Halamahi (Hah-law-maw-hee)

Halamahi is the largest city of the Khilaian Isles (often called the Sacred Isles by Selkies) and is the major trade hub and political center of the Khilaia. This is the city that all pelted selkies must travel through to get their sacred pelts; it holds great cultural and spiritual power for many selkies, even those belonging to distant fleets. 
As a city on the sacred island of Motosui, Halamahi bars any non-selkie from entering. There are exceptions for certain visitors, of course, but none have settled to live here permanently. But this is not a culturally homogenous settlement. Rather, it is a city that reflects cultures from around the world that selkies have brought with them. Ideas, art styles, foods, languages, and literature from every corner of the planet can be found in Halamahi - it is the ultimate melting pot of selkie cultural syncretism. Not everyone is happy with this state of affairs, but many are proud of what their city is. 
This is also a city of financial and political titans. Families with trade ties around the world clash here for control of the city, and the Motosui Assembly that the city hosts.

Demographics

100,000 people live in Halamahi; almost all of them are Selkies. This is nearly a third of the island's population; in some ways, this is urban Motosui.

Government

Halamahi and the Khilaia

Halamahi is not quite the capital of the Khilaia; that would be too dangerously centralized and vulnerable to quick palace coups for the selkies. Rather, Halamahi is home to one of the main bodies of the Khilaian government - the Motosui Assembly - while the actual bureaucracies and elite circles that execute the Assembly's laws and manage their records are scattered across the sacred isles. The Circle of Elders, the supreme executive body of the Khilaia, sits across the water on the sacred isle of Okailu, for example. 
The Motosui Assembly is a legislature of 370 representatives that is intended to represent every "legitimate" selkie community under the Khilaia. The assembly dictates laws, validates treaties intended to bind every selkie fleet, decides which states are formal enemies or friends of the selkies, and dictates the general direction of selkie expansion. The legislature de-facto represents major fleet families and merchants more than the average selkie ship, though, and no representatives come from the established selkie ports in foreign territory (which are deemed too likely to be the puppets of non-selkie monarchs). 

Halamahi Local Government

The Motosui Assembly casts a long shadow over the city's government and is basically unavoidable in local politics. That said, it has little to no formal power over the city's administration: that is all done by the Port Mayor. The Port Mayor is a bureaucrat handpicked by the administrator of Motosui: the Sacred Exarch. The Exarch is themselves handpicked by the Circle of Elders - their power descends not from the Assembly, but from the elite traditionalists who sit at the very top. 
The current Mayor is Maripahl Samoheli, a mostly competent stooge and sycophant who orbits powerful people and survives in politics by the power of obedience and loyalty alone. Maripahl seems to have significant confidence problems and avoids the limelight whenever possible - they are all too happy to basically be the local face for the much more popular politician above them: the Sacred Exarch, Mahawi Dashalui. Mahawi basically rules Halamahi directly anyways, so it isn't far from true. 
Mahawi, who rules from a castle-palace-town to the North called Kilamehal, is a traditionalist who is terrified of change and convinced that supernatural forces are out to get him. Despite this, he is soft-spoken and avoids harsh measures whenever possible - he is charming in his way, and his weird focus on superstitious anti-curse wards and safety measures have become funny and eccentric quirks. He is a strong supporter of organized Hamekun religion, and has made some powerful enemies politically opposing selkie expansion and over-involvement in foreign lands. This is rather ironic, as he is well known as the war hero who helped take Loanua - his dashing exploits as a young warrior led to the almost-bloodless capture of the monarch of Analona, allowing a swift and easy selkie takeover of the colonial regime and the rapid expansion of selkie foreign power. Altogether, a quirky war hero with many contradictory views that has captured the public's adoration.

Defences

Halamahi needs no defenses; the city is right next to the residence of the great immortal otter Kailio, destroyer of fleets. In fact, the city's vulnerability to non-resident selkie fleets ambushing it makes defenses counter-intuitive: a total lack of defenses makes it a challenge to defend for any occupiers. Instead, all the neighboring towns and villages have defenses pointed towards the city, to contain any insurrection. A small garrison is present in the city to protect the Assembly and Treaty Court from angry mobs, but that's basically it.

Industry & Trade

Halamahi is a trade nexus if there ever was one: the necessary selkie traffic to bring their kids here for their pelts means that every single selkie group in the world has to regularly send boats here. And, while they bring their children, they also bring trade goods. To accommodate the trading needs of the population, a complex market for financial services has developed: banks, loan companies, and even insurance companies in recent years. Insurance as a limited industry is an old concept, but the formalization of the trade and its expansion into business insurance and fire insurance is new. One company even sells life insurance, though this idea has yet to catch on.
One group has even set up a "Global Stocks and Pricing Observation" company, where representatives with sending stones report stock information from Asalay and the Empire of Zerua as well as average sales prices of goods in various major ports, so that merchants in Halamahi can speculate and plan their convoys. This startup has been called a scam and a waste of money by some, as the prices can still fluctuate dramatically while ships sail to exploit them - and the company has had to resort to acting as a magical postal system at points to weather these reputational storms.
Local selkie industries are less developed than their financial instruments. There just aren't a lot of raw resources being produced or imported into the city, and environmental regulations by the Traditionalists prevent any excessively large workshops or industries from taking root. Instead, most selkie production comes from home industries and small shops; small artisans do most of the work. Artisans do have to deal with periodic catastrophes, though, as merchants occasionally flood the market with massive amounts of certain goods (textiles, steel, rubber, pottery) manufactured by large-scale industries abroad. There is a certain resentment between the artisans and the merchants for this reason, and a push for artisan protectionism by the traditionalist cults.

Infrastructure

Halamahi has excellent infrastructure that is well-funded and has benefited from globally collected technologies and specialists. While the streets are a bit of a mess in terms of layout, the sewers and water system is comparatively quite neat. Paladins of Orchid of Blue based out of Druidsden work with the old cults as city planners. Artisans who are hurt by the fickle Halamahi market are often employed temporarily as maintenance workers, and are paid rather well for it compared to other cities. 
Storm refuges in the inland sections of town are well-kept but not that frequently used; usually the resident druids can magically diffuse approaching hurricanes nowadays. Food imports from across Motosui help with public food supplies.
The most intricate infrastructure of Halamahi is that of disease control. Due to the global traffic that enters Halamahi daily, epidemics have a striking ability to jump here from far away. To prevent the city from being a perpetual plague cauldron, all arriving boats must undergo a four week quarantine before allowing their people to go ashore. 
To relieve harbor traffic clogged with quarantining boats, there are two ways around this. The first is to quarantine in one of the two neighboring march-kingdoms, Kakoru or Arashoka for the allotted time under observation by selkies there, and then sail directly to Halamahi with paperwork documenting all four weeks. The second way around this is by Grace of Magic: essentially, paying a paladin or other spellcaster to heal the disease of every ship-member in front of a bureaucrat. This is usually very expensive and can involve many paladins for a large crew - it is only by the healing efforts of the paladins of Emesh that the system is large enough to work for anyone but a small minority. It still requires a lot of gold or Lunar influence to do, though, and most ships will just quarantine even if they have the money.

Districts

The Allseas Port: The Southeastern part of the city and the port where selkie ships arrive from around the world to trade their wares and disembark pelt-seeking children. This is a truly magnificent port, bustling with commerce and round-the-clock activity. Magical lighting allows for some shops, restaurants, and even entertainment to offer 24-7 services. Anything that can be bought anywhere in the world can also be bought here: The Empty Constructs, Fire Termite oil, magic items, Sunekan muskets, literature from around the world, and more. 
The Pilgrim's Port: The Northwestern port district, where special ships are sent to the holy island of Okailu to ferry children to take their sacred tests and earn their pelts. Also a commercial center, with some overlap with the Allseas port. The Pilgrim's Port is more focused on entertainment and networking than the Allseas Port: bars, cafes, music halls, and nightclubs all thrive here. 
The Oldpelt District: "Oldpelt" is slang for someone whose family has never left the sacred isles, and this district has built its identity around this concept. Verifiable Oldpelt families are given special privileges to make it easier to stay here, such as no-rent housing. Hamekun traditional religion is a powerful force, and the old cults are a potent political presence. This does not make the Oldpelt district rich, though: it ranges from poor to middle class for the most part, with a few exceptions. Millennia ago, the ancestors of the Oldpelts were really more of a mix of peasants and slaves than elites - the elites all left the island to accumulate wealth at some point. The Oldpelts have since become a distinct pseudo-ethnic-religious group that is held on a pedestal by some as the baseline for what 'true selkies' look like. But it isn't just Oldpelts who live here; in fact, the vast majority of families here aren't legally Oldpelts, just families that have been in the city for generations who have adopted the culture. So, think of it as a traditionalist artisan district with a strained-but-positive relationship with the rest of selkie-dom. 
The Druidsden: The temple district and home to wealthier permanent residents of Motosui. Much more pluralistic than the Oldpelt district, the Druidsden is home to many religions and selkie subcultures from around the world. Skilled artisans, artists, and specialists often make their homes here. Considered a great global intellectual melting pot, given the shocking freedom of speech and religion in this district and the draw it has for people exposed to diverse ideas from around the planet. Not everyone here is rich, though: poorer communities dependent on specific temples also exist here, in shocking contrast to the better parts of town. 
The Assembly District: District of the rich, powerful, and connected. Home to the great organs of selkie government. This is a monumental district dedicated to the power of the Empire of all Seas, with land and renting prices so high that the only non-rich are guaranteed to be servants and visitors.

Guilds and Factions

Certain political factions based in the Motosui assembly spill into city at large, drawing in local allies wherever they can be found. Each faction is named after the current clan leading it, but they are best understood as broader mixes of ideology and complex business networks. Local guilds often align with specific factions to try and have a voice in the system.
Mikiraka Faction: The faction of the Eastern Winds, some call them. The Mikiraka are a powerful family that dominate many of the ties between the Desmian, Izekran, and Ekrahtan fleets and the Khilaia. They have a reputation as technocratic diplomats, always eager to import new technologies. They believe that the selkies should actively carve a space for themselves as neutral diplomats and intermediaries, and that the Khilaia represents a kind of global sacred middle ground and market. To this end, the Mikirakas support strict treaty enforcement as well as more paperwork generally. Jewelers, dyemakers, tinkerers, clerks, and finance workers often align their guilds with Mikiraka.
Manuhel Faction: The faction of the Furthest Dawn, some call them. The Manuhel are a family that has risen and fallen and risen again, with a long history of glory and infamy alike. They have strong connections to the fringe fleets: Stildane, Suneka, Nafena, Maradia, Inahng - all the places the selkies don't have the most established foothold. The Manuhel are deeply into old religion and fresh markets and subsidize explorers, cartographers, and translators. The Manuhel also support crew autonomy; they often support crews over treaties, and envision the Khilaia as more of a consensual meeting space than a government. The mapmakers, whalers, glassblowers, and local-oriented guilds side with Manuhel.
Danohel Faction: The faction of the Old Glory, some call them. The Danohel are a clan that has jumped through hoops to prove a distant blood tie to the old Emperor Milen, which is ideologically of great importance to them. They rally support from fleets on both sides of Sonev, as well as fleets in other contested and dangerous waters (such as parts of Larazel and Garadel), all in the name of imperial consolidation and military buildup. The Danohel see the Khilaia as an Empire that just doesn't enforce its claims on the seas. Powdermakers and local guilds trampelled by foreign markets tend to align with Danohel.
Woshalui Faction: The faction of a Thousand Blossoms, some call them. The Woshalui clan is a rising star currently in charge of the March Kingdom of Arashoka, and they lead the Samvaran fleets and ports. According to Woshalui's rhetoric, they support the interests of all sedentary selkies in foreign lands, though in practice they mostly listen to sedentary Samvarans. The Woshalui champion religious plurality, Samvaran investment, and constitutional reform to create more clearly defined lines between March Kingdoms, armadas, and sedentary groups while still granting them all seats at the table. Close with the local Sumoxan, Zihari, Ayshan, and Aretan temples. Tailors, rubber-smiths, and metalworkers all align with Woshalui (when they aren't resenting them for opening the isle to competition).
Naimaka Faction: The faction of Guiding Stars, some call them. The Naimakas are an old conquering family with deep roots in the March Kingdom of Kakoru and close ties to the Samvaran Healing Church as well as Lily-descended religions. The Naimaka champion Garadek and Larazek investment, as well as close partnerships with Samvaran institutions such as Rueka, Pratasam, and the Healing Church. The Naimaka also support Pratasa religious groups in Samvaran territory that dislike Woshalui's secularism. Sees the Khilaia as an alliance of kingdoms. Close with shipwrights, carpenters, and masons. 
The Sacred Cults: The Sacred Cults of the Old Ways are tied to the island, old selkie traditions, and local customs. They look upon the fleets with some reservation and cater to those who live on the islands for longer periods of time. They are not anti-fleet, but they are skeptical of the value of foreign markets and religions and work to listen more to those who live here permanently. They hold a great deal of local legal authority. 
The Kamahep: Organized crime, translated literally as "the Really Big Family". A group tied together with many of the smaller unaligned fleets, treaty breakers, pirates, and smugglers - anyone marginalized by the current major party system. The Kamahep are a contradiction, simultaneously extremely foreign and extremely home-grown; they are where non-selkies go to if they wished to be smuggled onto the sacred islands, but they also draw heavily from Oldpelt families and permanent residents. The Kamahep are specialists at getting around the selkie political systems - they manage illegal imports and sales, smuggling foreigners in and out, and forging quarantine paperwork for ships who need to make a quick stop or sale but can't afford magical healing. Powerful politicians blame them for epidemics, foreign infiltration, and corruption, and yet the Kamahep is useful enough that no faction wants to get rid of them.

Points of interest

The Mosotui Assembly: The great legislature representing all of selkie-kind, supposedly. A hub of politics, corruption, infighting, and intrigue. In the Assembly District.
The Treaty Court: Nearby the Assembly is the Treaty Court, the Khilaia's judicial body for interpreting law both domestic and international. Uniquely, thanks to the Khilaia's international nature, foreigners and non-selkies can file a case in this court against selkie groups that break any Assembly-confirmed pact or agreement. Usually non-selkies do this by hiring a legal team on the sacred isles who then represent them, but some outsiders have enough influence to actually be granted visitor status for their case. In the Assembly District. 
Sacred Motosui University: The grand academy of the sacred isles and most respected center of knowledge by the Khilaia. The Sacred Motosui University studies international technological knowledge, trains lawyers for the Treaty Court, trains speakers for the Assembly, trains priests for the Cults, and trains magicians. It is a very esteemed center for higher learning in all its forms, that greatly privileges permanent residents and powerful clans over distant fleets. It is also kind of isolationist - it admits no non-selkies and has refused to partner with the Darzan University. In the Druidsden District. 
The World's Delight Market: The grand bazaar of Motosui, the market where you can find anything and everything. Magic items, foreign novelties, cultural artifacts of distant lands, if it has a price it can be bought here. The most politically neutral place in the city, where all factions have their formal negotiations and have agreed to not try and dominate the space. The Kamahep, organized crime, also prospers here under the guise of law and order: they work closely with the city guard to catch thieves here, in exchange for the guards looking the other way near the underground black market here. In the Allseas Port District. 
The House of Emesh: A great temple to the Lunar God Emesh and a center for Emesh paladin training. Also houses non-selkies, either as honored guests or desperate asylum seekers. If you need to purchase a paladin sweep of your ship, you go here. It is quite a formidable complex that snakes underground and has an attached nightclub and bookstore - Emesh's Stash and Emesh's Hoard. Emesh's Stash is the only club to actively welcome non-selkies, and is a big hangout for the strange and eccentric of Halamahi - fringe fashions, music styles, and subcultures are welcomed here with open arms. Emesh's Hoard is a book store that offers a unique service: rapid copies of any book in the enormous library the paladins keep somewhere on the island. These copies can be expensive for more obscure texts, but it is a rare book being quickly printed by a press so it is definitely a unique service. In the Allseas Port District.
The Pelting Gate: The dock and housing area for kids waiting to face their ordeal and earn their pelts at the isle of Okailu. An area of excited gossip, inter-fleet networking, and youngsters excitedly doing public rituals to prepare themselves for the test. In the Pilgrim's Port District. 
The Joined Temples of Lily: A series of massive temples - Pratasa, Sumoxan, and Aretan - joined together by a tower-complex that serves as the Healing Church headquarters here. All people here revered Lily of Red and the druids of old, but in wildly different ways. This complex serves as a monument to religious cooperation and healing, and many of the town's best druids and druid training programs are here. In the Druidsden District.
The Nightlife: There is a lot of people on shore leave here who want to party, and Halamahi is happy to serve them a 24-7 all-access ticket to that. In the Pilgrim's Port, you can find two nightclubs of renown owned by the same person: the True Reward, which caters to kids who just got their pelts, and the Faithful Siren, which caters to family members dropping their kids off to get their pelts. Both clubs are exclusive to these groups and have a lot of club traditions that are rites of passage for some fleets. In the Assembly District, the Emperor's Rest is where the great clans send their youths to network and party - it is very exclusive and luxurious. And, for total outsiders, Emesh's Stash in the Allseas Port is a hub for subcultures, non-selkies, and eccentrics.

Architecture

Halamahi is a prime example of traditional selkie architecture. The city is full of adobe, brick, and stone buildings with raised curved oval roofs. The ceilings of even common residences are often cross-vaulted (a style reserved in other Samvaran cultures for monumental buildings). Buildings with traditional flooring use a base of igneous rock and coral, layered with sand, packed pebbles, then thatch or thin layered wood, then a woven covering: this provides excellent natural drainage to a house's sewer. 
In monumental buildings seeking a traditional style, columns are covered in "Hearthpelts": what one might call a column-sweater woven with neat patterns and knots. According to common knowledge, these Hearthpelts allow the building to transform into a universal home and protect it from curses or supernatural threats. Selkie historians say that it is instead a holdover from the intricate art that ancient selkies used for the knots that supported the columns of their wooden meeting halls. 
While these are the standards of Halamahi, there are many places that copy foreign styles or include foreign flairs from around the world.

Geography

Halamahi sits on the Southwestern corner of the island of Motosui, extending from the windy Southern coast (where ships from foreign lands arrive) to the Western peninsula where ships might easily jump to the holy island of Okailu.

Founding Date

-10 DE

Type

Large city

Population

100,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Halamin

Location under

Khilaian Isles

Owning Organization

The Khilaia