Tsewa
"In the Marrow, there is a spring where the water runs cool as a mountain stream at noon, and near boiling at midnight. They call it the Fountain of Uriah and it is where the Temekanians received the signs of their divinity." — Mithril Mysteries
The Tsewa Oasis is an urban oasis in Nioa between the Gypsum Forest and the Quicksand Seas in the Marrow Desert. Tsewa is the largest permanent settlement in the Marrow Desert and one of the most isolated, populated mostly by Marrowmen and Qartagonian settlers. It is the seat of the Emirate of Tsewa, a protectorate of the Qartagonian Emirates and the staging grounds for most of the Qartagonian's raids into the Pilgrim-controlled Mashiq.
Demographics
Government
Tsewa is a protectorate of the Qartagonian Emirates and the seat of the Emirate of Tsewa. However, unlike the other Emirates which are each governed by a hereditary prince, the Emir of Tsewa is a career official elected by the other Emirs in Qartago to serve as the Emir in the territory. That said, the real legislative and judicial power in Tsewa comes from the Elders of Atura, a council of Marrowmen elders who have held Tsewa as a neutral ground for all Marrowmen tribes since the Mithril Era. While the Elders are supposed to go to the Emir for approval of all policies and rulings they make, the Emirs of Tsewa often find themselves going to the Marrowmen for assistance with domestic issues because of the populace's full support of the council and their wary attitude towards the Qartagonian establishment.
Defences
Tsewa is protected by a large rock outcropping called the Throne of Tiakken, upon which a sandstone fortress is built. A series of tunnels connects the outcropping to the town. Once these tunnels were submerged in the waters of the oasis itself, but they have since been pumped clear. During a raid from a scourge of Tlincali or a hostile tribe of Marrowmen, villagers flee beneath these tunnels and escape to the fortress where they can wait out the danger. The tunnels themselves can also be flooded from the Throne to prevent raiders from taking the fortress.
Industry & Trade
The export of dates and olive oil provide the chief source of income in Tsewa, supplemented by basketry and salt mining at the outer salt water pools. A small silver mine thirty-four kilometers to the west provides some more mineral wealth, though little of it is of a high enough quality to trade for. The oasis is also filled with fish and the abundance of animal life nearby makes for easy hunting and herding. Small fields of wheat, barley, and rice reeds surround the most fertile of the five large pools, but not enough grain is produced for anything other than subsistence agriculture within the town itself.
History
During the Mithril Era, the Temekanian Empire established Tsewa as its southernmost settlement and a place of great cultural and religious importance. The largest of the oasis's pools, the Fountain of Uriah, is coldest at noon and pleasingly warm at night and believed to be a place sacred to the Sun Radiant. For this reason, new Pharaohs of Temekan were required to be baptized in the cleansing waters of the Fountain to claim their divine right to the throne. The Pharaohs would make more frequent pilgrimages throughout their reign, each time bathing in the pure blue waters to cement their rule and reestablish themselves as God-Kings of the Great House. They would then pay their respects to what most consider to be the oldest temple to Uriah in Holos, the Oracle of Atura, in order to gain wisdom and insight from the holy monks that continue to reside there to this day.
Some claim that the connection between Uriah and Tsewa has its genesis in the Sun Radiant's courtship of the Temekanian Princess Salama, as recounted in the "The Origin of Iskendra." Those who ascribe to this theory contend that the Fountain of the Uriah is also the mythical Garden of the Sun where Uriah first showed himself to the Princess and where the gods first created mortal kind. However, no evidence has ever been found at Tsewa connecting it to the Garden of the Sun and it is equally possible that the area's connection to Uriah is an apocryphal development than actual history.
Architecture
Most of the inhabitants of Tsewa reside in mudbrick dwellings with reed-thached roofs. Those influential members of society usually live on the outcroppings of the Thrones themselves in sandstone structures. A wyvernry for Qartagonian wyverniers is located on the summit of the Throne of Salama.
Geography
Two rock outcrops provide the sites of the old walled settlement of Tsewa, which act as veritable fortresses protecting the town. The rock outcrops are called the Throne of Tiakken and the Throne of Salama, and are said to date back to the "Origin of Iskendra." The oasis itself has five major pools of fresh water and several more smaller oases beyond them and dozens of salt ponds that form an exterior of the formation. The fresh water of the oasis provides a great deal of lush vegetation for agriculture and habitability.
Natural Resources
The most important resource of Tsewa is also its most obvious—fresh water. Tsewa is the only source of reliable freshwater in the central Marrow Desert. While other springs are surrounded by quicksand lakes or controlled by warring tribes of Marrowmen, the fortresses protecting Tsewa and its cultural significance means that it is the safest place in the Marrow to draw water. The Tsewa Oasis is extremely fertile and supports thousands of date palms and olive trees. In fact the word, tsewa may derive from an Old Temekanian word for "place of the palms." Salt, silver, and foodstuffs makes up the rest of the oasis's natural resource wealth.
Alternative Name(s)
Fountain of Uriah
Type
Town
Population
7,000
Related Ethnicities
Inhabitant Demonym
Tsewan
Included Locations
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