Planet:Deisna/Qafepiq



Qafepiq is a n city-state on the subarctic plains of Albova.

History
Originally a small farming settlement, Qafepiq's location at the confluence of two rivers allowed it to become the most important trading centre of its region, and as its wealth increased, it was fortified during the third century to prevent it from invasion. It soon brought the villages downstream under its command by controlling the supply of water, and then expanded its hegemony to those upstream with its overpowering economic and military might. In the late fifth century, missionaries from the south arrived at Albova, and upon converting the inhabitants of Qafepiq, they built the Ziggurat of Qafepiq south of the town.

Despite its regional influence, Qafepiq remained a minor city-state until 932, when the funded the construction of a university in memory of its recently-deceased founder Luceo Aucellus. Officially to help social mobility in the impoverished and underdeveloped area, Aldebaran benefitted by expanding its presence in the chemical engineering industry, exploiting offshore oil deposits as a cheap and easily-accessible source of feedstock. This caused immigrants to flood to the city with the hopes of gaining either higher education or employment in the oil refining industry, so Qafepiq's government ordered the construction of new residential accomodation along the river, demolishing the farms that had stood there for centuries. As a result, the city swelled into a minor urban sprawl consisting of hundreds of identical tower blocks, with the main city surrounding the university seperated from the larger suburbs by the West and East Industrial Districts.

The year 983 saw an alumnus of the University of Qafepiq and ex-employee of Aldebaran, Maqepocs Cuqbodo, return to Qafepiq under the alias. His work initially boosted but then removed most organised crime and homelessness from the overcrowded suburbs, and he founded Spagyric Solutions in 987 to sell herbal treatments for the sprawl's regular epidemics.