Old Kartong – The Untamed City

Location
Old Kartong rises in the central wastelands of Zhuru, east of the Yorozhian Hell Desert and south of the Crater Sea. Its position at the throat of caravan routes makes it impossible to ignore. Merchants, raiders, smugglers—all who cross the desert or skirt the sea must pass near Kartong’s shadow.

Overview
On a land that should command trade and dominion, Kartong festers instead. It should be a jewel of commerce: it lies astride the arteries that bind the grasslands of Rakwi, the kingdoms of Izhura, and the savannas of Varduun. Yet Kartong is no jewel. It is a scar, a wound that never heals, a ruin forever gnawed by predators who cannot keep it.

The Tower
Kartong does not sprawl—it climbs. The city’s foundations rise out of a black desert outcrop, and above them thrusts the ancient tower: a spiral of stone and steel older than the clans who squabble beneath it. Its angles are strange, its height defiant. No lion, no hyena, no gazelle remembers who raised it. The tower predates their chronicles. Some whisper of an elder folk drowned by cataclysm, others of god-folk who bled stone into the desert. Whatever its origin, it remains—an accursed spire sneering across the horizon, a beacon no caravan can ignore. Travelers call it the Accursed Sneer. When the desert ends and grass begins, it is the first sight, black against the sun, commanding the throat of the land. Even those who skirt it bow their heads, unwilling to meet its gaze.

A History of Ruin
Every folk has tried to hold Kartong. All have failed. When the lions held it, the hyenas poisoned its wells until the streets stank of rot. When the hyenas ruled, the lions marched in fury and left its towers burning. When the gazelles dreamed of governing, they were robbed in daylight by hyenas and dragged screaming into lion dens by night. So it has gone for generations: conquest, collapse, conquest, collapse. No flag endures. No crown survives. Old Kartong always reverts to its natural state—feral, lawless, ruled only by hunger.

The Maw
At the city’s gutted heart sprawls The Maw, Toa Zokuda’s den of debts. Half gambling pit, half brothel, half execution-ground, the Maw is Kartong in miniature. Here stolen princesses are chained for sport, debts are collected in flesh, and cruelty itself is currency. What the desert sun does by day—burn, wither, strip bare—the Maw does by night.

The Law of Old Kartong
There is no king, no clan, no crown. The city is ruled by those who can hold a den for a night, a street for a week, a quarter for a season. Debt is its only law. Cruelty its only justice.

Reputation
Old Kartong is spoken of in whispers, half warning, half dare. Rogues praise its wealth: caravans always pass near, smugglers always dock. But they curse its curse: no one leaves clean. Mercenaries grow rich there, then die there. Predators thrive because prey walks in willingly, thinking to cheat the cycle, but Kartong devours them all in the end.

Stories of Old Kartong