Apfawa E-pabeb
Apfawa E-pabeb is Bwap settlement of 50,000 on Sashar (Empty Quarter 0536), a ringed and heavily populated world of 12 billion in Nulinad subsector. Located just inside the dry, flat Qeusm saltflats, 850 km west of Xerxes. Not far from Apfatwa E-pabeb is the vast Damquan Prairies, dominated by Solomani Persian/Arab humaniti.
Apfawa E-pabeb has existed more-or-less continuously for 800 years. While the environment is quite hostile for Bwaps, it is substantially better than the numerous vacuum worlds which sophonts of all kinds have made a home. The main benefits the Bwaps get from living in the middle of nowhere is isolation from envious humans, an improved security environment (in a flat, featureless salt plain, you can see the humans coming from a long ways), and easy access to a rail network to ship out Bwap manufactures… and, surprisingly, Bwap food, grown in large aquaponic hothouses. Humans can digest and enjoy Bwap fruits, vegetables, and meats - and vice-versa. Note that among the Bwap, actual cooking via fire and heat is rare. Pickling food in brine or soaking it in mild, natural acids is a good deal more common.
Three major crèches have made their home in Apfawa E-pabeb: the Kebbo-ebwowab (15,000 Bwap), Tesaabba- wa-awa (7,000 Bwap) and Wawakasawaspa-bab (5,000 Bwap): there are also another 200 lesser crèches, with an average of 100 Bwap members per crèche. The lesser crèches are discriminated against- having to pay (with the local currency, the obebsaek) for the use of the tunnels and facilities built by the greater crèches, and generally shut out of the major foci of power. There is little resentment in this, as they feel that this is their proper place in the universe: at a given point in time some will always be greater, and others will be lesser. (Those crèches who are really aggravated in this may disband their crèche, or relocate elsewhere.)
The major crèches have distinct roles in society, with the Kebbo-ebwowab dominating construction and manufacturing, the Tesa-abba-wa-awa handling horticulture, water networks and life-support, and the Wawakasawaspa-bab controlling external trade, scouting and warfare. These are not hard-and-fast divisions, but are good rule of thumbs, especially useful when the outsider realizes that every crèche comes with their own highly distinctive skin patterns of greens, browns, yellows, and blues (with dark colors laid over light colors.)
References and Contributors[edit]
- Alvin Plummer. "Adventure: Water War." Stellar Reaches 12 (2010): 27.