Api (ap ee)
the City of Bronze
While citizens of some of the other prominent cities of Tinjir may argue the point, Api is the defacto capital of the Farlands. Most in the Heartlands of Novyum couldn't tell a friend where the Farlands are, or what dwells in that strange land, but they have heard of Api. Located at the farthest end of Korinaba Bay at the tip of the Thoamaine Peninsula, on any map Api may not seem the idea stop as a gateway to the rest of the region. Other ports, like Jedd Sol to the east in Durrosa Bay, seem a better landing point, but Api's location in the safety of Korinaba's calm waters gave it advantanges the other seafaring cities lacked.
Korinaba Bay is a large bay sheltered by its surrounding hills and mountains. This has protected it from the harsh storms that rage throughout the Tinjir seas during spring and fall. When other nations have been forced to go to port in these season Api fishermen can still bring in hauls. The long bay and its many villages along it have given Api early warning to any invaders attempting to reach the city by sea.
Inland Api is surrounded by fertile farmlands feed by consistent mountain rivers flowing down into Naus Makra Bay, a branch of Korinaba. Dedicated farmlands owned by city's government is walled off and protected from the outside world. Generational farmers of these lands are masters of maintaining soil fertility to ensure food is always available to the people.
The city itself is largely built on an artificial island in Naus Makra Bay. While some of the older parts of the city remains on the eastern shore, Api proper is built on massive stone foundations. What began as wooden stilts and platforms in ancient times slowly became stone over the ages. This foundation has hundreds of tunnels and pipes running throughout. Most of these are open to the bay for sewage, though several secret passages run through for use in times of war. The water filled pipes are some of the most extensive sewer systems on any continent. Though this has caused population to the nearby waters, the city has a dedicated service to maintain the sewers and surrounding bay waters to prevent this and keep the pipes from clogging. Rumors among the taverns of the city speak of the lowest tunnels even expanding far out into the bay below the waters. A network of undersea castles used for unknown reasons if these tales are to be believed.
Aside from its strategic advantages, or perhaps because of them, Api has been used at the capital of every nation that has grown up on northern Thoamaine. This has long engrained the people of the peninsula, if not all the Farlands, that Api is special among the cities. Even today, with the Kingdom of Bronze a divided nation of city-states, Api is the most important of these cities. The meeting place when nationwide matters must be hashed out.
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