Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)

2026-05-08T09:14:33Z

(via JWB)

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{{Infobox:TwilightAgeGroup
|Type = Zu'aan city
|City Name = Anhgha City Zu'aan
|Parent Groups = N/A
|Descended Groups = Unknown
|Areas Controlled = [[Aldgar Vibrant Swamplands]]
|Date Founded = 4E 281
|Date Disbanded = N/A
}}

==History==

Everything the Anhgha zu'aan were had to do with rules. They liked that they were rule oriented, as they wanted to be structured and reformed, unlike some of the other cities they knew of.
From the start of the Twilight Age, the zu'aan from Anhgha city decided that they were going to build a wall around their city to keep both the kin’toni and other zu'aan out. They didn’t want anyone to get into the city without their permission, and this also allowed them to monitor anyone who left the city as well, on the rare occasion that they allowed anyone to leave. Their leader, Malachi, was a leader who thrived on rules and order. He saw every one of the zu'aan in the city lower than him.

He knew he was their leader, as his father had been before him, and he knew he would produce a son that would be the leader after him. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to prove that he was all powerful there, and that included killing anyone what got in his way. Since before the Twilight Age, there had always been a powerful leader in Anhgha city. The first leader, Tarus, knew that without reform and respect, there was no way anything could move forward, and so he strived to make his city fall to his rule. There was resistance at first, but Tarus wouldn’t allow his plan to be derailed when he was confident that it was the best thing for the city. By the time he got what he wanted, half of the zu'aan from the city were dead and he was finally respected as the one and only ruler.

Years later, it was Malachi that the zu'aan listened to without hesitation. Before him, it had been his father Zarim, and before him, his father Yerdil, all the way back to Tarus. Each of the leaders were born of their father’s reign and groomed to become a great leader, just as their fathers had been before them. There was no decision as to if they wanted to be the leader, because since Tarus, there were multiple zu'aan women pregnant at the same time, and the strongest would be chosen to be the next leader. It was a tense competition between the mothers who wanted their son to be the next leader of the city, but ultimately it was up to the current leader to choose which of his sons would make the best leader.

As time passed through the Shattering and the kin’toni threat had been evaluated and handled with the wall being built, Malachi forced his city to move on from it and focus on themselves. They offered no help to other cities, since they had been able to neutralize their own issues, so they were kept inside the wall and weren’t allowed to aide other cities who didn’t know how to help themselves. Malachi believed that if the other cities weren’t able to keep the kin’toni out of their city, then they weren’t worth being helped in his eyes. He wasn’t going to expend his resources on anything but his own city, just as the previous rulers had done before him.

==Psychology==

Since there had been a leader of the city for 4 generations, the zu'aan from the city knew what to expect when it came to the rules they needed to follow. Most, if not all, of the zu'aan liked the rules of the city since there wasn’t any guessing they needed to do to make sure they were doing the right thing. Everyone had their roles, and they knew they did, as they were assigned to them to do. Everything was extremely structured around the city, where everyone knew what they were doing and when they were meant to do it, as well as uniforms and specific outfits they were allowed to wear at certain times. Even the foods they ate were regulated and decided long before they ate them, so even that left no room for guessing.

While everything was regulated, the only person that was left to make decisions was Malachi. Every day he had to answer to zu'aan who had questions about anything, or he had to convene with his military to see how the wall was doing and approve any changes to it if there was need, but otherwise, he had to make sure his rules were being upheld and followed, which put a lot of stress on him for being the one and only leader. Since he was so stressed with his duties as leader, Malachi, just as previous leaders did, would find solace in one of his 5 wives. He wanted to have something in his life that would allow him to take his stress out and focus on something else, and so he did that by laying with his wives in hopes to produce sons that could lead someday.

Everyone else was expected to conform, day in and day out, and they did. Malachi was grateful that he didn’t have to establish his rule quite like his ancestor Tarus did by killing half of the zu'aan in his city to get the rest to understand that he was the ruler. Of course, there were always some that would disrespect his rule or they would deny him as their leader, which would result in Malachi making an example out of them. He didn’t want any other zu'aan thinking that he was anything less than their tyrannical leader, and so any zu'aan that disrespected him, especially in the presence of one of his wives or children, would be killed on sight. It made Malachi feel empowered to end a zu'aan’s life when they would disrespect him in front of anyone else.

There was never any debate of if what Malachi did was ethical or not, given that he was the leader and therefore didn’t need a reason to kill someone, even though he usually made sure he did have a reason. He would never participate in the funeral for a disrespectful zu'aan, instead throwing a party so the family knew that he had no respect for someone that didn’t have any for him.

==Culture==

Since they were an intensely structured city, there were dress codes for every tier of zu'aan. This way, there was no way to be confused about where a zu'aan stood, you would be able to tell who they were and where they stood just by looking at them. The leader of the city, Malachi, would be dressed in red. He was the only zu'aan in the city that was allowed to be dressed mainly in red, as it signified the blood that was spilled in the process of becoming the leader of the city. His wives would have a red band around their upper arm, allowing other zu'aan to recognise them as the leaders’ wives. The military would be dressed in black. They did this so they were both easily recognised, as well as so they could remain incognito at night.

The first military that Tarus enacted asked that they could be garbed in all black and their request was accepted. Each of the common zu'aan, at least those who were unmarried, were to be always dressed in white. This was to signify their purity and to allow Malachi to see who was not yet married so he could make matches and arrange marriages when zu'aan seemed to be getting too old to remain unmarried. When a zu'aan did get married, they would then be able to wear beige or cream coloured clothed, signifying that they had gotten married and were taken off the market in the eyes of Malachi. The only exception to this was that Malachi’s wives would have a red bank around their arm, as they were married to him, but since they were the wives of the leader, they had to be easily discernable from the other zu'aan.

There was no mixing of colours allowed unless you were to wear a red band, as it was against the law to do so. Malachi, as well as previous leaders, wanted to make sure his zu'aan were easy to recognise and that they weren’t partaking in too much creativity. He didn’t want them to think that life in the city would be the same if the zu'aan started to get more creative with things.
When it came to how the zu'aan were allowed to live, Malachi preferred to follow the same traditions that his father and grandfather had set in place. The tradition that he wanted to keep was that men were the only ones allowed to hold a job outside of the home and the women and children were to remain at home.

Women would be expected to keep the house clean for their husbands, or their fathers if they were unmarried, as women weren’t allowed to live alone. Children, on the other hand, had a bit more freedom. Once they reached 5 years of age, they were sent to schools for most of their day before coming home, completing chores, and then being sent to do homework and play until bedtime. They were allowed to dress in clothing that wasn’t white, although only at school, where uniforms were mandatory. Another stipulation that Tarus had put in place was that any unmarried zu'aan, specifically the women, would need to remain pure until they were married. This way, he could control how many zu'aan were being born each year so the population wouldn’t get out of control.

While this wasn’t always perfect, as soon as a pregnancy was confirmed by a doctor, Malachi was notified so he could make sure it was to a married couple, otherwise the pregnancy would be terminated. As well, there were only allowed a maximum of 3 children born to a couple, and each couple needed to have at least 1 child so their population wouldn’t decline. The only person in the city that didn’t have regulations on the number of births was Malachi. Since he had 5 wives at any given time, he would be trying to have one of them give birth to a son for him. if one did, and he deemed the child to be strong, he would name the child his heir.

==Government==

One of the largest expectations of the Anhgha government was that they have an heir to continue the legacy of the city. Each leader would have up to 5 wives who they would ensure bore them a son. When the son was born, if the leader liked how strong the child looked, he would choose the child to be his heir and would spend as much time as possible teaching the child about what his role would expect. Any other children born to the leader that were either female or weren’t strong, in his opinion, were taken from their mothers and sent to an orphanage in the city. They were not confirmed to be the leaders’ children, as he didn’t want them to grow up thinking they would have any claim to the role of leader.

Instead, they were never told where they came from and would typically grow up alone. The zu'aan that ran the orphanage would make sure that when the next leader came into power, that he wasn’t choosing one of his sisters to be his wife, and so they would keep the female orphans from the new leaders. Of course, there were always times when a leader needed to consult someone about a decision that needed to be made. While the previous leaders had their consultants, Malachi wanted to make sure his rule was different than his fathers, and even his grandfathers. Because of this, Malachi created a group of zu'aan that were meant to follow him around at all times, always taking in their surroundings, in case they saw anything that Malachi might have missed.

At the end of the day, they would convene and speak of the things that happened around the city so they could come to a decision. Ultimately, it was Malachi’s decision as to the course of action, but he would typically listen to his consultants about what they thought his response should be. Ultimately, the decision was up to Malachi, and he would stop at nothing to make it known that it was. When it came to the government of the city, there was a tight leash on the zu'aan in regard to anything that was allowed to happen. Malachi didn’t want the zu'aan feeling too much freedom when it came to their lives, as he wanted to make sure they knew they weren’t going to have what they wanted.

The more Malachi changed about the city, the more the zu'aan had to adapt to it. They simply accepted the inevitable, since there was nothing they could do to change it, and they went on with their lives. There had been zu'aan that had tried to change the rule of the leader, but they were shot down, or rather killed, for opposing the leader. Because of that, none of the other zu'aan wanted to oppose Malachi, as they didn’t want to be killed.
Since he had their complete cooperation, Malachi knew he would be able to change any and all laws he wanted to without retaliation from the city, although when he took rein of the city, things were made easy for him.

==Military==

The military that Tarus enacted when he began his reign started with only the best trained men that vowed to die for Tarus, and they did. They were able to take over the city with only the loss of half of the zu'aan who didn’t want to comply. The rest, all scared of what their fate would be if they said no, would go on to join the military, or succumb to the life Tarus proposed. Years later, Malachi had been recruiting the strongest and smarted men to be a part of his military. He wanted to make sure they would do as he told them, since they were more for his benefit than they were for the city.

Malachi didn’t want his military expended for any reason other than to suit his needs, so they weren’t allowed to attack anyone, or anything, without his command. During the Shattering, they were expected to protect the city, although the protection of Malachi was the most important thing they were tasked with. Since the military consisted of the best trained men in the city, they were expected to only eat, sleep, and do their jobs, as this way they would have nothing to be distracted by. The men of the military were not allowed to be married or have children, as Malachi believed their families could be a distraction to them when they were supposed to be completely devoted to working and protecting the city.

They were expected to sign a contract and take a vow stating that they would never seek a wife and that they would spend the rest of their lives devoted to the protection of the city. Malachi would have them sign the contract with their own blood and they would then be branded as a military man. If there ever came a time when a man from the military slept with a woman, especially one that was unmarried, Malachi would see to it that both of them were put to death. If there was a pregnancy or child born of the pair, it’s life would be taken as well, as he didn’t want any evidence left from the deceitful pairing. Their executions would take place in public, in front of the rest of the zu'aan that were then forced to watch, as a reminder of what would come to them if they were to do the same thing.

It wasn’t something that happened frequently, but it was something that still happened more than Malachi would have liked. Oftentimes, Malachi would have the military patrolling the wall around the city, checking to make sure the zu'aan were staying in the city and weren’t breaking any rules. As well, they would be checking to make sure there weren’t any kin’toni trying to invade the city, or any other zu'aan that were hoping to seek solace within Anhgha city.
They would spend hours talking to zu'aan that were trying to come into the city, telling them they weren’t allowed to come in. it didn’t bother them to turn away anyone, as they knew it was for the best interest of the city.

==Religion==

The zu'aan of Anhgha city were not allowed to have a religion as Malachi believed that they would use religion as an excuse to not serve him as he wanted them to. It was the same with the previous leaders, as they all believed their zu'aan would stop following their rule if they were allowed to experience the freedom of religion. Before Tarus took over the city and made it fall to his rule, there were many zu'aan that believed in a Jesus-like God. They believed that there had been a zu'aan that had lived as the son of their god, and they had passed away to purify the zu'aan of their sins. He was so praised that he wrote a book in those three days, before he passed, for the other zu'aan to follow while he was gone.

It was a book of rules that allowed them to live their lives to the fullest and happiest they could. When Tarus took the city by storm with his onslaught of death, he made sure to take every book their “god” wrote and burn it so they could never reference it again. There had been some that survived the burning, and they were sent with the zu'aan that managed to escape the city before the wall was put up. From then on, however, any mention of the religion had been resulted in the killing of the zu'aan that mentioned it. There was no tolerance for any religion that didn’t praise their ruler and all he did for them, as he was meant to be the only one that could truly “save” their city.

Over the years, there had been many zu'aan that had tried to practice their religion in secret, trying to find ways to hide the books or talk to each other in a code without their leader’s knowledge, but in the end, they were always found out and executed. By the time of Malachi’s rule, he had set aside a group of the military that would act as regular zu'aan so they could find out if there were still any zu'aan trying to practice religion against the law. Every time a group was found, the military zu'aan undercover would go over to Malachi and tell him what they had found. From there, Malachi would plan their executions, as he would not have anyone not listening to his laws.

If there was the off chance that another group of zu'aan from another city would come into Anhgha, they were not allowed to speak of any religion, or they would face execution themselves. They were expected to keep their religious practices outside of city walls, or were to leave the city if they felt the need to partake anyways. They were made to a sign a contract stating that they would face execution for religious practices, and it was left up to Malachi’s discretion as to when an offence against the contract had been made.

==Miscellany==

{{NearbyGroups
| Centre = Unknown
| North = Unknown
| Northeast = Unknown
| East = Unknown
| Southeast = Unknown
| South = Unknown
| Southwest = Unknown
| West = Unknown
| Northwest = Unknown
}}

{{CrossSiteAttribution
| User = [https://www.fiverr.com/debraspencley Debra Spencley]
| Holder = Debra Spencley
}}

[[Category:3rd-century Twilight Age zu'aan cities]]
[[category:Debra Spencley's contributions]]

Anhgha City Zu'aan - Revision history

Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)