Latest revision as of 03:53, 9 June 2010

The Free City of Minas LankWaterHawk, Archetypical Fantasy City

• Location: Scavenger Lands, where the Yanaze meets the Gray River.
• Population
  • Urban: Roughly 1 million, depending on the day's ratio of Births and Immigration to Death and Emigration.
  • Surrounding Area: 5 million, mostly slaves
• Ruler: The Judge and the Council of Objectivists
• Status: Free City and Member of the Ineffective Commonwealth of Independent States

Where the Yanaze meets the Gray River, there sits the mightiest city outside the Scarlet Empire, the city of Minas LankWaterHawk. Watched over by the Dead Gods, the Council of Objectivists, and the Judge, this huge city is simultaneously a haven of innovative finance and industry, a holy place for the worship of fallen dieties, and a giant, dirty, filthy, stinking, murderous hellhole.

Minas LankWaterHawk is built upon a huge hill which is partly made up of ruins of older versions of the city, although the ruins are much less deep than Windbloom's ruins. This is because Minas LankWaterHawk has only been sacked four times: During the war with the You'll See, At the end of the Harem Age, During the Chaos War, and during the Overthrow of the Parasites in 312 IY.

The city's location has always made it a center for mercantile activity, as it can trade easily with the lands west, south, and east of it along the waterways. During the Chaos War, forces of Chaos entered and mutated the city, resurrecting pieces of its past and mingling them higgledypiggledy with newer buildings. The survivors came to adopt this as their style and renamed the city Minas LankWaterHawk, mingling pieces of its past names.

It was a booming trade city, but one torn by heavy social conflict between the rich and the poor. This was ended when the Judge appeared in the early 300s. She organized the Council of Objectivists, who used their intellect and wealth to take over the city. If the poor got uppity or tried to demand social services, the Judge would vaporize them. Generations of culling have left the local working class too cowed to make any further trouble, except for rare cells of revolutionaries.

The nature of the Judge is unclear, but she exerts absolute power over the city, restricted only by her own moral code. There is no code of law, only her decrees and those of her council, all of whom wear masks, as does she. Only the Voice of the Council, usually a renegade Magical Girl, goes about unmasked, enforcing the Council's will and that of the Judge. The current one is named Misaki, and she is a Sacred Bodyguard of great power.

In general, anything is legal in Minas LankWaterHawk, with a few exceptions:

• Unmasking a member of the Council of Objectivists is a death offense
• Disrupting the trade of the city 'on a substantial scale' is a death offense
• Asking the city for charity or trying to petition the Council to institute public charity is a death offense. Private charity is sometimes allowed and sometimes gets you killed. Giving alms to a beggar one day is probably fine, trying to clean up Death Alley will probably result in your execution.
• Killing 'too many people' will get you executed. How many is 'too many' seems to vary greatly.
• Challenging the right of the Council and Judge to rule will get you killed deader than disco.
• Robbing or threatening the Dead Gods is also punishable by Death.
• Only Dead Gods May Be Worshipped.

The Street of the Dead Gods is lined with temples to dead dieties. It is unclear if the beings which slumber within are really dead gods, sleeping gods, or some other kind of being entirely. Most of the time, they remain quiescent, but if not appeased with enough treasure or if the city faces a significant threat, they come out of their tombs and rampage with vast amounts of power until the menace ends. It is to be noted they have occassionally simply killed and eaten members of the Council of Objectivists without the Judge doing anything. It can also be noted that there are temples to Gaia's five sons, stationed by priests who resemble priests and priestesses of the Kawaii Order, but who proclaim the children of Gaia are dead. Something slumbers in these temples. They are frequently attacked by real Kawaii-ites, who then get eaten.

In general, Minas LankWaterHawk is like an onion; the richest quarters are at the top of the hill and as you descend through layers of circular streets, the city grows poorer and filthier. The east face is the absolute filthiest and is full of slums such as Death Alley, Hell's Watercloset, and Newark. The South Face has the best brothels, while the North and West face eventually descend into harbor districts with warehouses and shipping facilities.

The Undercity is a dangerous place where twisted chaos creatures dwell, sometimes raiding up into the city. Those who go deep enough are said to find an actual Wyld Zone, where Oniboshi impinges upon Creation. Certain rumors claim a mad Bishonen Sorceror from the First Age still dwells beneath the city, turning the tunnels of the ruins into a giant dungeon of adventure and madness for his own amusement. If so, apparently either the Judge fears him or else the thousands of yearly deaths of adventurers in the tunnels of the Undercity does not constitute 'too much killing'.

The Great Bazaar of Minas LankWaterHawk sits on the West Face of the hill, a great plaza partly carved out of the hill, where everything is for sale, and if you aren't careful, you may accidentally buy something in a silent, invisible auction by scratching your nose.

The city is surrounded by vast fields worked by slaves which produce just about every kind of luxury food or drug which will grow in this climactic zone, along with huge amounts of timber and food. Nexus ends up importing a lot of basic foodstuffs and exporting luxury foods and drugs.

Slavery is legal in Minas LankWaterHawk, but you can only be enslaved either by selling yourself into slavery to pay your debts (common) or by the Council or Judge declaring you a slave. Slaves bought elsewhere are considered still slaves once brought into the city. However, slaves who escape from elsewhere are usually protected by the Council of Objectivists from being recovered by their masters, if they find useful employment. It's not THEIR job to help some weakling slave owner defeat someone who has shown himself stronger than his 'master', after all. For that matter, it's legal for a slave to feed his master into a meatgrinder if he can get away with it, so long as the council didn't make him a slave.

Crime is rife in Minas LankWaterHawk, especially thanks to the many Exalted criminals. The most notorious are the the organized crime society known as the Moonsilver Mafia, led by a group of 20 catgirls with its claws sunk deep into the city and into several nearby cities as well.

A few miles away from Minas LankWaterHawk sits Minas LankWaterHawk Castle, built by the last solar ruler of the city, Tolegrax the Mad. (Some suspect he's the Bishonen hiding under the city, in fact.) His fortress-manse is full of traps, treasures, and monsters, and monsters which somehow replenish themselves. A few adventurers have found items of great power in it, but most have died horribly or become some twisted thing. But people keep trying anyway, as those who survive can become fantastically wealthy. (Certain really crazy rumors claim the 'Eye of Otakuthon' is actually the Hearthstone of this manse...)