Ekara

Ekara is the former capital of the Alaezian empire, and now it is the capital of The Theocracy. Its main feature is the Sinking Palace, which can be seen from miles away on the approach to the coastal city.

It is in the heartlands of former Alaezia, and one of the last bastions of real Alaezian culture. However, it is largely a poor city now, with large homelessness and unemployment rates. The Theocracy's popularity rose with its catering to the poor and downtrodden of the city, providing them with shelter and food, stripping down the old palaces and barracks to make space for the people who were displaced by The Fall.

The city is now the capital of the official Theocracy, which claims to rule in God's stead on Xah Satheth.

Description
A city famous for its hangings, narrow winding streets, awesome sea-views, and the fact that the whole city is tilted slightly, making every walk a somewhat risky downhill trot, or a tiring uphill lug.

The city imports its building materials, which are mostly controlled by merchants working with the Mercantile guild, a senatorial guild. Because of the political enmity between the New Senate and the Theocracy, prices are hiked, and so buildings are poorly maintained.

The wealthy stock up on food and luxuries, acting outside of the purview of the Theocracy who discourage trade with those who do not submit to the Lakes Despotate. But the Theocracy is hesitant to stop them, because it would only cause unrest among the upper classes.

The lower classes live in squalor, encouraged, or at times pressed, into joining some kind of clerical or monastic order to make a living, where they act as police, missionaries and labourers, producing honey, cress and other pot-grown foods to sustain the lower echelons of the city. Alcohol among members of the priesthood is strictly forbidden. Technically, it is forbidden for all, but the upper classes get away with it.

Beneath the city, there are salt mines. Salt is one of the few things which keeps the city's economy afloat, and is its major export. The poor often salt or honey their food so it keeps, because buying new food is expensive, and at times shipments don't arrive. Even the wealthy are pressed to do this.

Dwarven machinery used to be used to mine the salt, but it has mostly fallen into disrepair. A sort of middle class of second-class dwarf citizens are employed to maintain it, but they are denied access to the archives which contain much of the writing on the subject of maintenance of the machines, for fear that they may harbour spies. They are paid poorly, and disallowed from joining the priesthood. Because of their manual-labour profession, dwarves also find it hard to join senatorial chapters, and as such are mostly without protection..