Teer Mesa

Clinging to a cliff face, and spreading slowly out into the desert, the city of Teer Mesa reflects its people in two ways.
1. It is steadfast and rugged
2. it is divided, right down the middle.

Demographics

Humans, dwarves, gnomes, and genasi all dwell within Teer Mesa, though the overall population is heavily weighted toward humans and genasi due to the commonality of both human performers in the area at large, and Elemental Plane Frays near the city.
Most make their lives in the city operating farms within the arable lands beneath the shade of the plateau, however many performers travel between the city itself and the nearby Cirque du Sphinx encampment.
A small population mostly comprised of humans live in stately manors on the portion of the city built atop the mesa, making gold hand over fist in the spice trade, and tariffs on magical items traveling between Teer Mesa and the southern outlet of the Stillflats past Sweetwater, or else selling water to travelers heading north toward Sheercliff or Rustpit.

Government

Teer Mesa is governed in part by a collective council of merchants, fittingly named the Trade guild, living on the plateau who control most trade and tax. Criminal justice, and public works are governed near entirely by the twin churches of Shade and Flame.

Industry & Trade

Teer Mesa exports a wide variety of art in the form of pottery and mosaic, as well as some excess crops, however the primary good of Teer Mesa is its plane-touched Spices.
Teer Mesa is additionally situated in such a way as to be one of the only through paths to quickly travel or transport goods past the Tarrakon mountains, and additionally is able to routinely turn out pre-shatter technology found in ruins in the surrounding desert.

Infrastructure

Being that it is bisected by a cliff, much trade in Sheercliff is forced to pass through the Trade Guild's Level Interconnecting Freight Transitions, or LIFTs.
A number of fountains throughout the city connected by aqueducts provide clean drinking water to anyone inside the city, though the flow is too slow, and the basins too shallow, for anyone to feasibly collect enough water for a long trip out of the city.
Additionally, plans to build a, "sandmill" powered by the nearby Lumeneye have been brought to the Trade Guild, though no actions to construct such a device have been taken yet.

Guilds and Factions

The Trade Guild of Teer Mesa organizes and profits heavily from the trade of spices, artifacts, and art through Teer Mesa, and therefore serves as a governing body with control over the trade and tariffs of Teer Mesa.
Separately from Teer Mesa's merchants are the rival churches of Shade and Flame, both worshiping their own goddess and enacting their form of law and justice in their territories.

History

Teer Mesa was formed directly after the Shattering caused the floating city that once resided over the plains below it to fall into what very swiftly became the Powdered deserts of the Stillflats. Survivors of the city's fall had little choice but to remain in place and settle under the shelter of the plateau, boxed in by sheer cliffs and desert to the north, and their own plateau to the south.
Not long after its fall, the people began worshiping the concepts of the shade of the mesa, that let them survive the harsh heat of the desert in the day, and the flame created by burning the old wood of the city, which kept them from freezing in the frigid desert nights.
By the time the survivors' children's children had been discovered, Teer Mesa had long since burrowed through its stone to the arable highlands above, and had become a self sufficient trade checkpoint between the recently founded dwarven hold of Sheercliff, and the soon-to-be founded village of sweetwater.

Founding Date

2 P.S.

Type

City

Inhabitant Demonym

Mesans