Allikma

Allikma: The City of Thieves

**Allikma**, sometimes called **The City of Thieves**, is a major commercial and cultural center dominating the desert west of Auril. It is a city divided, caught up in a long-standing gang war that wreaks discord and destruction throughout. Extortion is rampant, but the harsh sands around the city keep most citizens from fleeing far. As a result, the citizens of Allikma are widely shrewd and wary of trickery.

## History and government

Not long in the past, Allikma was a dynastic sultanate under the Persian house of Shahryar. He is known to have been a hot-headed and often unjust ruler, but the citizenry of Allikma still looks back on his reign with some sense of nostalgia. The sultanate began to crumble when Shahryar turned a blind eye to the rise of banditry in the desert. He concerned himself only with the entertainments of his palace and delegated peacekeeping to private companies, many of whom were dishonest in themselves. Entire caravans vanished when unqualified mercenaries betrayed their clients or abandoned them at the first sign of trouble. When public outcry finally reached Shahryar's ears, he elected to consult his seafaring cousin Kismot and his genie vizier 'Akrun. Shahryar made a wish upon the patient genie in an attempt to bless a joint effort between Kismot and the royal guard, but unbeknownst to him Kismot was a career pirate. Thus, the guard followed Kismot into piracy and left the palace defenseless.

In the wake of the guard's betrayal, three factions rose to power. The first of these is the Dirty Thieves, the tightest-knit and most organized of the desert raiders. Ali Boogah laid claim to leadership of the Thieves through guile and cunning, and his bride Marjanah was instrumental in defeating his rivals. Among these rivals was 'Abwfays, who rallied Ground-type bandits from the other raiding parties to form the Sandscourge. It was 'Abwfays and his Sandscourge that ousted Shahryar from the palace, but to his chagrin, his rival Ali is called the *King of Thieves* for capturing the rest of the city in the meantime. Only the waterfront district, where Kismot and his pirates dwell, has managed to elude Ali's clutches. With each of these three factions desiring undisputed control of the city, violence erupts continuously where their holdings touch.

Nevertheless, there is one institution that none of the thieves are willing to invade. The House of Light, the principal seminary and library in Allikma, remains a bastion of the old order under the direction of the famed theologian and jurist Al-Hujjat. Armed with classical wisdom, the threat of hellfire, and a cohort of Unown scholars, Al-Hujjat has kept the House of Light a sanctuary throughout these troubled times. It is there that the disgraced rulers of the city find refuge. Although Al-Hujjat refuses to help restore the sultanate because he believes their fall is possible only through the design of their Originator, he has met every attempt to encroach on them or their library with overwhelming power and zeal.

Thus, Allikma is torn. The laws of the sultanate stand only in the House of Light, and even there the sultan's authority is not absolute. The rest of Allikma is virtually lawless, governed by the caprice of the dominant ringleader in any district.

Recently, through the self-serving heroism of Campion and the liberation of Acheron ('Akrun), the sultanate managed to rout the Sandscourge and reclaim the palace. Al-Hujjat maintains this is a sign of the Originator's mercy, so the other gangs have wisely kept their distance from the palace since then.

## Economy

In spite of its inner turmoil, Allikma is an important midway point between Auril and Volsan. Located on the southern bank of the Perzidad River, Allikma imports spices and textiles from Volsan and passes them on to Auril via caravan at an extraordinary markup. Likewise, Allikma imports its grain and timber from Auril but disseminates its native salt and glassware to Volsan and beyond.

The predominance of thievery is a net loss to the average citizen, but piracy also bolsters Allikma with plunder from Volsan and distant Thorum. The pirates of the river control all of the ships in Allikma, so their sights are exclusively set on foreign vessels that can enrich their own fleet. Consequently, the waterfront is the wealthiest district in Allikma, but the feud between Kismot and Ali Boogah hampers this wealth from reaching the rest of the city. Those other districts under Ali's heel are subject to rampant poverty due to the constant drain from violence and robbery. However, Ali is known to prop up struggling businesses irregularly with capital from his own hoard.