What if we said that the geomancy and structure of the Old City prevented the spread of the Index.  Therefore once the nature of this charm is discovered, your character could move his people there?  This would prevent the unnatural influence from affecting them unless they chose to live outside the city.  In a sense this would make the city center a place for the warriors under your character's command and they would also enjoy a higher style of living as the essence technology is repaired.  This would also allow a large portion of the city, Undercity and the New City to be under Madder's control through this charm.  In this way she can ensure public order for the ports, trade and most of our actual productive areas ?<br/><br/>In the game we can have disputes about leadership styles and such.  Perhaps in the future if we wanted some character on character tension we can talk about Madder wanting to spread to the Old City or Muse's character wanting more of the city.  That could lead to a more expansionist mentality later.