Khon Sama
The Faction City of Silk is a beautiful sight, draped as it is in the faction’s signature fabric and with the colors of purple and white worked in throughout the city. Some of the public buildings are structures built by the ancient ones, and are of such quality that minor repairs have kept them usable after all this time. Located inside the jungle almost 200 miles from the coast, Silk is the one faction that does not have easy water transport from its faction city. On the other hand, the actual silk is not woven in Khon Sama; that is handled in fortified villages throughout the area and shipped to the coast by caravan or on local waterways. Instead Khon Sama is merely an administrative and merchant center, not just for the silk trade but for the faction’s wide variety of interests. The city has popular temples to Sifkra, Who Loves Coins, and also to Lohfa, Who Makes Things Grow; more than any other faction, the main products of Silk are vulnerable to natural disruptions.
While Silk manufactures other types of cloth such as linen and cotton (and also builds ships, and participates in many other ventures), it has a monopoly on the production of silk in Bhanakhiri. It also tries to enforce its monopoly in the surrounding area, which in the past has led to raids on villages outside the country that had the temerity to offer even inferior wild silk.
The silk facilities are carefully guarded, and most people know only a few steps of the entire process. Those who grow up in one of the silk villages and learn the trade may find themselves nearly trapped by the strictures of the Silk Faction. Traveling to Khon Sama to see the city and attend the arena may be as far as most silk workers are ever allowed to go. It is unclear whether the other ottiarks know that Intira Chana Sing and generations of her predecessors have enforced such careful controls on her faction people. Even if they did, they would probably refuse to interfere in another faction’s business as that could be a bad precedent for their own future interests.
Settlement
Khon Sama, City of
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