Chushana (Choo-shawn-uh)

Chushana is the largest city of Eastern Akadism, and is the hidden gem of the Sarisen Mountains. The city is four Kima Cities combined into one (Chushana literally means "Four Chambers"), connected by a powerful federal government. A massive factory complex churns out massive shipments of metal, which are sold to the Darzan University (or through them, to other realms). A bustling wizard academy and engineering school run this factory complex, pushing it to industrial extremes that outshine even Ajavet. 
Chushana is not an egalitarian city, but it is more open to unorthodox expressions of culture and community. It welcomes any community who would join them as an "Outer Caste", a community protected by special exemptions from any laws or customs that would threaten them. Other religions can exist here, and they do (mostly Sumoxa). Individual expression outside of work is allowed, and there are even physical spaces to allow for individualist fashions and romps. Of course, it is possible to fall through the cracks and become a Stokabra ("Reforged") - a member of the generic least-outer-caste, a worker who exists in the minimum capacity only to be exploited - but there are elaborate political and social games to avoid that fate. 
As of 2017/2018 ME, Chushana has suddenly become paralyzed. Whispers of an endless swarm of monsters in the South have reached the city, and the only response the federal leadership can agree on is to lock down any and all information on that threat. People still talk, they know something is wrong, but any and all public discussion of any abnormality has been censored. The supreme priests seem to be squabbling endlessly, but are slowly gravitating towards an extreme response: blasting the Southern roads, closing off the city, and transitioning all trade to either the North or to the tele-network.

Demographics

500,000 humanoids live in Chushana. 57% are prisms, 30% are dryads, 10% are humans, and 3% are hybrids. The hybrid population is currently skyrocketing.

Government

The Central Under-City

The Supreme Over-Chamber is the central hub of government, the anonymous group that dictates policy and leads the city. The Over-Chamber is manned by representatives sent by the four federated Chambers and it is theoretically a representative body, but it has taken on a life and power of its own. Now, the Over-Chamber has its own bureaus and immense centralized power that dwarfs the federated Chambers.
The four federated Chambers are much older institutions, anonymous bodies of four high priests who manage policy as a semi-divine political force. They run their federated cities with departments ("organs") named after the body parts they imitate: the stomach processes food and water, the lungs manage ventilation and air quality, the arms manage ore extraction, etc. These organs have become entangled with their sister organs (the lungs of one city with another) and with the federal bureaus of the Over-Chamber. This bureaucratic mess is the stuff of legends, and a small squadron of Lunar paladins (belonging to Jade Atharzen and Orchid of Blue ) have set to work bringing it under control. 
There is tension within the government between the city administrative organs and the federal government, particularly the city Heads and Hearts. Heads manage magic and city planning; Hearts manage law enforcement and management. While most Heart Enforcers and Head architects have come around to working with the federal bureaus, there is still plenty of chafing and smalltime resentment. 

Greater Chushana

The four federated Kimas are the heart of Chushana, but they are not all of it. All across the surface, and in pockets within the central city, are Confederated Subjects or Outer Castes - communities that are part of Greater Chushana, but have their own negotiating relationships. Those within the city are called Outer Castes, as they occupy social castes that exist outside of any clear hierarchy; those on the surface are call Confederates. Outer Castes tend to stick together in autonomous communes, like tiny villages within the greater city. Some are looked upon negatively, but most are tolerated well enough.
The Confederates are actively praised and connected to the city, and unhappy cave-dwelling humans or dryads are allowed to petition a Confederate community to take them in. Sometimes, this can be a deterioration of conditions, though - some Confederate villages see ex-city-slickers as indentured labor, or worse. Many Confederates play an essential role in the Order of the Diamond Road: Chushana's outward-facing organization that maintains the roads and funds merchant expeditions out of the mountains. 
Also, while some Confederates or Outer Castes are all non-prism, many are simply non-Akadist prisms. Here in the Sarisen Mountains, Akadism is not necessarily the default, and many other forms of prism society exist in parallel to the Kima.

Defences

Chushana has city defenses, especially on the old Kimas, but these are considered the defenses of last resort. Before that, Chushana has the roads: the Sarisen Mountains are very rough terrain, and Chushana's military is mostly dedicated to controlling the only good roads through them. And if an enemy is too great to be worn down by these many small chokepoint garrisons, Chushana has prepared for the possible need to destroy the roads outright. This would be a terrible act that would cut off the city from valuable trade routes.
If an enemy reaches the city proper, there are the four great gates that guard the valley; then, there are the actual tunnels into the city, which can be fortified with a little time.

Industry & Trade

Chushana has a massive steel industry, a large gold mine, and all kinds of metallurgical foundries. The central foundry is one of the largest condensed ore processing plants in the world, combining Kima City intensity to a Sunekan factorial model. Mass kilning and textile production is also done, though the textiles are considered inferior in quality to the cotton ones produced by the surface kingdoms and are not a popular export. 
The Diamond Order and trade commissions of the Thighs arrange trade deals and caravans. Some of these are traditional carts through the tough mountain roads; some of these now use magical circles and wizardly connections to teleport steel and gold coins in bulk around the world. This goes through the Darzan University, who buys steel and rubber in bulk; the Darzans also allow for trade with other connected powers, such as the Empire of Runeva, the Empire of Calazen, or the Republic of Akatlan. 
Trade also moves through Chushana, between Sumaren and Eastern Samvara.

Infrastructure

The infrastructure of Chushana is a complex affair; there are four ancient water and air systems that have been connected to a massive centralized new one. The federal government founded the Nerve Bureau to manage infrastructure problems and slowly mesh everything into a unified system, but this is a protracted process.
The city of Chushana sits right next to an underground river, from which the city siphons water. Snowmelt is also diverted and stored in massive cisterns. Chushana stores vast amounts of water, enough to comfortably sustain the city's industry and agriculture during dry months, and to allow for continued population and industrial expansion. The scale of water diversion has been enough to ecologically impact the surrounding region - effectively imposing artificial droughts on some of the surrounding valleys.

Districts

Chushana's districts are organized into large sectors - there are four Kima Cities, plus a combined central zone known as the Core.

The Core

The core is the newest and most ambitiously designed part of the city; this place wasn't just designed to be lived in, but to expand and to house great hosts of people in a "modern" and paperwork-friendly way.
The Arcology: The Arcology is a massive residential area, also known colloquially as The Screw for both its shape and its ability to accidentally screw people over with its layout. It is a massive spiral staircase of sorts, broken into layers of habitation. Each layer is a massive circle with hallways of rooms radiating outwards; at the center of the circle, large compost zones double as mushroom farms and light sources (thanks to the Halpara Mushrooms). While convenient for food, waste disposal, and lighting, this setup also makes the inner rings smell awfully (woe be it to the dryads). City-regulated shops, artisan spaces, and community spaces punctuate the central space and inner ring. Huge ramps and stairs go down and up around the ring, connecting the layers together. These layers are segregated by caste, and prisms often get their own layers (with less attention paid to lighting). The inner rings of the Arcology are spaces of policing as well, both by regular patrols of Heartguard and local community leaders; they tend to be rather orderly and buttoned-up. The outer wings tend to self-regulate. The arcology is the best-connected part of the city, with reasonably clear and efficient transit to any district; in the new, centralized Chushana, this is the true Core of the city. The Arcology is still under construction in parts, and is always growing several steps ahead of what the city actually needs to accommodate new arrivals.
The Nahmbala: The new center of industry, called the Forge of Spirits in Ekedian, is a factorial complex that grows every year. A wizard school and engineering academy sits at its heart forming the "Inner Nahmbala", but most people work in the "Outer Nahmbala" of steel mills and machinery. Massive smelting machines, water-and-steam-powered textile mills, and hand-run assembly lines all wind through this hot, muggy complex. It is a true feat of engineering, a semi-accidental steam engine of a building that uses the same principles as the Lungs ventilation system (using air pressure from the forges to force air the circulate) to funnel the super-hot gasses of the steel foundry to move mill-wheels for the other factories. A bustling supply tunnel constantly pumps carts of freshly-mined coal from the Kifkiwar mines into the Nahmbala.
The Middlegrounds: A massive nest of tunnels surrounds the Arcology and the Nahmbala, a chaotic sprawl that seems diametrically opposed to the grid system that defines the rest of the Core. These are the Middlegrounds, mines of the Four original Kimas that ran into each other, and the cavernous homes of those who lived between them. The lower tunnels here are still active mines, rich with iron and gold ore. The upper tunnels, though, are the cultural ventilation of Chushana, the places where people can have a moment outside of the work and the buttoned-up living of the Arcology. The tunnels have loosened law enforcement, a tradition of the old times. People can trade here without approval or caste-designation, mingle across class lines, and violate minor cultural norms. Tiny shops, stalls, and club-houses fill the tunnels. People go here to practice traditions of their old culture, have affairs, or just get drunk with friends after a long day of mining. This can be a dangerous place, unregulated and under-policed, but it is also where you can let loose and forget about life.
The Administration: The Deepest core of the Core, the Administration is where the city is run from. A place of bureaucrats, architects, and city specialists such as plumbers, ventilation experts, and the like.
The Old Skyway: The oldest part of the core, near the surface. A surface market is here, as is guest housing. 

The Old Kimas

The old Kimas weren't built to be everything. They were shaped by traditions and long-forgotten contexts. While more "optimized" than many surface cities, they still don't conform to a neat grid and have plenty of local quirks. Each Kima has sub-districts, which will not be fully explored here.
Ofkopar: The idyllic Kima, the druidic Kima, the garden Kima. Built by quirky heretics originally, this Kima was originally made of connected natural caverns famed for their beauty. Parts of these caverns were kept ecologically preserved, and public parks with little ponds and blind cave salamanders and limestone stalagmites dot the city. While the heresy is gone and the more obtrusive parts of the cavern have been ripped out and "reinstalled" in park areas, the city's architecture has long imitated caverns, with smooth walls and fake cave features. Ofkopar is the most magician-saturated city, and it has been partially consumed by the academics and magocrats. The smallest of the four, it is now being hyper-gentrified into the ritzy quarter of the city. Old poor parts of the city remain poor (someone needs to fire the forges and sweep the floors), but the rest of the economy has been moved out and replaced with clerks, magicians, merchants, and the like.
Nasakima: The crowned Kima, the battle-ready Kima, the war-smith's city. Nasakima has a long history of conquering the other three every so often, and it originally used the combination of all three cities as a form of conquest. But as the elites intermingled and moved out, Nasakima's relevance declined. Now, it is the middle-class Kima, the place where people who want to look important but aren't really go to live. Clerks, soldiers, Heartguard, upper-artisans, lung-workers, Nasakima increasingly belongs to them. Nasakima is also where people who resent surface-goers, outsiders, confederates, and outer-castes go - it is the Kima's Kima, and the district's leaders have decorated it with such performative traditionalism that it seems like a parody. Not everyone here is middle-class, of course; there is an iron mine here that has many low-caste prisms working it.
Kifkiwar: The crystal Kima, the miner's Kima, the shadowed Kima. Known for its large crystal and quartz deposits, this is a traditionally very decorated Kima. Lots of coal and salt here to be mined as well. The elites have basically abandoned Kifkiwar entirely, and it turns more and more into one giant mining district every year. The decorations are now taken elsewhere, often to Ofkopar; the glitzy artistry of the place is maintained only by those residents who care. The interesting style has drawn artists, though, and a number of non-elite artists congregate in Kifkiwar to experiment in peace. Kifkiwar is largely made up of prisms, and the light-infrastructure has slowly been cut back over the years; humans have a hard time living here.
Telimpasa: The mossy Kima, the mushroom Kima, the light-filled Kima. Telimpasa was built at an ideal place along the underground river here, and is the center of Chushana's Stomach. Great amounts of dryad and human food are harvested here, and excess mushrooms are processed to make artificial lights. The water extraction and food harvesting operations have taken over the city, and the elites have mostly left; this has become a low-caste part of town on the whole.

The Surface

The Satellite Towns: Five small towns operate closely with Chushana as surface outposts. These are Paladi, Dosolin, Nataga, Unara, and Itijasi. These towns depend on Chushana for water, and for druids to cleanse the land of poison.

• Paladi is a formerly Halikvar town, with the old temple still intact and used as a library and town hall; it is a stratified and militaristic, with close ties to the Diamond Order. Paladi is extremely work-oriented, especially for non-warriors.
• Dosolin is a herding town, and center of the wool trade into Chushana. Known for their isolationist culture and very high mountain refuges
• Nataga is a farming town with Dhampire leaders
• Unara is a farming town with a tall tower at its center
• Itijasi is a farming and herding town with a very large and storied cemetary

The Barrens: The surrounding surface territory that has become so drained of water and so polluted that it is difficult to survive off the land now. Small outpost-settlements connected to the city persist here, to clean the smokestacks or to keep the roads maintained. This is not an ideal place to live; the water, the food, the air can make you sick.

Guilds and Factions

The Nahmbalan Speakers: The magic school of Chushana, a powerful group of wizards who have great influence in government. This group has ties to the Darzan University; they do as they please. They run a wizarding school in the Core.
The Brilliant Sparks: The engineering counterpart of the Speakers, the Brilliant Sparks are a clique dedicated to remapping foreign technologies into Chushana. A mix of social engineers, mechanical engineers, and natural scientists, the Brilliant Sparks are a federal bureau that can do no wrong. They were once part of the Speakers, but they split into their own government group in 2013 and are now their greatest competition. They run a research academy in the Core. Many of the Brilliant Sparks are tied to Orchid of Blue cult nowadays. 
The Reborn: The genetic copies of ancient Kima leaders, the Reborn are supposed to be cultural and technological safeguards against dangerous change. The Reborn have declined in importance since the Kimas unified, and no longer even have power over approving new technologies or social structures - now they are just lobbyists who also serve as media censors. The Reborn have traditionally been divided by associated Kima, but they have recently started to work together as a united group. They are the political opposition now, organizing decentralists, traditionalists, and new-conservatives (who don't want to reverse 'progress' but do want it to stop for a bit). Talk has begun to circulate that the Reborn may be reorganized soon into a "Bureau of Cultural Preservation", to keep them close to federal power and use them as a weapon against certain social reformers. 
The Diamond Order: An organization that is technically government but mostly runs itself. It is equal parts military, merchant, and construction company: they build the bridges, shovel the roads, run merchant caravans, and attack any mountain princeling ambitious enough to try and levy a "road tax". 
The Athzashamada: The head council of the Outer Castes, the not-fully-Akadist groups in Chushana's core. Has close ties to the Diamond Order, helps police the Arcology, and organizes Sumoxan festivals and worship. The Athzashamada tends to protect only recognized communities in Chushana; they are quite hostile to the Reforged/Stobakra caste, the bottom-tier Outer Caste laborers. 
The Furnace-Keepers: A union of sorts that has become popular within the bottom-tier worker caste (the Reforged, or Stobakra). Illegal, but persistent. While the original leadership was arrested years ago, individual cells are continuing just fine. 
The Glamorous and Discrete Community of Hiku the Inspirational Dragon-Tamer: The cult of Hiku the Muse that operates somewhere in the city in secret. The Community of Hiku is recognized as a presence, and provides the city with Dragomanders - however, the Orchid and Jade cultists are determined to eliminate them, and they mostly remain in hiding.

History

Early History (0 - 1200)

The valley of Nemarvi, where Chushana now stands, was a place of meeting and trade for many of the Sarisen Mountain tribes back in the Divine Era. Prisms in particular flocked here, mining the rich salt and minerals to eat while trading with the local human nomads. Two prismholds stood where Kifkiwar and Namakima now stand, and an order of sacred hermit-priests resided in the natural caverns that became Ofkopar. In the 300s through 400s ME, the Eastern Akadist migrated into the region, with druidic magic and advanced technologies. Many of these Akadists marched under the banner of the great warlord Koparta, who conquered many prism-holds and dragged their populations off in chains to be resettled elsewhere. The Nemarvi valley prisms, which were scattered across many small communities, were conquered and centralized into one metropolis: Namakima.
When Koparta's empire collapsed, many prisms fled Namakima to start their own Kimas. The nascent cities of Kifkiwar, Telimpasa, and Ofkopar were formed, much to the displeasure of the Namakima chamber. A war ensued, which was interrupted by an outside invasion by a federation known as the Saridem which had arisen in the West. The four Kimas were forced to make peace, and they were each given autonomy by the Saridem as long as they helped build roads and irrigation canals. Trade began to flow from the outside world into the valley, and the four Kimas all flourished. While most of the Saridem trade flowed towards other prism lands (specifically, the Barinzari prisms to the North), the Nemarvi valley was right on a critical trade route between Sebikahd and Sumaren - the one accessible path through the Southern mountains. This meant that they encountered more outsiders than usual - including the only Halikvar missionary to really try and reach the surface-peoples of the Southern Saridem Empire. This missionary was named Anthuria the Wanderer, and she was an Asavari Halikvar druid who hoped to try and save the souls of surface nomads and merchants of the Saridem road systems. Anthuria understood that the prisms ruled here, and immediately set about trying to partner with one of the Kimas. She found immediate support from Ofkopar, a Kima city run by druid-fixated heretics who were naturally sympathetic to Anthurias ideas of druidic law, eco-sustainability, and education. Anthuria founded the surface town of Paladi, near Ofkopar's entrance, and helped train many surface and prism druids alike. Ofkopar went from being the smallest and weakest of the four Kima, to the most magically powerful one.

Chushana's Foundation (1200 - 1630)

The deterioration of the Saridem empire in the 1200s ME undermined the peace that had held between the four Kimas. Competition, skirmishes, and intrigue dominated the valley, though it rarely escalated into flat-out war - and when it did, the metropolis of Dwekeva would often send troops to squash any upstart elites. The four Kimas were the only remaining legal trade post of the Saridem, and were considered important enough to keep under control. In 1409, the Saridem government was completely destroyed by a volcanic eruption, and the city of Dwekeva became a mass grave; finally, the four Kimas could do entirely as they pleased.
As it turned out, life without the Saridem was one of perpetual decline. The roads collapsed, cutting off trade; social upheaval soon followed. Many people just abandoned the Kimas for greener pastures in the Sarisen mountains. The collapse of the government and trade networks mostly empowered militarists, though - would-be conquerors in the Kimas, aggressive evangelists in the town of Paladi. The 1400s were a time of war and decline; the 1500s saw a moment of peace, both religiously (as Sumoxan monks organized the non-Halikvar surface communities and helped negotiate a peace with Paladi) and politically, as the Kimas stopped trying to kill each other. Peace brought wealth, prosperity, and rising populations. But voices for peace struggled to stay in control, especially once the Kimas started to accidentally mine into each other. Underground spaces are difficult to map and to clearly mark, and the Eastern Akadists never developed the political mechanisms that the Westerners did to delineate these spaces. As the Kimas began to turn towards war, everything snowballed: the surface communities had to pick sides, and these sides basically fell along religious lines; the Lunar cults of Hiku the Muse and Jade the Lawgiver, which had previously worked to keep the peace, now fought each other.
The wars that followed were devastating and pointless. Technically, the old metropolis of Namakima won, but they struggled to hold onto victory and fell into infighting themselves. Many Akadist priests yearned for the prosperity of the generation prior, and a charismatic leader emerged among them: Kizadara, the voice of fellowship, a priest in Namakima who preached a utopian message and gained many followers across class lines. Kizadara built a coalition of supporters in all four Kimas, and the more she won the more radical her message became. By the 1620s, she had gone from simply calling for peace to demanding full political unification of the four Kimas. After a brief conflict (some say coup, some say war, others now say revolution), the four Kimas were formally brought together into the Federation of Chushana in 1630. As a symbol of peace and coordination, the four Kimas built a federation core between all four cities and declared the tunnels between the Kimas "free territory", where no city-specific laws could be enforced.

The Struggle of Unity (1630 to 1890)

The federation was more of an alliance than a unified state over the 1600s and 1700s. But the foundations were laid for it to be something more. While Kizadara had lacked the influence to completely dissolve the federated Kima governments, she had created a mechanism to empower the federation as a government, by allowing it to settle new groups in the core area between the four Kimas. These groups could negotiate their own terms of entry, and were given exceptional treatment as "Outer Castes" outside the labor hierarchy. The leaders of these Outer Caste groups assembled to make their own council within the federation - the Athzashamada - and this council was eager to make money. The Athzashamada built the early core as well as the Diamond Order, a military-merchant order dedicated to re-opening the trade routes. The trade route re-opening allowed money to flow back into Chushana. Namakima, with its superior military, was eager to profit off what the Diamond Order was doing, and began investing heavily in centralizing the federal government (with Namakima at the top). A power struggle erupted over the early 1800s - one that eventually boiled over into civil discontent.
In the 1830s, political partisans began openly fighting for supremacy within Chushana. Most of these partisans were oriented towards one Kima or another, but one faction was entirely for surface dominance: the Halikvar of Paladi. The Paladi surface-goers conquered the other towns and marched as a united force against the Kimas, hoping to subjugate them and turn Chushana into a bastion of Lily of Red. Eventually, a federal clique of elites from all four Kimas took control of the underground and centralized all authority under them. In 1880, the last holdout of the Paladi was destroyed, and the surface was brought to heel. Halikvar religion was purged from Chushana, and the former-Halikvar townsfolk of Paladi were marched underground as a captive labor force to help jumpstart a new utopian project: the Arcology, a massive residential complex that would allow people of all communities to live and work together, with equal access to each Kima.

Modern History

The federal reforms of the 1890s directed more energy towards trade and internal expansion. Displaced communities from across the Sarisen mountains were attracted to the idea of wealth and opportunity afforded by voluntarily joining Chushana's arcology. Many found conditions superior to other Kimas or prism-holds; some unlucky few (mostly people who lacked a large community) found themselves tossed into the federal labor caste (the Reforged) that had been made to contain former-Halikvar prisoners. Chushana thrived. In the 1910s, cultists of Emesh, God of Knowledge spread awareness of wizardry to Chushana's elites, as well as the booming wizard school in distant Ajavet. Efforts were immediately made by the Diamond Order to try and secure wizarding knowledge for the city. A special group known as the Nahmbala, or spirit-forge, was founded to try and import foreign magical arts to strengthen the city's priesthood. Through great investment and effort, the Nahmbala finally got a wizard school going in 1929 - and it rose, slowly but surely. New spellcasters, and new technologies carried with them, helped stimulate Chushana's industry, and the Nahmbala helped construct a new Industrial Sector in Chushana's core.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a wizarding exodus from Ajavet arrived in Chushana; many wizards in Ajavet were under attack by their own government, and the best and brightest among them had been caught as leaders of an illegal Cult of Emesh. The most powerful wizard in Ajavet, a prism named Akuhn of the Earthmaw (First Word-Made Mouth Priest of Earthmaw Wizarding Library), scouted out Chushana as the next Eastern Akadist wizarding center. Akuhn did not choose this remote location flippantly; rather, he intended to win the favor of Darza, greatest wizard alive. Akuhn sold Darza on Chushana's isolation, self-contained control, and mineral wealth - this would be the coinbank and supply depot for the Darzan University, able to supply gold, chemicals, and steel for Darza's more ambitious projects, without attracting the attention of the meddlesome god Haru. Akuhn also was interested in answering a question he had back in Ajavet: if a group of wizards, armed with technologies from around the world, maximized the production capacity of a Kima city, what would happen? How far could you push a self-contained society like this before it exploded, and what would that look like? Akuhn found many allies in the local Orchid of Blue cult, and was able to force through an insane proposal. This was the Outer Nahmbala, an experimental fusion of Kima technology, Maradian technology, Calazan  technology, and Sunekan technology. Many Reforged workers died constructing this behemoth, but after several dismal failures it finally launched. 

The sudden appearance of a full-on factory complex in the core has changed everything. The four Kimas have been dragged together into one united community at long last. The surface ecosystem has been devastated, driving many communities into the city to act as workers. The federal government has finally centralized power under itself completely. In 2013, the federal government managed to even drag Akuhn under their control by renegotiating with the Darzan University. Before Darza was able to fully capture Akuhn, the wizard vanished - no one knows where, but most of the wizards are relieved to hear that the "mad scientist of Ajavet" is gone.

Points of interest

The Lantern Ring: A large circular tunnel that orbits the Arcology, and the cultural heart of the Middlegrounds district. The Lantern ring is unusually bright, unusually everything-smelling, unusually loud. It is jam-packed full of tiny bars, tiny shops, and informal residences. One must watch one's step when walking through here, especially when people rush here for a cheap drink after work  - everyone competes for space, leaving little room for traffic. Some parts of the Ring are disgusting health risks, full of diseased animals, firesmoke, and uncleaned waste; others are kept clean and downright glamorous. Rules of behavior are looser here. You can get drunk, have a tryst, ignore caste rules, and say what you want, but you also are at risk of a mugging if you stumble into the wrong part of it.
The Nahmbala Core: The center of engineering and magical arts in the city, the Nahmbala core is the city's tether to the teleportation network. Extremely elite and well guarded.
The Diamond Road Headquarters: The Diamond Road Headquarters is half-military base, half- trading house. It is the center of the Old Skyway district, and rises from the underground into a tower. You can get a loan here, negotiate a trade contract, send a letter, or sign up as a caravan guard. 
Fallen Sky Caverns: A massive, aesthetically striking, partially explored cavern network that sprawls from Kifkiwar to Ofkopar. The main entrance is in Kifkiwar - Ofkopar has turned all of the accessible caverns on their side into parts of their city, and any entrances to the rest of the cave network are too small for prisms to enter. Kifkiwar's entrance is through the old Temple of Four Architects, and is almost like a nature preserve; wooden boardwalks guide visitors through the caverns, keeping them from falling to their death. The caverns are both spiritual and romantic, but their popularity has declined in recent decades. Many of the poor artists of Kifkiwar like to camp on the old boardwalks, sometimes selling minor pieces to any visitors. Ecologically, the glow-worms that have colonized the ceilings of some of these caves are unique, and they hang from the ceiling like glowing stars. 
The Hidden Path of Hiku: Somewhere in the Fallen Sky Caverns, a temple to Hiku the Muse is hidden. And that temple guards the gate to the hidden path of Hiku, a secret passage out of the city and into nearby mountains. The Hidden Path extends many miles West, through tunnels and covert roads, to the ancient city of Dwekeva. Dwekeva, the city of gold, perished long ago in a volcanic eruption and is now infested with strange beasts and angry ghosts. The Hiku cultists have fortified this road with many traps (and, for some reason, puzzles?), making it a very risky path indeed. Presumably, it is through this path that the Hiku cultists get their dragomanders.

Founding Date

1630

Alternative Name(s)

The Soul Foundry, the Quadrant City

Type

Metropolis

Population

500,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Chushanans

Location under

Sarisen Mountains