Esheb - The Garden of Grass of Bedlam

Opposed to a lot of other places in the south, one does not simply travel to Esheb. One must hunt the Shifting City across the expanses, following trail of a nomadic people through the drifting wilderness of sand. But once you find the greenest of grass jutting from the harsh soil, the hunt is at a end and before you lies the Garden of Grass.

This is the third largest city of the Pasharates, with thousands upon thousands living as nomads trailing behind the wandering city and the oasis that caused it all.
It’s patron spirit, who is known as Esheb the Many-Named, was cursed by the sorceress-queen Azhara, to forever walk the desert, never finding rest.
Unwilling to fail in his duties due to a simple curse, Esheb became one with the land he was charged to protect.

The wandering nature of Esheb soon attracted many of the roaming nomads, bringing with them cattle, horses and antelopes and for them, Esheb made the grasslands that surrounds his city. Many tribes travel to and from Esheb, and the nobles of the Pasharates come here to hunt in these savannah-like grasslands, hoping to slay one of the mighty lions that hunt here.

Following in the wake of the shifting city is a horde of nomads that prays to Esheb as the Lord of Grass, causing a lot of friction between the various ethnic groups of Esheb.

Within the permanent part of Esheb, the Old Town, there is a strong militaristic culture, focused on defending Esheb from the barbarian foes that often seek to enslave them all. Of course, the Water Lords of Esheb propagate those ideas, giving the people an external foe to focus on, instead of their exorbitant taxes that have impoverished the people of the Old Town.

Divided from the actual city by the mighty Ochre Bulwark, the transitory part of the inhabitants of Esheb either dwell in tents and yurts or live in broad wagon-houses pulled by oxen.
This is known as the Wake, where hundreds of tribes have learned to co-exist. Barely.
Most people still feud over rivalries, gods and cattle, making the Wake a place of a thousand clattering tongues and blades. Yet, this is also the most prosperous part of Esheb, with the former desert nomads making leather-work and horseshoes, a good that is sought after in the rest of the Pasharates.
Recently, that have been noticed by the Water Lords of Old Town, and many a taxman has come to claim the Lord’s share of the profits, even though the Wake is not even given water by the Lords.

All of the collectors have been stopped on a single man’s words.
Amani Rasheen, a young sharp-tongued horse-breeder, claims to be the Water Lord of the Wake, thus the sole beneficiary of the Wake’s profits. And he will have none of it. The other Lords have furiously rebuked his claim, and many a scholar have been paid in full to disprove it, yet Amani is recorded as the final scion of the House of the Kingfishers, a all but extinct lineage. Amani and his people is posed on the brink of revolution, as his spite for the nobles is well-founded and the Wake’s people would support him, even onto the field of battle.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License