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--- byzantine:political_landscaping [2012/02/06 09:40] – [Ecumenical Council of Certified Oracles] Mike Holmes
+++ byzantine:political_landscaping [2019/02/03 21:59] (current) – [Art Inspirations] mike_holmes
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+=====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 "roof" and open "streets" of the city, and are only in shadow when a pinnacle casts it's shadow upon them. Which can be considerable, if right under a pinnacle, and on the wrong side. The well to do usually live in these regions.
+===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.  Often the abodes and workplaces of artisans, or those who practice trades or crafts. Note that the roof slopes down where it comes near to a farm, merging to become part of the chasms effectively. These places are often as sought out as the Rooftop is, or even the heights, because some times the views across a farm can be quite amazing.
+===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're lucky.
+===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=====
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 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's fortunes and futures, or otherwise providing supernatural spiritual advice. How they go about making these certifications, when most oracles' pronouncements are (to say the least) obscure, is beyond most people to discern. But the board is an important player in city politics, feeling that it is important to prevent charlatans from threatening the livelihoods of their membership. This doesn't stop anyone from employing charlatans for oracular pronouncements and prophecy, but it does mean that a board certified oracle can charge a lot more than a charlatan (or other non-certified oracle) might.
+====Ratcatcher's Guild====
+A rather informal organization, the ratcatchers guild is, nevertheless, a cohesive association of not just rat-catchers per se, but also many other professions that deal with matters having to do with the depths of the Great City. It spans the city because their code is simple and effective: never take business from another member of the guild, and never allow anyone not a member to take business from the guild. Rumors that members of the guild are willing to kill to prevent non-members from doing their jobs are likely overstated, though not entirely implausible. Joining the guild is, again, informal, but essentially consists of an apprenticeship with a member for an arbitrarily long time. Often apprentices are kept as apprentices until the member dies, upon which time the full membership is passed on to the apprentice. In other cases (especially where the member can obtain a new apprentice to replace the old) apprentices are released into full membership earlier than the death of their mentors, but it's rare to serve less than a decade as an apprentice before being given full membership status.
+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're contracted to deal with relatively rat free. Another common profession of guild-members is that of mortician for the lower classes. The rich may afford having the Architects build mausoleums for their dead. For most, however, disposal of a body is often a difficult affair. Some pay to have the body transported from the city to graveyards just outside the walls. But for those on the more interior parts of the city, the usual method of disposing of a body is to pay a mortician of the rat-catcher's guild to dispose of the body somewhere in the depths. Most don't ask where the bodies end up, and don't care, so long as they don't ever see the light of day again. There is a presumption that the bodies are handled with care and decorum, but there's often really no way to tell where a body is going once it's in the hands of the morticians.
+=====Art Inspirations=====
+[[https://www.pinterest.com/mikeholmes7311/byzantine/]]

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