Dockside District

The Dockside District of Omrazir sits on the hillside overlooking the Wharf District and the Strait of Sorrows. As the newest quarter of the city, Dockside is the neighborhood of the newly established and rapidly up-and-coming. This is overall the wealthiest district in Omrazir, but since this wealth consists of new money earned largely through trade (of varying degrees of legality), the residents are looked down on by the old blood of the city, particularly by those in the Kingfisher District.

The district has no coherent architectural plan or style, with the buildings and their layout instead following the stylistic whims of the owner, whose main concern generally lies in making a conspicuous statement of opulence and prosperity. The buildings are nevertheless visually tied together by their use of brightly colored terracotta tile roofs, even if the manors they cover otherwise share little besides size and expense. Most of the houses are two-story affairs, with the second stories generally boasting more elaborate exterior decoration than the lower -- doubtless due to the fact that it is only the upper level that is readily visible, the lower being concealed behind high stone walls.

Many families of foreign extraction live in Dockside alongside long-time subjects of the Sirdabi Caliphate. As in the rest of the city ethnic Sirdabi and Tessouare are the most populous groups here, along with numerous Salawi merchant families. People from elsewhere in Idiri are also represented, as well as families of Elukoi and Cateni heritage from Ruvera, and even a few Jalanit. Once again, the key factor uniting these highly disparate families is their mercantile wealth. Even the streets, with their golden luster from the goldstone granite paving, exude an aura of luxury. Despite the efforts of residents to have the name of their district accordingly changed to the more impressive "Goldstone Quarter," the area continues to be called simply Dockside.

History

Dockside was built upon ground formerly occupied by the Theater District, so called for having grown up around the Malidha Amphitheater. This old district was decidedly more disorderly than the one that would replace it, having traditionally housed the living quarters for poets as well as performers, artists and artisans, and all manner of dreamers and rogues drawn not only by the theater but by the additional drama and opportunity of the docks. However, most of the Theater District was destroyed in the year 676 N.D., when Arwad Yunus Bey had it burnt to the ground as vengeance against his unfaithful mistress, the great actress Yohanna. Although the amphitheater itself survived, the neighborhoods around it were lost and the debris later cleared for new development by the expanding ranks of the city's wealthy.