Maltari
Situated on the edge of the Middle Underdark, the village of Maltari is a community which is notable for one thing, the rare gemstone Kinitiki. Maltari’s position near the Crystal Caverns and the natural stealth of its inhabitants means that it is the largest miner and refiner of the gemstone in the entirety of the Underdark, and it is from this village that most of the Kinitiki circulating in the Underdark and the surface world originates.
Demographics
The village is a single-species community made up of Deep Gnomes.
On the whole almost all of the village’s inhabitants are of a similar economic level, principally because they all work in the extraction or refinement of Kinitiki, but occasionally individuals who find particularly large or fine crystals are able to pull themselves above the majority of the community in terms of affluence.
Government
Maltari is governed by a council of elders, individuals who are too old or infirm to work, but who can still lend their wisdom and knowledge in the aid of the community. The council of elders commands great respect in the village and it is rare that any of Maltari’s inhabitants goes against its will.
Defences
For the most part, the village of Maltari relies on its positioning, along a ridge-line for its defence, though watch towers have been built at the northern and southern extremes of the community to provide early warning of trouble and to provide fortified positions that can be defended. The town doesn’t have a dedicated military organisation, but instead relies on a rota of its inhabitants for its protection, with each adult over a certain age acting as a member of the militia for a certain number of days each year.
In addition, the architecture of the majority of the town’s buildings – see below – means that the individual houses themselves are easily defensible if the need arises.
Industry & Trade
Maltari is reliant on a single industry, the extraction of Kinitiki gemstone from the Crystal Caverns to the east and south.
Infrastructure
The village benefits from lying on a direct route between the Upper and Middle Underdark, meaning that a regular volume of trading traffic passes through the community, though certainly not to the extent that it would pass through one of the Underdark's major arteries.
In addition, the community has worked hard to ensure that all of its inhabitants have access to clean water, through the excavation of several communal wells, though the population is mostly reliant on trade for a secure food supply.
Guilds and Factions
As the village is the sole regular source of Kinitiki in the Underdark, the Merchant Council of the city of Frax maintain a small embassy in Maltari, which has become the de facto trading house for the gemstone in the community. The Maltarites bring their haul of Kinitiki to the embassy, where it is weighed and bought on behalf of the Merchant Council by their deputies, who then sell it on, for a profit of course, to traders who come directly to the village to source the gems, or arrange for it to be caravanned back to Frax.
In addition, whilst there has been no formal declaration on the part of the Maltarites to confirm this, the Covenant of the Deep regard the village as being under their protection, which in fairness has led to the roads and tunnels around the village being regarded as being ‘safer’ and traded goods arriving at the village being slightly cheaper of late, but it is hard to definitively pin these changes to the Covenant per say, as they could just as well be the result of natural fluctuations in the way of things. Regardless, the inhabitants of Maltari regard members of the Covenant who openly declare themselves with more tolerance and openness that most other communities would, very much taking the line that they will not interfere in the Covenant’s business, so long as they don’t do anything that leads to the detriment of the community.
Architecture
As the village is located on a ridge-line, its eastern section is a sheer drop down to the floor of the tunnel in the Middle Underdark where it is situated. This, combined with a lack of readily available building material, means that almost all of the village’s buildings have been carved into the rock wall of the tunnel on the western side of the ridge. The building tend to be basic in form, little more than a series of square interconnecting rooms excavated into the rock in a horizontal plane, though some buildings have multiple floors, and some effort has gone into making a larger communal spaces, such as the town’s only tavern, the Overlook.
In many parts of the town, dwellings have been excavated into the rock wall above others, with carved stone staircases or even just carved ladders providing access.
Geography
Maltari is set on a ridge-line, where a downward sloping tunnel from the Upper Underdark intersects with a much larger tunnel in the Middle Underdark. This ridge-line gives the village height above its surroundings in the tunnel, affording it some natural defence from creatures originating from the Middle Underdark and it also gives it a direct point of access to the layer of the Underdark above it, which facilitates trade.
To the north the tunnel that the village lies in peters out into several smaller passages, whilst it continues to the south, with branches near the village leading east into the Crystal Caverns. A junction near the village to the west leads into the enormous cavern wherein lies the Lake of Tears.
Over the centuries that the village has existed, its inhabitants have discovered many secret ways whilst excavating their dwellings into the rock walls of the ridge-line, many of which lead via more circuitous, though safer routes into the Crystal Caverns, where the Maltarites extract the Kinitiki gemstone that is so vital for their community’s survival.
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