Dusty Dugout
Government
Dusty Dugout is one of the few villages that is not ruled by Colony Miinu, and this is by choice. They refuse to let the town be ran by a colony and instead pick a mayor based on town vote. Currently the mayor is Mayor Hal, a stinkbug.
The town's sheriff Comet also has a role in creating and enforcing laws in town, and his family was one of the few responsible for farming food for the town.
Geography
The town is located inside the mouth of a large cavern in the Bituin Sand Dunes. The inside of the cave is kept cool from the sun and safe from dust storms. The cave is on average rather small, about 3 feet in diameter and requiring a human to have to crouch to traverse, but the size is perfectly reasonable for Miinu, who are able to crawl through even the smallest passages that a human would get stuck trying to squeeze through. The town is built about 10 feet into the cave from the mouth, while farmland tends to be closer to the mouth where light from the sun outside can hit it. Near town is about 4 foot drop where there is a underground reservoir of fresh water that they use. Beyond the reservoir is even deeper cave systems where snakes and lizards tend to hide during hot days, and are a danger to explore alone as a result. A few of the tunnels have been converted into mines to gather resources for the town.Architecture & Infrastructure
The houses are simple and made from stone and bramble wood. Many of them a small with an open plan, consisting of no more than a few rooms. Many do not even have bathrooms as there is a public bathhouse and outhouse the town uses. Water is brought in through a ground water reservoir found in the lower levels of the cave and stored in a water tower in town. The town is lit by torches and Glow Mushrooms, though most residents own a lantern for wandering around town in the dark. The most light the town gets is what filters in from the mouth of the cave, but the town sits quite far from the mouth to avoid the heat. There is a very large wooden barricade near mouth that is drawn in emergencies such as wind storms. There is a tavern/inn in town that most of the community meet at, a city hall, a blacksmith, a general store, a schoolhouse and a jail/sheriff's station where Comet lives. It also is home to the Moth Wing Church which was built shortly after the arrival of Father Clementine. Next to the church is a mortuary ran by Curculio. Deeper down is a miner's station for the mines. In-between those are residential homes, and farmhouses.History
It's said that the town was built by some of the many nomadic tribes that had left the safety of the cities to strike it out on their own, only to be met with the harsh, unsurvivable conditions of the desert. When the cavern was found and water inside was discovered, the tribes decided to settle down inside. Their camps would turn to more permanent houses and eventually a town.
Many of the founders were people who strongly disliked the hive system and social hierarchy and they refused to let any Queens take over the town, even killing Queens who tried to bully their way into the territory. They were determined to take care of themselves, and they formed their own government, with a mayor that the townsfolk voted in.
Unfortunately, this independence as well as their ideal location made them a prime target for other tribes that wanted to take it for themselves, stealing and destroying the crops in large bandit raids. Eventually they needed to upgrade their defenses, and the sheriff was given a small, hand crafted firearm similar to how the humans protected themselves, able to easily mine the resources needed to create gunpowder.
One of those raids severely hurt their crops for that year and forced the town to have to ration food, leading to some members of the community to pass away from starvation. Desparate to get some food while the farms recovered, the mayor made the controversial decision to make a trade deal with the Termite Hive. While it helped the townsfolk not stave, it was a generally poorly received decision, as many feared this was how the Termites would weasel their way into having power in the town.
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