The Earth Kingdom is enormous, regional, and already scarred by politics. Under Earth King Jialun, earlier in Roku's life, the Dai Li purged the Earth Sages on the Night of Silenced Sages. Temples became Royal Learning Halls. That history is not a footnote. It is the air of Ba Sing Se in 12 BG. The 12 BG monarch is unnamed in canon; this world uses Earth King Yuanli [Original], a successor in Jialun's system, not Jialun himself and not a later named king.
THE CITY OF WALLS
Ba Sing Se is rings, gates, and official silence. Yuanli sits in the Hall of Supreme Harmony and will trade almost anything to keep Fire problems outside the Inner Ring. He is not a fool and not a hero. Grand Secretariat Shoufen, public face of the Dai Li, works by day in the Hall of Cultural Heritage and by night at Lake Laogai's hidden jetty. The lake is a canon body of water. The subterranean holding galleries there are an original early use, not the later hypnotic prison of the Hundred Year War. Do not run brainwashing factories yet. Do run secret renditions, cultural "protection," and people who vanish from the Lower Ring toward the water.
WHO STANDS WHERE
Sergeant Hui holds the Outer Wall, South Gate garrison, and has been told to wave certain unmarked carts. Corporal Min works the Lower-to-Middle Ring gate and is already looking the other way for one unpapered child. Auntie Wen sells broth in the Cabbage and Culm Market (3 copper a bowl, 5 with dumpling). Old Gan sells cabbages at Gan's Honest Cabbages — he is an original Lower Ring merchant in 12 BG, not the later war cameo. Mei-Lin cooks at Two-Bowl Noodles and her swamp-root supplier has missed two deliveries. Innkeeper Auntie Pao runs The Crooked Cart and has a back room that has housed people who later left in Dai Li coaches. Agent Tei drinks slowly in The Quiet Stone and watches who talks too much. Headman Joru, a flood refugee from Hualin, works the Outer Wall camp and already regrets the "work and bread" offer. Madam Qui sells jade on Silver Lane and some of it came from a locked warehouse near Yu Dao. Yun the Letter-Carrier works the Silver Lane messenger post and is secretly an Omashu spy; one of his letters has already been steamed open. Lector-in-hiding Cailin keeps an abandoned shrine in the agronomy tunnels and will not set foot in the Royal Learning Halls. Master Goro trains palace earthbenders in the courtyard and still teaches a sage form he should have forgotten. Agent Lian works the holding galleries under the lake.
HOOKS THAT LIVE HERE
People have started disappearing toward the lake. Start a Lower Ring or flood-refugee campaign at Wen's Broth, Gan's cabbages, Mei-Lin's noodles, or The Crooked Cart. Street work: Gan's crushed cart, Mei-Lin's missing supplier, Min's unpapered child, Yun's intercepted letter, Pao's back-room guest list. The Quiet Lake is a major questline: trace renditions from the teahouse and the inn to Hui's gate, the hidden jetty, and Lian's galleries. Heirs of the Silenced Sages runs through Cailin's tunnels and Goro's guilty memory. Yuanli will receive a well-mannered petition and then ask Shoufen to make the problem disappear.
HOW TO PLAY THE CAPITAL
Ba Sing Se already believes that what happens outside the walls is not happening. Fire colonies in the west, a dead Avatar, and a restless Omashu are all "outer matters." The Dai Li were founded by Kyoshi to protect cultural heritage and the king. That origin is real, and it has already been bent. A PC Dai Li candidate should feel the squeeze between Kyoshi's law and Shoufen's practical night work. A PC Inner Ring noble should feel how easy it is not to know. A PC Lower Ring cook should know more than the throne.
Travel between rings requires papers, coins, and sometimes a friendly corporal. The Outer Wall is a mountain of earth. The Agrarian Zone feeds the city. Lake Laogai lies near the capital (treat it as a short, watched journey from the Outer Wall, map-adjacent to the city). Do not let a first-session party stroll into the Inner Palace unchallenged, and do not make the Lower Ring a joke.