Gates of the Jaguar
Layout
The Gates of the Jaguar is an ancient city located deep in The Southeastern Threshold, the capital of Arashakara. The Gates themselves are an Earth-aspected 3-dot fortress manse at the center of the city, two towers linked by an arch, over whose smooth granite stone twine jaguars of gleaming black Obsidian: the mouths of the jaguars form the entry gates of each tower, trhe eyes of the northeast tower jaguar massive Emeralds and those of the southwest tower massive Rubies. This gate serves as headquarters for the local government and military garrison, though overall control of the manse is in the hands of the City Father Alaffin of the Jaguar Gates.
Eight broad avenues move from the Gates fortress out to the city’s outer wall, which might once have stood tall and smooth but are now mostly ruins, built up to close their gaps with rubble, mud, and wooden palisades. The eight original gates have been joined by nine smaller gates, where gaps in the walls have proven too great to fortify.
Within the city wall can be found tenements of mud and wood, built atop the half-fallen foundations of First Age apartment blocks. The Many Groves of Willows, a 2-dot Wood manse, is located near the northern city gate, a palace set amidst expansive gardens of ponds and willows. This manse serves as the dwelling of Arashkara’s monarch, the Protector of the Jaguar Gates. Just south of the Groves, residential structures are pushed aside by the massive Jaguar Bazaar, a huge market frequented by traders from both near and far.
History
During the Golden Age, it was a major trading hub in the Great Grass Sea, laid out as a circular urban landscape with a radial pattern of roads linking concentric circles that provided roadways between various city blocks. The city was little damaged during the Usurpation, as no Solar Exalts reached it before they were sealed within the Jade Prison, and its local Dragonblooded simply assumed direct control as daimyo of the Shogunate rather than as governors appointed by the Solar Deliberative.
Due to its smooth transition and the First Age military stockpiles filled to the brim by its Factory Cathedral, the daimyo holding the Gates of the Jaguar stood as the most powerful in the region, acknowledged as Faerie-Obliterating Taimyo of the Southeast by a number of successive Shoguns. This was a source of some consternation for the region, as the daimyo of the Gates exacted tributes and taxes from surrounding districts… particularly egregious to many, when called on by the Shogunal Court to provide soldiers for the Legions of the Shogun or to combat Fair Folk incursions, the daimyo of the Gates would demand subordinate territories supply their own forces in his stead, else he mobilize his armies to defeat them.
There was much grumbling through the Shogunate, but the subordinate districts had little recourse… despite this, perhaps driven on by prophetic dreams that the regional powers would unite to destroy the Gates, the daimyo holding the Gates became ever more authoritarian and restrictive on the activities of her neighbours. Records are unclear, though some might posit a self-fulfilling prophecy, for unable to bear the increasing burdens inposed by the Gates, the three neighbouring districts of Panja, Chan-ji, and Xipe Kadoll, ended their own rivalries to unite their forces in at attack on the Gates of the Jaguar.
The assault was devastating. Knowing their arsenals were the lesser, the attacking alliance opened the battle by unleashing everything they had, shattering the walls of the city and crumbling many of its internal structures atop the defenders. The Factory-Cathedral of the Gates was reduced to little more than rubble in a mere instant. Their armies then charged into the breach, and in the confused and brutal maelstrom the potent First Age weapons they feared were difficult to bring to bear. The daimyo of the Gates was finally cornered by the Dragonblooded rulers of the alliance, who slew her in personal combat. Without leadership, the Gates were looted, and the armies withdrew… their new weapons and freedom proving too invigorating, for soon their rivalries broke out into open war, this time even more brutal for the new power of their arsenals.
It was into this melee that the Great Contagion and then the Fair Folk Invasion swept. The city surrounding the Gates of the Jaguar was left entirely depopulated, the region devastated, and by the time the Scarlet Empress drove back the armies of the Fae there was little but empty ruins.
Alaffin of the Jaguar Gates, City Father, found himself alone in his ruined city, its power and glory shattered, any hope of rebuilding gone. He took control of the manse, and for many years wandered, lifting stones and sweeping streets, hopeless efforts to recover what he had lost. And then, a tribe of Dphon wandering the area pursuing herds of Dazzling Horses came upon the city and sought to shelter there overnight. Alaffin came to them then, for at last there was hope. His city would be great again.
With Alaffin’s personal involvement, the tribe settled and began to rebuild. Alaffin encouraged them to seek trade, for he remembered the wealth and influence his city held as a trading power. He encouraged them to arm themselves, for he recalled the authority and strength his city held as a military stronghold. And he encouraged them to smash the tribes of Panja, Chan-ji, and Xipe Kadoll, though the inhabitants of those places had barely more in common with their Shogunate predecessors than did those now living at the Gates, for to Alaffin it was they who had risen to lay his city low, and they must now be kept eternally subordinate so it might be strong.
The politics of emergent Arashakara were complex, of course, other spirits and mortals and Exalts emerging to influence it. But the kingdom remains centered on the Gates of the Jaguar, and Alaffin remains its devoted, and actively involved, patron divinity.
