Heart & Soul

reč. /duʃa i srt͡sɛ/
A symbol of the Academy, its central seat of power, and a nexus between the thaumic north and auric south. A place of culture, science, and progress. These are the twin cities Heart and Soul.

Demographics

The cities are quite a mix of cultures. The population is primarily quarterling, then dwarven, ork, human, and faechild, rarely even with a friendly spirit around.

Defences

Heart and Soul were built with quarterling sensitivities in mind. As such, they do not have many defences. There is a high wall facing south and a few guard towers, remnants of the Thaumic War. They are, however, no longer used for defence. On the north side, merely a meter-high fence is patroled by the city guard.

Infrastructure

Heart is the primary urban area. It is full of houses and living blocks, with occasional stores or taverns. In the centre sits the city hall, a great if somewhat boring building. Around that, the Lively Square stretches out in a big circle. It’s in two parts - the inner circle, a park full of greenery, a place for leisure, ceremonies, festivals, and worship; the outer circle, wherein lies the market where citizens and shopkeeps barter and purchase all sorts of things (mostly food). The river Val's Vein, somewhat fortuitously, circles around the “square”, hugging the backside of the market.
Soul is the industrial area. This is where you’ll find manufacturies, specialty shops, silos and warehouses. Notably, one of the towers of the Academy sits here - a grand, tall, domed building, a place of research and regulation. Before it stretches the Thaumic Square, with a statue of one or another academic standing there. On nearly the opposite side of Soul is the Green Circle. The Green Cricle, in the tradition of Val's followers, is a beautiful park full of various trees and flowers. It is a place of rest and beauty, a temple dedicated to Val, guarded and sacred.
Alongside the lake runs a port, or rather a series of small ports that together stretch into one great one. This is the main hub of commerce and communication between the cities and the rest of Valessia. It somewhat abruptly ends when it meets the northern arm of the Val's Vein.

Tourism

Where Heart meets the north-western mountain, there lies the jewel of these cities - the Amphitheatre. The mountain is rather steep, and there are few buildings within a kilometer of it. The inside of the mountain is carved out, and makes for a multi-tiered recreational area full of eateries, pleasure houses, gambling dens, and so on. At the bottom centre sits this area’s namesake, an open theatre with seating for hundreds of thousands of citizens (granted, accounting for the populus, most of them small).
Here, many plays, tales, and shows take place every day of every week - and any and everyone may attend.

Founding Date

68 PrT

Type

Capital

Location under

Valessia

Owning Organization

Academical Federation of Auric and Thaumic Beings