Kaze no Kuni

Kaze no Kuni; The Country of Wind

Kaze no Kuni, or as it is referred to by many whom are not from it, 'The Country of Wind', is one of the Five Great Shinobi Countries, and has traditionally been seen by people of the world as a chaotic and beautiful place, and one of the Five Great Shinobi Countries, because it holds both a normal military (primarily roaming 'rangers' whom work for the Daimyo) but also it's own Hidden Village, Sunagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Sands. It is a huge country and thereby somewhat diverse, like many of the Five Great Shinobi Countries, though most nations & people like to forget this and prefer to think of Sunagakure as all one huge desert.

Soma, Capital of Kaze no Kuni

Soma is a city with many faces. Among its unofficial names are The Arabian Nightmare, the Fish Market, and The City-In-Twilight. While the city is truly one of wonders - such works of artisanry and chakra can rarely be elsewhere found - it is also a city of dangers, and a cut throat is rarely more than two or three wrong turns away. The legitimate ruler, the sultan, has the hereditary title of The Diamond In The Rough, and rarely goes by an actual name. However, the sultan is only half the power in the city, at best. Soma is the center of the world's largest criminal enterprise, which is run by a mysterious figure known as the Patchwork King. Records suggest that the King has been operating for at least a hundred years, leading many to theorize that the title is inherited - but very little is known for sure. All that can be said for certain is that the Patchwork King's empire extends far beyond the boundaries of Kaze no Kuni, and that he keeps a very low profile. The Sultan, as is tradition, maintains a harem rather than taking a single wife, and the King is said to emulate this practice. Crime rates in the inner, richer parts of the city tend to be fairly low - most of the crime going on there is white-collar and thus unreported. More violent crimes are reserved for the poorer parts of town. The city is mostly urban, with no parks to speak of, but bath-houses and private gardens are ubiquitous in the richer districts. There is a thriving market for anatomical sales in the city, largely running through the bath houses, which is the origin of the city's second nickname.