Bet Bireli
At a Glance
The people are reluctant to talk about themselves and express no opinions of their own. They eagerly ask questions, however, and some of them push past the limits of friendly curiosity and become downright nosy. The suspicious townsfolk are wary of visitors and even those who move into the city discover that acceptance takes years to earn.
City Map
Temples
Risk, The Landlord, The Holy Mother, The True, The Raiser, and The Unseen One all have temples in Bet Bireli. The Parish of the Prolific Coin is the most vocal, and Financier Helena has served as a Councilor in the past.
The city's most controversial cleric is Selemar Um'ra, an elven cleric believed to be the highest ranking member of the Veiled Priesthood. He openly solicits his priesthood's services and often boasts of assassinations. Selemar supposedly uses spells to summon scorpions that kill his victims with their lethal sting and then disappear. The elf is hated by others of his own kind, but since he rules an assassins' guild reportedly thirty members strong, no one dares act against him.
Mages & Sages
Perekay the Swift is a tall, lean man with marbled hair and tan skin. This Councilor directly controls all magic-using soldiers and spies in the duchy. His byzantine mind retains details about people and their motivations for decades, and he needs no paper records to keep track of the small army of spies the duchy employs.
Everyone is a sage in Bet Bireli, and their field of interest is Everybody Else's Business. In this land where information is a commodity, the sages who specialize in academia are less respected than in other parts of the world. Still, they do have their place, and those familiar with cryptography, finances, or military strategy stay busy and well-fed.
Kibika Heran is a notable exception, She studies the planes, other dimensions, and theoretical alternate realities. She is an ardent follower of the Mule, and religion often enters conversations with her. Kibika prefers hooks on her favorite subjects as payment for her services, but she knows their value exactly and she is a hard bargainer. Underworld: Thieves, spies and assassins ply their trade here, but many more see the place as a refuge and neutral ground of sorts. They come here to seek employment, and they often find it through agents hired by barons, dukes, wizards, clerics, merchants, and guildmasters from across Tellene.
The police are fairly capable at suppressing crime, especially violent crime. They have several low-level wizards employed in that capacity who do a great deal to solve puzzles that mundane investigators would have a difficult rime unraveling. The police also use many techniques and spells developed by the country's intelligence and counter-intelligence agents to stop thieves' guilds from developing or growing into powerful organizations.
Government
Duke Gadadik rules his capital city personally, trusting no one else with the task. He defers the most boring tasks to the Council, a panel of advisors numbering six to nine. These Councilors are appointed to a certain task and can be removed by the Duke at his whim.
After years of intrigue and seeing his country surviving by the merest margins, Gadadik has been considering declaring allegiance once again to Kalamar. This advice has come largely from the mouth of Odis Omar, a Councilor of nine years' experience and currently the head of Gadadik's bodyguard. Omar is also a spy for Kalamar. Gadadik has no legitimate children, but he has adopted Apatos, his 12-year old bastard, as his heir. Apatos lives in Castle P'Adis with his Father; the mother has been expelled from the country and now lives in Tokis.