Wind (When-d)

"As rolling hills gave way to the flat plain the wind came to greet me and I could smell the sweet scent of fruits and bread mingle with all of the scents of the earth and its bounty. With my ears full of the whispers of the wind, the conversation of the markets, and the clink of coin passing through hands. With my feet carrying me ever forward, the breeze did not buffet me, but I felt it instead caress me, as a humble matron welcoming me to her home. Such is the beauty of Wind."

--Kharis Floros in their book, "A Rumination of Magnum Opus." Published 849 EE

From its mystical inception, Wind has been a town of crossing and trade, welcoming all people into itself as a neutral land. While it has been tested time and time again throughout years of conflicts, it has stood through those tests, and still acts as a beating heart of camaraderie and merchantry.
Whether you come for the bustling trade and public markets, the large cathedral, the lush farms, orchards, and animal pens, the famed stores such as the Bücherei Bookstore, or locations such as Alice February's tower or the Scattered Petals guildhall, you will not leave Wind unsatisfied.
"And if you did enjoy your time in the city, please leave a card in the city square's comment box, or send a letter to Wind City Hall, as Earl Matilda Bücherei is always striving to make Wind the best it can be!"

Table of Contents

Demographics

While Wind has a lot of migratory residents of all stripes that come and go as the tides of merchantry change, most of the permanent residents are full of the most common types of people found in Magnum Opus. Those of elven descent, shifters, and humans.
Age, Gender, and Financial status are all essentially even. Financially, the town has a broad middle class although the margins exist on either end.

Government

As is standard for Earls of Magnum Opus, the city leadership of Wind is responsible for the governance of city affairs and seeks counsel from community spokespeople from the different districts as well.
At least, that's how it normally works, but Earl Matilda Bücherei finds herself in a precarious position where she seems to be the only one interested in any sort of governance. Being a smaller city, Wind has very few districts, being the Farmlands, the Merchant District, Residential District, and the Governance district where she herself is the spokesperson. From her time as assistant to the previous Earl to her present position the spokespeople, if they've been decided on at all, have been much more focused on their own lucrativeness and opportunities than working for the city as a whole, leading to stalemate after stalemate, argument after argument, spiral after spiral.

Defences

Despite being on a relatively flat, open plain, no walls have been built in the time since its original founding. Some say it's due to a core philosophy of openness in the face of trade and new business, some say it's a more spiritual aspect to not break the blessing of the wind that flows by. In any case, it had the good fortune to remain relatively unscathed in the face of conflicts in the past.
However, there do exist two walled areas, the local cathedral which used to be an aristocrat's manor, and the local guard garrison which sports a low partial wall around its space.
But even without the literal protection of walls and their tactical benefits, Wind does still have a guard unit as skilled as any other city, with a few key members such as Captain Richard Save leading the group with talent and experience. Wind is also home to the famed mage Alice February, a talented Abjurer famed in the Border Wars, as well as a mercenary guild, The Scattered Petals. While the guild may not be very active in the grand scheme of things, locals know that the guildmaster can be relied on when push comes to shove.

Industry & Trade

As you might have gathered, Wind is mainly a merchant's town. The art of production, trade, resale, and barter is paramount, and the clink of coins speaks a language all their own throughout the quaint wood and cobblestone of the city.
Other than that, the most popular industries are lumber and farm work, as the nearby Bulls-eye woods provide plenty of trees, and the work of local Druids as well as simple conservation tactics keeps it renewable. For the agricultural side of things, the soil of Wind is very rich, and the popularity of trade makes it a very lucrative business after harvest season, especially when selling to merchants from other countries.

Infrastructure

Alongside an assortment of housing and a moderately modern plumbing system, Wind is also one of the few cities of its size to have Mana Grid connections for not only its business's sake but also for its residential buildings and for the new Automated Wagons to recharge their engines.
The city also has many windmills on its outskirts, taking advantage of the naturally breezy environment, as well as waterwheels along the local Brisebiegend river, although many of those have been moved underground as part of the sewage system rework circa 975 EE. While they serve their obvious benefits still, with the rise of mana-based utility energy, many of them have been retrofitted to also serve as filters for that energy system.

Districts

Being a smaller city, Wind doesn't have the same kind of large districts that other key cities in Magnum Opus have. However, there are roughly four districts that are simple to mark.
To the southeast of the city, past where the river curves, is the Governance district, where City Hall, the government library, and local archmage Alice February's tower lie as well as the official Wind Inn for high-profile guests.
In the southwest, from the west coast of the river up to the large city square stretching out to the local cathedral lies the Residential district. While houses of multiple living styles exist throughout the city, this district is where they exist without mercantile fusion, although there also exists a tavern and inn as well, they are their own structures.
From the city square throughout the rest of the official city limits lies the Trade district. Market squares, farmers' markets, local sellers and crafters, the Merchants Guild, and so on and so forth, this is the highest-trafficked part of the city.
The fourth district, the Farms district, is much more freeform, consisting of the general outskirts of the city where there are many farms, orchards, and fields, along with the nearby bulls-eye forest.

Assets

Being a popular merchant city, Wind has a large amount of revenue even with a more lax tax percentage amidst its populace. However, its most stored items are crops from the local fields, either being sent out or saved for prime selling times and often just for the sake of preservation with the help of local druids and artificers.

Guilds and Factions

In terms of your standard worker's guilds, Wind has three of great note as the Merchants Guild, Agricultural Guild, and Artifice Guild each have strong, vocal, combative chapters. On any given day at the market square, you can find some argument or disagreement happening between members as they dispute which of them is most crucial to the local economy, and which of the three provides the greatest benefits to their members. 
Of course, any profitable town is going to have the Thieves Guild's attention, although Wind exists in a bit of a paradoxical situation. The city isn't small enough to go unnoticed, and the fact that it's a profitable merchants haven brings a lot of potential marks along its roads, but it also isn't big enough to have a lot of secret areas to hide and stalk, leaving the city with a small but dedicated chapter who have taken to hiding amongst the dozens of faces within the merchants.
On the magical side of things, there are the Dwylo Emrallt, an order of Druids and other nature-based workers, with rumors that within their numbers there's a hidden coven of Witches who secretly run their own missions and operations. While there isn't any evidence of this, witches have long since been integral to the well-being of Magnum Opus, so it wouldn't be a complete surprise. 
There's also the local cathedral, which while not being an official guild, the Clerics there give shelter and guidance to those who need it, especially fellow clerics of the True Giants or even wanderers of other faiths.
Lastly, there is the Scattered Petals, a mercenary guild started by Alfield Skybreaker, an adventurer in his own right from the Border Wars and post-war era. While the guild has routinely had low membership due to various reasons and is in fact the lowest of the currently active guilds, Alfield still does his best to take care of the jobs given to him by the people of Wind, as well as work to get the guilds numbers up.

History

Wind was a settlement long before Magnum Opus became the land it is today. In fact, it was a settlement long before the land was occupied, mined, and used to house the undesirables of Atalanta and Afallon, but it was not an official city in either of their eyes.
Wind first came to be in an era lost to time, long ago. When a particularly harsh winter pushed the severe blizzards of the north further south, a troupe of wandering merchants was traveling from the west and found themselves stuck in the storm. Eventually, they reached a point where their carts could no longer move, and their animals could no longer stand.
By some twist of fate, two more caravans happened to reach them in the same spot, one coming from the east and one from the south. While there was always a veneer of distrust along the roads, especially when crossing merchants of other nations, the desperation of the storm created a key moment of unity and camraderie.
As they began to settle, and form whatever minor structures they could, positioning their wagons against the buffeting winds, the leader of the southern caravan made a bold decision: she hauled out products from her own cart, and shared it with the other two. Startled by this act not only of generosity, but this financial loss, the other two leaders followed suit, sharing in warming drinks and nourishing foods, assembling what they could to make and protect a fire, and laying out fabrics and blankets for their fellows. The other merchants soon followed suit, deciding that even if they take a loss, they'd rather live to regain it later.
Seeming to be in response to this moment of generosity and unity among fellow merchants, the storm around their camp halted, and the flames of the fire cleared the thick snow, exposing the grass for the animals to graze and freeing the river for them to drink. While all knew it was an act of magical blessing, when day came and the storm halted for good, not just around their camp, many of the merchants went their separate ways, but with a greater sense of community.
But, many merchants from each of the three caravans stayed in that location, seeing the blessing of the land as a sign of prosperity, and out of a desire to pay it back. In the decades that followed, the land that is now Wind was a safe haven and neutral ground for all, be they travelers, merchants, or natives of Magnum Opus. While this reputation took quite a hit during the stricter occupation of Afallon, once the Exile's Din began it was one of the first liberated areas, and therefore one of the earliest officially founded cities in Magnum Opus.

Points of interest

The greatest points within the city are:

• The city square where many of the traveling merchants set up on the daily
• The local Bücherei Bookstore, famed for its broad collection of books
• The mage tower of Alice February, famed Abjurer
• Lebensbaum Cathedral, a local church of the True Giants faith and the largest structure within the city
• The Tri-Guild hall, where the Merchants, Artifice, and Agricultural guilds meet and debate
• Nimble Moon Pub, the popular local inn run by Cainwen Evans, trained by famed tavern master Thiton le Fay
• And lastly, while it isn't a glamorous stop for anyone, the Scattered Petals Guildhall is still a notable presence in the city.

Architecture

Many of the buildings in Wind are exposed wood and plaster buildings [Think IRL Swiss style], but both the older buildings and the larger ones primarily use lumber from the nearby Bulls-eye forest for their construction, with the older buildings taking simple structural designs [Think Pre-Romanesque] and the larger ones incorporating stone designs seen in the capital [Romanesque].

Geography

The land that is officially Wind is a relatively flat plain, cut by the typically-underground river that moves through the city. Nearby, however, there are the standard rolling hills and grass plains typical of central Magnum Opus, along with the Seite Forest. Not to mention the nearby colder biomes, or the swampy forests to the southeast.

Climate

Magnum Opus keeps an Oceanic climate, with mild to cold temperatures and plenty of precipitation. This is true of Wind as well, along with its more northern orientation influencing the colder temperatures further. While they aren't fully in the frosty north, and the strange effects of Edda's leylines keep disparate climates from clashing where they logically should, they still receive cooling winds from the sea and snow.

Maps

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  Map of Wind

  A small merchants city within the eastern hills of Magnum Opus

Founding Date

816 EE

Alternative Name(s)

The Coin Crossroads

Type

Town

Population

12,230

Inhabitant Demonym

Windian

Included Locations

• Lebensbaum Cathedral
• Scattered Petals Guildhall
• The Steel Traps
• Tri-Guild Hall

Owner/Ruler

Earl Matilda Bücherei

Ruling/Owning Rank

Earl {Magnum Opus}

Owning Organization

Magnum Opus

Characters in Location

• Alfield Skybreaker