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House Shom: Nibenay and the Badlands

The oldest and richest city on the ring, and happy to tell you so.

Chapter on its way. This chapter downloads from the House Shom relay as soon as you enter the region. Until then, here's a preview from Balic.

Look for the banner: three white dragonflies on red and black.

Preview

• Nibenay sits on the east coast between the red mesas and the northern tip of the forest, built over hot springs that bubble up right through the streets.
• Population: about 24,000 in the city, and as many again in the villages around it.
• House Shom is ancient, enormous, and (the gossip goes) not what it used to be.
• Water is for sale. There are hundreds of hot springs, and every one is privately owned. In Nibenay you buy your water from a noble house, at whatever the season will bear.
• Shopping: rice from spring-fed paddies, agafari hardwood from the forest, spices, nuts, and dry beans. Pretty much anything is for sale here, one way or another.

In the region

• Nibenay: the carved city of springs. Wealth, dancers, and secrets.
• The Rust-Red Badlands: broken mesa country behind the eastern forest.

Getting there

220 miles from Balic by the Ring Road, east through Gulg's country: about a tenday with a walking caravan.