Tec'Tahos
Nestled within a wide, fertile valley carved by ancient rivers and shielded on all sides by the jagged arms of the Crucible Mountains, the legendary walled city of Tec'Tahos rises like a golden crown. It is the beating heart of the Tahosian Dynasty, a vast and venerable empire that has endured war, worship, and wonder for thousands of years. With its roots stretching back to the fall of the Ak’teshi Empire, Tec'Tahos stands atop the bones of the ancient city of Garheim, whose shattered walls were repurposed by freed slaves into the foundations of a new civilization.
Positioned on the eastern shores of the Ak'tuin Gulf, Tec'Tahos is both a spiritual and strategic jewel. Its radiant adobe ziggurats reflect the noonday sun across the waves, while its sprawling districts spill outward like arms embracing the jungle, their streets trimmed with polished jade and gold. From this sacred city, emperors and empresses rule and have ruled with divine mandate, advised by mortals chosen by the Living Gods themselves. It is a city where great scaled beasts plod through sunlit boulevards, ancestral spirits whisper from temple altars, and obsidian-clad warriors mounted upon tyrannosaurs patrol through its busy streets and alleys. Built to mirror the natural cradle of the valley in which it rests, Tec'Tahos descends in monumental tiers, like the bowl of a mighty offering to the gods. Each level of the city clings to the slopes of the valley, carved from ancient stone and gilded with gold. From the soaring temple-districts above to the bustling markets below, the city flows downward toward its sacred heart: The Ring of Claws—a colossal coliseum sunk into the ground said to rest directly atop the site where Tahos first declared the establishment of the Empire. The grandeur of Tec’Tahos is not without its challenges. The city is a labyrinth of endless steps and steep switchbacks that spiral up ziggurats and weave between towering temples. However, throughout the city, levitating stone discs float up and down dedicated channels carved into stairways and cliff-faces. These enchanted platforms are made of sanctified basalt and gold-veined stone, animated by the same spirit-magic that empowers the Dynasty’s sacred golems and wards. They ferry the weary, the old, the wounded, and the colossal beasts of burden between the innumerable tiers of the city. For pilgrims, nobles, merchants, and the mounted citizens of the city, these divine lifts are both miracle and necessity.The Great Walls of Tec'Tahos
Surrounding the city are its fabled obsidian-plated walls, dark as night and veined with glowing ward-runes. Towering and smooth, their resiliance is further bolstered by a network of Obsidian spires scattered throughout the city. These obelisks hum with latent energy—infused obsidian is an anti-magical material so rare and potent that its trade and use are tightly regulated by the priesthood and state. When activated, the spires form an invisible shield across the city’s skies, defending Tec’Tahos from arcane siege and aerial assaults.
The Valley Beyond
Beyond the walls, a patchwork of tiered terrace farms wraps the city in emerald and gold. These stepped agricultural bastions ascend the valley's arms like layered crowns, cultivated for generations by dynastic farmers whose methods blend ancient spirit-worship with modern beast-labor. Hadrosaurs plow the terraces. Sauropods carry Water and harvested maize in gilded harness. And from these heights, one can see the endless, vibrant tangle of the Tahosian Jungle, which presses close to the farmlands.
Tec'Tahos' Canals
Water, ever sacred, flows through Tec’Tahos like blood through divine veins. A system of cascading waterfalls and canals pours down from the mountains, channeled through aqueducts and sacred sluices that glimmer in the sun. These crystal waters descend from tier to tier, feeding gardens, cleansing temples, and powering the great water-wheels of the lower districts, before spilling out into the dockyards, cliffsides, and the deep bays of the Ak’tuin Gulf. The city doesn’t simply endure within the wild—it thrives with it, shaped by water, by beast, and by the will of gods. It is not uncommon to see many floating stone discs or canoes using the flowing canals to navigate the compelx and multi-tiered waterways of Tec'Tahos.
Districts
Tec’Tahos is a city divided by its topography—the city’s shape mimics the bowl of the valley itself. At its center, the Ring of Claws roars with the breath of gods and champions; around it, the seven great districts spiral outward like petals of a sacred flower, or the plates of a golden serpent.
Each district is a living shrine to a great name from Tec'Tahos' storied past. Heroes, sages, generals, martyrs, and founders—those who shaped the soul of the Dynasty now lend their names to the very stones their descendants walk.
Mecatl Aht Zema, The Valley’s Center
Mecatl Aht Zema is the geographic center of Tec’Tahos and its metaphoric heart. The district is a monument to craft, motion, and blood-earned legacy. Everywhere, there are the chimes of bronze hammers, the hiss of cooling scales in a smith's trough, and the creak of saddles being tightened on a diverse array of beasts from across Tansia. Merchants call out from sun-dappled awnings as obsidian-bladed tools change hands, while incense wafts from artisan temples where carvers sculpt ancestor masks from petrified bone.
Public gardens and sacred wells are scattered throughout the district, tended not by nobles but by apprentices and elders alike. These green spaces are considered spiritually “open ground”—places where ancestor spirits may rest, or pass through on the Eve of Souls. Medicinal vines wind around obsidian markers, while little statuettes of beasts and family totems sit nestled among the roots. The wells themselves are fed by springwater filtered through layers of filtered, ancient aqueducts beneath the city.
Canals
The famous canals of Tec'Tahos are sacred arteries fed by mountain springs and jungle tributaries, flowing down from the upper terraces in gentle cascades, sluices, and waterfalls.
Throughout the day, the canals in the Valley's Center teem with motion. Narrow reed canoes, poled by barefoot merchants and ferry-priests, drift between market piers and temple steps. Decorated pleasure-barges carry noble families through incense-thick Air, their hulls adorned with blossoms and spirit-charms. And rising above them all, domesticated plesiosaurs—long-necked, sleek-bodied beasts of the Ak’tuin Gulf—glide through the deeper channels, their backs fitted with ornate saddles and palanquins. These aquatic mounts are rare and costly, symbols of prestige used by royal couriers, beast-masters, and high-ranking clergy.
In more ceremonial moments, flotillas of lantern-bearing skiffs drift silently across the water, especially during the Eve of Souls, when the canals are said to glow with spectral light, and the reflections of the dead can sometimes be glimpsed just beneath the surface.
The Ring of Claws
Dominating all within the Valley’s Center—physically, spiritually, and mythologically—is the Ring of Claws, a sacred coliseum carved into the beating heart of the valley itself. It is here, upon blood-slick basalt that Tahos first raised his voice and declared the dawn of the Dynasty. The Ring is a divine crucible, a theater of judgment where faith is tested by fury, and where mortals earn the right to be remembered.
Hewn from ancient crimson stone, the Ring descends in square terraces nearly two hundred feet deep, each level etched with geometric perfection and built for thousands of roaring spectators. Gilded balconies and private sky-boxes ring its upper tiers, reserved for nobles, foreign dignitaries, priesthoods, and avatars of the Living Gods. When the sun strikes the western ridge, the coliseum blazes like a wound crowned in Fire.
The Shifting Arena. The arena floor is a living mechanism of challenge and change. Carved with ancient geomantic magics—an inheritance from the Ak’teshi stone Giants—the floor is a mosaic of countless pillars, pressure plates, and hidden ducts. Under the command of ritual and will, the terrain shifts at a moment’s notice: pillars erupt skyward to form the arena terrain, flame jets spiral into the air, rivers of scalding water or molten stone burst from hidden vents. No warrior fights the same battle twice.
The Trialmaster. Presiding over it all is the Trialmaster—a great construct of stone, gold, blood Magic, and bound souls. It is a vessel of judgment, inhabited by the spirits of those who died upon the sands: champions, beastmasters, priests, executioners—each one offered willingly to the Ring in death. Through the Trialmaster’s eye, the Ring sees all. Through its voice, the arena speaks. With a word, it can summon sacred beasts, rearrange the battleground, or call down the gaze of a god.
A Multipurpose Temple of Blood and Honor. The Ring serves many roles in the life of the city and the Dynasty at large. It is the stage of the famed ōllamaliztli tournaments, where district teams clash beneath fluttering banners and the cheers of thousands. It hosts public executions where traitors and enemies of the state are given one final, fatal chance to prove their worth. In solemn rites, it holds Xo’tlach, sacred duels of honor demanded by personal grievance or divine decree.
But most feared, and most venerated, are the Trials of Claws—a grand gauntlet held once a year at the gods' command. Here, warriors, champions, and would-be legends from across the world face a brutal procession of the deadliest creatures in Tansia and beyond. Few endure the full gauntlet. Fewer still survive to claim glory.
When the Living Gods disagree, they do not wage war. They choose champions. And the Ring decides who among them speaks truth.
Few leave the Ring unchanged. Fewer still leave undefeated. And some never leave at all.
Warriors of The Valley
Surrounding the arena are countless workshops, stables, and gladiator halls, where hopefuls train under the banners of the noble houses that sponsor them. Some districts—like Neltec and Zema—send their favored sons here each year in the hopes of glory. These warriors live lives half-monastic, half-theatrical, dedicated to perfecting their craft and pleasing the gods with each strike and flourish.
On the Eve of Souls, the center of the city glows with firelight and devotion. Processions wind their way along the canals, accompanied by music and floating lanterns. Spirits are said to rise from the Ring and walk the streets in silence, watching the living carry forward what they once died to protect.
Nahatl Coatl, The Serpent Bazaar
To the east of the Valley’s Center coils Nahatl Coatl, the Serpent Bazaar, where the air thrums with the clash of coin and color, and commerce sings louder than prayer. Named for the twin serpentine canals that wind through the district like divine serpents basking in the sun, Nahatl Coatl is the beating mercantile heart of Tec’Tahos. Here, gold speaks, silver listens, and obsidian watches in silence.
The Coiling Sisters
The twin canals—the Coiling Sisters—glitter beneath bridges carved with scale motifs and lined in precious inlays. Their forked heads spill into mirror-pool gardens crowned with flowering trees, perfumed by orchids, and serenaded by flutes and stringed lutes. These gardens serve as open sanctuaries of leisure, where dancers in feathered masks whirl through sprays of mist, lovers stroll beneath hanging lanterns, and foreign dignitaries sip blood-fruit wine beneath silken pavilions.
The Bazaar
The Bazaar Proper sprawls out like a tangled jungle of fabric and fortune. Sun-dappled market lanes run beneath woven canopies dyed in sunset hues. Incense and spice-thick air clings to your lungs—cardamom, dried maize, river-salt, and the pungent musk of dinosaur hide. Merchants from all corners of the Dynasty (and beyond) peddle their wares: spirit-touched bone jewelry from The Necropolis, Khitang silks that shimmer like water, Vaskyrian whale-oil lanterns, glittering Iotian insect brooches, and cursed scrolls quietly sold beneath the shadowed archways of private tents.
Artisans work in open alcoves, carving fetishes from gemstone and horn, enchanting jade baubles with protective sigils, or weaving baskets strong enough to hold a hatchling tyrannosaur. Every ten paces, a crier bellows a new deal, a beast-handler leads a muzzled predator through the crowd, or a masked spirit-walker offers blessing for coin or favor.
The Obsidian Spire
The Obsidian Spire rises in the district’s northern heights, an arcane obelisk of black glass and volcanic stone that gleams with unnatural luster even in shadow. This is the Tec’Tahos headquarters of the Shaman’s Mantle, the empire’s arcane society and spiritual bureaucracy. Though not as revered as the great Library of Quetzali, the Obsidian Spire holds vital records, conducts Ley-line surveys, and enforces arcane law. Its presence is both a boon and a warning—many a merchant has found their stall mysteriously burned or frozen after selling counterfeit talismans or misused spirit relics.
The Spire is said to hum softly at night, tuned to the shifting pulse of the ley-lines. Pilgrims, seekers, and scribes climb its spiraling stairs to petition guidance or deliver rare magical texts. No one enters without being watched. Some say the spire remembers faces.
The Tec'Tahos Lodge
To the south stands the Tansian Lodge of the Hunter’s Keep—a fortress of high walls and scaled banners, where blooded veterans train the next generation of dinosaur tamers and monster-slayers. Clawed footprints are etched into the flagstones outside, the tremendous preserved spine of a gargantuan breast snakes its way up the center of the stairway ascent to the keep, and the cries of caged raptors echo through the morning air. The scent of blood, musk, and burning herbs lingers near its front gates. Bone-forged weapons and decorated harnesses hang proudly from its balconies, proof of the beasts felled and tamed within.
It is whispered that every cavalry beast in the Tahosian legions bears the sigil of this Lodge burned beneath its saddle.
Inside, towering murals depict hunts through the Tansin Wilds, the taming of a great spinosaurus, and the infamous duel between Grand Hunter Vorsha and Mawdeep, the great Wurm of the K'jatan Dunes—won only when Vorsha led the burrowing monstrosity it to a cliff edge, leaping and driving his spear into the creature’s exposed gullet mid-air when it burst forth from the side of the rock.
The Serpent Docks
Past the lodge, the city spills outward into the Serpent Docks—a stretch of moorings and carved stone quays that welcome traders from across the Ak’tuin Gulf. Here, K'jatan war-junks and great voyager canoes rest beside slender Vilantian clippers and longboats from Vaskyr. Massive cranes powered by the strength of scaled beasts lift cargo from ship to platform. Wharves bustle with shouting dockhands, lacquered customs officials, and beast-handlers corralling angry cargo.
It is a place of arrival, of risk and opportunity—where pirates bribe officials with sea-gold, where mercenaries sign contracts in blood, and where legends are loaded into crates beneath moonlight and vanish by morning.
The Gong of Torga. Rising from the harbor’s deepest berth is a towering ziggurat of stone and marble—a gesture of both reverence and beckoning. At its peak, cradled in the open hands of carved leviathans, rests the Gong of Torga, a vast disc of burnished gold etched with concentric wave-spirals and the unblinking eye of a stylized dragon-turtle that seems to shimmer differently to each who looks upon it.
Torga is no ordinary beast of the sea. She is the living progeny of Tartollin, a primeval dragon-turtle once feared by the K’jatan peoples and, in time, revered as a demigod of tides, storms, and secrets. Where Tartollin was soothed by treasure and ritual, Torga answers only to sound—and only one sound at that. It is said her hearing spans miles of open ocean, that she dreams in vibration and song.
Only the High Priest of Xalaxos may strike the gong, using a sacred mallet carved from reef-coral and bleached bone. The rite is a solemn one, performed no more than once a season—or in the shadow of desperation. When struck, the gong does not clang—it rolls, like thunder trapped beneath the waves. The sound reverberates through the obsidian walls of Tec’Tahos, down through canal and dockyard, out over the Ak’tuin Gulf, a pulse that wakes something ancient beneath the surf.
Sometimes, nothing follows but wind and gulls. Other times… the sea stills.
Eyewitnesses—few and never reliable—speak of a shadow the size of a city block, a shell that glints like obsidian streaked with lightning glass, and fins that churn the tide like war drums. Her eyes are luminous moons beneath the water, and her presence drives even the most seasoned sailors to silence. She speaks to no one but the priesthood.
The Circle of Fins, a powerful union of fishing guilds stretching from the K’jatan Isles to the mouth of the Tansin River, sends tribute offerings weekly: salt-crusted baskets of tuna, lacquered shrimp boats, pearlescent idols, even carefully preserved sea-ghost blooms. Most are never seen again. A rare few are returned to shore, broken or bleached clean—a sign of rejection, warning, or whim.
When Torga chooses to appear, it is an event. The gong rings throughout the city, mirrors set upon towers reflect light upon the harbor. The air thickens with mist. Children abandon their studies to race to the heights to look down towards the docks. Market stalls close mid-sale. Priests of Xalaxos enter silent trance. Sailors kneel in prayer. And somewhere in the alleys of Nahatl Coatl, a tattooed old mariner lifts his mug and tells, for the hundredth time, how she dragged his ship across a reef without breaking a plank—or, in other versions, cracked it open like a crab and left him for dead.
Whether she is guardian, omen, or god-beast, no one agrees. Only this is known:
When the Gong sounds, the sea remembers. And sometimes, it answers.
Neltec Maheta & Zema Maheta
To the north and south of Mecatl Aht Zema, the great bowl of Tec’Tahos overflows into two mirror-sisters: Neltec Maheta and Zema Maheta. Named for legendary companions of Tahos—one a philosopher-scribe turned war-priest, the other a shieldmaiden whose laughter, it’s said, once stilled a tyrannosaur—the Twin Districts are the city’s breath, pulse, and heartbeat.
Here dwell the people who make Tec’Tahos live: farmers, soldiers, tutors, midwives, beast-handlers, and merchants of modest trade. Their homes are stacked like honeycombs along the city's layered tiers, woven with winding paths of sunbaked clay and red-painted stone. Low terraced apartments with thatched balconies overlook courtyards filled with cooking fires and flowerbeds. Family temples, each no larger than a shrine, stand at nearly every block—where ancestors are honored with folded prayers, and little clay cups of sweet milk and spice are left out at dusk.
Public squares bloom in every direction—small open plazas around sacred trees or ancestor statues, where old men play bone-dice in the shade, and flower-sellers hang garlands from horned busts of forgotten champions. Aqueduct-fed fountains provide drinking water and communal bathing pools, where children splash while their parents barter or nap.
Each modest estate has its own community, and each district has its own flavor.
Neltec Maheta, the District of Neltec
Neltec Maheta, to the north, is a place of study and song. It was once the home of scribes, healers, and lorekeepers, and it retains that memory. Its residents are known for their pride in tradition, their love of riddles, and their elaborate ancestor festivals. Carved murals decorate the alley walls, and elders pass down chants said to trace back to the founding of the Dynasty. It is said that Neltec himself taught here—beneath a tamarind tree that still blossoms with golden fruit once a year.
Their ōllamaliztli team, the Golden Couatls, is known for graceful play and clever maneuvers. During tournament season, banners of deep blue and ochre stretch across streets, and painted wooden feathered serpents are left at doorways for luck. On victory nights, whole blocks erupt into music—flutes, drums, and rooftop dances that last until the first blush of dawn.
Zema Maheta, the District of Zema
Zema Maheta, to the south, is louder, warmer, and more ferocious. It is the forge and hearth of the people’s will—a district known for its beast-trainers, street performers, and holy fire-bearers. Its plazas host open-air feasts during the solstice, and its streets glow at night with rows of flame-bowls carried by children dressed as dinosaurs or gods. The smell of roasted maize and honey-seared fish fills the air most evenings, and laughter is currency.
Their ōllamaliztli team, the Crimson Raptors, plays with brawling intensity, blessed by a long line of champion athletes said to have been born under blood moons. Fans daub their faces in claw-mark paint and chant war-songs that echo through the entire basin of Tec’Tahos. When the Raptors clash with the Couatls in the Ring of Claws, it is more than sport—it is ritual, reenactment, and citywide catharsis.
Atl Maheta, the District of Atl
Rising against the northwest slopes of Tec’Tahos lies Atl Maheta—the District of Atl, the Valley’s shield-hand. Of all the seven districts, none speak so proudly or so loudly of prestige, of history, and of glory hard-earned.
Here the terraces widen, tier upon tier, wrapped in emerald and gold. The streets are paved with sun-warmed stone, veined with inlays of gold and jade. Tiered villas and warrior estates sit like lions in repose, their walls thick with flowering vines, ancestral murals, and the lacquered banners of old bloodlines. Courtyards echo with the sound of chimes and the soft growls of retired warbeasts, their horns or tails adorned with honor rings.
This is not a place for the young and hungry. It is a sanctuary of the veteran, the noble, and the beast-tamer whose deeds have been etched into the Dynasty’s skin. All who live here have earned their place—through valor in battle, through bloodlines that can be traced to Tahos’ original war-host, or through long service to the Throne.
The Echo of Atl
At its spiritual core is the legacy of Atl of the Eight Spears, the district’s namesake and patron. One of Tahos’ original companions during the Saurask Wars, Atl was a towering warrior of unparalleled discipline and fury—famous for wielding eight enchanted spears simultaneously atop a rampaging stegosaur. Where Tahos led with vision, Atl led with loyalty, forging the vanguard that shattered the Saurask in one of the nascent Dynasty's first wars against the saurian creatures. His death came not in battle, but in choosing exile rather than see the jungle carved for empire—an act that transformed him into a figure of legend and paradox.
Atl’s public shrine, is called The Throne of Eight Thorns—an ancestral temple kept by Tahosian warpriests. There, eight obsidian spears are planted in a ring of stone, and those who seek clarity in moments of honor, betrayal, or courage often meditate within their shadow.
Temples of Flesh and Spirit
Two sacred temples rise among the district’s high gardens—one for the dead, one for the beast:
Temple of the Dead. The Temple of the Dead is a holy necropolis maintained by the high priesthood of Banzala. Its inner sanctum is cooled by funerary winds and dimly lit by spirit-lanterns, each flame kindled from the last breath of a revered soul. The walls are dressed in bone mosaics, formed from the finger bones of heroes and teeth of consecrated beasts, laid into patterns that tell the ancestral sagas of the Dynasty.
Soul-bells chime as you pass—a haunting chorus of tones, each tuned to a spirit still present within the temple’s bounds. Some believe that if you know a soul’s song, you can summon their wisdom in dreams. Spirit-veils, thin and shimmering with inked prayers, hang between obsidian pillars and ripple even when no breeze blows.
Only the worthy are enshrined here. Their ashes are cast into ancestral braziers and bound to specially carved vessels, which are then stored in the temple's many subterranean archives; a great amphitheater of spirits where the voices of the dead can be heard—not spoken, but felt—by those attuned.
On the Eve of Souls, the Temple becomes the city’s beating heart. Banzala’s Avatar—swathed in owl feathers, serpent bones, and marigold dust—opens the sealed door to The Other Side, a gate wrought from jade, gold, and black stone. Through it, the honored dead spill into the city as ghosts, some given form through animated stone, borrowed flesh, preserved bodies, remains, or golden masks borne by willing vessels. They return for one night to advise, celebrate, and remember. Entire families await them with tears, laughter, and fire-dances.
Temple of Life. Where the Temple of the Dead descends into shadow, the Temple of Life climbs into the sun. Vines creep along its weather-worn steps, fed by streams. Statues of Takanda, the goddess of beasts and the untamed wild, rise among the fronds—each shaped from living junglewood and stone, draped in fresh flowers, and crowned with birdsong. This is not a temple of silence. It growls, hums, chirps, and breathes.
Wounded raptors sleep beneath sun-dappled canopies. Old hadrosaurs rest their scarred skulls near fragrant pools. Sacred jungle cats prowl the inner cloisters, protected by rite and fed by hand. Shamans and druids—most of them barefoot, some tattooed with scales, others half-animal from years of communion—tend to these creatures not as caretakers, but as brothers.
To become Beast-Bonded in the Dynasty, a warrior must spend a season in the temple's inner sanctum, walking among the sacred beasts and seeking a bond in dreams, not dominance. Those found worthy are marked by Takanda’s shamans and sent out into the world with a blessed mount or companion—a symbol of harmony between civilization and wildness.
Aesthetic & Atmosphere
The aesthetic of Atl Maheta is one of refined strength. Homes are constructed from whitewashed adobe and heavy timber, their rooftops adorned with gilded animal skulls and stone sun-discs. Gardens bloom in layered terraces—rare orchids, blood-fruit trees, and sunvine that glows faintly at dusk. Stone canals carry mountain water through private fountains, their flow tuned to create harmonious tones unique to each household.
A quiet military pride pervades the district. Even in peacetime, veteran warbands gather to spar in secluded courts, their styles passed down through generations. Children learn archery with feathered training spears, and no street is complete without a House Totem—a shrine to the beast their lineage is bonded to: tyrannosaurs, stegodons, sky-serpents, and even the rare basilisk lineages.
Politics & Power
Though far from the throne, the influence of Atl Maheta runs deep. Many high-ranking generals, wardens, and beastmasters reside here. Their word carries weight in the war councils, and their personal honor is often beyond reproach. But that same pride can be a wedge—feuds simmer for decades, and some noble houses still fight over ancient claims to Atl’s bloodline.
A handful of diplomatic banquets are hosted here each year, always outdoors, always under flame-lit vines and ancestral masks. To be invited is an honor. To be seated near the center table—a political maneuver.
Temet Maheta, the District of Temet
On the opposite slope of the valley lies Temet Maheta—the District of Temet, named for the first Lawkeeper of the Dynasty, the woman who once stilled a civil war within Tec'Tahos' walls with nothing but her quill.
Here, power does not shout—it is codified, cross-referenced, and notarized in triplicate. The buildings are elegant but unassuming, constructed from pale adobe and river-carved limestone, with copper-burnished eaves and windows shaded by latticework pergolas thick with violet trumpet vines. Even the light here seems softer, filtered through hanging scrolls and paper lanterns strung between carved colonnades.
This is where bureaucrats, scribes, record-keepers, and priest-architects of imperial law reside, maintaining the vast machinery of the Tahosian Dynasty. Though far from the throne itself, Temet Maheta is where the empire breathes its order into being—one decree, one census, one tax code at a time.
The Legacy of Temet
The district’s namesake was born during the fractious years following Tahos’ ascent. A young acolyte of Zema turned lawscribe, Temet rose to prominence during the darkest hour of the Second Tahosian Civil War, a time when the Dynasty teetered on the edge of collapse—not from invasion, but from within. It was the age of Chimalma, the rogue Avatar of Xalaxos, whose fiery sermons called for the toppling of empires and the purification of Tansia through flame.
While her followers burned farmland and priests split temples, Temet remained in the capital, a quiet acolyte and junior lawscribe of no particular renown. But when the capital’s ministries fractured and the temples of Tahos and Takanda turned their eyes inward, it was Temet who stepped forward.
Gathering a circle of surviving generals, broken noble houses, priesthoods, and dissenting Avatars beneath the Canopy of Vows, she bid them speak—not to each other, but to her. For twelve days, she transcribed their grievances, doctrines, contradictions, and threats. She ate nothing and slept only when her ink dried.
Then, on the thirteenth day, she rewrote everything. She did not erase. She reconciled. Every conflicting dogma, contradictory edict, and divine proclamation was woven into a unified legal scripture so complete, so elegant, that even Tahos himself is said to have acknowledged its balance.
Chimalma’s fires still raged—but the Dynasty no longer listened. One by one, her followers defected, seeing in Temet’s work not compromise, but clarity. The fires waned. The swords fell still, and only Chimalma's most zealous of followers remained, retreating into hiding.
Institutions of Order
The Writ of Tahos is a temple that holds vast archives of law, census rolls, city plans, birthrights, and divine writs. Its interior is patrolled by silent monks who have tattooed every law they protect onto their skin.
The Notary Hall deals in contracts between noble houses, binding pacts with foreign ambassadors, and the swearing-in of new ministers. Each contract is witnessed by a scribe-priest and stamped with a drop of the signer’s blood—ensuring the deal is magically and spiritually binding.
The Canopy of Vows, preserved from Temet’s own era, is now a sacred site where oaths of office are made to the Golden Table.
Life in Temet
Despite its austere reputation, Temet Maheta is not cold. Its wealth is expressed not in gold or beasts, but in knowledge, refined etiquette, and multigenerational prestige. Families here measure their worth in the number of laws penned by their ancestors, or the ages of their scroll collections. Some houses hold contracts older than the city itself, signed by the first emperors.
Children attend schools of rhetoric and civic memory, learning to recite dynastic law and compose written prayers. Even the tailors specialize in robes designed for ink-stains, and most cafés serve smoke-tea and redfruit preserves meant to be consumed while reading.
On festival nights, lantern parades march through the streets—each lantern shaped like a scroll or legal sigil, inscribed with jokes, satire, or prayers for mercy from the gods of order.
Tahos Maheta, the District of Tahos
To the west, at the very summit of Tec’Tahos, where the sun lingers longest and the air is sweet with burning incense, rests Tahos Maheta—the District of the Divine. Named for the Living God who founded the Dynasty, this district is holy ground, consecrated by myth, miracle, and the blood of giants and Saurask alike.
Here, the city speaks in prayers. Every stone is a hymn. Every shadow, a sermon. The streets are swept not by hands, but by attendants wielding feather-fans dipped in sacred oils. Robed priests chant atop high balconies. gongs ring on the hour not for time, but for devotion—each tone a call to a different god.
The Temple of Tahos
Dominating the westernmost edge of the district—and visible from every tier of the city—rises the Temple of Tahos, known to the faithful and the feared alike as the Palace Temple. This titanic ziggurat of maroon stone and veined gold gleams like a second sun, its surface so polished it casts reflections upon the canals below. From afar, it appears not merely illuminated, but ablaze—not with fire, but with divine presence, as though the Living God still walks its halls with heatless flame at his heels. It is at once throne and sanctuary, where mortal governance fuses with sacred mandate, and where every decree bears the weight of celestial will.
At its apex lies the Golden Table, a sanctum of opulence and power, accessible only to the most trusted members of the imperial inner circle. The chamber is guarded not merely by warriors, but by elite royal guards mounted upon titanic tyrannosaurs, their scale-armored forms gleaming like bronze titans in the sun. Here, beneath a dome of gold, sits Emperor T’chan, the anointed mortal voice of Tahos, crowned in fire and judgment. Beside his gilded throne stalk his two personal war-beasts—Hatcha and Zamu, the twin tyrannosaurs whose roars have shattered walls and silenced dissent across half the continent. Veterans of siege and ceremony alike, they rest only when their Emperor speaks.
Beneath the Palace Temple, carved deeper than most dare guess, lies what many call myth and few believe they’ve seen: the Golden Vault—the Dynasty’s true treasury. Some say it is a labyrinth of chambers, each one gilded with so much wealth that a single breath inside could drive the unprepared mad. Others whisper that the treasure is not merely coin and gem, but divine relics, binding pacts, and ancestral souls bound in obsidian tablets, sealed away for eternity. The Empire of Gold, they call the Dynasty—and here, beneath the Earth, its name becomes literal.
A District of Divine Purpose
Tahos Maheta is the throne of the sacred, the hallowed district where power whispers in hymns and incense, not banners and blades. It is the seat of the divine court—palace eunuchs, temple scribes, living saints, and silent-footed stewards all move with ritual precision, never daring to raise their voices within consecrated halls. Every step taken here echoes with centuries of tradition, and every stone is said to bear the touch of gods.
Scattered throughout the district rise lesser temples, each devoted to a divine aspect of the Living Gods: Wind, for the breath of prophecy; Ash, for the remnants of sacrifice; Rebirth, for the turning of seasons and souls; Justice, blind and unyielding; Foresight, gifted by dreams; and Sacrifice, the price all power demands. These shrines, though modest beside the Palace Temple, are hallowed places where priests still dream visions, and the air is thick with whispered prayers.
Yet Tahos Maheta is not austere. The district blooms with beauty touched by the divine. Rare orchids bloom here that do not exist elsewhere—flowers that open only at moonrise during solstice, or whose petals shimmer like jade. Beasts with gilded fur and feathered crests, imported from the furthest corners of the Dynasty, wander through marble gardens and reflect pools. Butterflies the size of open hands drift lazily through perfumed air, their wings patterned with sigils said to ward off ill omens.
At its highest elevation lies the Path of the First King, a long and regal promenade that stretches from the Palace Temple like a blade of polished stone, culminating in a balcony of proclamation. From here, one can look down upon the entire breadth of Tec’Tahos—the bowl-shaped city glimmering in tiered gold and obsidian below. It is upon this sacred platform that emperors are crowned beneath the gaze of the Living Gods, and where divine proclamations are delivered in thunderous clarity to the multitudes gathered in the temple square. When the emperor speaks from on high, the city stills—every ear attuned, every soul bound to the will of heaven.
The Divine Bureaucracy
Despite its grandeur, Tahos Maheta is not untouched by law. Behind the majesty lies the Clerical Sanctum, where priest-accountants, census-keepers, and divine judges interpret the will of the gods into law. Their decisions ripple across the Dynasty, from taxation to military decrees, though all are signed beneath the Eye of Flame, a living brazier said to flare if any document bears lies or heresy.
The Undercity
Beneath the tiled streets and adobe walls of Tec'Tahos, a different world festers and thrives—one far older than Tec’Tahos itself. Built over the shattered remains of Garheim, the last giant-ruled stronghold of the Ak’teshi Empire, Tec'Tahos hides a web of ancient tunnels, collapsed temples, and repurposed catacombs known collectively as the Undercity.
Here, the ghosts of conquest and rebellion are etched into every wall—but so too are the secrets of modern power. The Undercity serves as a clandestine meeting ground, smuggling route, and hidden refuge for the criminal underworld that pulses beneath the Dynasty's golden veneer.
The Fire Roses. The Fire Roses, fervent revolutionaries and fire-worshipping zealots, see the Undercity as sacred ground. It is here that Chimalma once fought and bled, and here where Blossoms gather in secret shrines carved from melted stone. Beneath Zema Maheta, near a collapsed Ak’teshi bathhouse, lies the Sanctum of Cinders—a hidden cathedral where trial-by-flame rites are performed.
From within this subterranean crucible, Flamebearers preach sermons of fire to the poor and the angry. They distribute food, medicine, and stolen goods as offerings, all while preaching the inevitable rebirth of the world in fire. The dynasty calls it terrorism. The people call it hope.
During festivals or state parades, Blossoms sometimes emerge from tunnels dressed as fire-dancers—performers whose spiraling flames mask insurgent ritual. Every few years, a Fire Rose cell will even try to sabotage the Ring of Claws, not to destroy it, but to "cleanse" it—turning a bout into a trial by fire.
The Reavers. Though not native to cities, the Reavers maintain a presence in Tec’Tahos through a small but violent branch known as the Claws Below, a gang of sand-hardened cutthroats who use the Undercity as a base between raids. Beneath Tec'Tahos, they’ve carved out a feral arena deep in a sunken amphitheater, where brutal fights, raptor-bonding rites, and blood-duels decide leadership.
Reavers here are often scouts, exiles, or smugglers—keeping a tenuous peace with the Fire Roses and Brotherhood while selling information and access to forbidden jungle routes. If you want to disappear, or hire a raptor for a midnight hunt in the hills, you pay the Claws.
On occasion, they assist with beast-smuggling via forgotten aqueducts that connect the city's cliffsides with the jungle floor. One of their most lucrative trades is dinosaur eggs and juvenile predators destined for corrupt nobles and secret blood pits.
The Obsidian Brotherhood. It is the Obsidian Brotherhood, however, that truly owns the Undercity’s bones.
Their main hub far beneath the city center connects directly to a vast smugglers’ tunnel once used by Ak’teshi slavers. Today, that same route funnels Infused Obsidian, cursed relics, and forbidden scrolls into the black markets of Tec’Tahos. The Blackmouth Cistern, a defunct drainage cathedral, serves as their meeting hall—a place of dripping stone, obsidian altars, and high-value storage cells.
Many lower-tier Brothers live secretly among the commoners of Neltec and Zema Maheta, working as merchants, blacksmiths, or transporters. Some act as middlemen between beastmasters and illegal obsidian forgers, while others pass coded messages via trade tokens at local shrines. The Brotherhood rarely fights in the open—they prefer silence, leverage, and blackmail.
They also exert quiet control over corrupt city customs agents in the Serpent Docks, allowing “legitimate” cargo to pass unsearched… for a price.
The Three Below
Though distinct in creed and purpose, these factions form an uneasy triad in the Undercity—known in whispers as The Three Below. Their alliances shift like sand and shadow. Sometimes they share tunnels. Sometimes they spill blood over them.
The authorities know the Undercity is dangerous. They send patrols occasionally. But most turn back before the second layer. Those who don’t rarely return.
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