Amalo

A city in Thu-Athamar, from which the airship Wisdom of Choharo departed on her final flight. Almost a third of the city's people are involved in the manufacture of airships, which are the chief source of the principality's revenue. The city's prelacy is "a nest of vipers," especially the priests of Ulis. The lifeblood of the city are the Zhomaikora and the Mich’maika canal, so the city is full of shrines to Csaivo, the goddess of rivers. The city wall is north of the canal.

Many of the workers in the airship factories are Curneisei, followers of the philosophy of Curnar, who believed that all people could become gods and should strive for power in life. Most of the Curneisei have no intention of trying to seize power or overthrow those with power over them, but they like to believe that they would be justified if they did.

One of the airship companies is they Amal-Athamareise Airship Company. This is the one which refitted the Wisdom of Choharo and in which the Curneisei conspirators who created the bomb worked.

There are catacombs beneath the city. The chief temple is called the Amalomeire.

There are three opera houses, one of which is the Vermilion Opera.

There are many teahouses, especially in the Airmen's Quarter.

The city has public municipal baths, and metered gas and steam lines to provide light and heat. Boarding houses fly green-and-silver flags to indicate an empty room.

One of the biggest import firms is Duhalada and Cedherad.

Amalo has many newspapers, including the Herald of Amalo.

Amalo has a Guild of prostitutes; poor prostitutes are those who cannot afford to work in a Guild brothel and work the streets. Guild enforcers attack non-Guild prostitutes. In Amaleise slang, non-Guild prostitutes are called Iönraio (plural Iönraioi) which is also the word for a queen-cat in heat.

The Vigilant Brotherhood of Amalo keeps order in the streets and arrests perpetrators of crime against whom there is evidence. They also run a morgue and handle bodies dead in suspicious circumstances, although they do not themselves investigate crime.

Orchenis, the Prince of Thu-Athamar, rules Amalo and pronounces judicial sentences. There is also a city council that provides legislation.

Unlike the south and west, the region around Amalo has at least three main sects (with different funeral practices) and many other splinter groups, traditions, hero groups, and secretive kindreds.

Parts of the city
The city has several areas including the Airmen's Quarter and the Veren'malo. One of the most common bars for Curneisei airmen is the Cloud Horses. The Stone Tree is a teahouse favored by the Curneisei airmen. It is a warren of small, inconvenient, interconnected rooms, with small groups conversing in each. The conspirators who destroyed the Wisdom of Choharo met in this teahouse.

The Veren'malo is also known as the Old City. It is built on a hill and contains hulking government buildings of the Amaleise Court. One of the buildings is the Prince Zhaicava Building, where Thara Celehar has his office and so does the Amalo Municipal Tramline Authority.

The Airmen's Quarter is directly south of the Veren'malo, and connects to it via the Zulnicho tramline. The municipal cemetery for the quarter is the Ulvanensee.

The Zheimela district is named for Lake Zheimela. The western shore of Lake Zheimela is home to bourgeois families living in tiny bungalows. The Mich'maika runs through the Zheimela district, and there are lots of bars and gambling houses on the southern side of the Mich'maika at the eastern end of the district. There are many docks and warehouses and other businesses as well. Of the bars, only the Canalman's Dog is open during the day; it also operates as a teahouse and is built around an ancient shrine to Osreian. (It predates by generations the law that bars cannot be teahouses as well.)

Cemchelarna is on the Zheimela Road between the city wall and the canal. It was fashionable 500 years ago and is now home to artists and manufactory workers. It is serviced by the Coribano tramline. There used to be a Cemchelarna river. The Abandoned Bridge over where it used to be has shops and houses along its length, and many of the buildings on top of the buried river have bridges to it.

North of the Ulvanensee is a Sanctuary of Csaivo nestled in a curve of the Mich'maika. The Bridge Street ostro is nearby, as is the Reveth'veraltamar where bodies in the canal wash aground.

There are wealthy neighborhoods north of the Mich'maika, which are connected to the Veren'malo by the Vestrano tramline. One stop is at the Dachen Csaivanat, "the deepest well in the north of the world." It has a shrine and a csaivaitheileian and a tea shop called Lady of Rivers. The neighborhood around it was new two generations before Celehar's time, and the houses are made of brick formed from local clay.

Transportation
The Amalo Municipal Tramline Authority runs trams to all parts of the city. A stop on a tram line is called an "ostro." The main, central tram line is the Dachenostro. Most major shrines have ostros near them. There is also a municipal ferry on the Mich'maika. In the middle of the day, it is easier to take the ferry from the middle of town to the Zheimela district. In the evening as the factories close and workers head to the bars on the southern side of the Mich'maika, the tram is easier than the ferry.

The Tramline Authority has a department of cartographers in the Prince Zhaicava Building, with maps to the whole city and directions to every major landmark in Amalo. The master mapmaker is Dachensol Orzhimar. The mapmakers are mostly young elven men, and the clerks are mostly middle-aged elven ladies. Min Talenin and Merrem Bechevaran are two clerks there.

It is fashionable for young men and women of the bourgeoisie to take the tram instead of their family carriages, but young women of that class usually travel in pairs when they take the tram, and the family carriage when they travel alone.

Tramlines
The Vestrano tramline connects the Veren'malo with wealthy neighborhoods north of the Mich'Maika.

The Zulnicho tramline heads straight south from the Dachenostro to the Airman's Quarter, with a stop at the Ulvanensee.

The Coribano tramline follows Zheimela Road out the Zheimel'tana to Emperor Belvorsina III Square, in the Cemchelarna.