Nova Indomitus

Those who have visited the gilded streets, serene gardens, and scenic terraces of Nova Carthago say that Nova Indomitus is everything that it is not. Seated at the mouth of a vast delta that feeds into the Lignum Carnus river and shaded by the remains of three inactive volcanoes to the North, the bustling city of canals and markets are where fortunes are made and lost. The break in the steep and jagged basalt cliffs remains one of the only entrances to the Southern continent of Iradeth.

Nova Indomitus is home to one of the largest populations in the known world, but its architects have not been afforded the luxury of an extensive landscape to build their city on. Twenty-four million souls and the infrastructure to support them must fit on three islands. As a result, Nova Indomitus is more vertical than it is expansive. Most residents live in what are called Insulae; large, communal-style domiciles that often house thirty or more families. These complexes range from pristine to derelict; only the elite can afford to live in villas in a city where space is premium priced.

At the Northernmost reaches of the city, where the obsidian streets give way to docks that yawn for miles to the East and West, the harbor operates in all of its industrious glory. Intermingled with the smell of ocean water and animal fat is a myriad concoction of spices, baked goods, and livestock. Slavers herd their quarry from disembarking ships to the marketplace proper alongside caravans of textiles and animal hide. Seagulls crow high overhead, riding the wind that sweeps inland from the river, drowned out by tolling bells and dockmasters barking their orders as they direct traffic from the trade vessels that will soon depart to distribute the lifeblood of Indomitus to the rest of Illian.

Docked alongside mercantile transports are imposing warships what tower over their relative modesty. To gaze upon them is to know the naval might of Nova Indomitus. To observe the proud standard of the sovereign state fluttering in the breeze between immaculate sails is to know what it means to be self-made. For those who hail primarily from Nova Carthago and other far flung regions of the empire, to see soldiers mingle with slavers and traders alike is... difficult; slavery is as much a staple of survival as agriculture here in Nova Indomitus, where coin and efficiency rule first and foremost.

The divide between the wealthy and the impoverished is vast. For a place so rich in economic and industrial advancement, the canals are lined by the slums that dominate a vast majority of the city and house seventy percent of Nova Indomitus’ twenty-four million inhabitants. Brothels, gambling houses, and thieves’ dens are numerous as fisheries and markets. Pickpockets and cutpurses wade both through throngs of peasants and the social elite; their silver spends the same and a staple of the unwise is a poorly guarded coin purse. Despite what this information entails, crime does not run unchecked in the city and for a gathering of so many of those individuals willing to sacrifice the bearing of their moral compass in the name of personal gain, there is very little public unrest.

The Tribune tolerates a certain level of criminality in his city; the street gangs know not openly ply their trade where it would be disruptive to commerce in the city of coin. But traveler's should beware the lawlessness of what the locals call Rat's Nest—a ramshackle shanty town where gangs engage in turf wars amid the dilapidated buildings and blood flows as freely as the ale.

The Promenade is well insulated from corruption; it is a community of estates and parks. Sprawling villas line the parkways; the homes of the Patrician class are almost offensive in their opulence. The obsidian spires of the Tribunal Complex dominate the Promenade's center, their lofty peaks nearly touching the clouds. it is here that the Tribune and his Presidium of ministers govern the city's affairs.

Much like its sister city to the North, there is a single bank, the Scarlet Vault, that operates within the limits of Nova Indomitus and is governed by the Valkyrion family. So far reaching is its influence that other major cities house its branches, and it is from here that the Tribune controls most of the wealth that comes and goes from the state; nothing is funded that does not first receive the approval of the man for whom the end will always justify the means.