Kibwex
The city of Kibwe is a bastion of trade nestled in the jungles of the eastern Expanse. Since time immemorial, traders from the coast have met here with caravans coming through the Ndele Gap from Nex, Katapesh, and other nations to the east, exchanging goods in Kibwe’s sprawling markets and trading news of far-off places. As a result of this mingling, Kibwe has grown not only large and prosperous, but also wildly diverse, with humans, elves, and gnomes rubbing shoulders with giants, lizardfolk, kobolds, and other uncommon peoples in the name of commerce. Bargaining is the highest form of art in this city, and as the old saying goes, “If you can’t find something in Kibwe, it doesn’t want to be found.”
No one alive today can say for sure who built Kibwe’s towering granite walls, though all agree that they predate Holy Xatramba, the lost nation that controlled the city centuries ago before falling to demons. Rising thick and impregnable from the surrounding jungle, Kibwe’s walls slope inward, their faces covered with thousands of ancient and often indecipherable runes. Inside, the city is a tangle of neighborhoods organized by nationality, ethnic group, or belief system, with firsttime visitors sometimes complaining that the predominant language changes every time one crosses the road. Fortunately, the same ancients who built Kibwe’s walls also provided a valuable navigational aid: the Pillar-Watchers, soapstone statues and idols perched atop high columns. Often taking bizarre shapes—tusked tigerpeople or featherless humanoid birds, always armed with swords and shields—the idols are said to stand guard over the city, ready to come alive in the residents’ time of greatest need. While locals differ on how much they believe the stories, all can agree that the Pillars act as valuable landmarks in a city where street signs can change languages a dozen times in an as many steps.
Kibwe maintains a strict neutrality in political affairs in the interest of greater trade. The city-state is governed by a council of representatives appointed by various clans and micro-communities. Public debates are common in the Adayenki Pavilion, a sacred and petal-strewn common space walled off from the bustle of the market by hanging tapestries and animal hides. Though this representative approach to democracy has historically resulted in a raucous but stable government, of late the council has been hard-pressed by forces both within and without. Since the council’s recent decision to outlaw slavery, the neighborhood of Bekyar Block has roiled on the edge of violence as former slavers plot to reverse the ruling. At the same time, international traders like the Aspis Consortium constantly seek to promote unrest in order to assume control of the city’s considerable mining claims, and the once-small Bwamandu Camp—the neighborhood devoted to taking in refugees from Usaro—has swollen with immigrants and threatens to overwhelm the city’s resources. With so much pressure, it seems like only a matter of time until something breaks, and it’s anyone’s guess whether Kibwe’s patchwork society will band together as one or come apart at the seams.
No one alive today can say for sure who built Kibwe’s towering granite walls, though all agree that they predate Holy Xatramba, the lost nation that controlled the city centuries ago before falling to demons. Rising thick and impregnable from the surrounding jungle, Kibwe’s walls slope inward, their faces covered with thousands of ancient and often indecipherable runes. Inside, the city is a tangle of neighborhoods organized by nationality, ethnic group, or belief system, with firsttime visitors sometimes complaining that the predominant language changes every time one crosses the road. Fortunately, the same ancients who built Kibwe’s walls also provided a valuable navigational aid: the Pillar-Watchers, soapstone statues and idols perched atop high columns. Often taking bizarre shapes—tusked tigerpeople or featherless humanoid birds, always armed with swords and shields—the idols are said to stand guard over the city, ready to come alive in the residents’ time of greatest need. While locals differ on how much they believe the stories, all can agree that the Pillars act as valuable landmarks in a city where street signs can change languages a dozen times in an as many steps.
Kibwe maintains a strict neutrality in political affairs in the interest of greater trade. The city-state is governed by a council of representatives appointed by various clans and micro-communities. Public debates are common in the Adayenki Pavilion, a sacred and petal-strewn common space walled off from the bustle of the market by hanging tapestries and animal hides. Though this representative approach to democracy has historically resulted in a raucous but stable government, of late the council has been hard-pressed by forces both within and without. Since the council’s recent decision to outlaw slavery, the neighborhood of Bekyar Block has roiled on the edge of violence as former slavers plot to reverse the ruling. At the same time, international traders like the Aspis Consortium constantly seek to promote unrest in order to assume control of the city’s considerable mining claims, and the once-small Bwamandu Camp—the neighborhood devoted to taking in refugees from Usaro—has swollen with immigrants and threatens to overwhelm the city’s resources. With so much pressure, it seems like only a matter of time until something breaks, and it’s anyone’s guess whether Kibwe’s patchwork society will band together as one or come apart at the seams.
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