Ulm - The First Oasis

The humid wetlands of Ulm stand in starch contrast to the parched sands that surrounds most the Pasharates. The grand oasis that enriches and encircles the City of Healers is a open vein of life that blesses Ulm with thousands of plants that won’t grow elsewhere.
Rice, broad-leafed potatoes and cattail, willows and blue chestnuts and the hundreds of lotus-flower that gives Ulm it’s sobriquet. All of plants these make Ulm a overflowing granary, supplying many of it’s Sister-Cities for a just as sisterly prize.

The balmy, mist-filled mornings of Ulm are praised in stories and songs. However, very few mention the rest of the day as the choking humidity is very more present. which is only offset by the hundreds of wind-catcher towers that provides much needed cooling in the boiling days of high summer. The Ulmites however, have adapted, and the mewling foreigners are subject to many a joke on their expense by the grinning locals.

Opposed to many other cities, in Ulm, you’ll find no bickering court of Water Lords, as the only family here, a cadet branch of the House of Lions, holds sway over nothing but sand and words. The Revered Halls of Healing, a order of physicians, are considered to be the rulers of the city, a curious state of affairs caused by a simple insect. The Saa, a type of gnats, have lived in the oasis since times immemorial, and their bite, though painless, carries with it a plethora of maladies.
The esteemed healers are thus burdened with the well-being of the entire city, giving the sibylline crone who lead the Healers, al-Sima, far more power than a simple Water Lord. The Healers are arbiters and dispensers of justice in Ulm.
A guilty party would simply be refused admittance with the Healers, dooming her to suffer the ten-thousand plagues that is carried with the Saa.
The risk of illness makes invasion of Ulm a dangerous prospect to most sane commanders, as several invaders have simply lost their entire battalion to typhoid fever and malaria.

Yet, creatures and savages dares from time to time.
And they face the sole protector of Ulm. Her name is Ahmisa bin Tawa, known to all as the Impossible Archer. True to her name, Ahmisa have shot fleas of a camel from a mountaintop, slain an invading Lionfolk warlord before he saw the towers of Ulm and even placed a arrow in a immaterial specter who sought to feast in Ulm.
The gift of her prowess is one of inheritance, given to her line and passed from mother to daughter for several centuries and Ulm has always been warded by the Impossible Archer.
Danger does seem all the more present, as Ahmisa bin Tawa have declared that she is with child, and in the final two months of her term, Ulm is without the Archer Beyond Compare and her bulwark of arrows.

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