Katapesh
Katapesh is a nation dedicated to trade and little else. Its bazaars are known across Golarion not just for their size, but for their incredible (and sometimes immoral) variety of wares. No item is too rare or taboo to be found somewhere in the tents, shops, and wagons of the nation’s merchants: magical reagents, forbidden spells, holy relics, and deadly poisons. In Katapesh, those with the gold make the rules, and the only question is whether one can afford their desires.
Strangely, Katapesh was founded by a group of Sarenite refugees. Fleeing south from pogroms in Osirion, these devout settlers founded two cities that would eventually become Solku and Katapesh. Yet life was hard on Katapesh’s plains, and constant assault by gnolls, bandits, and destructive sandstorms led subsequent generations away from the faith, seeking salvation in something more concrete.
They found it in pesh: a rare cactus growing in the nation’s interior, the sap of which could be distilled into a powerful euphoric drug. Trade boomed as residents of the Inner Sea region clamored for the new drug, and with the influx of money came warring gangs and pesh dens full of helpless addicts. As the economic boom and influx of foreign trade allowed local merchants to expand into other wares, the fundamental anarchy of a drug-fueled economy continued under a loose consortium of corrupt merchants and outright criminals.
The Pactmasters changed that. Seven feet tall, robed and masked to hide their forms, the Pactmasters arrived from parts unknown and took control of the city of Katapesh—and by extension the nation—in a bloodless coup that no records can explain. Though they didn’t end the city’s freewheeling approach to trade, they stabilized and formalized it. Under their guidance, usually filtered through humanoid mouthpieces like Pactbroker Hashim ibn Sayyid, the nation has become perhaps the largest black market in the world, its independence maintained by economic ties and a constabulary of metal constructs known as aluums.
The city of Katapesh is so large in comparison to other settlements that many visitors don’t bother distinguishing between capital and nation. In its vast marketsboth the legitimate bazaars and the seedier Nightstalls—merchants and buyers of a hundred different kinds mingle with the human majority. Gnoll slavers, nomadic gnomes, and dwarves from mines in the Brazen Peaks rub shoulders with visitors from far-off lands such as rakshasas from Vudra or even immortal traders from the Great Beyond. Although Katapesh has a bustling slave trade, slavers who deal in the business consider keeping track of one’s property a personal responsibility, so those who manage to escape slavery often find it easy to set up new lives among the city’s throngs of traders, fugitives, and expatriates.
Outside the city, the landscape quickly gives way to scattered herders, hardscrabble villages, and pesh plantations. All of these are regularly beset by natural predators like lions, bulettes, and hyenas, as well as more cunning foes like harpies, gnolls, pugwampis, and genie warlords. Given the Pactmasters’ laissez-faire policies, defending these holdings is up to the residents, and mercenaries do a brisk business guarding these scattered settlements from a landscape that seems intent on devouring them.
Strangely, Katapesh was founded by a group of Sarenite refugees. Fleeing south from pogroms in Osirion, these devout settlers founded two cities that would eventually become Solku and Katapesh. Yet life was hard on Katapesh’s plains, and constant assault by gnolls, bandits, and destructive sandstorms led subsequent generations away from the faith, seeking salvation in something more concrete.
They found it in pesh: a rare cactus growing in the nation’s interior, the sap of which could be distilled into a powerful euphoric drug. Trade boomed as residents of the Inner Sea region clamored for the new drug, and with the influx of money came warring gangs and pesh dens full of helpless addicts. As the economic boom and influx of foreign trade allowed local merchants to expand into other wares, the fundamental anarchy of a drug-fueled economy continued under a loose consortium of corrupt merchants and outright criminals.
The Pactmasters changed that. Seven feet tall, robed and masked to hide their forms, the Pactmasters arrived from parts unknown and took control of the city of Katapesh—and by extension the nation—in a bloodless coup that no records can explain. Though they didn’t end the city’s freewheeling approach to trade, they stabilized and formalized it. Under their guidance, usually filtered through humanoid mouthpieces like Pactbroker Hashim ibn Sayyid, the nation has become perhaps the largest black market in the world, its independence maintained by economic ties and a constabulary of metal constructs known as aluums.
The city of Katapesh is so large in comparison to other settlements that many visitors don’t bother distinguishing between capital and nation. In its vast marketsboth the legitimate bazaars and the seedier Nightstalls—merchants and buyers of a hundred different kinds mingle with the human majority. Gnoll slavers, nomadic gnomes, and dwarves from mines in the Brazen Peaks rub shoulders with visitors from far-off lands such as rakshasas from Vudra or even immortal traders from the Great Beyond. Although Katapesh has a bustling slave trade, slavers who deal in the business consider keeping track of one’s property a personal responsibility, so those who manage to escape slavery often find it easy to set up new lives among the city’s throngs of traders, fugitives, and expatriates.
Outside the city, the landscape quickly gives way to scattered herders, hardscrabble villages, and pesh plantations. All of these are regularly beset by natural predators like lions, bulettes, and hyenas, as well as more cunning foes like harpies, gnolls, pugwampis, and genie warlords. Given the Pactmasters’ laissez-faire policies, defending these holdings is up to the residents, and mercenaries do a brisk business guarding these scattered settlements from a landscape that seems intent on devouring them.
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