THE JUNGLE CITIES OF AKHET

Civilization spread across the known earth from the jungles of Akhet, with the iaret as enthusiastic missionaries for the gospel of peace, advancement, and exploration that the apkallu taught them. Even at their height, however, large parts of their forested homeland remain wilderness. Scattered tribes of beastkin and tiny villages can be found beneath the shade of the towering jungle canopies, but most citizens of the Suzerainty live in the great cities of the iaret. Connected by stone roads since ancient times, these cities are the ultimate centers of iaret civilization. The law of the Dynasts, the worship of the gods, the tides of commerce, everything flows outward from these oases of stone in the teeming jungle. Once, the harvested riches of their colonies flowed back in the same way, but no longer.

For a thousand years since the Retreat, the Suzerainty has been mired in decadence and indolence. The iaret are content to let their civilization and possessions slowly wither, and their former possessions exert newfound strength. As it always has been, however, what power the Dynasts preserve is found in their magnificent jungle cities.

Ancient, storied Amarnec is where grey stone first rose above the green jungle canopy and blue faience vies with shining gold to demonstrate the wealth and majesty of the Suzerain and his court. Broad roads radiate out in a starburst from the city to connect Geb’s chosen from horizon to horizon with their rulers. Though Amarnec has not always been the capital city of the Suzerainty, it was here that the first dynast ruled and the Child Dynast continues that tradition in the modern era.

Amarnec is a city of seamless foundations: the first dynast commanded stone to flow like water over the earth and the palaces and temples of his rule were built upon this inviolate pad of polished marble. At the heart of the city is the House of Eternal Rule, where the worthies of old are interred and their gaze rests upon each successive generation of nobility. Before its pillared depths lies the Suzerain’s Court, an expansive open-air plaza surrounded by temples where the Dynast traditionally takes audience. If the ruler of the Suzerainty is watched by his ancestors in private, his governance is conducted before the eyes of the divine.

The Court and temple environs are surrounded by the estates of powerful clergy, minor Dynasts, and influential courtiers. Many of these properties are expansive, and stretch toward the outskirts of the city, having originally boasted pleasure gardens or sculpted farms for beloved delicacies. Withering family lines can no longer use or maintain such luxurious splendor, and the jungle infiltrates deep into the city through these run-down properties. Between such incursions are tiny neighborhoods of artisans and servants that are now almost villages unto themselves. These districts in miniature are populated by beastkin servant families, foreign merchants and traders, and noble bloodlines that have become polluted by fallen.

Beyond, entire city districts have been swallowed by the jungle, with overgrown stelae, tilted obelisks, and vine-choked stone buildings lining the still-cleared roads leading to the heart of the Suzerainty.

The city of Kato Ophios was once a rival to Amarnec, though it was never a Dynast’s court. Situated in the far east of the Suzerainty, it became wealthy from the bounty of the ocean, but could not overcome its distance from the religious and cultural heart of the iaret civilization. Proud and self-sufficient, Kato Ophios frequently strove to best the other cities in grandeur. However, its source of strength became its downfall.

Histories tell of Kato Ophios as strong and warlike even in the days when the apkallu first taught the iaret. The city’s people were sailors and warriors as the rest of the iaret lagged behind in exploring the waves. Sailors from the city were known to trade and make war on a continent to the east in the Mor Dyfn, bringing back plunder and exotic goods. To this day, the heraldry of the city displays an axe, a reminder of their reaver roots.

The lords of Kato Ophios displayed their wealth with enormous palace complexes that grew each year, slowly merging and piling atop each other. A traveler to the city would see what seemed to be one enormous building, blanketing the hills above the harbor and surrounded by orchards and terraces. Kato Ophios was hailed as the city without horizons, with the Mor Dyfn and the lands on the other side of those waters beckoning to the iaret.

The star which pierced Apsu’s breast ended such dreams of everlasting growth. Protected by its enormous bay, Kato Ophios was nevertheless ravaged by earthquake after earthquake as the lands beyond the Mor Dyfn broke apart to create the Wandering Islands. The city’s shattered walls proved no obstacle for rampaging creatures stirred up from the ocean’s depths. The Mor Dyfn remained turbulent and dangerous long after the Sea of Riches resumed its placidity, and Kato Ophios never fully recovered while the Jewel Cities only grew. Its citizens huddled in the ruins of their palaces, unwilling to set foot under the sky, let alone set sail again. It had become the City of No Horizons.

Today Kato Ophios is a far more modest port. The outer environs of the palace complex are home to traders, artisans and farmers, though the city boasts no real distinction in any such pastime. It is a maze-like city, where the citizens scurry through thousands of haphazardly connected rooms and the sky is only visible in the occasional courtyard. The oldest interior works are a crumbling, nigh-impregnable fortress full of aging traps and plagued by the monsters which first infested it after the star fell.

Even before there was a city, Zeel was a holy place in the jungle of Akhet. Shards of black glass are pushed from the ground by the mighty trees, and hot vapors rise from deep sinkholes as signs that Geb’s burning blood is very close to the surface of his body here. Worship of the gods is ancient in this place and has a dark and bloodthirsty bent to it that has persisted to the modern era. Some say that it was into the Black Cenote that the Drowning Girl was cast, becoming divine through her death. Even the beneficent Sunrise Queen is offered blood, either in ritual bleeding by the worthies of the city, or by the violent sacrifice of criminals.

After the accession of the first dynast, Zeel was one of the few portions of the early Suzerainty assimilated by force. The iaret settling the area were scattered rather than an urban population, but were ferocious fighters. Their stubbornness was born of religious fervor and bolstered by the magical rites of the priesthood which jealously guarded the holy sites of Zeel. Bloody rituals inflamed their warriors and dark magic turned the sky and earth against the Dynast’s forces. For captured servants of the Suzerainty, a gruesome fate awaited: their hearts torn out and offered up in the hopes of divine aid. However, superior numbers strangled Zeel, and the renegade priests were thrown into their own cenotes to beg forgiveness of the gods for their affront to the chosen steward of Geb’s dominion.

This conquest did not end the sacrifices at Zeel. Under the Dynast’s rule, a city sprouted around the obsidian trees, fissures, and ritual pits. No longer would writhing captives or slaves bleed their last on crude fanes; great temples were reared above the jungle canopy, topped with sacrificial stones. Hardened warriors from the city filled the Suzerain’s Strong Arms. Power calls to power, and Zeel’s standing slowly rose until there was a period when the Suzerain held court there. This move coincided with the Wars in the South, and prisoners from that conflict were bled under the sky or cast into the city’s wells in droves. The conflict was ultimately disastrous for the Suzerainty and the resulting Retreat saw the capital moved back to Amarnec, breaking the hold the dark rituals of Zeel once had over the iaret.

Like much of the Suzerainty, Zeel is a shadow of its former glories, grim as they were. The teocalli are overrun with vines now watered only rarely with blood. Effigies and valuables are the most common sacrifice to the cenotes. The inhabitants of the City of Sacrifice are still renowned as hard fighters, iaret who take joy in the spilling of blood, but each year there are fewer and fewer volunteers for the armies of the Suzerainty. Now some even speak of the beastkin of Zeel being tough warriors, fostered in ritual combat. The surrounding area has few ore deposits, but the city maintains a reputation for its armories. In addition to obsidian blades, skilled metalworkers make use of the subterranean fires in forging imported metal.

Kheprikel sits at the most northern horizon of the Suzerainty, burrowed into an enormous plateau to escape the scorching equatorial heat. The Shield of Painted Earth and Sky is actually a network of table-lands stretching for hundreds of miles along the edge of the known world, and the City of Beetles occupies an important gap between two such formations. The surface of the Painted Earth is too hot even for iaret at the height of day, and nearly all habitation is cut into the rock, either in tunnels or in small chambers along shaded crevices. Beyond the Painted Earth, the land drops away precipitously, with nothing but endless deadly jungle below the cliffs.

The people of the city are hard-working, extracting minerals from rich deposits beneath the Painted Earth. Quarries gnaw at the southern face of the plateau where the stone for monuments throughout the jungle is cut and hauled under Ranute’s fiery gaze. The relationship between beastkin and iaret in Kheprikel is long and complex. In the early Suzerainty, countless slaves perished in horrific conditions, but now the city is one of the most egalitarian. The two peoples do back-breaking work side-by-side in the pits and diggings. The mines have been a source of foreign interest in the city. It is said that Baltine mining concerns are watching the city carefully for the chance to make inroads. Foreign merchants and speculators are one of the few populations actually growing in Kheprikel.

A great garrison was founded at Kheprikel very early in the Suzerainty, and it was once a prestigious posting. Just as quality ore was torn from the stone, it was said that weakness was burned from soldiers on the Painted Earth. Now, assignment to Kheprikel is where disloyal warriors go to rot. The garrison guards nothing, watches empty jungle, and abuses miners and quarriers. Unlike in Topaz, there is almost no interest in exploration into the north. If the searing landscape doesn’t deter explorers, the drop down tall, sheer cliffs into uncharted miasmic wilderness usually does.

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Rains in the northern basin of the Akhet drain into Wenarehk Lake, which then flows on to the Sethrum and out to the Sea of Riches. Each year the lake floods, renewing the jungle soil and making these lands the most fertile in the Suzerainty. Before the apkallu brought Apsu’s gifts to the iaret, the lake lands were riven by war between rival tribes. The apkallu taught the farmers to build up the reedy marshes of the lake and defend them along narrow causeways that connected island to shore. It was upon these new islands that Tatlankel would be founded.

From their defensible city, the iaret of Tatlankel imposed order on the surrounding jungle. Assured of peace and stability, the land flourished, and Tatlankel grew rich with the trade of food. The city’s wealth and ability to withstand a siege might have allowed it to defy the rule of the first dynast, going the way of Zeel. However, the rulers of the city welcomed the Suzerain and paved the bridges and causeways with flowers for his entrance. It is for this reason that Tatlankel was hailed as the City of Wisdom.

The fortunes of the city have remained strong throughout the long years, even after the Retreat. Iaret, beastkin, human, all mortals need to eat, and Geb’s bounty has always provided. Since the Second Mercantile War, however, crop yields have slowly fallen. During the Gate War harvests outright failed two years in a row, causing starvation that had been unknown for thousands of years in the Suzerainty. Persistent rumor connects these misfortunes with the increasing population of Fallen in the city.

Modern Tatlankel is a troubled city. Citizens rich and poor look across fields that should be verdant and worry. The priests once able to call upon the blessings of the gods to spare their worshippers from such shortfalls are too few and too weak. Prayers go unheard, and they are replaced with questions: “Why do the crops fail? How has the city lost the gods’ favor?” Some look to expel the Fallen from the city. Others turn to bloody rites of sacrifice from Zeel in a bid to attract divine attention once more.

Light-colored stone and bright vegetation shine from the steep slopes of Crow Mountain where it rises out of the jungle canopy. Much like Zeel, this was a place of mystery and power even before the rise of the Dynasts. Unlike that dark region, however, the gods demanded nothing of petitioners upon the mountain, only that they listen. The tale of Crow Mountain is inseparable from that of the city at its foot, Okhetaton.

The land around Crow Mountain might be oldest iaret settlements within the jungles of Akhet. Even in the oldest records, the tribes in the area were regarded as ancient and wise. Neither warlike nor fervid in their faith, they lived peacefully. In times of trouble their leaders would ascend the mountain to seek the guidance of the gods. It is said that when the apkallu came from the ocean the iaret of Crow Mountain were the first to listen to their teachings. Other tales assert that the first dynast was either from one of the tribes in the region, or at least had completed a pilgrimage to the top of the mountain before his accession.

With the rise of the Suzerainty, a great city was founded here, too, full of grand temples and monuments. The fanes of Okhetaton went unfilled, however, for true worship was always to be found on the slopes of Crow Mountain. Leadership even returned to the city for a time, with a series of eccentric Dynasts holding court there in the late fourth and early fifth millenia.

The departure of the court, however, was sudden and without explanation. A new Dynast acceded the throne, but would not set foot within Okhetaton. The capital was returned to Amarnec and overnight the city became a ghost town. Few records of this period remain, and the desertion of the City of Voices is an enduring mystery. Even now whole districts are empty, inexplicably unclaimed by the jungle. Their echoing halls are lonely, but seem to have no apparent dangers. The inhabitants of Okhetaton are regarded as an odd lot, a bit old-fashioned, quietly religious and insular. Few visitors stay for long, but many still come to climb Crow Mountain in the hopes of receiving the wisdom of the gods.

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While it encompasses no cities of especial note, this treatise on Akhet would be incomplete without mention of the Horned Lands. To the west of the Sethrum, against the Serpent’s Back, this mountainous jungle region resisted settlement by the iaret for much of recorded history. During the early millenia of the rule of the Dynasts, it was a place teeming with ferocious ozrut, mischievous ptak, wild beastkin tribes, and worse. The Jewel City of Calcite was established long before and was instrumental in the eventual pacification of this land. It was the increased traffic through that city and the slow expansion of the Suzerainty past the Sethrum which finally strangled the lawless wilds. The orzut fled deeper into the jungles and mountains, the ptak migrated into iaret settlements, and the beastkin found themselves in chains.

Officially, the Horned Lands take their name from a mountain carved in the shape of one of Geb’s guardian vipers to watch over the region. This massive monument was the product of a Dynast fond of such projects, and accomplished with the help of bribed markotny stonemasons and thousands of beastkin slaves. The name predates this enormous statue, however, and comes from the most prevalent of the land’s dangers before it was civilized.

Before the Wars in the South, the energies of the Dynastic class were diverted to settling the region, and the jungle is dotted with summer villas for noble iaret with little towns to serve their needs. Now many of these are all but abandoned, having faced two waves of depopulation: the Wars in the South and the Retreat. Still nominally under rule by the Suzerain, only the vestiges of the Dynast’s law hold sway, usually enforced at the point of a sword when the Strong Arms are dispatched to the region.