Bazar, City of Guilds

Bazar, the City of Guilds, is a city state on the Western coast of Aquila. It is governed by the Council of Masters, comprised of representatives from the 24 Great Guilds of Bazar. Bazar is a constitutional monarchy, though the royal family is entirely symbolic and holds no actual power. In addition to the 24 Great Guilds, which have persisted for generations, there are hundreds of smaller registered guilds.

## **Cuisine**

The four pillars of Bazarine cuisine are the Goat (meat and cheese), the Olive (fruit and oil), and the Grape (wine and vinegar) and the Bee (honey). Bazar has an arid but temperate climate with mild winters and summers. In addition to the pillars, Bazarine crops include wheat, figs, lemons, grapefruit, lentils, chickpeas, sweet potatoes, pistachios, almonds, and nightshades (tomato, eggplant, sweet peppers). Culinary herbs and spices include lavender, rosemary, cardamom, sesame, anise, cloves, and thyme.

## **Culture**

Bazar prides itself on its meritocratic society. The Great Guilds gained their position because of their skill and talent, unlike more traditional aristocratic city states. The City of Guilds is a place where cunning, talent, and intellect can all lead to great success and fortune. This is somewhat true, though the guild system also serves to control mobility and access.

Bazar is quite egalitarian. There are few fields that are strongly gendered and for the most part men and women are equal. When a couple marries, they may join either partner's family regardless of gender. Traditionally this is announced as part of the engagement and confirmed in the marriage ceremony itself. The vast majority of marriages are between men and women, but it is not unheard of or inconceivable for a man to marry a man or a woman to marry a woman.

Family, legacy, and succession are all important in Bazarine society, but adoption is a common practice. Furthermore, there is little to distinguish family members within a generational band. Cousins and siblings - raised in the same family estate by the same tutors - are virtually interchangeable. Indeed, the Bazarine word for "sibling" is both gender neutral and more literally means agemate, referring to siblings, cousins, second cousins, et cetera within the family in the same group with the same term.

Each guild manages succession in its own way, but generally there is a formal party naming a successor to the Guildmaster - particularly among the Great Guilds, but even among the other guilds within the city. The successor is supposed to be the most talented and able of the guild's journeymen and masters. In practice, this is almost always a member of the leading family. If a promising journeyman enters from the outside, she would be adopted into the family before anyone would consider naming her for succession. The result is a society that is - paradoxically - both rigid and fluid simultaneously, and aggressively proud of its own meritocratic nature.

Adoption is a common practice in Bazar. If a guild has few or no children in the leading family, they will generally adopt from outside. It is also common for guildmasters to give their children to other guilds (though very rarely their firstborn) to foster friendship and cooperation among the guilds, much like noble marriage alliances and fosterlings. Unlike fosterlings, however, the adoptees fully become members of the guild that raises them. Though older adoptions are not unheard of, most of these occur before the age of 3.

The guild is the fundamental social unit, not the nuclear family. Indeed, in many ways the guild is an extended family, including multiple generations, those who have married in and been adopted, et cetera. Children, legacy, and continuity are all vitally important, but all of this runs via culture, not blood, unlike those backwards landed aristocrats elsewhere in Aquila or the toothless royal family. Indeed, the guild that raises you functions much as bloodlines do elsewhere: you don't choose it and (barring exceptional circumstances) can't change it.

Bazar is quite egalitarian and only has a few industries that are heavily gendered (midwives are almost exclusively female, as are mead brewers and divers; beekeepers are almost exclusively male, as are wellmen and nannies). The Bazarine army and navy have been integrated for several decades, but traditionally the army was predominantly female (especially among officers) and the navy was predominantly male.

In order to marry - legally - one must have permission from the Guildmaster to induct one's spouse into the guild. Traditionally, the couple joins the guild of the breadwinner or more professionally accomplished spouse (male or female). In instances where they are roughly equal, they will often join the more prestigious of the two guilds. Those who have married into a guild are technically members, but are often treated as appendages to their spouse and as if they do not really belong and cannot fully be trusted. After all, they grew up as a member of another guild and those loyalties never fully go away.

## Economy

It is no exaggeration to say that Bazar is the economic center of Aquila and, perhaps, the world.