The Citadel
The Citadel is the single most important location in the world. It is where the education necessary to keep magically talented youths safe is conducted. The central castle structure is the Citadel Proper, and the surrounding city that has grown up around it over the past three thousand years is called Citadel Lower, though most people simply refer to both as the Citadel interchangeably.
Demographics
The Citadel is the most diverse location of Alteria. There is no preeminent group; nearly all of the sapient races are represented in one form or another.
Government
Meritocracy. Those who excel in administration are snapped up and assigned to that for their seven-year tenure of service, with an option to stay on for a full, lifetime career following, if they should so choose. While the day-to-day governance of the Citadel is left to these administrative mages, the ultimate authority of the Citadel lies in the Warden Keeper, whose word is law, which is why some leaders of other nations accuse the Citadel of being an authoritarian dictatorship.
Industry & Trade
The Citadel makes its money by selling magical items, maintaining magical items currently in use, and lending out its initiates to governments during their service. Beyond that, the Citadel seems to never lack for anything, being entirely self-sufficient.
Infrastructure
The Citadel has the most advanced standard of living of any location across Alteria. Running water, plumbing, consistent lighting, healthcare, plentiful food, housing, magical and mundane transport are all easily accessed by any resident of the Citadel.
Gates that can whisk full convoys of carts and wagons across the thousands of miles to any country around the world are opened and directed by Citadel initiates. Rail lines powered by elementally bound locomotives carry passengers, export material, and livestock through tunnels in the mountains and out into the world.
Gates that can whisk full convoys of carts and wagons across the thousands of miles to any country around the world are opened and directed by Citadel initiates. Rail lines powered by elementally bound locomotives carry passengers, export material, and livestock through tunnels in the mountains and out into the world.
Assets
The Citadel is the richest city in the world. In fact, it is the richer than any other nation, perhaps all the other nations combined. It has existed and persisted through three thousand years, always gaining more power, money, and material.
Guilds and Factions
There are many schools of thought on the nature of magic and the best way to practice it. Each of these ideals have subscribers among the faculty and staff who have formed loose associations based on them.
Architecture
The Citadel proper is an enormous labyrinthine structure of towers, courtyards, halls, bridges, and gardens, easily taking up three square miles of ground. As a magically infused location, though, the interior of the Citadel is larger that its outward appearance, as pocket dimensions have been used to expand the available space. The architectural style ranges from simple, clean lines to overly ornate, with seemingly no consistency or reason. The whole of the structure is built of an unidentifiable cream-colored stone.
The surrounding town and farms are of equally different styles, as they were built up over the course of the past two millennia. More mundane building materials were used for them.
The surrounding town and farms are of equally different styles, as they were built up over the course of the past two millennia. More mundane building materials were used for them.
Geography
The Citadel is built at the center of a mountain valley. The tallest peaks in the world surround it, and while their outward sides are constantly snow-bound, treacherous, and so high that the air is too thin to survive on for long, the valley is temperate and has its own seasonal cycle that is tracked entirely apart from the rest of the world.
Glacial runoff streams flow down the inward sides of the mountains, feeding a series of rivers that form a natural moat around the Citadel.
Glacial runoff streams flow down the inward sides of the mountains, feeding a series of rivers that form a natural moat around the Citadel.
Natural Resources
The most productive farms in the world exist in the sheltered valley of the Citadel. The soil is rich and the seasonal cycle allows for three harvests in a year.
The inward mountain sides have significant forests to supply lumber to the Citadel, though forestry is closely managed by the druid initiates.
Mining of the rich ores and precious metals found in the mountains is very carefully carried out by skilled miners.
The inward mountain sides have significant forests to supply lumber to the Citadel, though forestry is closely managed by the druid initiates.
Mining of the rich ores and precious metals found in the mountains is very carefully carried out by skilled miners.
Alternative Name(s)
The Last Bastion
Type
Citadel
Population
Approximately 515,000
Inhabitant Demonym
Citadellians
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