Camorr, formerly called the Serene Duchy of Camorr, is a Therin city-state ruled by Duke Nicovante and located on the shores of the Sea of Brass. It is the hometown of Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen. The demonym is Camorri.
Description[]
Camorr is one of the prominent Therin city-states, located on the Iron Sea south on the continent, and consists of eighty-eight thousand souls. The city’s skeleton is a network of Elderglass towers, bridges and labyrinths – remnants of a vanished race – and fleshed out by humanity with wood and stone. The Angevine River splits Camorr down the centre. The Via Camorrazza is Camorr's main commercial waterway. Camorr is a trading port city. More money passes through the city than any other coastal city in Therin. Tall iron gates shutter every major canal against Camorr Bay and the sea. Viscount's Gate is the way out of the city by land. The Cenza Gate district is the means by which most northbound land traffic leaves Camorr.
A network of canals, traversed using barges not dissimilar to gondolas, split Camorr into a series of little island-esque segments. Descriptions of the architecture, people and climate also suggest the design is Venetian inspired. Catbridges, a legacy of the Eldren, are narrow glass arches no wider than a man's hips, arranged in pairs over most of Camorr's canals and at several places along the Angevine River. They look smooth, but are as rough as shark's-hide leather. They provide the only convenient means of crossing water at many points. Traffic is always one-directional.
Camorr is split into districts, as shown on the map, and like all cities, Camorr has luxurious parts and impoverished parts. The latter consists of the Narrows, the Dregs, the Wooden Waste, the Snare, the Cauldron, Coalsmoke, Ashfall, and most of the docks, though it’s fair to say the destitution isn’t necessarily limited to the districts above.
The closer one gets to the prestigious Five Towers the further one gets from the poverty stricken parts of Camorr: North Corner, Coin-Kisser's Row, and Alcegrante are sound examples of these exclusive sections.
The Five Towers[]
The Five Towers are irregular structures left behind by the Eldren, and sport numerous turrets, runways, and spires of all shapes and sizes. Each tower is named and constructed from different material. Dawncatcher is four hundred feet high and silver-red in colour. Blackspear is slightly taller than Dawncatcher and entirely black save bursts of broken rainbows. Westwatch is violet and white in colour. Amberglass, whose elaborate flutings would cause the wind to make "eerie melodies." And lastly, Raven’s Reach, the palace of Duke Nicovante, and the tallest of all towers. A network of Elderglass cables cobwebs the tops of these towers, carriages bearing passengers and cargo are hauled across; a convenient - if somewhat audacious - method of transport.
Temple District[]
The Temple District is where the various temples of the gods are located. It is where the House of Perelandro, Father Chain's base, is located. The city's vast new temple is the House of Iono. A Vadran temple, the Temple of Fortunate Waters, and the Temple of Nara are named locations here.
Map of Camorr and its districts.
Coin-Kisser's Row[]
Coin-Kisser’s Row is said to be "the oldest and goldest financial district on the continent" and its ostentatious three- and four-story buildings reflect this claim. These countinghouses each display lacquered woodwork, silk awnings, marble facades, and other ostentatious touches. The northern half of this district lies opposite to the Fauria. It's steeped in influence and elaborate rituals. Two Eldgerglass arches bridge the Via Camorrazza in the middle of Coin-Kisser's Row. The most important and powerful bank is Meraggio's Countinghouse.
The Fauria[]
The Fauria is a crowded island consisting primarily of "multi-tiered stone apartments and rooftop gardens." Wooden wheels churn canal water into a network of troughs and viaducts that crisscross over the Fauria's streets at every level.
The Videnza[]
The Videnza district is to the south of the Fauria, and a comfortable part of the city, though not as much as the Alcegrante. It's a relatively clean and spacious island well patrolled by yellowjackets. At the heart of the Videnza is a market square of merchant-artisans. These businesses disdain the churning chaos of the Shifting Market. They operate from the first floors of their fine old sagging houses that are always freshly mortared and whitewashed over their post-and-timber frames. The district's tiled roofs, by tradition, are glazed in brightly irregular colors such as blue, purple, red, and green. The Videnza is the only place in Camorr where Perelandro's name is not spoken with sorry contempt.
The Narrows[]
The Narrows is a poor district located at the tip of the bad part of Camorr. The Narrows is forty feet beneath the outer edges of Camorr. It's kidney-shaped and something like a vast amphitheater. It's a labyrinth of "warrens and hovels" consisting of rows upon rows of "tenement housing and windowless shops" that jut from the tiers with wall collapsed against wall and alley. With countless narrow alleys snaking between these structures, it's barely wide enough to fit two men walking abreast. The Elderglass Vine tavern was here until Locke burned it down by accident. The Narrows is to the south, by Shades' Hill.
The Shifting Market[]
Example of the market stalls in the shifting market. (Source)
The Shifting Market is a lake about half a mile in circumference, packed with hundreds of merchant barges selling their wares to civilians on breakwaters. The Shifting Revel, where observation barges are secured to the breakwaters and occupied by hundreds of Camorri wanting to see the performances, replaces the Market once a month. These performances are conducted atop sunken iron cages, and include the Teeth Show, Judicial Forfeitures, and Penance Bouts.
Alcegrante[]
Alcegrante is a district opposite the Shifting Market. It is made up of shaded manors and tree-lined white stone boulevards across the four Alcegrante islands. It's where the Camorri minor nobility live. It's a place of "walled gardens, elaborate water sculptures, and white stone villas" where any persons appearing as low-class are brusquely discouraged from entering. It's laid out in opulence beneath the impossible height of the Five Towers in the Upper City. Isla Zantara is the second most easterly of the Alcegrante isles.
Mara Camorrazza[]
The Mara Camorrazza, known as the Mara for short, is a district that's openly dangerous. It had once been a garden maze for a rich governor of the Therin Throne era. Now it's largely abandoned by the city watch and haunted by cutpurses. It's a place of overgrown lushness located in the eastern part of Camorr, near the Temple District. It's the heart of a network of footbridges connecting eight other islands.
The Wooden Waste[]
The Wooden Waste, located southern Camorr, is a sheltered bay open to the sea, acting as a ship graveyard. It is also the location of Capa Barsavi’s home and headquarters, the Floating Grave, an anchored, dismasted ship sixty yards long and thirty yards wide. It's open to the sea on its south side.
The Cauldron[]
The Cauldron is the worst district of Camorr, the name possibly originating from claims that the Cauldron is an amalgamation of all the bad parts of the city. One in three of all Right People reside in the cramped, stinking streets and crumbling hovels of this dreary location. Even the yellowjackets refuse to enter the place unless in well-armed squadrons. The least sophisticated and restrained gangs rule here. About one thousand people live here. It smells like a keg of bad beer overturned in a mortician's storage room on a hot summer day. Most of the district's dead never make it as far as Beggar's Barrow.
Old Citadel[]
The Old Citadel is a district located at the southwest corn from the Temple District. The Old Citadel district was the previous home of the dukes of Camorr, centuries earlier. The Old Citadel isn't a very cosmopolitan district. It's now the location of the Palace of Patience and the Black Bridge.
Beggar's Barrow, Shades' Hill, Hill of Whispers[]
There are three main graveyards in Camorr. Beggar’s Barrow is where the common, lower class individuals are buried in paupers' graves dug by convicts. It is a hilly area. Shades’ Hill has long since converted to the home of the Thiefmaker’s orphans. A great glass arch leads from the northwest base of Shades' Hill to the eastern edge of the long, vast Temples District. The Hill of Whispers is where the most prestigious folk are buried, and is near Shades' Hill.
Ashfall[]
Ashfall is the most-ill looking island in the city. It's where gangs and squatters contend for space in the moldering, smoke-darkened villas of an opulent age now centuries past. It's dirty and falling apart.
The Dregs[]
The Dregs is a poverty-racked district. It's a one in ten thousand chance anyone here has any morals. While the Dregs isn't quite as desolate as Ashfall, it's on its way. Buildings are falling down or falling sideways in every direction. The entire area seems to be sinking down into a kind of swamp of rotted wood and fallen brick. Every year the damp destroys a little more of the mortar between the district's stones. Legitimate business has fled to other districts, and more bodies turn up loosely concealed under piles of debris, if they've been concealed at all.
Miscellaneous Districts[]
Twosilver Green is a public park that's considered safe due to the constant patrolling of yellowjackets. Sons and daughters of the wealthy classes like to stroll its crushed stone paths. The southern gate of the park leads to the Eldren Arch. The Snare is a low and crowded district that's disreputable. Sailors tend to come here when in port. The Broken Tower is a landmark of Camorr located at the very northern tip of the Snare. The first floor is the location of the Last Mistake tavern. The House of the Guilded Lilies is a brothel located at the northern tip of the Snare. Another of the poor districts is Catchfire, where the Black Whisper plague broke out when Locke was a young child. The Coalsmoke is a district containing the city's forges. Other districts are the Quiet, the comfortable district of North Corner, the respectable district Fountain's Bend, Razona, Rustwater, and Isla Durona. The South Needle is an Elderglass-mortared stone breakwater nearly three-quarters of a mile in length. At its southernmost tip, a human-built watchtower stands out.
The Arsenal District is now generally silent and motionless. With the Iron Sea city-states at relative peace, all the great saw-yards, warehouses, and wet docks have little business happening. However, in a time of need they can build or service two dozen ships at once. The Millfalls district is choked with business-folk and laborers alike. Escorted nobles in gilded carriages inspect their holdings or place orders. At the tip of the Millfalls is a wide low bridge that ends at the Cenza Gate district.
Laws, Politics, and History[]
Even when Camorr had once knelt to a single Throne like the rest of the Therin people, they still possessed a royal family. As far as we can discern, an Absolute Monarchy rules Camorr, with Duke Nicovante definite leader of the city.
Yellow Jackets by Lilia Anisimova (Source)
The Duke’s Magistrates, located inside the Palace of Patience, uphold the law and are, essentially, the only judges in Camorr’s court. The magistrates are twelve men and women who wear scarlet robes and velvet masks so their identities are never revealed to the public. Each justice is named for one of the months of the year to further protect their identity. Below these are the yellowjackets (also known as the watchmen) and their officers, who are similar in function to our police force, and reside outside the Palace of Patience in Old Citadel alongside tax collectors. ‘Blackjackets’ is the given name for the Duke’s army. The duke's own household guard is called nichavezzo, which means "punishing hand." Alongside this constabulary force are the Duke’s Ghouls, a group who have survived plagues and thus possess natural immunity, and are made to work among quarantine areas and sick people. They are Camorr's Quarantine Guard and are called out by pipes.
A single Capa, Vencarlo Barsavi, rules the underworld of Camorr and the hundred gangs that infest its bowels. Five years prior to the beginning of The Lies Of Locke Lamora, the underworld was ruled by thirty capa, and they were constantly warring with each other and the yellowjackets. Barsavi gradually murdered his way to power, claimed undisputed reign over every gang in Camorr, and founded the Secret Peace. Anyone who becomes Barsavi’s pezon must answer to his laws or face punishment.
The punishment of broken laws in Camorr can be considered as unnecessarily harsh; thieves of all ages are hung from bridges, other convicts are chained to oars and forced to row. Other means of punishment are unusually cruel and brusque, for example, ‘anyone going in the wrong direction on a catbridge’ can be ‘shoved off by those with the right of way’. There are, of course, prisons, as well as cages and the Teeth Show. Slavery is technically illegal in Camorr, but the act of enslavement itself is "winked at."
Inhabitants[]
The native, pure blood Camorri resemble our Mediterranean inhabitants; ruddy complexion, dark hair and dark eyes, Lynch describes their appearance as anything from "Portuguese to Italian to Greek." True Camorri have olive skin and black hair. They tend to have high temples and cheekbones and a sharp nose.
Camorr is known throughout the world to be a highly unpleasant, sadistic, downtrodden place (Locke dismisses any concerned probing about his and Jean’s safety when entering the rough city of Port Prodigal by saying "We’re from Camorr," and when Locke expresses his distaste for the Amusement War in Salon Corbeau, a noble dismisses its cruelty by saying, "Have you ever seen Camorr, by chance? Now there’s a basis for comparison that might have you thinking more soundly") and the Camorri are thought of no better. It’s expressed that Lashani, Verrari, and Karthani all consider Camorri crazy. They are obviously not a liked nation of people.
Notable Camorri nobles include Don Javarriz, Don Bellarigio, the de Marres family, and the Feluccias families.
Notes[]
- Camorr is famous for its Eight Beautiful Arts, the name given to the highest mastery of cuisine preparation. Chefs get a tattoo on their fingers of the respective Art mastered. Examples of the Beautiful Arts are vicce enta merre, the first art, the cuisine of sea-creatures; and the fifth art, vicce alo apona, which is the preparation of desserts.
- It’s tradition in Camorr for journeymen artisans to tattoo their hands or arms with some symbol of their trade.