Marhed Rayodana
Marhed Rayodana
Religion
Traditions
+10% National Tax Modifier
+20% Manpower in Primary Culture provinces
King of the DesertMarhed Rayodana was originally simply a meeting place between the disparate tribes of the Sarihaddu, who would meet to arrange marriages and exchange goods, supplies and stories. Over the centuries, Yodhanpir traders increasingly came to trade at the site, eventually settling down and founding the city as it is known today. At first a hub for goods and experiences that the Sarihaddhi could not find within the confines or company of their own tribes, the city eventually came to prominence under the name Marhed Rayodana – the “King of the Desert”. The warlords of this burgeoning city began to periodically subdue the rest of the Sarihaddu with mercenaries and cavalry hired either from the Iron Hills to their east or from the Larankarha to their north.\n\nOn occasion, warlord conquerors originating from the desert have even conquered vast swathes of land outside of it – the most infamous example being their conquest of Larankar, after which Marhed Rayodana ruled the Sixth Kingdom of Larankar for nearly half of the ninth century before the kingdom’s destruction by Kadradar the Stormbringer. Despite the challenge represented by the foundation of Darkalyndar, Marhed Rayodana has remained the largest city in the Sarihaddu for much of its existence, fiercely defending its title despite routine challenges from its southern neighbour.
-1% Prestige Decay
Armadillo SpearsMarhed Rayodana has always faced an uphill battle dealing with the infamous mounted raiders of the Sarihaddu. In order to deal with this, its leaders turned to one of the desert’s inhabitants: the armadillo. Inspired by the animal’s propensity to curl up into a ball when threatened, its thick protective scales protecting it from attack, the Rayodani trained an elite unit of heavily armoured spear infantry. Decked out in armadillo-scale armour taken from the Giant Digger Armadillo that inhabits the Taychendi underground, these elite troops channelled the animal’s resilience and tenacity.\n\nWhen they would come under horse-archer fire or faced cavalry charges from mounted riders, Rayodana’s Armadillo Spears would close ranks and hold their large, rectangular shields close to each other. Trained to quickly change into circular formations to avoid outflanking attacks, these military formations became essentially invulnerable to both cavalry and ranged attacks, though they were extremely vulnerable to explosive magic attacks, as the last Rayodani King of Larankar would discover when Kadradar annihilated his armies with the power of his relic-enhanced evocation magic. Nonetheless, the Armadillo Spears still form the backbone of the Rayodani military today, guarding the city from all threats on horseback.
+10% Infantry Combat Ability
-5% Shock Damage Received
Vyechei of the NorthMarched Rayodana is one of few cities in Taychend that can rival the city of merchants, Nagar Vyechei, as a wretched hive of scum and villainy. In contrast to Nagar Vyechei’s undercity, which focuses primarily on the procurement of illicit goods, slaves, and magical services, the King of the Desert caters to a commodity in rare supply in Taychend: experiences.\n\nThis encompasses not merely bars, brothels and pleasure houses – though the city certainly offers them in spades – but the cutting edge of theatre, the most exotic dances and dancers, courtesans of the highest calibre and sights, sounds and smells unseen anywhere else in not just Taychend, but in all of Andeios. No wonder, then, that so many travel from far afield to visit the city of sin amongst the sands, its allure powerful enough to ward off all but the most determined destroyers. This most resilient of cities even survived its subjugation by Ameion as a mere protectorate, thriving off the downfall of Nagar Vyechei’s underworld to finally seize the title of Taychend’s premier city of sin.
+10% Global Trade Power
Don’t Cross the DahnUnlike divided cities like Royakottar and Nagar Vyechei, riven by “families” and “assemblies”, Marhed Rayodana answers to one authority alone – the so called “Dahn” of Rayodana. Ruling from their court in the depths of the winding streets of the city, the Dahn – whose name vaguely means “big man” to the Rayodani – rules over the movers and shakers of Rayodana with violence and intimidation.\n\nEveryone knows you don’t cross the Dahn. Those who dare to do so often meet an untimely end: they find themselves taking a little too much White Lelivazha, or receive just the wrong kind of rough treatment from a bed partner, or wake up with a chain around their leg, already halfway to Uesrennu. Sometimes they are simply hacked to death, to send a message to all that the king suffers no discontent. Street vendors still murmur of the local Cult of Neravali, their corpses nailed to the walls of the city as a warning after they attempted to rob the Dahn himself.\n\nOf course, the Dahn is only dangerous if he’s alive to be so, and so many rulers of the city have found themselves deposed, maimed or murdered – a dangerous game that has put many big players in the sand over the years. Despite its mercilessness, such a system at least ensures that only the smartest, the most ruthless, and the luckiest make their way to the top in Marhed Rayodana.
+5% All Estates' Loyalty Equilibrium
+5 Maximum Absolutism
Lelivazha Cactus TeaIn the centuries before the founding of Marhed Rayodana, the watery juice of the Lelivazha Cactus – named after the woman said to have first discovered it – was used by the Sarihaddi tribes for its psychoactive properties. When consumed in its natural form, or made into its most widely known form, Lelivazha Cactus Tea, the juice simply excites the mind and body, producing an effect more akin to strong coffee than normal tea – but when the juice is concentrated into a milky, thicker form known as White Lelivazha, it develops much stronger psychoactive and even psychedelic qualities.\n\nThough both Yodhanpir and Sarihaddi consume both forms of the drink, the Rayodani have twisted its use for their own purposes. While the Sarihaddi drink the tea as normal, the Rayodani cultivate it on a mass scale along their stretch of the Vyech, and export the drink throughout Taychend. Where the Sarihaddi use White Lelivazha for religious purposes, the Rayodani use it for more hedonistic ends, the drink both enhancing and fuelling the baser offerings of the King of the Desert.
+20% Improve Relations
Kotakompu Two-Point-ZeroPartly due to differences in breed, and partly due to the greater resources available to the trainers from Uesrennu, Varaendi’s Kotakompu have long been figured as “second-rate”, a fact that deeply hurt the pride of the city’s trainers. By the 1700s they had resigned themselves to second place – then, as artificery proliferated through Taychend in the later half of the 1750s, they discovered the true weakness of Kotakompu flesh, and it disgusted them. Craving the certainty of steel, they set to work on their Kotakompu, led by Darankar the Ratgrafter, a member of the infamous Cult of Urazhil.\n\nTaking the strongest of their stock, they replaced muscle and bone with gear and metal, blood with Arcop, and grafted guns and armour and laser eyes and every manner of improvement they could think of onto their treasured beasts. What the elven body rejected, the Kotakompu seemed to take in with open arms. Soon enough, the Kotakompu of Varaendi had begun to take on an entirely different reputation – not as second-rate, cheaper alternatives to good Uesrennu stock, but as monstrous abominations that could ruin any Taychendi soldier’s day in a few seconds. Such war machines allowed Varaendi to seamlessly take up Marhed Varanya’s stewardship of the Sarihaddi Vyech after the city’s destruction.
+5% Land Fire Damage
+25% Innovativeness Gain
The Power of the RuinOn the 13th Bloomsend, 1773, a stranger appeared in Marhed Rayodana inquiring about rumours of a Precursor warren hidden beneath the city, apparently on behalf of a mysterious employer. On the 19th Bloomsend, he left, seemingly contented with whatever he found. The next day, Marhed Rayodana exploded. In a second, everyone and everything in the city was consumed by a massive blast of roiling blue fire and lightning, powerful enough that people heard it from Oremvand to Orenkoraim, ejecting a mushroom cloud of acrid black smoke and debris a mile high. After the dust settled, all that was left of the King of the Desert was a debris filled crater, quickly filling with water from the Vyech.\n\nSoon enough the first Kotakompu scavengers from Varaendi were picking over the crater rim, Ameion’s northern border critically weakened at a time it could not afford to be. The exact cause of the explosion is unknown, though all signs point to a massive magical explosion, likely caused by the detonation of a powerful precursor relic beneath the city. As for a prime suspect, that is even harder to judge: Cannorian weapons testers, actors in the Kalavend like Veliara the Pale Queen or the Vustarin family, the King of Varaendi, the Cult of Neravali, and even Chendhyan or Oren Nayiru partisans were all considered as plausible suspects – with Varaendi chief among them. No matter what, however, one thing is for certain – the King of the Desert finally met their match.
+50% Looting Speed
Ambition
+10% Recover Army Morale Speed
History
TBD
Strategy
TBD