Talaganza Town
Talaganza Town is a medium-sized coastal settlement on the southwestern coast of Caetica nestled in a crook where the Mudzima river empties slowly into the St. Elisee Ngoma Bay, which connects the town's bustling merchant quarter and deepwater docks to the trade routes of the southern Naufragic Sea. It is primarily an exotic jungle trading post, set up originally by Pilaani sea raiders about 1200 years ago, likely on the site of an earlier native settlement the pirates destroyed, later becoming a Colony of Minon.
Due to its remoteness, Minon elected to restore the city-state to independence about 76 years ago, while the larger and less unruly city of Kanambou on the northwest coast remains under Minonoise administration. The only other large settlement in Caetica is Nogossi, "Little Naugor," a Pilaani colonial outpost to the northwest of Talaganza Town that is a vassal city of the Khazigiri Imperium. Both Kanambou and Nogossi are much closer to civilization and the political intrigues of the larger world than the deep jungles of Talaganza, where no one much cares about empires or kings unless there's some money to be made in it. It's a wild and sometimes dangerous town, but stable due to a governing council that operates hand in hand with a few guild and criminal organizations. Gold coin speaks and spends here just as solidly as it does elsewhere in the more civilized world.
It long ago lost any connection to Pilaan or the Khazigiri Empire on some date and event lost to memory, but they celebrate Minon Independence Day each year in late springtime as well as Council Founding Day in the early autumn - located just a few degrees below the equator of the orbis, the climate is essentially the same here year round. The Merchants' League is the official council that runs the city nominally, meaning that it creates and enforces laws, employs a professional police class and military militia, collects taxes, issues permits and licenses, investigates crimes, backs the banking currency and operates the judicial courts. Various guilds and organized crime families manage the rest.
Its remoteness and lack of strategic value keep it reasonably isolated from world events, though crime is still an issue. The merchant bosses and crime bosses are essentially indistinguishable, and there are no jails, meaning that captured criminals are either fined/beaten and released, or killed and thrown to the crocodilians in the Mudzima, depending on the severity of the offense. Criminal vendetta and the threat of things worse than death are a more effective means of enforcement of peace and order than any quaint code of law could manage on its own in a place this remote.
Ruling Council: The Merchants' League
This council is made up of three individuals who act as both executive and judicial authorities and a legislative review board made up of all merchants who hold a valid traders' license. The board's chairperson is one of the three individuals of the executive/Judicial - currently a human male, Dr. Rigo Twalik. The other two individuals are the non-denominational high priestess Alee Ohari and the ranking noble, currently Duchess Inkida Nibbis, female Goblin (of the lineage of the Silver Mine Goblins with their camps to the east, in the Silvermine Mountains). Her son, Prince Eebo Nibbis, is of age and expected to inherit the role when she steps down or passes away.Demographics
- Human: 30%
- Pilaani Elven: 21%
- Goblinoid: 16%
- Tabaxi: 11%
- Orcish: 9%
- Dwarven: 6%
- Loxodon: 4%
- Other: 3%
Government
Merchant League: 3-person council made up of ranking noble, high priestess, and head of merchants' guild form the Merchant Council which maintains a baseline of civil law and order.
Infrastructure
On a scale where Khazigur, capitol of the Imperium would be considered to have a 100% infrastructure level, Talaganza might be considered 20% - 30% with no permanent paved roads, no rail, and frequent washouts and bridge failures on the major land arteries connecting it to Nogossi in the east an Kanambou in the west. It does have a wide and relatively slow-flowing river, however, and St. Elisee Ngoma Bay is generally calm and well protected from typhoons and serious storms.
The city itself is a collection of stacked pavillions and open wooden and thatch buildings on stilts, often layered on top of and into each other; a thin wooden strip 'scale' construction is also popular and these are often painted in vibrant color. Pea gravel and river stone allow for the main roads to still be nearly operable in the mid-spring to mid-summer rainy season. A few water mills turn in the Mudzima for a steady if somewhat slow power source for milling grain and powering simple machines.
The Wharfside area is always bustling and never sleeps, and in addition to the 20 or so boat slips, always in demand and usually overscheduled, there is also a timber mill attached to the shipyard with 2 drydocks and 2 fitting-out berths of its own.
The municipal building dates back to the pre-independence days, built of the small, dense and tightly stacked red brick favored by Minonois colonial architects. A squat and otherwise unlovely building with small lower-story windows and larger ones higher up, it also features a lush garden on the roof whose overhanging flowering vines and greenery have turned much of the building into something that looks reclaimed by Druids.
Districts
Wharfside
The south and west borders of the town end in water, and the Mudzima curls around the west and northern sides as well; docks and berths are found in all the areas, but the main one is along the western edge of town. In addition to large brick warehouses and vented storage buildings made of thatch and wood, many cozy taverns, flophouses and gambling dens are tucked away to ensure that sailors and locals can get their share of services without needing to walk too far uphill into the town proper.Municipal Court
The ivy and flower-covered old Minonoise courthouse complex is a C-shaped building with a courtyard in its center for public gatherings and announcements. During the day it also bustles with food vendors, bondsmen, entertainers and vagrants.Rivershore
The muddy banks of the Mudzimu river have been moderated along a stretch of land connecting to the bay by adding tons of yellow sea-sand behind a retaining wall, building up an otherwise unusable area of the town into a bustling fish market where occasionally one might find the spoils of a tomb robbers work or a dungeon delvers' success. A nice place for Kaalengi handiwork including bone and stone jewelry, clothing, taxidermied (and live) animals and interesting weapons like Thri-Kreen Gythka and the Spiked Tamburs favored by tribal Yuan-ti.Talaganza Town Market
The center of town is an open-air market much larger than one might expect from the relatively small population of the city, and a place where a wide variety of things from the mundane to the truly bizarre might be bought and sold. In addition to dozens of pop-up merchant stalls and lined-up carts, the circus atmosphere includes performing jugglers, suspicious alchemists, wild animal mounts including Axebeaks, Griffons, Raptors and Hadrosaurs, trade goods exporters and magical blocks of ice that melt much more slowly than they otherwise would. Several permanent shops also ring this area's perimeter:- Koyami's Koins: Koyami, a female Tiefling, trades in artwork, coins of all kinds, jewelry and luxury goods. She keeps a coterie of 8 high-level Silver Legion employed as guards, and her shop has been infused with suppression magic to suppress the operation of conjuration, transmutation, evocation, illusion, enchantment and divination magic. Only Necromantic and Abjuration effects will operate normally (though they may still rapidly earn a lethal response from the Silver Legion should anything out of the ordinary take place).
- The Foundry: A large-scale smelting and smithing operation run by Elmis, a high-level male Loxodon Forge-Domain Cleric. He specializes in unique metals and arcane materials and is happy to trade as well as make new items, mundane or magical. He is unusually honest and fair-trading with people who will show him the same honesty, but likes to keep his long prehensile nose out of trouble.
- The Monkey's Pawn, run by the Tabaxi female Veggatse. She deals in uncommon goods on consignment or trade, and can lend money out against the value of collateral held for six weeks.
- Imperium Emporium, a general goods trader operated by Trajan, a male human Imperial. He can import items from the empire and sell items to Imperial buyers who may have deeper pockets and broader interests than the locals.
| Rarity | Dice Roll | Price Range |
|---|---|---|
| Common | 2-6 on 1d6 | 30g - 80g |
| uncommon | 3-6 on 1d6 | 80g - 600g |
| rare | 5-6 on 1d6 | 1000g - 6000g |
| very rare | 6 on 1d6 | 6500g - 18000g |
Guilds and Factions
Major Guilds
The city's strongest professional factions are the Merchant Guild, which is officially a part of the city legislature, and the Mariners' Guild which holds a great deal of power here as well as in Nogossi and Kanambou, but virtually none inland or elsewhere in the Caetica.Merchant Guild
Operating any sort of business in Talaganza - legal or otherwise - requires membership in the Merchant Guild, obtained by the payment of a 40gp license fee and 10gp monthly membership fee after certain baseline criteria including a tax schedule have been met. Dr. Twalik is the appointed spokesperson for the Merchant Guild as well as the de-facto head of the city's health and immunization efforts; an accomplished healer and alchemist, Dr. Twalik is nevertheless more profit-minded than altruistic in his work, understanding that the town's coffers can better afford things like malaria and cholera treatments than the individual citizens can. A full-blooded Kaalengi by ethnicity, the doctor also brings more than a little native medicine into his work, making for a very different sort of Merchant Guild here than might be found in other cities on the continent. Guild membership is, in essence a protection racket but by paying, you not only are permitted to operate without undue investigation (as long as your income is reported and taxes are paid you also have a nominal say in the governance of the city.Mariner's Guild
The Mariners' Guild is concerned with the shipping part of trade, rather than the goods; teamsters the world over are generally part of the The White Chests and as Talaganza is the single busiest smugglers port known to exist in the world, it is obviously a southern stronghold of that worldwide criminal enterprise. Locally they take the name Whipjacks and are led by Three-Fingers Yobor, a Pilaani female missing the second finger and pinky of her right hand. While they are deeply involved in the comings and goings on the wharfside, and dabble in numbers games, backroom gambling loans and the fencing of stolen goods, they take no interest in city governance or the average citizen but permit nothing that might in any way interfere with their smuggling activities.Local Factions
Whipjacks
A waterfront criminal org focused on protection rackets, fraud and fencing stolen goods. They stick to Wharfside and the warehouses and taverns there, keeping a low profile most of the time. The warehouses of Talaganza are large and at least partly legitimate, but they also all seem to have a lot of older inventory that never seems to move. Commodore Three-Fingers Yobor sits at the top of the stack, but her role is not ceremonial; she is a busy woman with a small army of coordinators and directors who help in actually managing the shipments at the docks, which are perennially too small and crowded for the volume of traffic they receive. She also employs a small army of the Silver Legion for her own protection and to maintain law and order at the wharfside warehouses (and keep the cops out).| Rank Levels | Whipjacks Title | Tribute Paid |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scully | 90% |
| 2-4 | Midman/Midwoman | 45% |
| 5-8 | Rumjack | 25% |
| 9 | Uncle/Auntie | None |
| 10+ | Commodore | None |
Hogcleavers
The butchers' guild, which is on the one hand, completely legitimate dressers and sellers of Zebu - the main cattle in this equatorial region - and other beef, mutton, pork etc, but are on the other hand a group of ill-tempered, violent men and women who take perhaps a little too much enjoyment from the slaughter of animals. They operate more like a union than a gang but are vocal opportunists and self-aggrandizers. They are also highly egalitarian, with ranks based on proficiency and a flat tribute structure that benefits all rather than just the top. Most of the butchers in Talaganza are in fact, Master Butchers; the apprentices and journeymen work for them. A unique feature of the guild in Talaganza is that generally any one butcher works with an exclusive list of Kaalengi farms/ranches, and those farms work with only that Master butcher. Zebu meat is delicious and highly nutritious, but the tastes of the local populace and the Kaalengi tendency to measure wealth directly as heads of cattle make pork products a more popular meat. Sheep and lamb mutton as well as wild antelope venison are also popular. Chicken is widely popular and rabbit is everpresent but these are considered pottage, a homegrown rather than professionally rendered meat; butchers may trade in geese or turkey in season but most people just assume you keep your own chickens and rabbits. As an egalitarian organization the guild doesn't have a single official leader, but they have a spokesman to the Merchants' League, "Bloody" Wil Bowenchaw, who also manages a brisk but questionably legal bareknuckle boxing ring; since he directly drafts the laws he's so far managed to avoid incriminating himself, but there are questions about taxes as well as more serious concerns about fixed matches. Rank Levels Hogcleavers Title Tribute Paid 1-2 Apprentice Butcher 20% 3-4 Journeyman Butcher 10% 5+ Master Butcher 10% Silver Legion A private security force employed by those in the highest classes of wealth, including members of the Merchants League, the Commodore of the Mariners' Guild and Bloody Bowenchaw. Their headquarters are the city's Armory, where Legionnaires outnumber actual 'official' paid city militia by about 4 to 1. In contrast to the more numerous but less heavily armed city guard, the Legion considers itself a military rather than civil force. They have a lofty slogan in Cumaean that no one particularly follows or even can read, but they also have a widely repeated saying about the city itself that has stuck: In Talaganza there are no laws, only soldiers. Characterized by having an actual silver coin rivited into their skull above the right ear, they trace their roots offworld - and off the Material plane entirely - to the Harmonium faction of Sigil which is widely known to hire out as mercenaries under a variety of names on other planes. They work in independent units but will not fight each other, and should they be duped into fighting each other by an employer, whether by unscrupulous guile, ignorance or sheer stupidity, the whole of the faction will make vengeance against that employer and all he or she holds dear to be their highest priority until it is accomplished. Their leader is Archconsul Infinity Road, a level 20 Shadar-Kai Warlock. Rank Levels Silver Legion Title Tribute Paid 1-2 Legionnaire 20% 3-5 Optio 10% 6-9 Centurion 10% 10-13 Tribune 10% 14-16 Legate 5% 17-19 Consul 0% 20 Archconsul 0%History
- Established by native Kaalengi tribal stock approximately 1200 years ago as a permanent port on the Ngoma Bay.
- Later rebuilt and significantly improved into a wealthy colonial city of Minon.
- Granted independence in 12014, though the cultural influence of Minon is still very strong.
Points of interest
Architecture
Colonial Minonoise, favoring pastel colors, soft plasters and pastry-like crenellations and other details; most of the buildings are better described as complexes, multiple structures built into each other with various entrances and means of getting from one section to another without going back outside. Many buildings, especially in the lower parts of town are build on stilts or supported by cables connected to large palms. Others are built flimsy and simply rebuilt after damage in a storm. The local brick is a bright orange color, and the sand is a powdery orange as well, due to the high concentrations of iron in the soil.
Climate
Oppressively hot, and seasonally in the winter and summer when the planet's tilt has the most impact on the weather along its latitude well below the equator; spring and fall can be desert dry, by comparison, favoring plants that can grow quickly in the presence pf water but go dormant in dry seasons, such as bamboos and canteen palms.
Founding Date
10890
Type
Large town
Population
2300
Inhabitant Demonym
Talaganzans
Location under
Related Reports (Primary)
Related Reports (Secondary)
Comments