Kylix

Kylix is one of the seven lagoon city-states on Veile. A city of elegant bridges, balconies, and terraces. Hushed conversation, the gentle sounds of oars through water, string music fluttering through curtained windows.

The smallest of the seven cities, the City of Silent Water is also the most conservative. Its elite and unseen city police are draconian in their enforcement of public etiquette, and only the richest of merchant princes or most privileged of Aurumel aristocracy can avoid beatings or imprisonment once the ire of the police has been drawn. Several philosophical societies and household cults have shrines and meeting houses in quiet Kylix, and one may often see their shrouded number congregating along the waterfront.

Where there are brothels and taverns in the larger cities, Kylix is content with its breezy teahouses and fountained courtyards and parks where orators politely debate philosophy and politics. The occasional violation of noise ordinance from the audience of such debates rarely merits more than a stern look from the city police. A true disturbance, such as insubordination to the aims of Kylix’s government, the professing of religion, or any other destabilizing agenda, is always dealt with swiftly and brutally — and even lethally, if the offense is vulgar enough. It is no wonder that the manses in the high hills surrounding Kylix occasionally produce a maddened slave or laborer who spins bloody yarns of torture, murder, and excess.