Far'soro
The city is everywhere ahead. It teems with the Bat’yan and Beylik, mice and sloths, donkeys and armadillos. The crowds are dense on the sandy-colored road, if it can even be called a road; the Causeway has widened to the size of a courtyard. Even more city cascades to the ground below in a zig-zag of flat rooftops. The route into the city wraps around the edge of an elliptical stadium big enough for ten thousand people. The Sapphire Palace crowns the city, tall enough to tower over the top of the Causeway. Its majestic elevated gardens and interconnected towers are at the center of all Arneria, where the bey and raja sit together at its head.
Culture Clash
Far’soro is the city where the Bat’yan and Beylik and Causeway all combine. With the Attamek river flowing underneath into the harbor below, culture and travel flow in from four directions. A quilt of farmland watered by the Attamek surrounds the city and pushes out to the horizon to feed its people.
The people of Far’soro are the true realization of the Arnerian cultural experiment. Their demeanor is a blend of the different hard-working, big personalities of east and west. Far’soro has a flexible urban rhythm to flow with the needs of its foreign visitors. However, the bey’s influence over the city gives it a strictness and traditionalism that capitals like Louvain let go of to sprint toward the future.
Passing Through
Far’soro draws influence from the caravanserai cities that lie beyond it. Converging trade routes crowd the city with temporary visitors, foreign travelers on their way elsewhere. If people are the blood of a metropolis, then Far’soro has a hammering heartbeat.
The city’s ever-changing faces reflect changing times. Inns and infrastructure have adapted to delvers and the Dungeon, easily accommodating large caravans. Delvers are common in the city, rolling into Far’soro to connect with scouts from both sides of the road. Rare medicines are available here, blended from herbs grown only in the most specific Bat’yan conditions. Affordable jewelry and magic-infused finery rides in from the desert, offered at every street corner and open courtyard.
Protection of the State
Bey Vartan rules his domain from the Sapphire Palace in Far’soro, so the Beylik infantry is a common sight. Pairs of soldiers patrol the street, carrying kilij swords and dressed in the uniform of the Arnerian military. Vartan’s forces keep the streets orderly and the bey safe from anyone wishing him harm.
Beylik soldiers are ill-humored, but most won’t harass a foreigner for no reason. Visitors should be prepared to answer questions and cooperate with their requests, but run-ins with the throne’s army are less common than with Vinyotian Sellswords or Alley Crown Guard.
What to See in Far'soro
Arnerian General Post Office
Wherever they are, donkeys are a temporary presence. The smaller equines aren’t the heroes of storybooks, or beys, or lords. Despite all this, their lasting impact on society is deeper than most others. Donkeys share a traditional profession that has spread to become their calling in every homeland: they are the deliverybeasts.
Donkeys living on the Causeway are especially proud of this reputation. The Arnerian General Post Office is a masterpiece of efficiency, a massive square building in the middle of Far’soro. Packages within its sorting library rush through an accurate, speedy process of sorting, stamping, and sending. The postal donkeys are always innovating ways to get things where they need to go even faster. One conspiracy theory even says a secret cabal of postal donkeys was behind the Causeway itself, pulling strings for a long road on which to run mail.
More donkeys live in Far’soro than the rest of the world combined; at least, by duly registered postal address. They swarm around the General Post Office, awaiting the next pack they’ll deliver to a remote corner of the world.
Sapphire Palace
The jewel of Far’soro, and all of Arneria, is the gleaming blue and white spire of the Sapphire Palace. It sits against the Causeway, overlooking the elevated road and the metropolis below. The wide Attamek flows to its east, framing every treasure of the homeland at once.
The bey’s wives lounge in his harem within the palace when they aren’t away on missions of diplomacy or economy. Each of Vartan’s wives is more cunning and beautiful than the last, and they often wander Far’soro’s streets to greet foreigners and stay in tune with the Beast World’s song.
Far’soro is the Bat’yan and Beylik’s centerpoint, and the pressure of two homelands leaning against each other peaks within the Sapphire Palace. Bey Vartan rules Arneria alongside the voice of the Bat’yan: the mouse Raja Hiraya. Hiraya has no direct power of her own, but she is the trusted voice of the datu collective throughout the rainforest. She governs from her own wing of the Sapphire Palace, but there’s no debating it: this is the bey’s house.
Vartan and Hiraya are the latest example of an old Arnerian tradition: they hate each other. Friction between the rulers of Bat’yan and Beylik is so historically vital to the Arnerian state, it is a law. Arnerians consider it dangerous for the raja and bey to be friends, as each one checks the other. If the viziers deem the pair to be getting on too well, it is their legal duty to report it to the datus so they can replace the raja immediately.
Moon Needle
An imposing, slender tower sits at the edge of the city’s outskirts. Dramphinians filter through its surrounding gates at all hours of the day, carrying out their lady’s justice. This tower is a base of Dramphinian activity known as the Moon Needle.
The paladins of Far’soro are rarely open about what goes on within their ivory tower. Citizens whisper rumors about its true purpose when they’re sure no paladins are around to scold them for speculating. Some believe the building itself is a listening device, used by paladins to monitor thoughts from inside its hollow core. In truth, the Moon Needle is a monument to their beloved Lantern Lady, and another of the judges’ meeting places.
Probably.
Attamek Harbor
Another ingredient in the chaotic mix of life in Far’soro is the riverside harbor beneath the Sapphire Palace. Attamek Harbor is a freshwater port desert vulpines use as an alternative to sending cargo on land along the Kazmak. The unpredictable river requires caution and an experienced captain. Swift currents make a trek upriver arduous, if not perilous.
Selling goods in the Attamek Harbor Market makes fighting the river worth it, though. Foreigners crowd the harbor, eager to buy from overwhelmed fennecs selling straight out of crates on the dock. Savvy shoppers use the market to cut out the middleman, as well as procure some unsavory wares that might hide in those crates.
Rooftop City
The moving parts of Arneria’s central city require thousands of laborers. Rooftop City is named after the stair-like pattern of shanty roofs adjacent to the Causeway. Their colorful structures crowd themselves over the side of the road and down, like a waterfall emptying into the ground level below.
Life in Rooftop City is crowded, noisy, and dangerous. The packed neighborhoods offer little privacy, and sometimes it’s a fifteen-minute walk to fresh water. Yet, Far’sorian commoners hold deep affection for their own box among the pile. They trade the personal space of a home under a barangay tree for the cosmopolitan bustle of the capital.
Far’soro Grand Arena
With a running jump, one could leap from the edge of the Causeway into the back row of the Far’soro Grand Arena. (This is not recommended, but Aubadians occasionally try it anyway.) A thousand shops, storehouses, and homes cluster around the edge of the stadium, and residents charge a copper to sit on their roof to watch big events. The view probably isn’t worth the price of admission, but everyone in Far’soro becomes a spectator.
Incredible public spectacles are a weekly occurrence on the arena floor below. The pinnacle of every pop-bard’s career is their Far’soro show. Aubadian theatrical masterpieces explode in color and power across the stage to the delight of thousands, and more cautious delight of bethelkeepers worried about their safety during the actual-steel duels their shows are known for.
The locals love all of this. Their true passion, however, is for something a little more flashy…