Keystone

While impressive and intimidating buildings line Keystone’s major streets, behind them lie the townhouses and close alleys of Magnimar’s laity. It is these buildings that the majority of the middle class of Magnimar calls home. While holy houses to some of the gods can be found in other districts, Keystone features the largest number of temples, shrines, and holy sites. The portion of Keystone that consists primarily of private homes is also called the Marches. Many simple and largely contented folk live in this sizable neighborhood, which runs down the center of the district. Despite its size and population, the Marches receive little extra in the way of city funding to maintain the area and protect its people. While this has caused a slight rise in Sczarni theft and cons, patrols provided by the churches of the district do an excellent job ensuring that criminal elements are unwelcome in Keystone’s public streets and alleys. The neighborhood of Silver Shore is the wealthiest district below the Summit. Located along a strip of land facing the mouth of the Yondabakari, Silver Shore is home to several well-to-do business owners, council members, and aristocrats who seek to live close to their work, the common people, or the beauty of the river.
Gazetteer While Castlegate, the primary entrance to Magnimar for travelers from elsewhere in Varisia, sits on the border between Keystone and Lowcleft, it is to Keystone that this towering gatehouse technically belongs—and as such, it is Keystone that most land-bound travelers visit first upon arriving in Magnimar. As a result, the government takes pains to ensure that at least the main thoroughfares of this district are kept as clean and safe as possible. No taxes are charged for the use of this gate to enter or leave Magnimar. Buildings in this district range from intricate and impressive structures (such as can be seen in several of the district’s churches) to humble wooden abodes.While temples and shrines to many of the better-known deities can be found in Magnimar, worship of powerful good-aligned demigods known as empyreal lords is unusually common among the citizens—a legacy, perhaps, of the mysterious Angel of the Arvensoar (a powerful entity who played a key role in Magnimar’s foundation and early history), or possibly simply a result of these particular empyreal lords being favored by several of the traditional Varisian lineages of the region. The faithful of the empyreal lords maintain no public structures or temples; worshipers generally prefer to keep their faith private or centered on small home-based congregations. These practices are born out of modesty and tradition, for worship of the empyreal lords among the Varisians has always been more of a personal pursuit than a public one. As such, and despite the empyreal lords’ popularity, no public shrines or churches to the empyreal lords stand in Magnimar. The majority of Magnimar’s Varisian population, however, at least pays homage to them as a pantheon of sorts, and their popularity among the city’s other citizens seems to be growing. Even though many of these new worshipers are at first merely intrigued by the secret society aspect of the mysterious cults, most who join become true believers in very little time.