City of Otraxis
- By Damo
Otraxis is a city nestled on the Palir Mountains which mark the edge of the Known World. Many vital rivers that feed the Kingdom of Leyira originate in the Palir Mountains, and the River Thienne which runs through Otraxis is the most important of those. Otraxis and its outstanding natural resources have kept the rest of the Leyira thriving over the centuries. It is a small but shining jewel in the remote north of the Kingdom.
Click on the image to the left to see Otraxis in all its splendor (the image was taken from one of White Wolf’s art galleries somewhere). The city has is a mountainous sprawl that is divided up into the following districts:
- Castle Kristyr
- The Guild Palace
- The People’s District
- The Market District
- The River District
- The Panning Fields
- Farm districts: East and West
- The Creep (subterranean, not marked)
- The Duke and his family.
- The Guilds. The mining guild and the merchants’ guild are the most powerful. The merchant’s guild, however, is little more than a place for lobbyists to gather. The merchant houses are loosely arranged into mutually beneficial lobby groups. Their power lies in the fact that Otraxis must trade to survive.
- Vassal lords of the Duke, the local aristocrats and civil bureaucracy.
- Ambassadors from the Dwarven Kingdom and any other major trading partners.
- The Churches.
- The University Arcane (located in the Guild Palace, but run somewhat differently from the Guilds).
- The People’s Council. This consists of representatives from the labouring classes, and wields little power. The People’s Council is a token effort by the Duke to appease the masses.
- The Creepers, who have no power beyond larceny and rioting.
Otraxis is encircled by stone walls quarried from the black granite of the Palir Mountains, daubed in white river mud. The presence of quartz crystal in the river mud makes it white but also makes it glitter. The white daub that covers its walls is what makes Otraxis literally “the Jewel of the North”.
The Palir Mountains themselves are rich with seams of gold, silver, electrum and quartz (as granite often is, although the northern deposits are unusually abundant). Eons of fire worms burrowing through the rock in search of food has created a vast array of different types of quartz, and lucky miners can find chalcedony, agate, onyx, jasper, tiger’s eye, amethyst, citrine and carnelian. The eggs of the fire worms are also prized as jewelry.
The Duke of Otraxis, Margrave of the North (12th in the line of Kristyr to be Duke of Otraxis) controls most of the mines in the area through his underlings, but some private commissions (and rogue mines) exist. Panning for gold in the Thienne is relatively unrestricted, so lots of treasure seekers try their luck there.
Otraxis is supported by a sweep of peasant farmers through the Duchy of Otraxis, but depends largely on a constant river trade with the southern cities for the food and non-mineral resources it needs to survive. Otraxis also maintains a small, erratic trade with the Goblin Khans north of the mountains.
The Creep
As with any prosperous city, the wealth generated in Otraxis acts as a beacon to the poor rural folk for miles around, who travel there to make their fortune. Sadly, these migrants most often assimilate into the poorest tier of society and chances to improve their lot are all but non-existent. In recent years, the sheer volume of these destitute newcomers has overwhelmed the densely-packed slums of the People’s Quarter and spilled over into ‘The Creep’; a patchwork of subterranean shanty-towns established in the abandoned and exhausted mines that lie closest to the city. The near-lawless Creep (so named because it gets just a little larger each year) is now a hotbed of thieves, smugglers and desperately poor unskilled labourers and ex-farmers.
The denizens of The Creep have proven themselves resourceful and highly mobile, frustrating The Duke’s ongoing efforts to clear the area. Thus, he has resorted to costly efforts to collapse the abandoned mines. This callous approach that has the support of the Otraxis nobility, but is opposed by the middle classes who pine for their rights as people of Leyira. Chief among the opponents of the Creep is the Miners’ Guild, whose members are undercut by the cheap and inexhaustible, albeit poorly skilled, supply of labour from the Creep. The lower classes of People’s Quarter and Guild members alike are tired of these non-Otraxians stealing their jobs (and wallets) and driving low wages even lower.
The Powers of Otraxis
The following are the main power blocs in the City of Otraxis, in order of degree of influence on the city:
Those are still some pretty substantial fucking walls. Even if it’s just the city supports that are white, if you assume that road is about 4 metres wide, they’ve got to be 50 metres high *at least*.
Bloody fantasy artists have no sense of scale.
An idea I have for a unique sort of slum established in abandonned mines around the city. Let me know what you think:
As with any prosperous city, the wealth generated in Otraxis acts as a beacon to the poor rural folk for miles around, who travel there to make their fortune. Sadly, these migrants most often assimilate into the poorest tier of society and chances to improve their lot are all but non-existent. In recent years, the sheer volume of these destitute newcomers has overwhelmed the densely-packed slums of the People’s Quarter and spilled over into ‘The Creep’; a patchwork of subterranean shanty-towns established in the abandoned and exhausted mines that lie closest to the city. The near-lawless Creep (so named because it gets just a little larger each year) is now a hotbed of thieves, smugglers and desperately poor unskilled labourers and ex-farmers.
The denizens of The Creep have proven themselves resourceful and highly mobile, frustrating The Duke’s ongoing efforts to clear the area. Thus, he has resorted to costly efforts to collapse the abandoned mines. This callous approach that has the support of the Otraxis nobility, but is bitterly opposed by the working classes of the People’s Quarter who are sympathetic to the plight of their even-poorer cousins.
The poor, working classes are poor and work hard for what little money they have. Are they actually going to be that sympathetic to people clearing out a hive of scum and villainy? They’re most likely to be the targets of thieves from the Creep as well, since while the wealthier classes have more money, they also have more security. And are further away.
I think you’d be more likely to have protests from the middle and educated classes, for moral reasons. If we’re industrialised, probably industry masters/guilders as well, since the Creep offers inexhaustible, cheap, unskilled labourers for their factories.
If we’re not industrialised, the Poor Laws of Britain said that anyone was entitled to the support of the Church from tithes the Church collected, but only in their home counties (i.e. where they were born). So people might support the clearance on those grounds, because those bastards should go back where they came from where there’s plenty of food for them, and stop stealing our stuff and our jobs. Damn southerners.
Good reasoning. So let’s drop the political resistance from the working class, who we’re going to assume are largely honest, pious and work hard for their living. They hate The Creepers, who provide cheap and shoddy labour that is slowly pushing the working class out of business.
As you rightly suggest, the resistance is coming from industry – especially the mining industry – who have seen their profit margines increase 20-50% since the eventuaion of “Creep labour”. The Duke is also foiled by the political machinations of corrupt officials and nobles who use The Creep to get a lot of their nastiness done.
Do we like “The Creep” or do we need a new name for this?Damien, it is at your discretion.
Well, not necessarily honest, pious and hark working: just desperate and self-interested. And I like the name.
But I said, not gritty, and here I am adding grit. I clearly can’t be trusted.
For the city, if this city is meant to have enough Adventure! to last us 20 levels, there’s going to have to be a lot internal and external conflict and mystery.
So, in terms of power blocs:
– The Duke and his family.
– His vassal lords, the local aristocrats
– The administration/bureaucracy/civil service? (Possibly should be filled by the vassal lord and servants – depending on what style of power base we want the Duke to have)
– Possibly overseers from the King
– Ambassadors from the Dwarven Kingdom, since it’s right next door, and any other major trading partners and cities.
– The guilds/industry. The mining guild and merchant guild would probably be particularly powerful. Whether they’re actually guilds per se or not is negotiable? I like to think of merchants particularly as merchant houses loosely arranged into mutually beneficial lobby groups, rather than codified guilds.
– The church – if it has actual temporal power
– The druids (the other church)
– The spellcasters/university if it exists in Otraxia.
– The labouring classes, who have little power
– The Creepers, who have no power beyond larceny and rioting
Updated the page to include the creep and the power blocs. Nice work, guys!
Just by the by… the city itself doesn’t need to last you to level 20. It’s just a staging point that will (likely) last you to level 10 or so… if we play for that long (to get from level 1 to level 10, on average, will take 30 sessions). After level 10, and even before, I am expecting you to wander beyond the City of Otraxis for whatever reason.
That aside, though, intrigue is always good. I’ve mentally expanded the city, too. There are lots of small communities nearby that are included in the city, but aren’t visible in the drawing. Also, just behind the bluff where the People’s Quarter is located is a low-land containing quite a large stretch of houses, shops, etc.
I’ll expand the individual areas later… and try for a top-down map of the city.
Updated the description of the Creep a little to change the stance of the Miners’ guild in light of the new Tale of Otraxis (by me). The Miners’ Guild is actually undercut by the unaffiliated labourers who will work for almost nothing just to eek by.