Surenshahr

Surenshahr, capital of the Suren Confederacy as well as seat of government for the eponymous province of Suren. Once an oasis city within its own enclosed valley, and the site of a nearby ruined Babkhan MilZig, the city became the capital of the Suren Confederacy on account of being a defensible location from which to the rebel Surenids could maintain a close siege of the House of Osman loyalists in Raspur during the Second Euran War.

Home to 260,218 citizens, or 17% of the population of the province of Suren. The main street, unsurprisingly is Lord Suren Avenue, named for the father of the present Surenshah, the leader of the clan during its revolt against the holders of the Flayed-Skin Throne in Raspur. The walled bazaar, as well as the fortified compounds of the major ministries, the government offices, and the transportation stations, the departure point for land-cruiser convoys and the infamous local autobus service, are all to be found along the north-south axis of the broad thoroughfares that constitute Lord Suren Avenue. In contrast to Raspur, some effort has been put into repairing the roads of this city, a mixture of raised cobblestone and concrete, provided with adequate gutters for draining away the refuse of an otherwise inevitably insanitary Euran metropolis.

The Palace of Justice should be noted, the better to avoid it. The Palace is in truth a squat two-storey building, constructed of reinforced concrete, faced with mud-brick and decorated with blue mosaic tiling. The mosaic patterns spell out, in recursive Eurani script, the ancient Babkhan saying which became ubiquitous during the era of the Harmonious Society: "Zurvan ordains thus for all Believers: there can be no Mercy, only Justice; swift, everlasting, and implacable. Woe to all who forget this". Although the Palace of Justice is notable for the octagonal panopticon tower, festooned with CCTV cameras and miscellaneous antennae, which looms large over it, the visitor will truly know that they stand before it if they are in a position to observe the adjacent raised platform upon which, at the time of writing, are to seen the first two tiers of what is fully planned to be a pyramid of skulls. We are here confronted with confirmation that the Suren Confederacy is a polity which is governed, unapologetically, along Neo-Babkhan lines. The reasons for avoiding this wretched spot are two fold, both arising from the fact that horror and morbid fascination could be misconstrued as an undue interest by either the gendarmes, or else by the more crafty and guileful members of the populace who are forever on the lookout for that most perennial of victims - the tourist. Look overlong at the grisly collection of bleached skulls and the visitor stands in danger of either being whisked inside the grim barracks by two or more heavily armed gendarmes, or else runs the risk of being accosted by a talkative gentleman, invariably sporting a fez of the type that went out of fashion before the Babkhan Holocaust, who will begin to discourse, earnestly and insistently upon the particulars of specific skulls set in amongst the tableau of horror. In either eventuality the unfortunate visitor will have to pay dearly in order to extricate himself from the unfortunate position he has fallen into.