Lambrac:
I don't know much about Calimshan or Calimport. What's the deal with the byways? Are they like bridges over the city?
Information from my own game and the Calimport reference manual:
Calimport was built using the drudach system, an interlocking series of small brick-walled neighborhoods. All drudachs are organized into groups of two to five, called sabbans, which in turn are grouped into wards. Unlike most cities, few of Calimport’s streets are named. The walls of drudachs and sabbans form byways all their own, and here is the primary “road” upon which most moneyed folk travel within the city. Where one drudach or district meets another, there are arches that allow ground movement between the drudachs below and small stairs that allow “the worthies” to remain above it all. At each of the gates or arches are steps set into the walls, allowing access from the lowly ground up onto the wall. It is most common to see the rich standing atop the drudach walls, yelling down to servants who have stepped down to ground level to enter a shop and buy goods for their masters. Should someone of importance have to step down onto “common ground,” retainers carry rugs so the less-than-exalted earth does not soil their master's feet.
In various areas of the city, buildings are built up so their main floors are even with the byways of their paying customers. In such areas, the actual ground floor either is used as storage, living space, or sometimes as a secondary sales area for those less exalted than those above. Cellars are predominantly used for storage as well, though some new taverns have built ramps leading from the primary byways, past the ground floors and down into the cellars to allow their patrons to take advantage of cooler temperatures without asking them to debase themselves by touching the soil
