Linniska

Water and the Roads That Find It

A lake in the western temperate desert is a fortune, and Linniska sits on one. Everything the city is follows from that: the roads bend toward it because water bends them, and a route that would otherwise be impossible becomes merely difficult. Linniska makes comparatively little and grows less. It handles. Caravans come off the desert to water their beasts, break bulk, sell, buy, argue over weights and go on again, and the city takes its cut of each transaction in fees, storage, brokerage and lodging. It is a substantial place by the standards of the western desert, and every stone of it was paid for by goods that were only passing through.

Merchants, Saradir and the Creed

The Linniskar are Lohanar traders, sharp about contracts and comfortable with strangers, since a stranger with silver is the local crop. The city was raised in the fourth wave of expansion and has been growing since. Saradir rules it and Saradir is also the bloc it belongs to, so authority here is unusually direct, with few intermediate hands to appeal to. Beyond that, Linniska is sworn to the Creed, whose demands arrive with the caravans and are met the way every other charge on the trade is met.