Viewed by the characters in a brief vision in the Act I Prologue. A yellow city surrounded by mountains, full of sounds like hyenas and human screams. Flags, banners, and unreadable writing everywhere.
In Chapter 87, it was revealed to be the city of Okeno, one of the largest cities in Katapesh, formerly a pirate cove now a major hub for the slave trade. Legendary for its flesh fairs. Called the “Yellow City,” because of the sickly yellow flags of the slavers that dock there. It has an abnormally large gnoll population and lies tucked in a sheltered bay on an island in the Obari Ocean, off the coast of Garund.
Briefly seen by Dora, Grip, and Vik while descending the stairs to Sarnath in Chapter 137.
The city where Biting Lash lives, inside her fortress known as Blossoming Thorn.
Okeno was originally a convenient spot for pirates to stop and collect water and provisions without relying on the ports of the mainland nations. It became an official settlement around thirteen centuries ago when Captain Ilmatis Okeno declared herself lord of the port. After her death, Okeno continued to serve as a pirate port without centralised leadership, despite various attempts to unify the pirates under a single banner. This state of affairs ended around 300 years later, when an organised group of sailors from Andoran took it upon themselves to disrupt the activities there in a long conflict known as the Time of Rent Sails. The pirates eventually beat back the Andorans and a captain named Lash-Handed Neguli took control and the era of Okeno as a major hub of slavery began.
The city was independent until the Pactmasters arrived in Katapesh nine hundred years or so ago. They imposed order upon the pirate haven and incorporated it into the greater nation of Katapesh. And thus it has been ever since. The current Governor of Stonespine Island and rule of Okeno is a depraved man by the name of Morio Midasi.
During the Time of Rent Sails, when the Andorans had nominal control of the city, slavery was illegal. But it was still being practiced, and the pirates had to find ways to move through and around the city without moving in public view on the streets. This was when the so-called Sweatways were created: a maze of tunnels beneath the city that connected points in the harbor to strongholds and fortresses inside the city. There were so many tunnels that it was said you could actually get more places, more directly, by moving underground than you could through the chaotic warren of the city above. This was, of course, a place of misery and death, given the use it was being put to.
Eventually, after the Pactmasters came there was no need to move people in secret, and so the Sweatways fell out of use. After some time, as the city grew, they were transformed into the city’s sewer system. Today, they are haunted by the Corpse Orgy.
First Reference: Act I Prologue
Other Notable References: Chapter 87, Chapter 137, Chapter 143, Chapter 145, Act III Epilogue, Chapter 172, Chapter 175, Chapter 186, Chapter 188, Chapter 189, Chapter 190, Chapter 191, Chapter 192