L’omdocelan
L’omdocelan
The biggest small city in Extica is what Captain Albrect Aus liked to call it…setting up the new sailors for the surprise of their lives.
L’omdocelan is what they’ll say when we arrive is what Albrect would tell the rookies. It was a combination of words from the Giwa and local languages and meant both safe travels and successful search…it was the common greeting in Auroboduem.
At the end of the second day, while sailing upriver and coming around the bend in a slow arc, following the channel that ships their size had to, rows of fishing huts on poles with small floating docks were revealed. They lined the riverbanks, long cleared of any undergrowth. The area appeared to have been long inhabited.
The second curve in the river brought into sight expertly constructed stone docks connected to a small walled city perched atop a plateau, 25 feet above the river. The scale was noticeable as they approached the small port…everything was half again larger than any other city or port they had been to. Here was the legendary, but hidden Auroboduem.
When they got close enough, the young sailors almost always did at least a triple-take. Olephant men?! They would exclaim. Albrect laughed to himself in anticipation. Two days upriver from the sea and about as far as a sea-faring vessel could get, the city was home to over a thousand Giwa. Descendants of the first generation to arrive on their quest to find some lost city. Seven generations had been born since and all but two of the original seekers had passed...still the great city had not been found.
Hidden in Plain Sight
The small city is largely comprised of buildings with stone foundations and walls on the first floor and wood construction for a second floor if there is one. There are no three-story and by all appearances, all of the buildings also fall below the canopy of the surrounding trees. Inside the town, the two main roads are cobblestone, and the rest are packed earth with gravel filling any holes that become problematic. At least a third of the houses and buildings in town seem to be around half again larger than normal. These are usually Giwa residences and gathering places.
While some paths exit the town and go to fishing spots, a few farms, the dump and the graveyards, no roads depart from the town. The river and its innumerable branches and tributaries serve as the road system. To travel long distances over land through such a dense and dangerous jungle was not a realistic proposition, even to those who grew up here.
The city of Auroboduem had done well, Albrect thought to himself. He had visited here often enough to be familiar with the story and because of how long the Giwa lived, many of those stories were told by those who had been there.
The local human population had been scared when the Giwa first arrived, but they quickly rid the area of its lizardmen problem and soon after, the humans brought gifts. A couple decades of work and the small town was able to start trading. A couple more decades and the locals and the Giwa had become an intertwined society. The location of the town made it a great base for the Giwa who still pursued the search for Obodo Obi. For those who did not believe or had given up, it was rich in resources and opportunity as well as being the best if not only trade hub in hundreds of miles.
The hundreds of tributaries that led further into the jungle and offered the only route for safe trade and travel to the small villages and communities that lived upriver were all several days away. Rumor was, as you travelled there through the jungle the temperature, humidity, bites and stings would fracture your concentration and will while giant snakes, alligators, basilisks, Yuan Ti and worse would harry your journey. There was no easy route, at best you will get sick. Most who go into the jungle, never return…even the Giwa are wary to go into the jungle alone.
The Turnaround
Albrect Aus watched as his crew began offloading the cargo. They had arrived late in the day and it would take a full day to offload their cargo and purchase the two things that the Giwa of Auroboduem do better than anyone else… grow baunilha, an exotic bean that when dried and ground, made the most delicious spice, and forage trufa, an odd cross of a root vegetable and a mushroom that couldn’t be cultivated. Once loaded up, they would be on their way back to sea the next morning.
Captain Aus and the handful of others in his guild knew of this city and they had no plans on sharing its existence with anyone else. The Comerciante d’Mar Belém had an exclusive and it did take some skill to get here and get out…if that didn’t help get him the provincial post, then nothing would…he had discovered this goldmine, if he wasn’t promoted what would his reward be?!
Other than make bank, he laughed to himself…at least it would be profitable. Who knows, maybe another one of the village kids had saved enough money to go to the big city…oh boy…he always felt bad taking that money, but what the hell, they asked for it, literally.
< A little more detail and flavor for Auroboduem from the perspective of a visiting merchant captain. Captain Albrect Aus is the captain of The Gentle Maiden, a fast medium-sized merchant frigate, and an ambitious senior member of Comerciante d’Mar Belém, a merchant guild that has operations and interests in Extica…this is the ship and captain that Vom used to leave Extica. Not directly related to the campaign.>
