Ushabaka Towers

Within the dry Wesking steppe, along the southern border, crime is rampant. Insurgents and radicals are a constant threat to the way of life. To help deal with these threats, the Wesking officials developed Ushabaka Towers to house those detained. The concept is pretty simple. Developed by Warlord Ushabaka, a stone or brick tower built over a pit. A rope or ladder is lowered to allow guards access to the nest above. Guards armed with bow and arrow watch their prisoners with great grievance. The room is open on 4 sides and a trap door allows the guards to view the prisoners below. A solid door below opens below where prisoners can be thrown into the pit. A barred opening at the ground level, traditionally facing south, is the only luxury that prisoners receive.
The largest Ushabaka Tower resides well within Wesking territory able to hold up to 50 prisoners. This is where the more notable criminals are sentenced. A dramatic walk entertains the populace that may be watching. Other Ushabaka Towers are less grand in design and performance. There is a small murmur of cruelty among the people of Wesking, however these people are housed within the central hubs where they do not see the everyday violence that calls for such a structure.
Once sentenced to a Ushabaka Tower your life would be pretty short and miserable. They are more or less stations to rot. Prisoners are stripped to rags and are tossed into a 15-20 foot pit. The only source of water would be from rain that happened to pool in from the barred opening. If one were lucky, Wesking forces are unable to capture enemies alive giving them leg room while they slowly starve. On the other end of the spectrum, some Ushabaka Towers are packed shoulder to shoulder, forcing captives to stand just to be able to breathe. Bodies are removed every other week, any captives that are still alive are normally too weak to attempt an escape. Playing dead is the best option of escape, if one were lucky enough to be deteriorated enough to pass as a corpse. Forces of Wesking are supposed to stab the corpse to ensure death, but culturally it is considered bad luck to mutilate dead bodies, saying that the perpetrator would be haunted by the bodies spirit.