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byzantine:political_landscaping [2012/02/06 08:29] – created Mike Holmes | byzantine:political_landscaping [2019/02/03 21:59] (current) – [Art Inspirations] mike_holmes | ||
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+ | =====City Strata===== | ||
+ | Although typically associated with social strata, this refers to the literal layers of the city that one finds in most places. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===Pinnacles=== | ||
+ | Where the most elite citizens typically live, the pinnacles of the city jut up into the sky where they are lit all day long by the sun, and are never in shadow. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===Heights=== | ||
+ | Near the pinnacles, these places can look down on the " | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===Rooftops=== | ||
+ | These are buildings and streets that have nothing directly above them, but are generally overshadowed much of the day by the heights and pinnacles, and the bridges and other infrastructure that may connect them (which will some day become the new roof when they grow together). Often this is the cite of the educated professional classes of the city. Those who live on the rooftops - and certainly those above them - enjoy meals most often at home prepared by servants who go to get food on a daily basis. It is simply usually too difficult for denizens this far up to go to the farms to get food for themselves. There are some few shops and markets that exist on this level by buying food from the farms and reselling it to the people this far up. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===The Roof=== | ||
+ | Just under the rooftops these places can get occasional light through skylights, but even then it's somewhat rare, depending on the specifics of the location. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===The Chasms=== | ||
+ | Below the roof, but with occasional ability to have light seep in through crevices in the roof, this level is almost dark, almost all of the time. Commoners and laborers who work for the people above find these places home, if they' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===The Warrens=== | ||
+ | Where light finally fails is where the a large proportion of the population lives in something approaching poverty. The Warrens are, at least, mostly devoid of sewage flow, or bodies or the like, and the rats here are not too much of a nuisance, if ever-present. Everyone in the warrens on down goes to the farms directly for food, often going there daily. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===The Underneath=== | ||
+ | Below the Warrens are areas that start to become abandoned, as they do not have much access to the upper layers, and usually one can find housing in the Warrens if nowhere else. That said, the dispossessed of society reside in the Underneath, because they are not wanted, even in the warrens. Sewage begins to pile up in the Underneath in places, but usually it is routed to the depths below. In many places the Underneath gives out directly to the ground level where the farms are, and those who live near this border actually have quite a convenience. Again, right where the Underneath gives out to the farm opening is better thought of as part of the roof layer in terms of how sought it is. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===The Depths=== | ||
+ | A big layer, these are areas below the Underneath, where almost nobody lives, except for the occasional hermit. I some cases, the Depths may even go under ground level (though it's often very hard to know this for sure). The depths are an awful place that people avoid unless they have a job that takes them there. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===The Deeps=== | ||
+ | Some few have explored the Depths in places enough to know that one can go even further down. Or so they say. Rumors of huge serpents that live off of waste, demon caverns, corpse-eating humanoids, fungal forests, and even ancient gods buried here are surely just that... rumors... This layer, if it exists, is definitely below ground in most places, and who can say how deep the deeps go? | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
=====Universal Organizations===== | =====Universal Organizations===== | ||
The city is so large that only a handful of organizations can be said to be truly found everywhere. | The city is so large that only a handful of organizations can be said to be truly found everywhere. | ||
- | ====Architects Guild==== | + | ====Office of the Mayor==== |
+ | The office of the Mayor is a position of almost zero authority. In a very theoretical way, the Mayor constitutes a central authority of the Great City. In practice, however, the individual feudal lords of the various neighborhoods of the city control their parts of the city, and pay the Mayor no heed. In fact, in practice the lords use the Mayorality as a scapegoat, or a place to shove off problems when they don't want to solve them. | ||
+ | This is very inconvenient for the person so shoved, given that the Mayor has no single residency. Instead by perceived necessity the Mayor travels around the city, going from neighborhood to neighborhood, | ||
+ | Mayors who have gotten out of line have frequently been assassinated, | ||
+ | Given all this the job of the Mayor tends to change hands very frequently. As such, no description of the Mayor is given here, allowing the details of the current Mayor to be made by the GM if and when a visit occurs. Not all Mayors are weak-willed dupes; although this is the common stereotype that people have of what a Mayor is likely to be like. Occasionally a strong Mayor comes along who acts with some sort of integrity. This does not change the fact that they have very little power, and that no Mayor is ever likely to have much. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===City Guard=== | ||
+ | The Mayor theoretically has power in the form of the City Guard. Like the Mayoral offices, it is traditional for lords to create a guard hall somewhere in their district (the Architects are supposed to create such free of charge as part of their mandates), and to pay to keep guards stationed. In practice, the lords usually do not pay very much, meaning that there are very few guards, and they are very poorly motivated. That, or the local lord pays them under the table to be just another arm of their own power-structure. Those that don't pay off the City Guard usually have even more powerful personal guard regiments. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Because of this, going to the City Guard to get justice is a dodgy proposition at best. Most never bother, and instead go to whatever powerful patrons they have for protection and redress of issues that they may have. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====Architects Guild==== | ||
+ | The city could not exist in its current form without the existence of the members of the Architect' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The powers of the architects are entirely constructive, | ||
+ | |||
+ | There are, in fact, places where one can reach the earth easily, however, places where the architects are mandated to build so as to allow light to reach to the lowest parts of the Great City... the farms... | ||
====Harvesters==== | ====Harvesters==== | ||
+ | Like the Architects, the Harvesters are a caste of people without whom the city could not exist in its present form. The Harvesters are capable of creating huge supplies of food for the city by growing new crops of food every single day. They operate from " | ||
+ | |||
+ | Each lord is held responsible by his citizenry for ensuring the proper operation of the farms in their precincts. A lord who somehow mismanages their farms is likely to end up lynched in very short order by a populace who is well aware of what happens when the farms fail. This does happen with some regularity here or there about the city, and the results are always a wave of refugees that pours from one part of the city to the next, resulting in rioting, looting and many dead. This also means that lords pressure each other to ensure proper operation of their farms, so as not to have to deal with issues should a farm fail in a neighboring precinct. | ||
+ | |||
+ | That said, the lords do not have direct control over the farms, but merely facilitate these operations. The farms themselves are peopled by a the harvester caste of people who live in little rural villages amongst the fields. They are a close knit folk who do not like city folk getting inside the " | ||
+ | |||
+ | And though most denizens of the city see the harvesters as somehow rustic, this is entirely a preconception formed by meeting very few. They are, in fact, just as cosmopolitan and mixed up in the affairs of the city as are the other citizens. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====Ecumenical Board of Certified Oracles===== | ||
+ | Abbreviated EBCO, this organization certifies that the many oracles and prophets of the numerous religions of the Great City are what they say they are; individuals capable of telling people' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====Ratcatcher' | ||
+ | A rather informal organization, | ||
+ | Rats are a pervasive and pandemic problem of the Great City. Ratcatchers do not hope to have a chance of eradicating rats from any portion of it, and instead focus on just trying to keep areas they' | ||
- | ====Ecumenical Council of Certified Oracles===== | + | =====Art Inspirations===== |
- | ECCO | + | [[https:// |