Imagine if a Tolkien fan in 1920s Florida had a fever dream after being left for dead by gangsters in a swamp. Welcome to Albasa City.
Albasa is a city of speakeasies, rival gangs, gatling guns, poisoned cocktails, slick politicians, old money, new money, blood money, social tensions, frenzied jazz, decadent aristos, fast cars, drug dens, crooked cops and a dense, untamed swamp to hide all the bodies in, so they don’t pile up on the streets.
Through the skies of this metropolis the wealthy fly on giant birds, below, in the neighbourhood of Uptown, goblin warlocks lurk in the shadows of skyscrapers muttering curses, in Northgrave elven movie stars charm and snake their way down a red carpet, while on the backstreets of Havok an orc garbage man chases off a giant slug the size of a dog that’s been rifling through the trash cans. The city that surrounds them is an art deco monstrosity, its surfaces shinny its innards rotten, held together by secrets, lies and conspiracies.
You might be Mr or Mrs Nobody from the backwaters of Nowhere but even you blow-ins, you hayseeds, fresh from the endless farmlands beyond the city, would know a thing or two about what’s going on in the capital. It’s probably what attracted you to it in the first place.
The banning of all intoxicants 46 years ago means that those who are willing to take risks can now make jaw-dropping amounts of money staggeringly quickly. As a result the criminal elements in the city have become ever more powerful, they are riding a wave, which some sat is at its peak, their leaders now moving among the high society of the ‘aristos’, a name given, in Albasa, to the new wealth as well as the old money. If there was a love story for this age, money would be the dame.
Albasa, as the dwarven writer Saxon Post recently commented, has “entered an age of gilded excess, fully indulging the impetuous self-destructive spirit of the times”. His rival, the elven critic Vital Bloodson notes, “Living in Albasa these days is like living in a carnival that is burning down all around you”.
Corruption and immorality curl around the glitz and glamour like the persistent vines that crawl up the walls of the houses of esteemed academics in the neighbourhood of Edgebury trying to drag them back into the swamp.
As the laws become more draconian, the opportunities for criminal enterprises only grow. The more laws there are, the more turning a blind eye becomes a common, accepted practice.
“Society itself has become a conman, claiming to be one thing whilst knowing full well it’s something else.” – Saxon Post
That’s not to say that reputations cannot be ruined. Public disgrace is still public disgrace. To have ones immorality made public is to be destroyed in aristo society. It’s a game and everyone knows it but no one will admit it. The lower orders are less discerning about the company they keep. In the poorer neighbourhoods, such as Dampton, Havok or Sootcove, everyone is on the make and they aren’t too proud to tell you so to your face.
“The politicians have closed the bars, the drug dens, the brothels and the fighting rings and they’re all busier than ever.” – Vidal Bloodson
The streets are alive with rumours of criminals performing wild acts of magic, while the police crack down on even the slightest healing spell performed without a license. Magic is illegal. But so is booze and drugs and they’re everywhere.
Why would anyone live in this sweaty, dangerous, swamp side city? The short answer is excitement. The conspiratorial thrill of giving the password to enter a speakeasy, consuming the illegal intoxicants, then the exhilarating thought that this bar or smoke den might be raided at any moment, might be the scene of a gangland killing or break out into an orgy that breaks the holy laws of Modella and most other gods in the city. Who would swap all this for a safe legal dinner even if it contained the finest wines in the world?