TalonBane
TalonBane is the Capital city of The Reaches. It has been the seat of power for the Royal family for the last 20 generations. TalonBane is a sprawling city covering an extensive area, but its homes and businesses lay behind giant stone walls that reach eighty feet high and are fifteen feet thick at the bottom. This city has seen many great monarchs serve the peoples needs, and has seen its fair share of unrest. All of the buildings within this city are constructed from heavy grey stone quarried from the nearby mountains. The grandest estates of the Dukes, to the lowliest slums, are built from this sturdy and fireproof material. It has been a feat of engineering that has taken many generations to accomplish.
Demographics
The city is predominantly made up average workers with very few genuinely wealthy individuals, The people of the north generally shun wealth and extravagance as frivolous and wasteful. The keep of the Bane Family sits in the centre. Buildings spread out radially with the wealthiest in the centre and the poorest on the fringes at the walls.
Government
The seat of power the king's and queens take council in their central keep and work with the Guild masters and the other nobles as well as a small civil service to carry out their will. The king or Queen hold absolute power but often delegate functions to other high ranking nobles and keeps their council.
Defences
The City is surrounded by eighty-foot walls that are fifteen-feet thick.
Three heavily fortified gatehouses use steel reinforced hardened oak gates.
The Gatehouses have three gates in each enclosure with murder holes in the sides and roof.
Regular intervals have large guard towers which are permanently operated, and each tower has a signal fire for use in emergencies.
There is the local militia that acts as a police force but can also be called to the cities defence.
Garrisoned in the central palace is five hundred well-equipped guards that serve as the royal families elite bodyguard.
Industry & Trade
The Capital is the hub of trade and manufacture of weapons and tools used across the kingdom. While larger villages may have their blacksmiths, their skill pales in comparison to the artisans of the castle.
Wealth is derived from foreign trade and tariffs paid by local businesses.
Upkeep is paid by a general tax paid by the citizens of the city.
Infrastructure
The City has an entirely constructed sewage system beneath the cobbled streets designed to take waste away from the city and out into the countryside. The main thoroughfares leading the centre of the town are all made of cobblestone while the smaller streets are either gravel or mud.
Towards the edge of the city are many blacksmiths and armourers. These craftsmen are considered some of the finest artisans in the land. All of the best armour and weapons are forged and made here in the capital.
Every quadrant of the city also contain heated bathhouses which are free for the public to use. Hygiene and cleanliness are essential to the people of the Capital. Near the furnaces of trhe bathhouses there are sleeping quarters where the poorest can come and sleep during the bleakness of the winter when sleeping outside would be lethal.
Assets
Hidden within the vaults of The Bane Castle is the Great armoury of the Reach, it is here all the weapons and armour are stored until they are requisitioned by the Barons on the frontiers.
In the poorest quarter lie many warehouses filled to the brim with unrefined ore ready for manufacture into weapons and armour, the capital always likes to keep a large reserve of ore in order to keep up manufacture even through the long harsh winters where travel is nearly impossible.
Guilds and Factions
The main guilds of the city are as follows:
- Guild of Smiths
- Guild of Masons
- Guild of Hunters
- Guild of Public Works
- Guild of Merchants
- Guild of Craftsmen
- Thieves Guild
- The Dark Brotherhood
History
The City of TalonsBane is believed to have first been founded over a thousand years ago by King Aleksander Bane, as he led his weary army to rest at the foot of a mountain river. Originally started as a military encampment, King Bane decided to build a fortress at this spot to weather the winter, it was from this castle that the first town sprung up.
The original town was a mess of wooden shacks and hide tents built with no adherence to any civic plan, a mistake that paid highly for when a massive fire ripped through the city killing thousands. This town had burned to the ground 250 years after King Aleksander first built his keep. The Destruction of the city and the horrible loss of life inspired Queen Sharon Bane to create a new town that would never fall to the horror of fire again, and with this plan designed the layout of the city that lays here today. The Second City did not include a sewage system; this was to be added by King Gregory Bane 60 years later during a project to cobblestone the main thoroughfares.
Since the addition of the sewage system, the city has not changed much except growing outwards and reconstruction of the walls which were only completed in the last thirty years.
Architecture
The buildings are squat square and rectangular design made from sizeable hewn granite blocks; roofs are tiled using a combination of wooden frames and slate tiles.
Geography
The City has a large circle in the centre made from the Castle of the Bane Family and is surrounded by the manor homes of other royals and high ranking nobles. The outer houses are formed together to make an exterior wall to protect the central keep further.
On the southern face of the central keep and manors lies a large cobblestone square, at its head a large ornate building. Pillars stand at the front standing five stories tall is the Capitol building, this is the headquarters of the civil service, and the ground floor is dedicated to the Kings/Queens Court (depending on sovereign). This courthouse is the highest court of the land, and often the monarch will be in attendance for cases tried here. Due to the presence of the court, the large square has become known as Justice Square.
radiating out from the centre to the gatehouses are three great cobblestone roads, these roads serve as the main thoroughfare of the city, all ending at Justice Square.
the rest of the city is arrayed in a large grid pattern. a mountain range can be seen in the distance to the south end of the city, and a large river flows past the outer western wall. underground tributaries from this river feed the wells and bathhouses.
Natural Resources
- Stone
- Iron
- Water
- Arable Land
- Livestock Pastures
Alternative Name(s)
TalonsBane, The Grey City, Jewel of the North, Bane's Refuge
Type
Capital
Population
~120,000
Owner/Ruler
Owning Organization
Characters in Location
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