Abhari

The City of Dead Gods is the crown jewel of the Lusellan empire-as well as the keystone holding the whole rotting edifice together. Sprawling out from a extraordinary natural harbor, with riverine and rail connections inland to all the empire's most profitable mines and plantations-and housing a naval citadel more than capable of extracting a toll from any shipping crossing the narrow strait it faces out on-Abhari is one of the mot profitable colonies on the planet. Enough that, even after the Viceroy and all his officials take their share-its revenues still singlehandidly pay for garrisoning the empire and most of the navy besides.
The fact that its position more or less cuts Celmy in half, and makes keeping a close eye on any supplies the Commonwealth sends their allies in the New World-well, it's just a bonus. A giant target on the Viceroy's back, to be sure, but also a blank check for Ilyrric support he's more than happy to cash.

Demographics

A large majority of the city's population-sixty fivepercent or so-are classed by the Viceroy's tax collectors as 'unconverted natives'. This isn't exactly inaccurate, but it's not very helpful either.
Of those 'unconverted natives', the most coherent group are Sanpang-the actual autochthonous inhabitants of the region, their political and formal institutions long since abolished for ease of administration, their religion and culture in turns ignored and persecuted. In recent years, they've enjoyed something of a change in fortunes-someone or another decided they were more trustworthy than the alternatives, and so they've recieved open favoritism in colonial and mission employment, the acknowledged right to their customary courts, and so on.
The majority of the 'native' population can only really be described as such in that their ancestors lost a war or signed a treaty with the Lusellans. The term 'Chausami' is better, slightly-the subcontinent is more a geographic reality than a cultural one, but it is where they or their families generally hailed from before one Viceroy or Prince or Bishop needed dockhands or plantation workers.
Of the 'civilized population', it is more or less evenly split between 'converted natives' (generally Sanpang, usually first generation, educated in mission schools and groomed for low and mid level positions in officialdom), 'colonists' (Overwhelmingly Lusellans, of course. Retired soldiers and merchants, colonial officials, and actual colonists who found farming a stretch of free but unprepared land less to their liking than expected), and 'Expatriates' (a truly eclectic assortment of merchants, adventurers, mercenaries, criminals, traders, and vagabonds from anywhere you can name.)

Government

To be named Viceroy of Abhari is the most furiously contested position in Lusello-including the Presidency. Assigned a remit to keep the seas clear of pirates, the hinterland of rebels, and (most importantly) the taxflow of any noticeable impediments, they are granted near-absolute authority and essentially no meaningful oversight. It is entirely traditional for each new Viceroy to replace every official position with even a memory of lucrative opportunities for corruption with clients, relatives, hangers-on, or anyone they owe a favor. Bribery is just an expected and budgeted-for business expense.
The government is a purely extraction machine-urban planning and public hygiene are left to well heeled private associations in the good parts of town and the wisdom of crowds in the rest, and charity is considered the responsibility of families and the pious. Not that there aren't quite extensive rules on public morality and sanitation-but whatever the reforming impulse was behind them, they now exist largely as a way for the Carabinieri to justify an extra 'gift' or three from successful seeming businesses.
The Carabinieri (ostensibly a national police force, in practice suspicious nobles keep them firmly limited to the capital and colonies in jurisdiction, with less than salutary effects on the force's makeup) ostensibly protect the rule of law, and in practice keep the peace and settle any disputes the socially correct way. In extremis, they can call upon the garrisoned regulars and marines to suppress a riot or uprising.
The Harbormaster, port authority, and pilots are more effective at their theoretical jobs )once the regular corruption is discounted). The friendly relationship currently enjoyed with the naval garrison means that the port actually runs like the Viceroy and merchant magnates hope it will, at least most of the time.
The Viceregal Civil Service proper is largely concerned with (literally) making sure the trains more or less run on time a constant but expected failure) and the maitenence of consulates, civil-military relations, the colonization initiatives, a census and, most importantly, the collection of taxes, tolls, and tariffs. They pursue most of these tasks with reliable mediocrity and the last with commendable and uncommon zeal.

Defences

The city lacks any prepared landward defenses-the remnants of any ancient city walls are thoroughly overrun by now, even if they weren't totally obsolete. The city's defences are instead focused on two rather fearsome hard points-the Abhari Citadel proper, and the Musarra Naval Station that entirely fills an island guarding the entrance to the harbor.
The Citadel was at one point a remote temple, and it's quite possibly the oldest continuously inhabited part of the city-a sheer rock plateau jutting some hundred meters into the air, its remoteness only enhanced by the deep moat some ancient priest-king excavated around it (That moat, renamed 'the Warrens' is now one of the city's worst and most violent slums). Able to survey (and if necessary bombard) the whole city, accessible only by a monumental stone bridge that spans the river to end in a plaza facing the Viceregal Palace, the Citadel is traditionally manned by a full regiment of the Viceroy's best household troops under a specifically chosen commander. Ostensibly there to discourage invasion, the garrison is on occasion deployed outside the city to suppress bandits or rebels-or within it to deal with an out of control riot.
Mussara Station is not quite such a natural wonder-before the Lusellans arrived, it was just an inconveniently large mount of rock which made getting into and out of the harbor much more difficult than it had to be. Decades of excavation and fortification later, and it's a major consideration in Celmian war planning as the only real threat to the Federal Navy on the continent.
Aside from housing a solid third of the Lusselan navy (including one of only two craft worthy of the title 'battleship'), it's deeply entrenched enough to withstand any conceivable bombardments-and bristling with enough guns and enchantments to give as good as it gets. Despite this, it's actually the full thousand Marines permanently manning it-answerable to the admiralty and Prince-President, not the Viceroy- that have had the most effect on the history of the city. On at least three separate occasions they've been called upon to arrest Viceroyy's who don't feel like going home at the end of their term.

Industry & Trade

Abhari's main business is, of course, business. The amount of goods flowing through the city in every direction make what the city actually produces almost an afterthought, both in terms of wealth produced and people employed-insofar as the populace is formally employed, they're employed by merchants, trading syndicates, the government, or the vast underworld of crime, graft, vice, and luxury that exists to serve them.
Aside from maritime trade, Abhari is also a major end point for riverine and rail-based trade routs bringing raw materials from throughout eastern Chausam for export-not nearly as lucrative, of course, but still a major part of the economy. And far more of an open market for those without august connections.
The only real exception to this are the famous Abhari Foundries. Not famous because of any objective scale or quality, of course-any Celmian city has works putting them to shame, and the Commonwealth certainly has industrial centers larger by at least an order of magnitude. But old Viceroy Tierno's allowance and open sponsorship of the factory district was something of a seismic shift from previous policy, and the complete lack of worker protections or regulations ensured more than a few Merchant-Princes were eager investors. By the time the Tierno's plans became clear and a tasked demon tore his heart to ribbons (a 'courtesy' from the Illyric court), they were too well establish, profitable, and vital to supplying the garrison to be easily shut down.

Infrastructure

Abhari Port-and the surrounding more unofficial dockyards-are truly something to behold. Servicing one of the busiest trade routs in the world, and a significant naval station besides, it's easily the cities greatest strategic asset beyond simple geography. While the vast majority of the city's streets are haphazard and dangerously unplanned, wide paved thoroughfares do ensure that all the necessary shipments get to the port as well.
Far more ramshackle and less well-run, the foundries and industrial works that sprang up under the previous Viceroy's patronage are still more than would expected of any colonial city, and more than justify the extra company of Carabinieri deployed to keep the workforce peaceful and productive.
On the less practical and more monumental side, the two grand bridges that span the river (and, ,cynically, allow the well to do to travel with sullying themselves in the riverside slums and filth), as well as the local Citadel sitting atop a sheer rock plateau, are ancient and inspiring works of architecture that give the city a distinctive silhouette even through the miasma of filth and industry.

Guilds and Factions

The official government-through the Carabinieri, the garrison, and the marines-maintains an absolute hold on the vast majority of the city's military might-at least as long as those three institutions are on the same page. A small collection of Lussan and Belthayic merchant princes and industrial concerns similarly absolutely dominate the economy, Viceroy Perona hardly the least among them.
Once you push past the surface level, things rapidly become complex on a downright fractal level-forbidden cults, revolutionary societies, and criminal syndicates proliferate, split, merge, and are crushed by the occasional raid far too quickly for anyone to make an accurate bestiary of them (let alone tell them apart).
Beyond street gangs fighting over trivialities, and leaving aside the truly terrifying things that menace those living by the river without grander designs-the city's underworld is at present more or less dominated by three groups: The necromantic extortionists and blackmailers of the Society of Echoes, The pirates-turned-smugglers-turned-spiderweb-of-corruption of the Red Ocean Society, and the military grade clcokworks and automata controlled by a hidden person or group called the Machinist.
Religiously, the better off parts of the city are dominated by the officially and vigorously sponsored Praesi Church, while most Sanpang traditions are for the moment tolerated and their temples allowed in a specially set aside district. Not that the city doesn't more than lives up to its moniker-the Chandri Desoi worship the dead god they hold rests at the bottom of the Tamar River, the Sisters of Silence hold watch over a pit where an imprisoned rakshasa is said to answer any earnestly given desire, and the metaphysical revolutionaries of the Knives of Paradise hunt for scraps and viscera of the divine to forge into weaponry.

Architecture

The style in which one lives tells you quite a lot about them in the city. The richest and highest ranking colonists and expatriates live in mansions of exorbitantly expensive imported white marble, done in the style of their estates back home. The middle classes-less august foreigner and particularly lucky and eagerly assimilating natives-live in more modest houses of local stone and brick, plastered with stucco and painted white in imitation.
The vast majority aren't so lucky, of course. Most live in clay-brick tenements, generally painted quite vibrantly and inhabited by extended family networks or close social groups-usually with some variety of internal courtyard or flat roof that doubles as a jealously guarded garden.
The worst off of all don't have houses so much as caverns-the stone Abhari is built on is quite porous, with small caves common wherever it's exposed to the elements for long periods (and rumors of much vaster networks connecting to some of them). For those living in the Warrens or the worst Riverside slums, those caves are the only protection from the elements available.

Geography

Abhari was a location chosen to host as great city by divine will-at least that's the official line. Not that it doesn't have an argument behind it-a massive natural harbor, shielded from most storms by some convenient rocky islets, that's also the end of a major river network? With good soil and better fishing as the cherry on top.
Not much farming happens nearby by now, of course, and industry and waste have left the Tamar thoroughly toxic before its halfway through the city. The protection against storms still hold though.
On the broader scale, Abhari sits at the tip of Chausam's eastern peninsula, facing a straight where the vast Desoi Ocean narrows to a dozen miles. It enjoys a tropical climate and heavy annual rainfall, which provides fresh water to a not insubstantial number of the urban poor.

Type

Large city

Population

230,000

Included Locations

• The Tamar River
• Vel Run

Owning Organization

Principality of Lusello

Characters in Location

• Academic Hira