Introduction
Kandarith is an ancient settlement inhabited primarily by Catfolk. It serves as their cultural and historical capital. Kandarith was carved out from under the rule of orcs many hundred years ago and remains a free city today. Its inhabitants are fiercely attached to their independence.
Despite the continent changing hands from orcs to the Vestian Empire, they retain sovereignty.
Notable Features
Kandarith is a coastal city built in a lush green river basin. Once, the mighty Astridian River coiled its way through all of Isandor and spilled into the ocean at Kandarith. After volcanic activity scorched the continent and dried the river up, only the subterranean grottoes and caverns of Anashta's Spring continued producing lifegiving water. Water elementals live there. The cats of Kandarith dare not disturb them for fear of losing their source of freshwater in an otherwise unforgiving desert.
The city's structures are mostly made of clay and wood, with the richest buildings made of marble or stone mined from quarries up north. Catfolk live short, laid back lives and so complex and difficult construction is a rarity. Simple, practical buildings and plazas with plenty of room for sunbathing, drinking, smoking, and carousing comprise most streets. Shopkeeps are more apt to have carts of melons and trinkets to sell than a permanent residential shop.
Great Market
The Great Market is an open plaza full of enterprising Catfolk intent on selling whatever items they have crafted or stolen. Few artisans are dedicated to difficult crafts, like smithing, but those who are have paid security that blends into the crowd. It is not uncommon to visit the Market and see vendors nearby each other all selling bits and pieces of the others' wares, simply because they thieve from each other.
The Market is relatively lawless. It is a designated shared space in the city belonging to no central Lord, guard, or police. Local Lords run protection rackets to try and keep peace, but warfare, thieving, or confrontation often happens in the Market due to its neutral nature among an otherwise-divided city.
Fruits, dates, beasts of burden, simple trinkets, pottery, dyes, leather goods, drinks, meats, and herbs to smoke and cook with are common fare in the market.
The Dreamhouse
Lord's Residence
Kandarith Arena
Government and Politics
Politicians are nothing more than thieves and crooks, as everyone knows. Nowhere is this statement truer than in Kandarith. In Kandarith, there are several Lords who each own a section of land in the city. Lords are the leaders of particularly powerful clans who have amassed riches and artifacts. Their reputation is everything. The clans who live in Kandarith’s various sections pay tithes to their Lords for protection.
Each Lord is a thief in his own right — if any possessions from his personal coffers (or from the clans under his protection) go missing, it is his job to steal them back. Knowing that a Lord is weak enough to lose his possessions will lead to a loss of power. This is expected and encouraged; the entire point of Lordship is to demonstrate the ability to control one’s own environment, execute elegant plans, and utilize talent and skill as a schemer, manager of people, and as a thief.
Stealing valuables from rival Lords in the dead of night is more about political intrigue than monetary gain. The thieving of artifacts (and thus stories) from others can bring an unknown clan into power and topple Lordships. There is one cat who oversees these acts of cunning: the Prince of Thieves.
All Lords are managed by the Prince of Thieves. The Prince is the greatest, most-skilled thief in Kandarith who has earned the respect of other Lords and has a powerful clan to back him. The Prince is responsible for managing who owns what, formalizing the expansion of territory or re-drawing territorial lines, overseeing territorial wars, and negotiating agreements for property exchange between Lords.
The Prince expands territory for those competent enough to handle more, and carves pieces away from those lacking the ability to govern. The lines are redrawn yearly at a ceremony that all Lords are required to attend. The Prince’s clan rose to power many years ago, and has kept its place as the strongest, most-well-guarded clan ever since; new Princes simply rise from its stock without bloodline or election being considered.
Assassination is a valid means to replace old Lords and Princes with new ones, but the Prince attempts to settle most bids for power diplomatically.
Any crimes in Kandarith that are committed against Lords with no proof of a perpetrator are blamed on the "King" of thieves. Rumor tells that the King is Balaji himself in a reincarnated form. Catfolk tell fanciful tales of the King’s vault, a place where all missing things can be found.
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