Sep 30

Mjinte



On the Shattered Isle of Kswantu, in the middle of a savage land, stands a metropolis.  Twice as big as Morma, it is the largest city-state in The Known Lands.  And until Year 3055, nobody in the western world knew it existed.  Home to various "advanced" humanoid races, the city-state is known as Mjinte.

History

Mjinte was founded in Year 2345 by a group of thouls who had quit their separate hobgoblin tribes.  These thouls banded together, crossed the formidable Kachubwa Desert, and began to survey Kswantu's eastern coast, looking for a site to build a city.  They settled on a patch of land north of where the Njaun River meets the sea, roughly in the middle of Kswantu's eastern coast.  Also known as the Bone Coast, its heavy fog keeps Mjinte concealed from ships at sea, and thus protected from pirates and pillagers.  South of Mjinte is Mchanlima, known to some as the Dune Desert.  Any army attempting to attack Mjinte from the south or west would have to cross this desert, which would be no easy feat.  To the north of Mjinte stand the Eusimli Mountains, hindering attack from that direction as well.  In other words, the thouls chose a very defensible site on which to build their city.

Word eventually filtered back to the savage humanoid tribes of western Kswantu of the existence of the thoul city.  Many tribes attempted to sack Mjinte, but only a few were able to cross the deserts, and those who did were easily defeated by the thouls.  The thouls would always kill most of the attackers, but when they encounters other "advanced" humanoids like themselves - varags, urds, flinds, and ogrillon - they would offer to spare them in return for their service as laborers.  Many took them up on this offer, and Mjinte added a multiracial minority to its thoul majority.  As decades passed, fewer and fewer tribes dared to attack the city, whose size and defenses were growing rapidly, but "advanced" humanoids starting coming to Mjinte of their own volition, having heard it was a place where they were not unique - and more importantly, not envied and reviled by their savage, inferior cousins.

As the city grew, food became a problem.  None of the Mjinteans were proficient in agriculture, and while the thouls, masters of animal husbandry, had been raising various herd animals, the city's population outgrew the surrounding area's capacity to sustain enough livestock to feed everyone.  The thouls, having seen how hobgoblins, goblins, and other lesser races would deplete all the resources in an area until they themselves starved to death or moved on, realized they had to do something.  So they sent emissaries across the deserts, to negotiate with the saurials of the Mjukiwa Plains.  A deal was struck whereby the saurials would deliver dracosaur meat to Mjinte in return for various items - metal weapons and armor and a variety of other items.  This constant, plentiful food source allowed Mjinte to continue to expand.

The remains of ships litter the Bone Coast.  From these remains the intelligent thouls were able to deconstuct how to build a boat.  By the mid 2500s Mjinte had a small fleet of vessels, built from cannibalized shipwrecks.  These vessels were used to explore The Shattered Isles, and eventually lands beyond.  To continue exploration they knew they would need to build more ships, but wood was in short supply.  So again they consulted the saurials, and came up with an ambitious plan - to create an artificial forest.  Using saplings taken from all over The Shattered Isles, and with the help of saurial druids, in 2678 the construction of Nsitsi Forest was begun.

By the 2800s, savage tribes who were tired of constant warring and struggle crossed the desert, laid down their arms, and pledged fealty to Mjinte, which was known now as a beacon of peace and prosperity.  These tribes settled around the city, who settled around the city and expanded its borders substantially, were immediately put to work: mining gems in Mchanlima, mining ore in the Eusimli Mountains, constructing new buildings or ships in the city proper, or defending dracosaur meat shipments from raiders.  Orcs were especially prized, and any who looked like half-orcs were sent off to the west to spy on the human, dwarf, elf, gnome, and halfling lands, for in the west they could pose as Zullahans.  Mjinteans also began trading with other independent city-states and towns they had discovered in The Shattered Isles, though they always posed as "lesser" humanoid races and kept the existence of Mjinte a secret, claiming to be from some other part of The Shattereds.

In 2907 the linguist Wa'tso'ncri'ic Men'del, who had been cataloging various Shattered Isles languages and dialects, arrived on Kswantu, and was quickly taken to Mjinte.  The eugenics programs of the thouls, not to mention the sprawling city-state itself, in Wa'tso's mind proved his ancestor's Theory of Changeolution.  With the permission of the local goverment Wa'tso was allowed to stay and study the city-state, its people, and their languages.  He eventually divided his time between Mjinte and the Mjukiwa Plains, where he lived among and studied the saurials.  All the while, the Mjinteans were pumping him for information about the western Known Lands, specifically the peoples and nations of that region.

Wa'tso was also influential to Mjinte in that he successfully introduced wizardry.  The thouls had known of wizardry for centuries, and Mjinte's orc spies had been bringing back spellbooks and other implements of wizardry, but the thouls had been unable to "crack the code" on their own.  For them, wizardry was a much more difficult puzzle than reconstructing a ship and learning how to sail it.  Wa'tso had been trained as a wizard, and was able to provide what the thouls had up to now lacked - an instructor.  But Wa'tso had spent more of his life learning languages than he had learning spells, and he turned out to be a horrible teacher.

Though it is not known exactly how, Wa'tso was somehow able to contact Thay'ma'qui, the sun elf who had founded the Red Wizards of Thay, and persuade him to come to Mjinte.  When he arrived at the city-state, after overcoming his initial shock, he realized that Mjinte was, in terms of wizardry, a blank slate.  It was the perfect opportunity for him to prove his own theory, that anyone can become a wizard.  Thay'ma'qui established a wizard school, which was attended by a large number of Mjinteans, mostly thouls.  His students enthusiastically studied, and in a century's time the school evolved into a major magic university which could rival some of the best colleges in Raceth.  The students and teachers are all Mjinteans, mostly thouls; many of the professors are red wizards trained by Thay'ma'qui himself, who has since left Mjinte for other projects but still visits from time to time.

In 3055 the Gilden Portal opened on Kswantu, in a spot in Mchanlima only a week's travel from Mjinte.  Mjinteans now had the chance to instantly travel halfway across The Known Lands, but their secrecy had also been compromised, and they had been thrust into the international economic and political scene.  But the Mjinteans had been prepared for this for some time, and many Mjintean explorers and adventurers crossed the portal to make their way in the mysterious West.

Population

Though an accurate census has been difficult to take, Mjinte claims to be home to roughly one million citizens.  In the city proper, approximately fifty percent of these citizens are thouls, twenty-five percent are urds, ten percent are varags, five percent are flinds, and five percent are ogrillon.  The remaining five percent are a combination of saurials, "lesser" humanoid races such as orcs, gnolls, goblins and kobolds, and other races such as humans.  This does not include the humanoid tribes which live outside of the city-state.

Though there are no strict divisions, each race tends to gravitate towards certain roles within the city-state.  Thouls constitute most of the government bureaucracy, occupy the highest ranks of the army, and hold most of the jobs dealing with education (both magical and mundane); most of the crafters, smiths, and other artisans are also thouls.  Urds dominate the merchant class; urd sorcerors and warlocks also make up a large portion of the army's magical unit.  Varags, renowned for their speed and stealth, usually take jobs as scouts in the army or messengers in the city; unofficially, most members of Mjinte's rogue's guild are also varags.  Most flinds are either in the army or the city guard.  Ogrillons work in the docks, loading and unloading ships.  Saurials living in Mjinte are either there to study or hold some sort of trade position related to their dracosaur meat shipments.

Government

Mjinte's government was created by the thouls, and has been steadily modified over the years.  In its current incarnation, there are four branches of government, often likened to legs of a table - executive, legislative, judicial, and military.  The executive branch, which ostensibly makes decisions and runs the government, is composed of the Supreme Minister, his cadre of advisors, and the ministers of Mjinte's thirty-seven districts.  The legislative branch is a parliament composed of two groups; the Left Chamber contains thirty-seven members, one for each district and appointed by that district's minister, and the Right Chamber has a hundred members, elected by popular vote, with each district having one member for every percentage point of the total population it contains.  Each district also has its own local parliament, which passes local laws which only apply within that district.  The judicial branch is composed of numerous echelons of judges, and the lawyers who try cases in their courts.  The military branch is composed of Mjinte's army, navy, and city guard.

Nominally, Mjinte has a semi-democratic, representative government in which all races and classes have a say in the running of the city-state.  In reality, the government is an overly complex behemoth designed by the thouls to ensure that they stay in power.  For example, the current Supreme Minister is an ogrillon named Carbonus Funk.  He is said to be the smartest and most cunning ogrillon to have ever lived, but debate rages over whether he is figurehead.  Most of Supreme Minister Funk's advisors are thouls, and the majority of the district ministers are thouls.  These ministers select the members of the Left Chamber, which is thus dominated by thouls.  The Right Chamber is popularly elected, but since half of the population is thouls, they usually get a majority of seats.  While there are few thouls in the army, most of the high-ranking officers are thouls.  And to top it off, Mjinte's legal system, with its combination of local district and city-wide laws is so convoluted that only the thouls themselves can understand it.  Consequently, the vast majority of judges and lawyers are thouls.

The other races - except maybe the ogrillons, most of whom really think Carbonus Funk runs the government - realize this reality, but don't have a problem with it.  This is because of the thouls, despite its insanely unnecessary complexity, Mjinte's government runs smoothly and effectively.  The government is for the most part not oppresive - the thouls long ago realized that the cooperation of the other races was needed, and so various freedoms and civil rights, or at least the illusion of them, are upheld.  People are also willing to put up with the thouls running Mjinte because they are their own worst enemy.  Just as their cousins the hobgoblins relish the thrill or organized military battle, thouls relish fighting each other within the boundaries of their complicated legal and political system.  The thouls are split among various factions, all of which are constantly grasping for power, meaning the other races usually have the freedom to get on with their lives without too much interference.

Economics

Mjinte has almost no agriculture to speak of.  This has two major influences on its economy.  One is that none of its huge population works as farmers.  Approximately a quarter of Mjinte's population is composed of smiths, artisans, and other crafters.  Their finished products constitute the bulk of Mjinte's exports.  Most of these items are weapons and armor - coal and ore mined from the Eusimli mountains are shipped by caravan to Mjinte, where the coal is burned in forges and the ore's metal is extracted and then worked into finished goods.  Mjinte's weapons and armor are among the best in The Shattered Isles, which is where the products are sent (to savage tribes so they have better weapons with which to kill each other), but they are inferior to those made by the western nations.  Mjinte also exports gems, mined from the desert Mchanlima to the south.  In recent years Mjinte has also begun to export magical items created by its many wizards - mostly scrolls and potions.

Mjinte also trades in slaves, though few slaves are actually used in the city.  When savage tribes attempt to sack the city-state (and inevitably fail), most of the captives are sold into slavery and shipped to other islands in the Shattereds.  The main exception is orcs and goblins, some of which are used to breed ogrillons and varags, respectively.  Also, some are kept to use as gladiators in Mjinte's elaborate coliseum.  Mjinte also buys slaves - mostly human.  It has recently come to light that most of the slaves caught by press gangs in Kerond and other western nations are being shipped not to Lovoss, as suspected, but to Mjinte.  These slaves are nominally used as mine workers, despite their lack of darkvision.  Some are used to facilitate varag breeding by having them fight barghests in the coliseum.  They are also used as a food source for the city when dracosaur meat becomes scarce due to poor hunting seasons or caravan raids.  Mjinteans' knowledge of Common and other western languages as well as information about the western nations comes primarily from these slaves.

Since Mjinte's existence has become known to the western Known Lands, they have begun to forge trade agreements.  Such agreements have already been struck with Lovoss and Zullaha.  Mjinte is still negotiating with other nations, some of whom seem a bit sore about the slavery issue, concerning which the city-state has adopted a "sorry, didn't know they were your citizens and didn't know they had been illegally taken" stance.

Culture

In many ways, Mjinte is like any other large port city.  There are temples to every deity, where marriages, funerals, and other religious ceremonies are held.  There is the usual mixture of cultures you get when various races are crammed together.  There is the love-hate relationship that people have with their city.

Mjinteans see themselves as the next phase of advanced civilization in The Known Lands.  They are keenly aware of their savage past and their "lesser" cousins, for the latter continue to attempt to sack the city on occasion.  They know they are better than those people.  They also have no inferiority complex when it comes to the western world.  Younger than Kiheldlund, Se'Tu'Faan, and the dwarven citadels, they have already reached or surpassed their level of civilization (at least in their own eyes).  And though older than most of the human nations, they have become the equal or better of humans in things such as wizardry in a few decades or centuries, while the humans have had thousands of years to develop them.  Mjinteans realize that Westerners see them as monsters, but that's their problem, and simply more proof of their backward ways and ignorance.  What moron can't tell a gnoll and a flind apart, or a hobgoblin and a thoul?  Many times when Mjinteans have conversed with people from the western nations, the Westerners assume the Mjinteans speak Common slowly and clearly because it's a foreign language to them, when in reality they do so because they assume most Westerners to be complete idiots.  This is different from the outright haughtiness of the sun elves - it's like the Mjinteans feel sorry for humans for being so damn pathetic.

As a result, the western Known Lands hasn't fully figured out what to make of Mjinte and its aspirations.  And funnily enough, neither do many Mjinteans.  It's fairly obvious that the city-state isn't out for conquest - Mjinte probably could have taken over all of Kswantu centuries ago, but apparently hasn't bothered to do so because there's no real value in owning acres upon acres of desert and wasteland occupied by savages who spend the bulk of their waking hours, as one dwarf visitor eloquently put it, "fighting and fucking."  Current popular opinion in Mjinte is that the thoul leadership simply wants to do what it has done in the city-state, which is to masterfully manipulate everyone into doing their bidding, but on a larger, international scale.  The thouls themselves likely think they are up to the challenge.



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