Rania-ket

South of the Sutoan rainforest, the Great Rania fans out into the Ranian Delta. Low forest gives way to mangrove swamps, a multitude of streams and channels winding between tangled roots and beds of sedge and reeds. Here, the city of Rania-ket (city on the Rania) has grown up around the batteries, a great array of dams and aqueducts which serve to filter the valuable silt out of the river's many channels. Stretching for hundreds of miles across the width of the Delta floodplain, the batteries form the foundations of the city proper, as a result of which Rania-ket is, by ground area, the largest city on Aiaos, including the sky cities of Titanis.
The Batteries hold back the fertile silt of the cloud forests and the volcanoes to create a great expanse of artificial farmland. Each year, some of the depleted soil closest to the dams is cleared, but some is used for construction, while farming activity pushes onto the fresh soil which builds up behind. This constant and necessary growth makes the Aneft culture a danger to their neighbours, despite their largely sincere pacifism. From poor beginnings, they have risen to become the largest agricultural and economic power in Suto.
The buildings on the batteries have been built up over the years. Constructed of wood, they often leaning well out our the river and the tidal plain, with the largest standing almost 200 feet above sea level. To the rear/landward of the dams, increasingly low structures sprawl away. Each battery has spread east and west, so that there are few gaps in the sprawl.
Highly successful in fishing and agriculture, Rana-Ket is held back in foreign matters by a paucity of trade routes for its goods. The delta's sprawl creates a wide coastal plain, with no deepwater ports, and all inland routes are controlled by foreign powers. Rania-Ket is also the largest pharmaceutical producer on Aiaos, with the apothecaries' guild the most powerful voice on the Council of Artists and Artisans, the city's ruling body. Their closest rivals are the fishers' guild and the tradewinds guild, representing the maritime traders whose small ships are vital to the region's limited foreign trade capaciy. The Council are appointed by the guilds to set policy for the city, and by extension, the entire delta. Their authority began as an unofficial trade association when the city-state went through an experimental anarchic phase following the fall of Anur-tek. An attempted reconquest from Anur-aket saw the Council given emergency defence powers, which were then extended to full civil authority in a series of subtle expansions.
The delta is also home to a unique group of Greatfolk; the 3ʳᵈ Giff Arquebusiers. This group of hippo-aspected Yael are organised along military lines and claim descent from a mercenary company not of the dome. Doughty warriors and cunning artificers, they have always stood out from their neighbours, and are credited with introducing aneft to gunpowder and fire locks. With most traditional weapons in the region made from bronze, wood and obsidian, imported iron is only notably used in The Creation of tools and these firearms.