Editing Acrozatarim/Gazetteer (section)

==Khamar==

Proud Khamar, it is said, does not bow its head.  An old port with a defensible harbour, Khamar did not fall into the waves during the Dawn War; it has never been conquered by another city or nation; revolution has never dislodged the line of Khamar Princes.  This is a traditional and ordered place, where things are not changed without careful appraisal and thought first.  A great tome, the Khamar Codex, dictates the laws and cultural taboos of the city, and to change them requires someone to die.

Khamar is stable and rich; its power is moderate, greater than shambolic Shatter but less than mighty Iril.  Its merchants ply the waves far and wide, and the cartels of its economy are not mediocre but neither are they as influential as those of Tergona.  Many see Khamar's conservatism, its unwillingness to change its laws and embrace new ways, as its weakness.  But as any Khamarite would tell you, you must think carefully before you take steps into the unknown, because it costs.

While Khamar is ruled by a Prince and, below him, a merchant council, it is commonly held that the Khamar Codex is the city's real ruler.  Its origin is not entirely clear - it may be Elder technology - but the first Khamar Prince, a very powerful mage, took control of the city in the aftermath of the fall of the Empire and installed the Codex in the city's palace.  The artefact extends its influence across the entire city, subtly encouraging a certain mindset amongst the populace and enforcing the cultural and legal norms written into its pages.  It is even possible for the Prince to directly focus the book's power on a particular district or even person, increasing the consequences for transgressing the laws written into the book all the way up to instant agony or even death.  Sometimes, the book does this of its own volition, seemingly according to whim.

It is not possible to remove the book; it has also remained resistant to attempts at destruction, usually retaliating viciously enough to discourage further attempts (one unfortunate is still decorating a wall nearby the book, petrified and half-sunk into the masonry as a statue caught in eternal agony).  It is possible to rewrite what is in the book, though.  The scribe must use their own blood, and may add, cross out or amend up to one law, one page of culture or one paragraph anywhere within the tome's pages.  They then die, slain by the book's arcana.  Of course, there have been those who have attempted to use a hapless intermediary to make a change, generally by forcing a slave to take up the strange, ivory-and-pearl quill and write on their behalf; these usually (but not always) result in the instigator of the change, not the slave, dying.  This means that to change how the city works, someone must actually die.

As a result, an odd caste of scribe-monk has arisen in the city.  The elderly who feel their time is coming to a close, the despairing who have lost purpose in life, the mortally sick and the truly devoted take up the mantle of the Crimson Scribes, cloistering themselves away in the spiralling heights of the Red Reach in the docks of Khamar.  Here the ascetics prepare themselves for death by legal progress, praying to Lliras and Churaphrat and meditating on what is to come.  Eventually, the call happens, and a single monk departs to the halls of the palace to ink a new law or change that is necessary for the city's good, then passing away.

Outside of Khamar, the Codex is largely reviled, although tolerated as an unfortunate element of the environment when passing through the city; the gates of Khamar hang with great bronze plates etched with summaries of the current state of law and culture.  However, the Codex encourages a stable, conservative, slow-paced culture that many find appealing, willing to trade the risks of life outside the city in return for the safety within - who would dare commit crimes when doing so might kill one in an instant if the Codex happens to be paying attention?  It also makes the city rather challenging to conquer or invade.

Khamar is also noted for the sheer luxury of its Princely court, the accumulation of literally centuries of decadent wealth with little desire for change.