Er-Arr-Banyan

Er-Arr-Banyan, is Directly translated as "city of the two-faced god". Not the divinity some called Yanoos (who's two faces see the future and the past simultaneously) but an older one worshiped only by the decendents of salt-demons and cave folk, a god of luck and unluck, with one face smiling and another scowling. This God's faces grace both sides of the city's coin. Some cities are built at the mouths of rivers, nurtured and cleansed by the waters. Others, surrounded by rich fields and girded by fecund fruit trees, are situated along routes of trade or political significance. Er-Arr-Banyan, it was said, was only a place to flip a coin with neither beautiful situation, convenient location or any blessing or favour from the acknowledged pantheon of human civilizations. Perched on a basalt configuration at the end of an evil road it nonetheless reached upward with garishly tiled spires and six belltowers casting their long shadows through the delineated boroughs of the city. With no industry, trade or craft the economy of the city was solely based on games of chance and the worship of the twofaced god of furtune, Arbaniban.

Seed idea

In a single sentence: economic picaresque set in mythic Central Asia.

Inevitable pitfall: orientalism…

Reloading the hopper

Wisdom of the All-Mother

Pride and rage are two splendid oxen. Use them often but never on the same yoke.

Imprecation upon the haughty

How dares an oath breaker preform rites within the crumbled walls!

Vile son of the false friend you are accursed!

Be gone from the uneasy resting place of these my people!

Would that I had had one more festival of oaths the fish would jump and the buckwheat flourish. And your people should reside in the untended graves.

Excerpts from "Soiptho's Grammar"

Dwarven Victory Ritual

Smoke is blown from a silver pipe upon the arranged vanquished (living or dead). This is done in three rounds each with a different tobacco blend and a different incantation. The successive rounds flaunt the superior strength, intelligence, and power of the dwarves: "had you been stronger then you would be blowing the smoke, had you been smarter I would be subjugated and your pride would rise like a horn, had you had the power and favour of the ancestors surely you would not have been so unlucky!"