Viraloc

this article is super outdated. once I get through my 20 other priority items I will update it.

Viraloc, known by other nations as Earth-Meets-Sky along with several other names, or by its residents simply as The City, is a city-state located in the Taiga River Valley with a population of roughly 2 million (including suburbs) as of the year ME 2000. It is famously home to Tel-Taiga, an estimated 100-story tower of libraries, laboratories, and museums erected by the eponymous god Taiga around ME 15.

HISTORY

Current historical knowledge is able to date Viraloc as far back as c. AE 6500, making it the oldest continually inhabited settlement on the planet. Though the area was mostly dominated by the reptilian races at the time, it has long been assumed to have been founded by humans.
Its location within a valley surrounded by steep mountains and boxed in by rivers makes it a very difficult location to attack, but its fertile soil and ample running water makes it highly sought after. In the first several thousand years of its existence, groups representing all three major species managed to capture, level, rebuild, and rename it multiple times. In AE 1019 it was “reclaimed” by a human ethnic group who claim to have been its original founders. (Its current name Viraloc comes from the leader of this reclamation, Tandel Viraloc.) It has not been successfully attacked since.
Even given its history, the largest change to Viraloc, like most everywhere else, was the coming of the gods. Viraloc was lucky enough to have its own Taiga ascend to godhood, and he used his all-encompassing knowledge of the sciences to guide the city to levels of advancement they had never seen before.
Viraloc’s influence and renown has stayed mostly in the central area of the continent, but it has gained relations with some eastern elven nations. (See subheader Diplomatic Relations for more information.)
In the ME 500s Taiga became antisocial, eventually locking himself in the upper floors Tel-Taiga and freezing them in time. Viraloc did not rely on the god to run their city, but his effective removal from the world had great impacts on its citizens nonetheless. His advices on sustainability were forgotten (if they hadn’t been already), which would end up causing issues for the entire globe, and his existence slowly became a myth of sorts.

CULTURE

Viraloc has for a long time valued scientific discovery and achievement above nearly all else. It leads the world in nearly all fields of physical science, pioneered mundane electricity generators, and is home to 9 top-level STEM academies. Taiga is often credited with steering the city toward this focus on science, but it chose its path long before he was born, and he was simply another product of it.
Viraloc has also contributed to neuroscience, and has a decently sized, albeit comparatively much smaller, scene for the social sciences, especially history. The guard of Tel-Taiga has a portion of its rank dedicated to collecting and maintaining historical records of the world.
Though Viraloc is a human settlement, it tries to be welcoming of other races, should they desire to move there. Its demographics usually hover around 80% human, 18% lizardfolk, 2% elf.

LANGUAGE

Viraloc’s vocabulary has heavy influence from the northern humans. Some of its grammar and the rest of their vocabulary is similar to that of the birdfolk and their cousins the lizardfolk. It’s not clear who took from who, or if it was mutual.

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS

Viraloc shared the Valley with the forest bird and lizardfolk for most of its existence. The birds took especially kindly to Tandel’s group when it arrived, and folklore claims this is the reason the city was never captured again. Taiga had a special fondness for the forest lizards, particularly one of their leaders, Aria (ME 421-488).
Around the ME 400s Viraloc also began looking eastward to the realm of the elves, possibly due to Taiga’s connection with the other gods, many of whom lived there. They did not exactly form close bonds with any elven nations, though they at least became neutral acquaintances and trading partners. They did however end up having a very strong cultural influence on some of the east coast cities.
In ME 611 an invading group of elves ousted the lizards and completely eradicated the birds, and while Viraloc swiftly dealt with the elves, the lizards had already gone, and could not be found until some 1400 years later, when they emerged from the desert to the south, which was near-impossible to traverse, and thought to be uninhabitable.

Founding Date

AE 1019

Founders

• Tandel Viraloc

Alternative Name(s)

Earth-Meets-Sky, Eka-Te-Li

Population

a lot

Related Ethnicities

• unnamed group including viraloc clan

Location under

Taiga River Valley

Included Locations

• Tel-Taiga

Related Historical Events

• 1019 AE
  Tandel Viraloc et al. take Viraloc