Pathfinder Chronicles - Gazetteer - Asamnet

Pathfinder Chronicles
36
their missing master and seeding their particular style of
arcane art throughout the continents.
Then, in 2822, alien ships once more appeared on the high
Obari and set anchor in the wave-ravaged harbor of Niswan.
Hundreds of Vudrani rajahs embarked upon Jalmeray,
curiously wondering at the audacity of the Arclords and
their perversions of the changes Khiben-Sald had brought
to the island. Was he not the greatest maharaja of Vudra,
they asked? Did he not dwell upon Jalmeray at the bequest of
Nex himself? The Vudrani nobles produced improbable but
apparently accurate genealogical information proving their
familial ties to Khiben-Sald, calmly inviting the Arclords
to abandon their ancestral island home. When the stodgy
wizards refused, the rajahs summoned an army of marids
from the depths of the sea. They battered the island with
relentless storms that sank all but one of the Arclords’
ships. More than a thousand years after the departure of
Maharajah Khiben-Sald, the Isle of Jalmeray once more
belonged to Vudra.
The Vudrani nobles immediately unsealed their ancient
monuments and stirred their otherworldly guardians
once more to life. Within decades, they established great
monasteries upon the island, spreading word to the
followers of Irori throughout the world of a new form of
physical and mental discipline from the distant East. All
who could survive the journey were welcomed to venture
to Jalmeray and endure a series of seemingly impossible
challenges. Those who thrived were accepted in one of
three monasteries, there to develop physical mastery and
an unusual magic of the mind.
The challenge still stands centuries later, and those
willing to brave a race against a djinn, wrestle a dao, and
outwit an efreet are accepted into the monastic orders
of Jalmeray to learn the secret arts of a distant people.
Few residents of the Inner Sea understand these strange
disciplines or the even stranger folk who teach them, but the
adherents of the Impossible Kingdom command respect—
if not trust—throughout the nations of the Inner Sea.
Katapesh
BAZAAR OF THE BIZARRE
Alignment: N
Capital: Katapesh (212,300)
Notable Settlements: Okeno (13,700), Solku (4,900)
Ruler: The Pactmasters of Katapesh
Government: Anarchic plutocracy led by faceless, inhuman
merchant league
Languages: Kelish, Osirian, Common, Tien, Vudrani
Religion: Abadar, Sarenrae, Nethys, Irori
The legends say that a man can find anything in the
teeming markets of Absalom, but on this topic the legends
are wrong. For although the City at the Center of the World
boasts some of the finest merchants and wares of Golarion,
there are some items so illegal, so dangerous, so outright
bizarre that they cannot be found there. For such quarry,
a buyer must seek the offerings of Katapesh, home to the
greatest (and weirdest) markets in all Golarion.
The inhuman merchant council that rules Katapesh
arrived out of nowhere in the Age of Destiny, carving out
of a lawless region of desert coast an outpost for unusual
and illicit trading with whomever ventured to their arid
settlement. In time, the outpost grew into a town, then a
city, and finally into a powerful nation with economic ties
throughout the kingdoms of the Inner Sea.
Members of Katapesh’s bizarre ruling caste cloak
themselves in flowing garments that cover every inch of
their 7-foot-tall, spindly frames. Garish masks conceal
the pactmasters’ featureless faces and muff le their deep,
alien voices. The pactmasters never leave Katapesh for any
reason, dealing with outside nations through hired human
intermediaries and friendly merchant princes. They
sponsor no army and enforce few laws upon their citizens,
nearly all of whom engage in some form of trade (much of
it illicit). Their chief protectors are the Aluum, relentless
golems powered by the eternally bound souls of aged slaves.
Even life is for sale in Katapesh, which boasts the most
lucrative and varied slave markets in the hemisphere.
The fabulous wares of Katapesh bring travelers from
throughout Garund and Avistan, attracting traders from
far-off Vudra and Tian Xia. Some even come from other
planes, and it’s not unusual to encounter a dwarven gemner,
an ogre magi fleshcarver, and a gnoll slaver along the same
stretch of street. The lax trade policies of the ruling elite (who
actively participate in the markets) ensures that Katapesh
offers delights and wares unavailable anywhere else in the
multiverse. The pactmasters’ golems enforce the nation’s only
law—that fighting must never get in the way of business.
Perhaps Katapesh’s most dangerous export is pesh, a
powerful narcotic derived from the spoiled milk of a rare
cactus that grows in the interior deserts. Addicts from all
corners of Garund and Avistan f lock to the pesh parlors
of the capital to wallow in their disastrous and ultimately
fatal indulgences.
The walled town of Solku, in Katapesh’s western reaches,
suffered an infamous siege 7 years ago when gnoll tribes
surged from White Canyon and attempted to enslave the
whole town. Paladins of Iomedae and the town’s battered
militia finally turned back the savage humanoids at the
Battle of Red Hail, and while gnolls remain welcome in
the markets of the capital, in the hinterlands they are
little trusted. The gnolls themselves, no longer content to
raid for slaves in the southern deserts of Osirion on the
other side of the mountains, frequently attack Katapeshi
caravans and travelers in the wilderness. That these slaves
are welcomed in the capital and the f lourishing slave