed with state-of-the-art technology, the Dragon's Tail doesn't cease to amaze its inhabitants and visitors, every single time.

Industry & Trade

Inhabitants are mostly traders, and shop owners. Each of them run their own shops, and sell goods from all around the world. There's every single type of item available here, and when new items come out it's almost always at this place. There has never been a place busier than the Dragon's Tail in the export-import business, as merchants settle there until they finish their stock, buy whatever they can with the money they've earned, and then sell those products back at their homeland. The population's always moving, so you never know how many people actually live in the Dragon's Tail.

Infrastructure

Being a vast and ever-growing settlement, the infrastructure of the Dragon's Tail is never alike. Travellers visit the Dragon's Tail over and over for this reason; it keeps changing with every visit. Literally.
Castle walls surround this vast settlement, and there are multiple layers of them too, due to the ever-growing nature of it. If you were to consider the walls, they themselves would be an attraction alone. With the style and architecture of the buildings getting more ancient as they dive deeper into the core of the marketplace, it truly feels like travelling back in time.

Sun Empire: Plateau Marketplace by Philip.V

Guilds and Factions

There are several factions in the Dragon's Tail. Over time, people of similar kingdoms, or people selling similar products have come together and formed guilds. These guilds occupy certain spaces in the marketplace, and you can't find them anywhere else. The formation of guilds also made it easier for the customers to find the products they require too, since most sellers limit themselves to certain areas. The beauty of it is that the guilds are never uniform; some of them may be larger than the others, and hence occupy larger spaces, whereas the smaller and newer guilds take up smaller spaces. As to which place is taken by whom, there's a certain set of loose rules formed by the Council of Elders, and pacts and agreements are formed between guilds according to these rules. For example, if there's a new and small guild, they can form and agreement with some of the bigger guilds, saying something like: "I want some space in your territory, and in return, we'll give you 25% of the profit that we earn."

History

During the era of war, kingdoms were at odds with each other. Nobody agreed with each other. Merchants often had to travel between nations, but didn't because of the fear of getting killed. As the war came to an end after a century, merchants started travelling once more. They often travelled in groups, and faced a lot of hardships on travelling to the other side of Acciphere.
And then came the split of the Water Kingdoms. Gornary used all his military prowess to blow up and form the North and South Water Kingdoms. Due to this, only a small isthumus was left connecting the Ice Kingdom and the rest of Acciphere. Merchants had to travel the now-barren isthumus to deliver goods to the Ice Kingdom. And since this was not working out, the Council Of Elders formed various ports and trade posts for the merchants to take rest in. And perhaps the one that flourished the most among them is the Dragon's Tail, named after how the isthumus looked like a dragon's tail. It's location was very strategic too: It was only a few hundred kilometres away from both the Water Kingdoms at sea, was equdistant from the Garfaxin Kingdom AND Ice Kingdom. And the rest is history.

Architecture

To put it simply, there's no ONE style of architecture that the Dragon's Tail follows. The first wall encloses probably the oldest living architectural design to date, with straw roofs and loosely built brick walls. As time progressed, however, the very core was turned into a garden without destroying any of the architectural beauty, and is now a memorial for how much the place has grown since then. The outer walls have followed the trends of their generations; some being clad in faded blues and yellows, and some having minarets. The arrow holes in several of the middle walls are not really used for shooting arrows anymore; you'd probably end up find a snake or a rat hiding in there rather than arrows.
The lack of organization in the Dragon's Tail is a testament to its ever-changing nature. There are multiple confusing alleys and there's never a straight path to the inside, so travellers are given a detailed map of the place, which is refreshed every five to ten years.

Founding Date

600 KE

Alternative Name(s)

Where The Roads of Acciphere Start and End

Type

Trade post

Population

Unknown

Owning Organization

Council Of Elders

Fun fact

The Dragon's Tail was once almost burnt down to ashes by a mob of people contesting! Even though the guards tried to control them the best they could, the outer wall at that time was completely taken down. Luckily, they were controlled before they could progress to take down the second wall as well.