Ussudum is the last coastal caravansary on the on the Great Spice Road before Essyrn. It is a sprawling, brick structure centered around a large courtyard with a single seaward facing entrance. Caravans assemble inside its ancient walls to either prepare to journey into the vast sand sea or seek relief after having emerged from it. When caravans are coming and going through its gate Ussudum is a lively place filled with colourful characters, valuable goods and news of faraway places.
Mo Liki-liki stared toward this desert monolith's tall red brick walls in awe. Its scale alone was vastly larger than anything he had known. It was, he thought, a home of giants or gods. This feeling only increased as he drew nearer to it. The pungent odour of dung mixed with the press of humanity, cooking fires and rich spices wafted across the desert. These scents ran together with a rising cacophony of competing muezzins, haggling merchants and bellowing camels to threaten to overwhelm the lost Mhangan tribesman. "If me not be dead me am be far far from home!" he muttered to himself. Mo inhaled deeply, took up his spear and shield and walked on tired feet down the steep side of a dune, resolved to meet these strange gods.
