Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- All Categories 112
- In Character 21
- Thul Ka 20
- Elsewhere 1
- Out Of Character 91
- Character Sheets 21
- General 8
- Works In Progress 27
- Showcase 35
[Wiki Article] The Turtle
unwanderinggirl
Member
Nestled comfortably within the central walls of Thul’ka where the three rivers come together sits the Turtle, the small bustling enclave of imbali culture. The island is a tiny city in itself, both a place of refuge and of repression. While the purposeful exile of the imbali has been over since the 2500s, the walls of the little island are some of the highest in the inner city, dotted with now-abandoned guard towers and still equipped with gates that once closed promptly at sunset and opened only at sunrise.
There are three bridges that allow entrance into the Turtle and a very impressive, busy port.
The oldest bridge, colloquially known as the Arch of Abandonment, connects from the Stillwater district. The bridge is a constant attraction for vandalism, as it’s decorated with many carvings of the “peaceful migration of the imbali to their own refuge.” What once was where the first Mugrobi passives found themselves exiles is now the sprawling caravanserai known as the Liar’s Market, a surprisingly busy market thriving solely on the ingenious imbali decision to profit on their supposed soulless birthright and mythological inability to be truthful. It is here that imbali scribes, witnesses, and vendors can be hired to provide false alibis, to compose letters of apology where in the client wishes to save face by covering up some secret shame, or any of a thousand other services wherein a dedication to truthfulness would be a handicap.
Liar’s Market Places of Note:
- Sweet Nothings - Need to turn down a suitor and save face? Looking for words to let someone know you’d rather just be friends? Absolving an engagement? Got a few stray lovers too many? Don’t worry, Lai’la Mahalet Uk Ume will happily assist you in composing that perfect message for a saucy price.
- The Flat - A tiny (tiny) permanent bakery nudged against one of the old gatehouses in the Liar’s Market. Ye’enna, the imbala bakerwoman, makes fresh flat bread (ben’na) in stone ovens every morning before the Market opens, topping them with various goodies and rolling them up for delicious portability.
As one leaves the caravanserai of the Liar’s Market toward the Porthouse Gate, the old tenement buildings that once housed orphans and exiles have been turned into the impressive and illicitly busy Way of the Book: one of the most extensive markets for works of fiction, unauthorized biographies, scandalous publications, and even censored works illegal elsewhere in Mugroba. Several different booksellers have turned housing into veritable libraries for sale. Bookbinders, printers, paper-makers, artists, and the writers themselves also live along the Way of the Book from the Arch to the port. Off the main Way are of course darker, less well-known alleys where one with the right connections may find less savory banned works, even spells … but only should the seeker know where they’re going. Not every underground bookseller appreciates an unknowing stranger wandering into their shop. While the selling of such publications to non-imbali is illegal, business is thriving nonetheless.
The Way of the Book ends in the Porthouse Gate, which opens into one of the busiest ports in all of Thul’ka, thanks to the thriving spice trade from the Muluku Islands. Only the finest, most expensive, most sought-after spices travel up the rivers and end up first in the Turtle before being distributed and sold elsewhere.
The old Porthouse Gate has been turned into the headquarters for the Turtle’s own neighborhood watch, known locally as the Saffron Street Runners. It's been traditionally run as a voluntary militia, though a few higher ranking individuals are paid by various wealthy trade families in order to keep the Runners well-trained and a visible presence on the imbali island. It's almost exclusively imbali (oshoor are not specified as unwelcome, but the general culture of the neighborhood watch members includes no small amount of pride in protection without magic).
Before the restrictions were lifted on the exiled imbali, all their police work and neighborhood protection was very clandestine. Even martial training was rather secretive. This has obviously changed in the past 200 years, but there is definitely still an air of mystery about the Runners. Their headquarters is the old watchtower of the Porthouse Gate (on the corner of Saffron Street, obviously). It is here that the day-to-day management of the port itself is managed by the more executive branch of the Runners and where various neighborhood leaders receive their orders. Each small neighborhood of the Turtle has a small outpost, often a business or a family's home, out of which that regiment of Runners operates.
Runners' terms of voluntary service lasta year and a half, and all active members of the Runners can be identified by a yellow scarf. There are some who make a career of it, of course. Martial training is available to members and non-members at a price, though this training is, again, generally restricted to imbali (and occasionally humans and some oshoor).
The bridge from Deja Point is called the Bridge of Discernment and it’s the newest construction. There is a cableway stop at Deja Point, and so this bridge is most often used by Turtle residents who live and work in the city and who don’t commute by boat or foot. Post-exile imbali have made their own residences/port/tiny market on the bridge itself since inside the Turtle is a more traditionalist stronghold in terms of thought and custom. This little addition is often called the Nest among the post-exile imbali. It’s simply called the Midpoint by everyone else. There is a great deal of mixing of culture here, some of it full of conflict as the post-exile imbali struggle to find their place in Thul'ka and Mugroba society. These intellectual and cultural disagreements have not always been tame, either, and so the Nest is often looked upon as a den of trouble.
The northern section of the Turtle beyond the Discernment Gate is the most industrious section of town complete with gardens for food, some small artisan manufacturers, forms of education. Many of the schools on the Turtle are more like boarding schools, given that most imbali children coming from elsewhere in Thul’ka are over the age of ten. All schools on the Turtle seek to give imbali children plenty of opportunities, whether it be apprenticing to learn a skill or becoming another active participant in the lucrative spice trade.
The bridge from the Gathering Dust neighborhood is called the Bridge of Solidarity. It leads to most of the residences of the imbali, divided into colorful neighborhoods with shared communal areas between them. Creating their own culture and adopting into larger families within their exile, a major part of imbali culture includes sharing meals and celebrating with each other, often in gatherings encompassing an entire block. They have their own calendar of events very different from the rest of the Mugrobi galdori (arati) culture that abandoned them, mostly centered around the harvest and planting times of the spices that have become a big part of their economic and social success. The center of this southern area is definitely the highest point on the Turtle, and it’s here where the imbali rich from their spice trade and lie peddling make their impressive homes.
Comments
Runners' terms of service last 15 months (a year and a half), and all active members of the Runners can be identified by a yellow scarf. There are some who make a career of it, of course. Martial training is available to members and non-members at a price, though this training is, again, generally restricted to imbali (and occasionally humans and some oshoor).