Brady Point (bray-dee)

Brady Point - or Skaalyed (skahl-yehd) as it is sometimes referred to by the local dragonborn - is a large sprawling city located on the northwestern island of Ikitur. The city is nestled in the southeast corner of the island, between the forest, the Frozen Strait, and the Brady River. The territory that most of the city is located on is a fertile plain where crops grow and animals graze, and the nearby forest provides timber for the city's buildings and ships as well as game animals to help feed the city's inhabitants. The waters around Brady Point can vary wildly throughout the year, though the harbor always has a mostly clear passage to the open sea through the Yaegar Ocean to the southwest. In winter months, the eastern waters of the Frozen Strait are completely - as the body's name suggests - frozen solid with thick ice sheets, many of which break off where the strait meets the warmer Yaegar Ocean. Particularly large floes or bergs require ice breaker ships, of which Brady Point has a handful; these ships are iron-reinforced themselves and also employ at least one mage each to help melt or break apart the ice bergs. Through the use of these ice breakers, Brady Point's shipping fleet is able to travel to distant lands throughout the winter that would otherwise freeze them into place for several months at a time.

One of the more striking features of Brady Point is its height over the seas. The city is perched on top of hundred-foot cliffs that overlook the oft-frozen waters around, and even the river that runs on the western edge of town naturally ends in a waterfall at the sea coast. On clear days, it is possible to just make out the coast of Ayndrinor - specifically the area near Cebada - from atop the eastern cliffs of the city. This does pose some significant challenges for trade, however, as the city's docks are at sea level and goods must be moved to the city-level streets and warehouses by cranes and elevators.
Despite the fact that Gorville is the capital of Ikitur, Brady Point remains its most important city and the main destination for foreign visitors. This is in part due to Brady Point's larger population, but it is also because of the arcane academy and the prevalence of mages and tinkerers who have recently begun to move the city toward the forefront of technology - though the city is still quite a ways from being the most advanced in the world. The solid, stable royal family and aristocratic court also bring legitimacy, tradition, and consistency to the city that many people appreciate. Lastly, it is as far away as possible from Eiselberg, and many who live in the closer settlements that are often terrorized by wandering undead end up relocating further south to either Gorville or, more frequently, Brady Point to escape the cold and undead.

Demographics

Like most cities and towns in Ikitur, Brady Point is a veritable rainbow of different dragonborn, with some humans and other non-dragonborn as well. The humans, dwarves, halflings, and goliaths in the city have tended to blend in with the dragonborn, and many neighborhoods display a mix of architectures and residents. Conversely, the few elves and tieflings in the city have each set up their own enclave and neighborhood within the city that are distinct from their surroundings.
There are a few large industries in Brady Point, many of which revolve around producing raw goods or transporting goods to, from, and throughout the city. Farming and herding are large industries in the outskirt communities of the sprawling city, providing food and drink for the people. There are also many foresters and loggers who harvest the trees of the forest to be used in buildings or ship construction, as well as hunters who venture into the same woods in search of game, berries, mushrooms, and other food sources. All of these producers are supported by a robust transportation industry that moves goods throughout the city and to and from other parts of the island. This trade and transportation industry employs many cartwrights and shipwrights specifically, as well as various drivers and ship crews to man them.
These various industries in the city have created more comfortable lower and middle classes compared to those of other large cities, though they are not wealthy by any stretch and still struggle to accumulate and pass on wealth. Many typical workers can comfortably afford housing and food, with a decent amount left for finery and indulgence - or religious tithing for those so inclined. The aristocrats and ruling family are fabulously wealthy compared to others around the world, owing to their vast history and longevity (the city was first founded almost four thousand years ago) in which they have been able to save and invest correctly to keep their wealth continually growing. A few of the nobles in the city also own property in continental cities and spend the winters away from Brady Point, with private ships to ferry them between destinations and private armies to guard them wherever they are.

Government

The city of Brady Point is ruled by a Jarl, a hereditary title that passes to the eldest child regardless of gender. This jarl is responsible for the administration of the city, assisted by a council of anywhere from five to eleven advisors, depending on the personal preference of each leader or salient concerns of the time. These advisors tend to be part of the aristocracy of the city, but occasionally a guild representative or neighborhood elder will be elevated to the council - which comes with an elevation to the nobility for their family and future generations. Council positions are not hereditary, and the jarl can replace any of them at will if he or she wishes.
As with other cities and towns in Ikitur, the judgeships are not appointed by the local jarl but rather by a majority of the seven jarls. They serve ten-year terms and can be reappointed as many times as the jarls see fit based on good performance (and adept politicking).

Defences

This sprawling city hasn't had a need for walls for almost two millennia, since the time of city-state warring that led up to the creation of the Kingdom of Ikitur. One of the things that Jarl Brady II did in the earlier Second Age when he set about remodeling the city was to demolish the old walls, to make the city feel inclusive and open to all. Since then, the only walls built in the city have been the ten- to fifteen-foot high walls that surround aristocratic manors. The city does have close to twenty Watch garrisons spread throughout the city, with the main barracks located in the central district of the city which houses the main government buildings and the jarl's palace. The only other defenses to speak of are on the coast, aimed at protecting ships and the merchants. The sea-level docks have several towers with cannons and ballistae to target aggressive ships, and the clifftops have watchtowers that can spot ships more than a dozen miles away. The elevators and cranes can be quickly raised to cut off any invasion, forcing the attackers to use the narrow switchback paths that can easily be defended. Due to the geography and preventive defenses in place, there has never been a coordinated attack on Brady Point by sea, only the occasional lone pirate ship that quickly learns it picked the wrong targets.

Infrastructure

Recent years have seen several modernization projects aiming to bring Brady Point to the forefront of technology and comfort, aimed mostly at the public infrastructure that was outdated and, in some places, crumbling. All roads in the city were cobbled, with the main arteries seeing constant upkeep and maintenance since. The seaside port facility was outfitted with new heavy capacity cranes and elevators to move goods from the sea-level docks to the clifftop warehouses. Two people-elevators were also installed at this time, allowing merchants, seamen, and dock guards to move between the docks and the city much more quickly than old switchback cliff roads allow. The old, rusted river grate meant to protect ships from going over the waterfall was replaced with a newer, sturdier one. The city's sewers got a remodel, as well, and the exhaust pipes are now located behind the waterfall, emptying the city's waste into the ocean far away from the shipping lanes.
All of this renovation and modernization has been fueled by the current jarl's endorsement of arcana and invention. The mage college in the city partners with arcanists and tinkerers from around the world to allow cutting-edge research and innovation. The jarl was so impressed by the recent developments a decade ago that she began commissioning the college to plan and oversee these modernization projects. In many ways, Brady Point has become the proverbial guinea pig for all such modern technology, with improvements being made in other cities as necessary, based on lessons learned by Brady Point. The inventors and arcanists have so impressed the current jarl, in fact, that she designated their leader a seat on her advisory council - and thus, elevated him and his family to the city's nobility.

Guilds and Factions

Like most major cities, Brady Point has a robust guild system that represents its workers and tries to ensure that all work done in the city is of the highest, most dependable quality. The dockworkers guild plays an especially important role in the city, given that they operate the cranes and elevators that move goods and people from the docks to the city proper. Other important guilds are the carters' guild, which oversees the various carts and transportation of goods, and the various industry guilds such as farmers, vintners, smiths, masons, etc. Normally, no guild has an official representation in the government, though jarls may appoint their leaders to the city's council for specific projects or in reward of outstanding service during a specific event. Nonetheless, they play a great unofficial role in the city's administration, and many people consider the word of the guilds as legally binding as anything that comes from the jarl.

History

In the seventh century 1A, this point of the island was mostly covered in forest, with icy glaciers clinging to the cliffsides nearest the Strait. As the dragonborn race began to spread across the mostly-empty island that once was home to their massive, tyrannical ancestors, a group of green and bronze dragonborn both came upon this small plain at roughly the same time. According to legend, the groups set up camps at completely opposite ends of the plain, with one backed up against the Strait and the other against the river, and refused to cooperate - occasionally even competing against one another for the best hunting grounds or fertile lands. After about two years of this competition and constant animosity, the two groups realized they stood to gain more by uniting and using the land to its full potential instead of competing for the resources. And so the leaders of the clans arranged a marriage to unite the two factions, with the eldest daughter of the green dragonborn marrying the eldest son of the bronze dragonborn. Now united, the two clans began building a city - which they called Skaalyed, after the eastern ice cliffs - and sent emissaries to other parts of the island to encourage wandering dragonborn to settle this new area of peace and prosperity.

The name was officially changed to Brady Point at the beginning of the Second Age, after a large portion of the city was destroyed in The Smiting and the remaining city began a reconstruction and modernization project led by Jarl Brady II. Luckily, the whole city was spared from destruction because the jarls had never officially accepted the mage college and its surrounding areas into the city's government; they operated quasi-autonomously and were apparently considered by the gods to be a distinct entity from the city of Skaalyed. The citizens of the city knew it used to be larger - due to the amount of deforested, empty land that suddenly appeared, but due to the events of The Smiting they could not remember what was there before, and all records of the mages and their dealings were similarly wiped away. The jarl used this large empty land to build new, grandiose temples that still stand to this day (though they have been remodeled and modernized a few times since), and residences sprang up in the former locations of the temples - with some believing the ground to still be consecrated and holy.
For most of the city's history, the ruler was either green or bronze dragonborn, tracing their ancestry back to the original couple that united the clans. However, in 346 2A, the bronze dragonborn jarl died without an heir and the family's more extensive genealogy had to be studied to find the successor. By tracing the cousins of the recently-deceased leader, the scholars were able to located a relative living in Gorville that was not in line for her family's throne. Queen Kobaltia married a Skaalyed aristocrat and became the first dragonborn to rule the city who was not green or bronze, and her line of blue dragonborn has ruled over the city since. Despite this, most of the aristocratic families in Skaalyed are still either green, bronze, or a mix of the two, with some descendants throughout the centuries displaying other colored scales due to mixed genetics in their family's history.

Architecture

Dragonborn architecture is often a study of contrasts and paradoxes. The houses themselves are relatively plain and practical, made of simple brick, wood, or stone. Yet on closer inspection, they sport tiny gems - or glass made to look like gems - that make them appear to shimmer in the sunlight when viewed from certain angles. The temples of the city are massive, neoclassical buildings with little ornamentation save the gems and precious metals used as accents. There are no statues, no grand porticoes to top the temples, just simple engravings to inform which deity the temple worships and details about its construction (such as construction date and jarl at the time). The houses are slightly taller than most human houses, as dragonborn tend be taller on average than humans, though this difference is not noticeable until one sees a "normal" human house in a neighborhood right next to a dragonborn abode; the difference is usually about two feet per story of the house.
Because Brady Point is a large city with a fairly cosmopolitan population, it has its fair share of architectural styles and blending of cultures. Humans, dwarves, elves, tieflings, halflings, goliaths, and others have all made their homes in the city, and while some choose to emulate the local dragonborn style, others desire to preserve their original culture's values and artistic flair. The dwarven houses tend to be those most similar to the dragonborn ones, with the elven and tiefling ones being most different - not least of which because they are cordoned off into their own neighborhoods instead of being mixed and spread throughout Brady Point.

Founding Date

624 1A

Alternative Name(s)

Skaalyed

Type

City

Population

20,357

Inhabitant Demonym

Brades, Skaalyeders

Owning Organization

Ikitur Kingdom