Ama Shuya

Ama Shuya ("Home of the Goddess" in Tesselari elvish) is the largest city on the continent of Deneshae. It is built inside and around an enormous earthen ziggurat, on which rests Guphor Ama, or the Goddess Tree, which is thought to contain the goddess Qualyn (also known as the titan Irtus). Ama Shuya has a population of around one million and was a significant mercantile port for the pre-Fog Deneshaen civilization. Since its reveal, Ama Shuya has become a popular tourist destination for people of Avo, as well as an important stopping point for merchants seeking to establish trade in Deneshae.

Etymology

The name Ama Shuya comes from an ancient branch of Elvish which was spoken by the Tesselari elves and thus has become known as Tesselari Elvish, or TE. Much of the languages retains structure and syntax which evolved in modern Elvish. However, it also borrows heavily from Draconic, presumably an evolution due to the dragonborn influence of Isoasar to the north. It also has numerous words with roots in Sylvan as well due to Sylvan being the proto-Elvish language.

In TE, "ama" means "goddess" (with "ame" meaning god) and "shuya" is a reverential word for "home," meaning more like a temple or shrine. "Shuja," meanwhile, is often used for a regular home. "Guphor" is the word for "tree," with "gupho" being "many trees" or a forest or wood. It is borrowed from the Draconic word "guvoa," which means forest. (It seems the Deneshaeans took the plural word and singularized it.)

Geography

Ama Shuya lies at the point of the Ama peninsula, which extends like a claw into the Ama Osora ("Bay of the Goddess"). It is surrounded by grasslands with few trees. The Midnight Wood is to the south, Sosora Thana to the north and northeast, and the eastern islands of the Yonavi to the west.

The city has two distinct parts: the ziggurat, which is Ama Shuya proper, and the Pamaran ("Goods-home"), or the large outdoor market outside of the ziggurat. The Pamaran includes large residential districts as well, but is known primarily as a marketplace.

Ama Shuya the ziggurat is roughly one mile across and three quarters of a mile tall. It consists of four tiers, each one around 1,000ft tall. Each tier above the lowest is about 1,500ft smaller in width, with the tallest tier being only 800ft wide. Guphor Ama sits atop the tallest tier and is about half a mile tall on its own. Its enormous roots reach over the tallest tier and sink into the second tier, winding through the earth in a labyrinthine fashion. Many of the rooms and passageways within Ama Shuya are created with the help of the roots.

History

The origins of Ama Shuya are largely unknown. Most believe that the goddess Qualyn raised the ziggurat up from the earth when Avo itself was created. She gathered the earth from nearby, creating the Ama Osora in the process. Then, to keep the ziggurat stable, she grew the Guphor Ama, whose roots grew into the earth and held it together.

Many Deneshaean oral traditions speak of the ancient seafaring gnomes who populate the coasts in modern times, and how they were first to discover the ziggurat thousands of years ago. Today, gnomes make up roughly 40% of the population of Ama Shuya and are effectively the government of the city.

While internal war and strife plagued Deneshae as much as it did the rest of Avo, Ama Shuya remained largely untouched by battle, and the few times the city was besieged, the attackers never were able to penetrate into the ziggurat itself. Gnome stories tell of Qualyn delivering bountiful harvests of fruit and roots to the people inside the ziggurat during sieges, keeping the populace well-fed until the attackers could be properly dealt with.

Government

Ama Shuya has no formal government. Instead, gnomish elders take requests and offer aid when necessary. There is no tax in the city, and most who live within and in the Pamaran care for their own affairs. The gnomes believe that Qualyn offers aid to all, and that all will offer aid to Her, and, by extension, Her people (i.e. the citizens of the city).

Religion

While there is no formal government, the clergy of Ama Shuya tend to fill in the gaps. The clergy lives exclusively on the fourth tier, known as Ungera Soka ("Thick Roots"), where they commune with Qualyn. Many also live outside along the top of the third tier, in huts or small homes, where they gather Qualyn's fruit and fallen leaves.

The Qualynites as they are called number among the dozens, and they appoint people in the city to protect them and the Fruit of Qualyn as crusaders. These crusaders are known as the Shadekeepers and keep the peace throughout the city, as there is no formal secular militia.

The Goddess Tree

Guphor Ama resembles a deciduous tree, with broad, green leaves not unlike a black or bur oak tree. Each leaf is perfectly symmetrical, however, and all leaves look alike, though they vary in size, with the largest recorded measuring three feet two inches from tip to stem.

Despite being deciduous, Guphor Ama does not shed leaves or bark. Attempts to remove leaves or any other part of the tree result in the removed part disintegrating into a fine powder almost immediately. The powder is a grayish brown and is incredibly bitter and toxic to ingest. Thus, all attempts to graft branches of Guphor Ama in an attempt to create another tree have failed, even when magic is used to try and slow the disintegration process.

Aside from the leaves, Guphor Ama also grows fruit, which are generated from light blue flowers.

Qualyn's Fruit

The Guphor Ama flowers once every ten years and drops fruit in the fall of the same year. The fruit, when ripe, is roughly the size of a large ball (anywhere from six to ten inches in diameter) and is a deep bluish purple color. Only the clergy of Qualyn eat of the fruit and the high priest is the first of them to eat, after a lengthy ceremony following the fruit's harvest. Oftentimes the consuming of the fruit comes with visions or premonitions from Qualyn herself; the high priest's job is to make sense of the visions and address what they foretell.

The fruit is said to taste very sweet and soft, not unlike a plum or peach. Unlike drupes, however, Qualyn's fruit has no seeds inside, thus making it impossible to grow another tree.

Notable NPCs

• Terquali
• Ol' Stumbleduck
• Alcaman Lenn
• Goson Krek
• FH-0451-2
• The Shadar-Kai Explorers
  • Gustav von Pfelter
  • Tarsinia vonAframme
• The Urtena Family
  • Leandra Urtena
  • Gareth Urtena
  • Yerdle