Etezja (Et-ez-shaw)

Etezja is the cradle and throne of the Empire of Calazen, home of countless emperors and demigods. It is the seat of imperial authority, which connects the rulers to the ancient gods who once walked here. It is also a bustling metropolis, a city grown fat on the loot of millennia and insulated by the vastness of empire.
Approached by the river, Etezja is a wall of green farmland and white plaster walls that bursts outwards across the horizon, annihilating the desert and replacing it with unending cityscape. A massive dam, a white wall with enormous divine statues connected to it, blocks the river and serves as the gate to the true city. Beyond the dam is a large lake, which the city circles in a great ring. Irrigation canals feed the water into the surrounding land; pristine islands, forbidden to foreign bodies, beckon with fine manors and towers from the center.

City Districts

The city has eight main districts, the larger of which are broken into many small boroughs. At the edge of the city, beyond the dams, there are the Palm Districts - semi-agricultural areas that are dominated by the New Money factorial manufacturers (not factories, per se - just workshops and work areas that seek to produce on a larger scale). The Palms are not quite part of the city, and don't get much infrastructure funding - they are their own collection of villages that have been taken over by wealthy merchants, and are treated as such by those in power. The Palms are where you find enormous date farms, pottery kilns, palm oil foundries, and prism food assembly (where minerals are mixed in specific ratios and packaged for sale across the empire). The Palms are a mixture between old village peasants and imported Indentured servants and Bound thralls. West of the city is also the Bastion, a satellite settlement and citadel ruled entirely by military cult and home to Etezja's primary prison. 
Moving closer into the city, you've got the twin dam districts. On the Western side is the Godshome, the Southern half of Old Etezja that has been transformed into a commercial district and pilgrim's site. The Godshome is a hodgepodge of wealthy newcomers and poorer folks who were grandfathered in (several families over history have been granted protection from rent hikes as long as they live on the same plots, and some households still pay their landlords in cowry shells), and welcomes pilgrims and merchants from across the Nediran world and beyond. Foods of all kinds can be found here, and you can meet all kinds of people by just sitting in a cafe, tavern, or public waystation and waiting. Godshome is also home to a number of amazing sights: the Lightweaver shops (mystic photography), the Peacock Crypt (a center of hero cult where the bodies of Ghavi and Jade are preserved and guarded), the Divine Courthouse, and Yenta Square are all here. Yenta Square is a wonder in itself; it is a massive plaza with the Courthouse on one end and a massive statue of the Goddess Tishalla rising from the lake on the other end. It is beautifully decorated, eternally bustling, and hosts some of the greatest annual festivities to be found, but its most wondrous details are some of the smallest - the Steps of God, marked on the white stone with black tile, are the marked steps that the mortal incarnation of Tishalla once took, and are one of the holiest sites in Nedira.
North of the Godshome is the City of Blood, a walled-off district reserved for those of highest caste. The City of Blood contains the Imperial palace, the palace-temple of Tishalla, and the Rising Temple of Sacred Blood - a memorial complex devoted entirely to recording and visually representing the long lines of divine descent in elaborate stone monuments, basically the most ornate and detailed family tree possible. 
Moving East of the Godshome and City of Blood, there is the great lake. Its waters are forbidden for foreigners to touch (merchants must hire local freighters to transport their goods across the lake), and fishing rights are granted only to the oldest families. Its islands are lovely manors and temples, clubhouses for reclusive nobles and old shrines to spirits of traditions past. The most notable of these is the Dragonhall, a hub for Sudraco sales, where the finest mounts are shown off and sold for enormous sums. 
The majority of people live in either the North Rim or South Rim of the lake. The South Rim is the most densely packed and congested, a mess of small artisans, peddlers, workshops, laborers, and part-time farmers. It might be considered the urban half of the lake, as the agricultural canals must muscle their way through rising apartment housing to reach the edge of town. The North Rim, meanwhile, prioritizes farming over city, and the city blocks are densely packed outposts of city amidst the rice and maize fields. Noble manors tend to gravitate to the North Rim, and the mill-banks of the North are wealthier and more generous. Both rims are composed of many distinct neighborhoods and communities. 
And lastly there is the Eastwall District, traditional home of the Equites (merchant caste) and something of a scattered commercial district. Parts of this part of town are reserved by ancient laws for ranching, and this is the most animal-rich part of the city for certain. There are the horse, cow, and Sudraco ranches; the Grand Calazan Menagerie is here; the slaughterhouses are here; the meat salting and packing shops are here. In between the ranches, butchers, and the like is a spiderweb of different neighborhoods, client families gathered around the Equite manors like shells around eggs.

Demographics

1 million humanoids live in Etezja. 50% are hybrids, 25% are humans, 10% are prisms, 10% are dryads, and 5% are others.
Most people here are of the Freeman caste, with a reasonable number of small Freeholders and sizable Indentured and Bound communities; and then of course there are the Equites, Familiars, and nobles who live here as well.

Government

Etezja is theoretically the personal property and greater throne of the Imperial monarch of the Empire of Calazen, as well as the seat of power for the Governor of Yenesa below them, but both rely heavily on local officials to do much of the governing. A steward-mayor, known as the Imperial Accountable, acts as the imperial representative and local mayor. Etezja is also the heart of the empire's grand bureaucracies, from the ministries to the Nediran temple. The Hero Cults and aristocracy are more spread out and decentralized but the imperial court draws in notables from those as well. It is a massive mess of important imperial notables, all of whom assume their power is near-limitless and who regularly arrive and exit in a storm of ego and personality.
To preserve the city's order in the face of such a tempest of prestige, the Accountable and city officials are given a great deal of power and insulation - just as the notables are quarantined in various corners of the city to prevent them from making a mess out of places that the majority of the population actually live in. Unfortunately, this has a tendency to turn the city government into an insular, arbitrary mess that can easily turn into a tiny cult or tyranny under the wrong person. This makes the Accountable a very unpopular office that attracts only the most loyal, the most callous, or the worst intentioned. The current Accountable, Sartheb Skarlenin, fits in the "callous" category; he is a capable and ambitious politician who cares little for commonfolk's opinions or happiness. That isn't to say he's a bad mayor, just that his positive actions are largely for the sake of efficiency. His administration is competent and effective - not genius or brilliant or even peak efficiency, just above-average enough to make this massive city run without anyone really noticing. Sartheb's real talent is political. He has a way of accumulating gossip and information that scares the upper aristocracy and does a great job of keeping factions or plots from forming within the city boundaries.
The city is not the Accountable's little autocracy, though; there are other structures in play that allow the local elites to direct things around. There are three local institutions that do this: the Council of Supreme Equites, the Etezja Revenue Commission, and the Council of Waters. The Council of Supreme Equites are the leading merchants of the city, who handle most guild matters. The Revenue Commission manages the mills, the local banks, and the tax collection system. And the Council of Waters manages the irrigation, sewer system, dams, and lake access. One is psuedo-aristocratic; one is meritocratic bureaucracy; and one is semi-religious imperial bureaucracy. Together (and with a little encouragement from the Accountable), they keep the basic infrastructure functional.
The actual monarch, Empress Kitiva V, is an incredibly competent and well-rounded ruler who is incredibly knowledgable in navigating the Calazan imperial system. While not a good person per say (not even a bad person; just a woman who was raised for a job and sure is focused on doing that job and surviving), Kitiva is capable and sees to the empire (and city) running smoothly, which makes her a very popular figure. Kitiva's teenage daughter, Princess Toriska, is governor of Yenesa and also stationed in the city. Toriska is an impatient hothead, but one that is able to hide those impulses for bursts of time under a shining aura of stoic etiquette. She loves gossip, sorcery, and war, and is already a court adept and sorcerous genius - she just avoids doing any administration, learning any theology, or mastering battle strategies in favor of more personal combat training and court intrigue. This has left most of her work to her mother, who constantly tries to wrangle Toriska into learning the proper arts of ruling.

Defences

Etezja's old walls have long since been recycled for building materials; no defenses encircle the city as a whole. Instead, fortresses in the desert ward off potential raids, the dams are fortified against river attacks, and the palace complex is fortified. The local Imperial Guard garrisons, Hero cults, and Equites also provide protection in case of a sudden attack.

Industry & Trade

Etezja is a vast city with extremely varied trades and industries. The majority of production here is small-scale or household production, done by small families coordinating with larger guild organizations. Free workers do artisanal work (textile production being the number one industry), city labor (such as construction work), and work as peddlers and minor merchants who help sell goods for the neighbors and extended families. Unfree indentured and bound workers are used for the larger, more consolidated industries, which are stronger on the fringes of the city but can be found in virtually every district. The guilds and the big industries are not fond of one another as a general rule, though individual guilds and businesses have been known to make deals and alliances.
Guild-dominated industries include weaving, tailoring, cobblering, apothecary work, carpentry, silk production, dye production and use, brickmaking, and plastering. Big businesses dominate the date farming, palm oil, pottery, smithing, prism-food preparation, and cotton preparation industries. State-connected merchants dominate the construction and stone carving industries, and operate in their own insular world of government contracts. 
Then there are the protected industries, which are illegal for families without specific government permission to enter. Most of these are kept to upper or old upper-middle class families, or to client families with such old relationships to their patrons that they are practically civil institutions. These include alchemy, fishing, Giant Lobster farming, printing, and Sudraco ranching. The printing and sudraco ranching in particular are important: printing privileges give those rare families who can snag them immense power over the public, and those caught illegally printing face harsh punishments; and sudracos are a symbol of elite, military, and imperial power, so anyone who trades in them is going to be both prestigious and well-connected.
One particularly interesting protected trade is Lightweaving, which is relegated to a small number of very old families associated with the Hero Cults. This trade is essentially primitive photography that uses alchemical silver, sunlight, asphalt, and glass. It is an extremely rare trade that is kept secret under order of the Imperial Line - not that most of the lightweavers actually fully understand what makes the mystical rituals of the trade work. But the great news is that anyone with enough treasure to burn can get their own black-and-white preserved silvergraph here!

Infrastructure

The water infrastructure is the key to the city's operations: a complex network of canals, sewers, reservoirs, cisterns, and sand filtration reserves keep the city functional. The cornerstones of this infrastructure are the two great dams - the Western Jadewater Dam and the Eastern Princewall Dam. These huge dams help regulate the water levels of the city lake and act as the central water hubs for the rest of the city; they are also massive monuments of imperial power, dedicated to Jade Atharzen and God-Prince Ghavi respectively. The Council of Waters, a hero cult that serves the Empress directly and is associated with Orchid of Blue (and, once upon a time Agamine the Lost ), maintains and monitors the water system and is based out of hidden temple complex embedded in each dam. They also constantly measure water quality, height, and ecosystems, and store this data in highly compressed stone carved formats that only they can read fully. This archive is itself a wonder, providing eco-data for almost 2000 years. 
The sewer system is a mixed bag, but is surprisingly functional given the city's enormous size. The newer districts have yet to be included, and the North rim lacks an organized sewer system, but the South rim somehow has managed to make a stable, sanitary underground sewer system with extremely limited indoor plumbing. 
Much of the city is a mix between carefully planned infrastructure projects and large-scale popular improvisation. The roads are a mix of imperial cobblestone and dusty informal alleyways; people build illegally everywhere, but imperial bureaucrats regularly trim the excessive and dangerous examples. Some initiatives, like the attempt to use shuttered mirrors to create non-fuel-based residential lighting, have been repurposed by local communities to their own ends. Parks and memorials have been turned into common herding grounds in places; the ancient public theater has become a market.

Guilds and Factions

The Imperial Court and Nobility: The presence of the imperial court attracts many individuals of great power to this city, and the court factions extend outwards from the City of Sacred Blood into the metropolis beyond. You have the Yeneven Faction (which wants more power concentrated in the central bureaucracy and more riches siphoned towards the central heartlands), the Atharzan Faction (which wants more power and wealth given to the major families, benefitting the prism clans and rural aristocrats), the Shinima Faction (which wants more power and wealth invested in merchant networks and the navy), and the Mikosian Faction (which seeks an expanded united military).
The Central Priesthood of Nedira: The central religious-judicial institution of Calazen, based out of Etezja and led by the Supreme Divine. They run both the religious and the secular courts, as well as the festivals and the holiday exemptions (licenses for merchants or shops to sell goods during state holidays). They also manage the rights of the assorted foreign religions present in Etezja. They are incredibly bureaucratic and a force for order in the city, with close ties to the various imperial ministries and the education system. They also manage the crimes that the city guard can't handle, and have squads of priest-detectives on the hunt for any spree killers, embezzlers, or criminal syndicates in town.
The Ministry of Revenue: The Ministry of Revenue is one of the big pillars of imperial government, and is locally managed by the Etezja Commission of Revenue. These folks collect taxes and run the ten Millhouses: giant milling complexes that also act as banks and tax assessment centers. These millhouses give loans, store goods, do estate auctions, and host local markets - they are forces of popular commerce that the everyday residents respect as a critical institution. Mess with these bureaucrats and you might find yourself very locally unpopular indeed. The ministers of revenue carry a perpetual dance of hot-and-cold affection with the old money Equites Superior, the new money Equites Exterior, and the Clergy.
The Imperial Guard: The Ministry of War runs the Imperial Guard, and they are the number one player in the city's defense and policing; the city guard relies on Imperial Guard funding and surplus manpower, and the two are basically one organization. The Empress keeps them close and feeds them well, and they take corruption within their ranks extremely seriously. They prefer neutrality in most things.
The Equites Superior: An Equite is a title-granted merchant of high status, a rich person that has reached the pinnacle of what wealth alone can do for one's status in the Empire. They are expected to provide funding for local infrastructure projects, they are used as advisors on trade matters, and they are expected to either have a warhorse and armor to act as a cavalry auxiliary in wartime or the fat stacks of cash to hire at least one trained horseman in their stead. An Equite Superior is what happens when some merchants just don't think that level of juicy status is enough; they have to be better than those other fat commercial cats. An Equite Superior comes from old money; they are proud merchants of ancient merchant line, who can explain how their ancient ancestor sold very high quality copper to the warrior-gods of old. They also need to be bonkers loaded with the good stuff (gold, bb). They provide the emergency funds for major disasters, help provide loans for government projects, and launch infrastructure projects to help maintain their status as the Old Money Gods. They also promise to do better than provide horse cavalry - each Equite Superior represents at least one Sudraco Cataphract (heavily armored cavalry).
The Equites Exterior: The Old Money has a natural enemy: New Money, the nightmare infants who keep insisting on new technology and family trees that don't encourage collecting congenital illnesses. The big new money rollers are the Equites Exterior, the innovators who come from the corners of the empire to try and open up new industries in Etezja. They have big factorial estates and mines and workshops back home, but they need to compete for imperial privileges and connections if they wanna be Big Shots - and that has to be here. Hated by the Equite Superior. Also own most of the unfree labor and big workshops in town.
The Cult of Apotheosis: A hero cult unlike any other, which teaches bardism, blesses the fields, and helps operate local hospitals, and also awaits the end of the world. Hints of Vetevism permeate their rituals and beliefs, and they manage luxury imports from Nafena.
The Cult of Ghavi: The most prestigious and skilled of the hero cults, which defends the sacred crypts and help protect the imperial palace.

Architecture

Etezja loves its big buildings and fancy styles. Buildings often sport more columns than necessary, rise into drill-shaped towers, or stack on themselves like ziggurats. Any building with dignity in this city secretly wants to be a pyramid or a ziggurat, and the city is full of different centuries of styles that all tried to make that happen in different ways. It makes for an impressive skyline, and those who can fly see the city as a vast spike pit.
Inside this monumental glory are a lot of vaulted ceilings and intricately made ventilation systems; Etezja's spires often create gusts of wind going upwards, which pulls hot air out of the vents and creates a natural airflow. More dense buildings, like apartment complexes, help this along with community evaporation coolers. Vents are often tastefully hidden in the "squinches", or corner compressions in the vaulted ceilings. The large vents have made for great drama in Calazan novels and plays - perfect for someone to spy on someone else in either a political thriller or a comedy. Etezja's South rim also has a lot of sunken courtyards, which provide nice community spaces for escaping the summertime heat.

Geography

Etezja sits along the Calazin river, in the central region of Yenesa. It sits on the Southern bank of the small river-lake of Mwitesh, near where the River Kwen joins the Calazin. The desert feels far away from this fertile lake area; the land is green here, and only when one ventures to the Southern edge of the city does it fade to yellow shrubland and then distant white sand. 
The lake and river are carefully controlled by the Calazan dams, and the landscape has been carefully curated.

Natural Resources

Dates grow here; mines made for prism food extraction churn out occasional bits of valuable ore.

Founding Date

-1500 DE

Type

Capital

Population

1,000,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Etezjen

Location under

Inahng

Owning Organization

Empire of Calazen