Arnadba

In the hills East of Kreniko, the road winds through misty creeks and meadows. Tallow trees and water oaks cover the gentle slopes, small deer poking through the odd bamboo grove, as the rice and corn farms become sparser. The imperial highway, the great coastal roadway connecting the city to the coast, continues to be surrounded by small farms, pastures, and the odd peddler or small shop. The road is busy with wagons carrying pumpkins, rice, wheat, sugarcane, bamboo, lumber, cloth, or lobster meat, with peddlers and travelers and finely built carriages. A large Greenspirit mill, servicing these roadside farms, is the first sign of the town's approach. It is not long before the road crosses a grand stone bridge over a large wash, with a small creek babbling bellow; on the far side of the bridge, a ceremonial wooden gate welcomes visitors into Arnadba. 
The suburb of Arnadba is obviously a satellite town to Kreniko - so much of the town is thinking about the city rather than itself. At times, two thirds of the town's population is reliably out-of-towners looking to find work or move to Kreniko. Most of the town's economy revolves around the city's needs and markets. City elites sometimes go here to hunt, East-city commoner sports competitions are held here, and the outer wall is explicitly meant to defend Kreniko (rather than the town itself). 
While Kreniko sees this town as disposable, settlements like Arnadba are important places. This is where the city and the countryside interface, where people enter or leave the cityscape. The lives here are no less valuable or relevant than those in the city. The families that want to make this place their permanent home work just as hard to make life here worth living. And, unlike in the city, state power here is weaker; people have more opportunities to try new things and push things in different directions.

Demographics

Between 600 and 2,000 humanoids live in Arnadba, depending on how you count it. Significant seasonal and through-migration heading towards Kreniko can inflate the village's numbers - but 600 permanent residents live in Arnadba full-time.

Government

Anardba is ruled by the local garrison commander, appointed by the Prince of Mikena's Ministry of War. A lot of local legal power is in the hands of several minor merchant-noble families based in other, larger towns - the Jusoloro and Torizir families - who own much of the town as absentee landlords. The local priest has judicial authority and a fair amount of local power. However, most of the day-to-day administration is done by the Town Council, a group of local middling class families that are legally allowed to manage the village by compact with the Ministry of War. Six families sit on this council:

• The Harbeja, a brewing family that owns the local brewery and a major tavern. Has ties into the city and neighboring towns, a major force on the council and a source of its local news
• The Gethya, a family of ascended fletchers who have adapted to supply and service the local military garrison. One of the big families
• The Mebetu, a family of horse ranchers, animal keepers, and carriage operators. The Mebetu are the town's largest local landowners, who dominate the Lowmeadows district. Their greatest source of income is transit, postage, and luxury carriage rides between the city and the village. One of the big families.
• The Kremba, a family of smiths. A very old and very well-respected family here, close with the local temple
• The Rafapaxa, a family of tailors and seamsters. Another family with ties into the city, that has been seeking to get their children into the corporate world as clerks.
• The Mamargin, a family of masons, potters, and plasterers. A large clan with many children and cousins that have invested heavily in Anardba.
• The local priest is also given a seat as the seventh councilmember, the tie-breaker. However, they do not always attend all meetings.
• The local land manager, who works for the two landowning families, also often sits on the council as an advisor - but has no formal power outlined in the compact

While the council does have great authority, their power is fragile - their signed compact with the War Ministry can be revoked at any time, and they could find themselves stripped of all legal authority with no recourse. Similarly, they can only gently push back against two absentee landlords clans without imperiling their business.
The local garrison commander is Umarref Lukahari, a stern and quiet dryad outsider from Elorta that is aligned with a major noble family in Kreniko - the Akuzirs. Umarref is ambitious, clever, stoic, and corrupt; his purse and his career are his priorities, and he generally assumes that other (rational) people work the same way. Umarref is good at maintaining the peace and suppressing crime, as he is generally lenient about any crimes he doesn't deem disruptive and is quite good at delivering swift justice if the crime causes a ruckus. He is bad at using resources in any other way that helps the commonfolk - and, in most ways, his corruption is an extra tax. Umarref also faces competition from within his ranks. The fort's treasurer and quartermaster, Yarzin Torizir, is the foremost local competitor. Yarzin is a Torizir, a member of one of the two big landlord families of this town, and he is both ambitious and well-connected. Yarzin is smart with money, even if he doesn't have Umarref's experienced instinct for intrigue. While Yarzin is less corrupt than Umarref, the townsfolk certainly aren't rooting for him; he can be quite an intense, dominating personality, which mixes poorly with his family's land ownership of much of the town. The men suspect he was sent to counter-balance Umarref; this is a War Ministry "death match", where the two officers are being pitted against each other. To be clear, this is not an efficient practice, nor is it a common one, but it does happen on occasion. And it is happening here, quietly destabilizing the military order.
The local priest is Aswatashi of Zwinazada, a man of focus, committment, cheer, and discipline. He has high standards for himself born of time spent as a monk and mastering the Way of the Open Palm - and he makes sure to make it everyone else's problem by expecting rigid discipline and obedience from the community. He is not a cruel or sadistic man, and is thoroughly well-meaning, but he can be quite unforgiving when he suspects laziness (even unfairly). He is a devout member of the Kineticist school and is unusually dogmatic, with little patience for local ritual or superstition. While Aswatashi is Mikenan by birth, his outlook is defined by his critical years spent in a monastery in Zalkra - which instilled in him not only a very urban-clerical way of thinking, but an intense belief that sports can be important economically and culturally. He ruthlessly exploits the local townsfolk for free labor in expanding and maintaining his pet project, the Anardba sport arena. Aswatashi is very serious about training and running the local sports team as well. To his credit, decades of this has put Anardba on the map of regional sports, though the profits and returns from this have not come to all equally in this community.

Defences

A thin outer wall wraps around Anardba and the surrounding hills, atop massive ancient earthworks. Small wooden watchtowers dot this defensive line. This is considered the outermost wall of Kreniko, more useful in policing movement and catching smugglers than real military defense. 
Maintaining this defensive line is watched over by a fortification of note - Castle Annelba, a hilltop fortress. In case of peasant revolt or Esedetan raid, this fort controls the hilly path to the city.

Industry & Trade

A great deal of the village's vital trade is based around rural resources funnelled towards the city for processing and sale. Anardba stores and mills crops from the surrounding farmland, and ships it to the city of Kreniko - this is mostly food crops like rice and wheat, but also cash crops like sugarcane. Lumber gathered from nearby lumbermills is also stored and shipped through Anardba. Similarly, textiles are made here for sale in the city.
Military supply and hosting merchants and travellers to or from the city are two other major sources of income for Anardba. Fletching, leatherworking, armor repairs, metalworking, horse breeding and pasturing, defensive repairs are all jobs that cater to the military garrison. Inns, brewing, entertainment, cooking, and transportation into the city are all industries catering to suburban tourism and traffic. 
Lastly, local people and labor migrants have their own needs and generate their own economy - fishing, construction, and all sorts of small artisan crafts thrive here.

Infrastructure

Anardba relies on a combination of local creeks and wells for water. Most of the wells are owned and maintained by the town council (as a corporate compact - not technically as a governing body). A small reservoir of creek water is also set aside for irrigation and milling, owned by the Greenspirit Corporation. There has been discussion of building a water conduit, jointly owned by the town council and Greenspirit, but this plan is still in very early negotiation.
There are twomills at the edges of town - one to the West, one to the East - owned by Greenspirit. The roads are relatively haphazard, except for the main road into the city, which is maintained by a small number of local part-time workers hired by the Mebetu family. The bridges over the nearby creeks are also well-built by military engineers, and the Mamargin mason family is paid by the garrison for any repairs.
In terms of education and social safety nets, the 600 formally recognized permenant residents are the only ones reliably supported by the local temple.

Districts

Castle Annelba: A hilltop castle South of the main village. The center of military rule. Once the beating heart of the village, now a distinct settlement from the main village surrounded by sparse farms and moorland. The barracks, clerk house, and prison are all here. Not counted in the population, as only a few people live permanently here.
Hilltop: The elite part of town, the elevated old town. Southernmost of the main town.
Middlepath: The main part of town, right below and North of the Hilltop district. Stretched along the main road into the city, Middlepath is a very commercial space.
Lowmeadows: The Northernmost part of town, a semi-rural area of pastures, small farms, warehouses, and peripheral residences. More rural and scattered. Broken apart further by a series of crisscrossing washes and the twin creeks. 
Seaside: A very small fishing hamlet, the extension of the village to the sea.

Guilds and Factions

Army: The Zeruan military garrison rules this town - and responds quickly to violent crime in town. They have a tower and guard house in Hilltop as well as a castle South of town. 
The Landlord's Management: The two big landowning merchant gentry families, the Jusoloro and Torizir families, are distant absentee landlords that are not particularly popular locally. Their representative is the land administration manager, currently a man named Luzibo Salwatza. Luzibo is, oddly, not as unpopular as one might expect - he is a stuffy, rules-oriented man, but also one that would rather negotiate than evict. More than that, he is reliable and uninterested in corruption, which is a minor miracle as land managers go in Zerua. Of course, Luzibo has his share of issues - he clearly considers himself a noble of sorts and expects love and deference from his tenants. He has a number of loyal hangers-on and associates, who extend his will across the town. He has an extremely uncomfortable relationship with Army Treasurer Yarzin Torizir, who seeks to bring the landlords into much closer control of the town.
Greenspirit: A corporation with ties to Mikena's elites, Greenspirit is an agriculture and shipping company. While it is only one of several large Imperial corporations with immense power along the coast, it is the only one with a permanent office and presence in Anardba. A small local Greenspirit office manages the mills and storehouses, which prefers to keep a low profile. While nearby farmers dislike the office for its milling fees and domineering market strategies, the townsfolk see Greenspirit as a minor benevolent presence. The local manager is Moxalli Gemesevi, a cheerful and well-meaning Elortan clerk with a lot of experience managing and working around unsavory leaders. A rules-oriented and careful man, Moxalli is disliked by the farmers for his loyal adherence to company rates and policies, but is well-liked in town for generally working to de-escalate conflicts between the elites and the townsfolk as a neutral mediator. He is also married to a respected townie, so he has become one of them now.
The Town Council: The town council handles most day-to-day administration of the town. While they can rely on the garrison to handle any violent or emergency situations, the council has to appoint temporary officials to enforce more low-stakes rules - stuff like improper garbage disposal, water use concerns, libel cases, local feuds, or interventions if a person is believed to be a drunkard or abuser. The town council represents only the wealthiest parts of town - what the city would call "middling class" or "petty craftsmen". 
Temple: The Kamadan temple is kind of a part of the Town Council, though the local priest also has educational and charitable responsibilities - and extra powers to demand labor from villagers. The temple staff is very involved in the local sports scene. 
Smugglers: There is a small ring of smugglers who run contraband in and out of the city of Kreniko through Anardba. This can range from illicit substances, to stolen goods, to regular goods seeking to avoid storage or processing fees. The smugglers have a small cove down in Seaside, and are generally very popular among the local fishermen and farmers. The smuggler's leader, Korrefa Sulisnaba (her surname marking her daughter of a warlock), is a generous and friendly woman - if one prone to getting lost in her thoughts at times. Korrefa shares her loot with the locals (though she is not running a non-profit) and has a rule against hosting any characters she deems dangerous and unstable in town. She also gives generously to the garrison commander. In this way, she keeps her operations safe with minimal violence - she doesn't bring violent professional criminals into the suburb, she makes her business support the community, no one really minds other than the Greenspirit manager. Moxalli, said corporate manager, is her amicable rival; neither wants to truly ruin the other (as they would be replaced by a worse alternative), but both want to have the upper hand and view each other's factions as social negatives. And, indeed, Korrefa is actively fending off attempts by the Circles to seize control of her little outpost - and the same commander she regularly bribes has a way of tracking these mobsters into town.

History

Lord Arnel Annelzari built Arnadba as a castle-town in 1311 ME, and the Annelzari family owned and controlled the land over the 1300s and 1400s. Anardba grew as a castle-town over that time, and became a rather large one after the Imperial War Ministry formally acquired it in the early 1500s. An effort was made to use Anardba's growing population to bolster the neighboring city, and a massive earthworks project was made to construct defenses over the 1500s. This effort bankrupted the local ministry office, forcing the privatization of Anardba again in the 1590s. This privatization was messy, and the local Torizir family established itself as a feudal overlord during this time. The family drew the population into the countryside, growing sugar and harvesting local resources like coal and iron from small hillside mines. The castle-town declined into a manorial castle estate. A horrific crop blight in the mid 1600s followed by disease and flooding led to mass peasant flight away from the castle and its surrounding estate farms, and the region emptied of people - collapsing from a promising town to a lonely castle in the moors.
As Anardba's value fell, the empire swooped back in and repurchased the castle and fortifications in the 1700s. The people fled Northward, towards the coastal lowland pastures; changes in the natural water system also opened up a new road opportunity closer to the coast, connecting the city to the fertile floodplain to the East. The landlords followed. Rather than one Anardba, there were several tiny villages with riffs on the name. Slowly, these vilages began to grow with the wealth of urban traffic. This wealth peaked in the late 1800s ane ended suddenly with the 1900s depression. The local area saw a famine, plague, and mass flight away once again. In the 1940s and 1950s, Anardba's fortunes began to change - first with the military reinvesting in the outpost system, and then with the newly formed Greenspirit corporation injecting wealth into the best-located of the villages. A single Anardba reformed, the village we know today. 
Since Anardba has gotten itself together, with a town council incorporating in the 1960s and infrastructure improvements through the 60s and 70s, the town has prospered as a satellite suburb. Anardba is the premier East-facing satellite of Kreniko, the gate through which all coastal overland trade moves into the city. It is the mill and the storehouse of the city as well, serving as a crucial storage and transport location for goods and food gathered from the countryside. Since the 1990s, the town has invested in entertainment and hosting; not only getting travelers to spend their coin in town, but even getting some people to stay in town for business rather than bother with the mess and expense of the city. The number of workers and seasonal laborers who live in town but do periodic work in the city has also skyrocketed - creating some confusion and rapid cultural change. Animosity with the nearby farmers has also grown, as they have come to see Anardba as a symbol of Greenspirit - and the city - sucking away the fruits of their labor. Nonetheless, Anardba seems to be on the ascent.

Points of interest

The Castle: Castle Annelba is an extremely old structure, modified a great deal over the years. A manorial structure, built for luxury, has become clerk's offices, guest housing,and officer hosting space. The dungeons are used as a prison - those kept here are not ensured a trial and may as well have vanished entirely. The ancient shrine in the castle courtyard lies delapidated, a relic from a time before Kamada. A guarded armory contains the Fire Termite oil supply, critical for local Dragon sorcerers. This is the authority, a structure of power totally isolated from the town itself, a good few hours worth of walking.
Town Hall: A comparatively large building at the top of Hilltop, the Anardba town hall sits across from the Guard tower and next to the town plaza. Built with a great deal of religious Kamadan imagery in its decorations along its exterior, though there is talk of adding a mural in the hall specific to the town's character and history.
The Kamadan Temple and Arena: The first thing one might notice is that Arnadba's Kamadan temple, at the edge of Hilltop and Middlepath, is right next to a wooden sports arena. The oblong arena and sports field accomodates a number of sports, but is mostly for kickball - wooden effigies of the town's best players stand painted like ancient heroes along the sides. The Kamadan temple itself is fairly plain, a central altarhouse with a priestly residence, a small school building, and a circular meditation field. A cemetery also sits nearby - more of a small memorial garden, as burial is taboo in Zeruan culture. Some local residents have started to become annoyed with drunk sports fans drinking or acting disrespectfully in this memorial space.
The Lower Shrine: A newly constructed pseudo-temple in Lowmeadows, for those whose needs could not be accomodated by the main temple. Less exclusive and far less prioritized. While the main town priest and his staff do work there, a mystic and their followers outside of the formal priesthood have started working there full-time. In essence, this is a semi-unregistered temple for temporary residents seeking religion or medicine.
GreenSpirit Office: The greenspirit office is nearby the Eastern mill at the edge of Middlepath and Lowmeadows; nearby it, a series of small corporate cottages are clustered that house clerks and bureaucrats of any of the big Imperial companies passing through town.
Secret Smuggler's Den: The criminal hub of the town, down by the sea where the short gets rocky and ascends into sharp cliffs. This cove is a nice beautified seaside cavern, though it has less 'rustic' counterparts - including a nice building down by the docks, which practically looks official. Smugglers, those wishing to avoid scrutiny, and partiers all flock to these out-of-the-way hotspots. The commander that rules the town knows about them, and turns a blind eye.

Tourism

Between guest workers, merchants and other lesser notables seeking cheaper accomodation outside the city, garrisoned soldiers, and sports tourism, there is a lot of outsiders in Arnadba at any time. Thankfully, this unusually high traffic makes for unusually plentiful options for staying the night or finding food and ale:

• The Elder Wreath, a large tavern-inn connected to the town's major brewery. Locally popular and well-established, a respectable option with reasonably cheap prices and solid accomodations across a variety of price points. The best drink in town, with a host of local traditions and art.
• The Dragon's Delight, the nicest inn in town. Owned by a collection of priests (including the town priest) but operated by local innkeeps, the Dragon's Delight has premier access to the carriage system as well as exclusive access, reasonable security, and accomodations for those with Dragomanders. 
• The Bee's Bouquet is a tavern with a lot of housing and plenty of cheap beer, situated near the sports arena. The go-to middle-of-the-road tavern; nothing special, but affordable, clean, and well-situated. Very big in the local sports culture. The bee is the symbol of the home team, for context. Owned by the Town Council (and local priest).
• The Lady Lighthouse is a large, basic alehouse-tavern, the kind of place where a seasonal labor migrant with a few copper might go while they figure out where to get work. Hardly impressive and certainly not secure, but cheap and usually functional. The owner innkeep is a very eccentric character with unusual access to outside loans, a newcomer to the community. The Lady Lighthouse just keeps growing as demand keeps growing, and may border on just being low-income housing soon. The most notable, and garish, part of the tavern is the dead Solar that the owner has dressed up in foreign garb and attached to a liquor cart that he wheels around. The priest thinks this is a fake in poor taste, but not everyone is so sure.
• The Witch's Daughter, a tavern with garish faux-occult decorations, fun drinks, and a rowdy local culture down by the ocean. Catering to fishermen, smugglers, and travelers seeking a better time, this tavern is absolutely a smuggling operation - but hey, it is also a bar.
• The Castle Hall, the guest accomodations over at the castle available only to the well-connected. This hall does have some connections to the Dragon's Delight, and guests at the Delight often visit here to join the regular hunts out into the moorland.

The Day of Rings, on the 10th day of autumn, is big here. The Day of Rings is a day of making peace with reincarnation - but in practical culture is more about sports. The Eastern periphery of Kreniko always holds their final sports competition here, given the superior accomodations and access, so it booms regardless of whether or not Anardba's team thrives.
Beyond temporary tourism, guest lodging is extremely common here: basically subleasing out other rooms in a house to people who are non-short-term temporary lodgers (here for a season, or perhaps a few years).

Geography

5-6 miles East of Kreniko, in hilly surrounding area; nearby ocean; numerous creeks and ponds in hills flowing to ocean, numerous lobsters and nice local game

Founding Date

1311 ME

Type

Village

Population

600 - 2000

Location under

West Zeruan Floodplain

Owning Organization

Vice-Kingdom of Mikena

Related Plots

• Eye of the Storm