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Chapter 4: THE CITIES
rites and rituals. Thus, pursuit or punishment for crimes
in one ward sometimes can be avoided by fleeing to another ward, even though the triumvirate tries to coordinate and keep police actions unified among all wards.
As a result, many thieves of all races operate in the city,
but only those in the central ward are organized into
guilds. It’s possible to have an item stolen from you at
the top of the city, and then sold to you in the big market
on the bottom.
The city’s most famous landmark rests in the ground
tier—the cavernous building known as the Hall of Whispered Memories. Its unique mix of acoustics and psychically resonant stone provides a curious side effect to
the building. One can whisper memories to the stonework and the building records the whispers for an eternity. The Pachyaur suggest its use for “younger races
with candle-flicker memories to store your best stories
and revisit them when you are much older.” A Keeper of
the Whisper always stands on duty to make sure that no
larceny occurs and memories are not stolen.
Patnu
Patnu exists as it did in ages past of Khitus’s history—a
strongly martial Makadan city with its people counted
amongst the finest Kod-trained warriors of Khitus.
While the world around them changed and crumbled,
the walls of Patnu remained strong and stalwart, like
the hearts and minds of its population. Regimental order endures here while many other places tumble into
chaos and decay. Men and women serve proudly in a
rigid caste system, becoming fearsome combatants and
unrivalled tacticians. When raiders strike against the
city’s walls, they hold against ferocious assaults that
would level another city. When thieves steal into the
city to purloin and take from the people, they find a wily
and disciplined shtuka-armed guard force ready to stop
them.
Patnu, under its long-time leader, the Warlord Kral
Jugursha, endures against the worst that Khitus has to
offer, turning blades and plots away in equal measure.
While few Patnuans realize it, this is a limbo existence
doomed to failure as forces of entropy erode everything
over time. Warlord Kral Jugursha resigns himself to the
inevitable unseen by the rigid and regimented population and architecture: Patnu cannot grow, and thus it
cannot prosper, and eventually it must die. The warlord
sends out his soldiers into the wilderness to either conquer the chaos without or build new Patnuan colonies to
preserve their martial culture after great Patnu finally
falls.
Pavouk
In all of Khitus, there is no city quite like Pavouk and
the people who dwell there. The citizenry may be human, primarily of Prajalu tribal origins, with human
wants, needs and desires, but they share their city
with tiny creatures that scurry, skitter and leave a lasting mark on their society. From the temples and grand
halls, to the smallest home and dwelling, the spiders of
Pavouk are integral to the giant city in every way.
Smaller spiders weave webs across the whole of Pavouk
and over the years they have built a canopy across the
open sky of the city, filtering and diffusing the harsh
light from above. The webs are of such density (and,
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