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Amrali, The City of Flowers
In the lowlands of western Ardashir, near the coast of the Center Sea, the city of Amrali lies like a jewel nestled among the gentle slopes south of Cathilcarn. It is a city of graceful bridges and white domes capped with marble or mother-of-pearl. Flowering trees line the avenues; blossoming vines climb over many of the fashionable houses and even the buildings of state. Every street carries the exotic fragrances of the flowers that fill it, and bright butterflies are to be found in profusion.
Amrali's high culture tends toward spectacle. Scholarship and learning, while greatly respected, do not capture the city's fascination the way singing and theater can. Dancers and musicians in Amrali can become extraordinarily wealthy, and are often the subjects of adoring odes penned by poets who themselves hope to achieve such heights someday. Dressmakers and tailors are not considered mere craftsmen, as they are in Calantyr, but artists of the highest order.
It is perhaps not surprising, then, that the Temple of Tharacia has its origins in Amrali. The House of Camellias, or the Red Lady's House as it is sometimes called, is the oldest and most elegant temple to Tharacia on the continent. Its courtesans are treated with more deference than are members of the aristocracy, and their mastery of the arts of love is famed throughout the Empire. Several of the great Empresses and concubines in Ardasi history have had origins in the House of Camellias, and while that sometimes occasioned scandal during their lifetimes, popular opinion remembers them more kindly now.
Amrali has weathered the slow decline of the Empire better than most of its cities. It is advantageously situated for trade, and its long history has left it with a reservoir of prestige and cultural capital that it has parlayed into continued strength even as the rest of the Empire falls into disarray. At present it has suffered no greater inconvenience than occasional spikes of inflation owing to the continued devaluation of the Empire's coin, and the loss of luxuries from the outlands as chaos periodically engulfs the overland trade routes. However, its wiser citizens are well aware of the stormclouds gathering on their horizons, and are constantly seeking new strategies to keep their jeweled city safe.
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