Zeiţăresti (Zāts-ar-esti)

Demographics

The major members of the population - being the attendants of the Queen and any visiting nobility - reside within the massive castle.
The remaining fortified city is host to the amenities of a normal city, but whether its population has remained to fill its buildings and fields is difficult to say due to its security and secrecy. The city is known to be inhabited by the most dedicated to the Queen and her attendants, and supply it with from within with food and necessary trades while allowing the rare and lucky merchant in to its walls.
Stories spread among the populace place the population of the city both at bursting and lively and as a practical ghost city that has grown ever smaller with every generation. The truth of either statement is an unknown.

Government

The government of Zeiţăresti is led by the clergy of the Adherents of the Red Queen, headed by the Queen whose will is translated ultimately by the regent and head of the church, making it the only truly theocratic district in the country. The Council of Attendants, a group of clerics and priests of the faith, form the judicial court of Zeiţăresti when necessary.
From this place, the Queen passes down her will to be spread to the temples and leaders of the country of Trandafira.

Council of the Viscounts

Periodically, the viscounts of Trandafira will travel to the city to enact treaties, strategize in times of war, and establish continued relations with each other under the watchful eye of the Queen and the supervision of her attendents.

Defences

The city and its surrounding fields are set out upon a tall plateau and surrounded by a wall that is guarded day and night. Additionally, the domain of the Red Queen is the home of her most passionate and devoted orders of priests, paladins, and knightly orders which are spread throughout the country, as well as no small amount of powerful mages taken in to be tutored in the ways of the arcane.

Infrastructure

The city itself is dominated by the castle of the Queen which sits central to the raised plateau the city sits upon which rises hundreds of feet at its tallest point and spreads for nearly a mile on a side. The plateau itself that the city sits upon is surrounded by a wall that is constantly guarded for those wishing to enter or exit against the will of the Queen.

Guilds and Factions

Adherants of the Red Queen

The priests or "attendants" of the Red Queen who rule Zeiţăresti and spread the doctrine and regulations of the Red Queen to the rest of the country of Trandafira.

Order of Thorns

Most well known knighly order of Trandafira, also known as the Blood Knights. They are depicted by a red flower with thorns dripping blood.

History

Once the capital of a mostly forgotten civilization, during the Age of Magic when the dawn elves abandoned their homeland and followed their queen, Queen Irsia Haidalya Mirza, to the lands of Lithria, the dawn elves eventually claimed it as their seat of power. It remained their seat of power until the death of the last king of the Dawn Kingdom during the Dearth, at which point it eventually fell to the future Trandafirans and became the central power of their newly worshiped queen.

Architecture

The architecture includes a remaining structure of the ancient city that once resided there before the elves with the smooth, colorful tilework, tall spires, domed ceilings, and high archways of the dawn elves. The castle itself is the oldest of the buidlings and has been built onto and remodeled over the centuries as construction has changed to become more spired with decorative buttresses and high arches.
By all accounts of those lucky enough to look upon the city and the castle at its center, the city is a beautiful artistic blend of the ancient stone and recreated construction of its original inhabitants, the colorful tilework, frescoes, and statuary of the dawn elves, and the Trandafiran constructions of high arches and expansive rooms with grander designs.

Geography

The city sits on a miles wide plateau surrounded by dense forests and rivers that both flow down from it and around it. It is marked by the population of red flowers in the fields around it, the petals of which blow off and into the rivers surrounding making it flow as though red.

Climate

A tropical climate dominates the majority of Trandafira. Though many of the rains are cool in temperture, they are common and the tempertures outside of those rains are warm and humid.

Alternative Name(s)

Palace of the Red Queen, Sanctuary of Life and Death

Type

Capital

Owning Organization

Trandafira