Ba'Dan: The Whirlwind of Zeal

A port city under joint jurisdiction, it straddles the border between Saraca and
Zalazar, the Al-Mashqi Road (built in a long-dead riverbed) bisecting it as a sort of main
street. Founded in 670, it grew slowly, attracting only those hardy and morally
questionable merchants willing to brave the unforgiving Moush Kedah to trade with
the Pirate Cities and Wine States. With the founding of Padashah at Al-Mashqi in
802, Ba'Dan's trade gained more legitimacy, and it began to grow. For 100 years,
the Zyiphs of Padashah requested the Caliph redraw their jurisdiction to include
Ba'Dan, seeing it as their one chance for real prosperity; but the greater influence
of Saraca and Zalazar ensured this would never happen. However, in 904, when Caliph
Qasir Basar approved plans to build the Emshi Highway, speculative growth in Ba'Dan
took off, and at the Emshi's completion in 927, Ba'Dan became the boom-town of all
Suhndi, its population increasing by scores every months, who could barely build
docks fast enough to keep pace with the new ships arriving from foreign ports.

The boom didn't last long. The Zyiph of Saraca failed entirely to control his half
of the town, and upon the public founding of a Halidan-style temple in 929, the
Caliph acted. His troops swept through Zalazar, crushing everything that seemed
suspicious to them until finally the Zyiph Hara Zamara received them with open arms
(and under crossbow-point) in Ma'Beq. Hara Zamara officially resigned his office
and agreed to accept a vow of silence and poverty at an undisclosed location, for
which the Caliph rewarded Zalazar by withdrawing his troops; the Zyiph of Saraca,
however, had to be forcibly removed from office, and was publicly executed while
pro-Caliph riots shook Hajja. Also at this peak of hysteria, the Caliph's troops
burned much of Ba'Dan to the ground, and chased its surviving population into the
desert. They occupied Hajja for seven months, and the Caliph appointed a new Zyiph
for Saraca, an ultra-conservative, grim old cleric named Dar Al-Mahak, formerly the
Zyr of painfully pious Peliotias.

Almost as soon as the elderly Caliph died in 930, Dar Al-Mahak also died; the new
Caliph, Aledd Watid, appointed another arch-conservative successor, who died in 933.
By then, Aledd Watid felt he could accept the recommendation of the local Zyr of
Sabir, and he appointed as Zyiph an energetic but flexible-minded theologian, a
Hadda from the Wild city Jabaf Sawda in Memrah'Assar. (Incidentally, this is the
only occasion of a Wild State leader promoted to a Firm State position--historically
only the opposite is the rule.)

Thus the current leadership of the leading Halidan states--Saraca and Zalazar--is
young and practical. Critics, however, quietly note that Caliph Aledd Watid is
grooming many arch-conservatives in Zymyria, and wonder where they will be sent
when the time comes. In certain Halidan circles, the mutter is "Remember Ba'Dan."
The town has become a symbol--a reminder that whatever the practicality of the matter,
a booming city of thousands will be reduced to ash if the appearance of piety is
not sufficiently maintained.

Ba'Dan, so well-positioned since the highways are completed, can't help but be
rebuilt, but its present population of 3,000 (under a strict Shapha raised in
Zymyria) is surely less than half what it would be had that temple never opened
in 929.


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