Artoril (Ar-torr-rill)

Artoril is a relic, the crystallized spirit of what the Kingdom of Hain used to be. It is where the monarchs of Hain are still buried and venerated, where the old law stands carved, and where the ancient ritual of state is practiced. It was once the most populous and prestigious city in Hain, though it's golden age has long since fallen away. Under the last few leaders, it has slowly rebounded from near total obscurity, rising again as a city with a future rather than just a past. The recent growth has been slow, though, and has mostly occured among Prism-hold and prism communities; non-prisms seem to be unconvinced that Artoril is either safe or prosperous. 
The old power of Artoril is present in the surrounding landscape. Great stone statues of Ustav, the other Gods, and old Hainish heroes mark the roads. Boulders are carved with runes in the old written language, marks for rituals of entrance and fealty that are no longer heeded. The countryside approaching Artoril proper is strange and pockmarked from ancient wars, with mutated weeds and rocks becoming suddenly very normal as one approaches the city.
Artoril itself is hard to miss. The Heillenfel, the mountain that makes up the city's heart, is a steep stone peak with smoke stacks and gated caves peeking out from the risen stone. The dark grey stone of the mountain isn't just colored by winter snow, either: massive multicolored blossoms of crystals and minerals cover much of the mountain's surface in beautiful and consistent patterns. At the heart of each of these is a hole and a statue, a wound of an old Ederstone weapon. These mineral blossoms are slowly growing over time, and will one day cover the entire mountain; there is a mineral ecosystem growing throughout the mountain and slowly replacing the dead rock. Much of it is edible to prisms, making it both beautiful and friendly (though one can get poisoned eating the wrong rock here).
At the base of the mountain, two small towns sit on either side: Northtown and Southtown, the ranching town and the farming town. Massive stone gates lead into the mountain proper, into a huge open crossroads lit by bioluminescent mushrooms. Thousands of prisms live in the warrens inside, and following the great stone roads can lead travelers to the old city of Artoril - a district known now as Valenside, a refuge city hidden in the mountains. Valenside is occupied mostly by prisms and mining colonies now, while much of the old city lies abandoned. Pockets of settlement exist, but many prefer the new towns - more accessible trade and fewer stories of horrible monsters in Northtown and Southtown.

Demographics

17,000 humanoids live in Artoril. 75% are Prisms or prism-adjacent starspawn, 10% are starspawn, 5% are dryads and humans, 5% are hybrids, and 5% are other species.

Government

Artoril is ruled by a local aristocrat known as a Junker (pronounced Yoon-ker), who rules in the name of the Council of Eight - an oligarchic council made up of representatives of Hain's eight great founding clans. The Council of Eight rarely meets and tends to leave all of the governing to the Junker, though, so it is best to think of the Artoril Junker as an autonomous princeling. Under the Junker, a Council of Burghers (or titled merchants) manages local guild and trade policy.
The local dynasty of Artoril is always chosen from among the local prism families. The current Junker is a Prism by the name of Dozna Devatora, a slightly unorthodox candidate who has been doing a fairly good job of building Artoril back up from its prior decline. Dozna is more famous for her work as a lawyer than as a warrior (though she does have battle experience), and she is extremely familiar with the law and bureaucracies of the city. Over her long tenure as Junker, she has grown accustomed to being listened to and has become impatient with those she sees as ambitious - she was more effective at managing the factions of the city ten years ago than today, though no crisis has yet to highlight this yet. Her greater weakness is in military matters, as she has little patience for the theory of war and considers military matters a distraction from the more important parts of rulership.

Defences

Artoril was built as a Kivish army-buster fortress. Incidentally, the city is also impervious to most other conventional methods of attack. The outer districts are protected by strong walls (which lack modern weaponry to defend them, but make up for that with sheer volume of stone), and if these are breached, the Northtown and Southtown districts can evacuate into the inner city of the Heillenhold and the Valenside district. Entry into the Heillenhold is guarded by the Wintergates, two massive mechanical gates that lead into nightmarish kill zones if breached. There are a number of small openings up the Heillenhold armed with siege weapons, that are themselves tiny kill zones intended to lure arrogant Kobold scouts away from support. The Valenside district is protected by both mountains and various fortifications through those mountains - less impregnable than the Heillenhold, but still enough to make any mass assault incredibly costly. Even within the Valenside district, underground bunkers and tunnels exist in case of aerial bombardment and to allow for emergency holdouts if the city were to fall. Towers in the Valenside area exist to target aerial enemies and allow for layered defense in case of a breach. Even underground attacks are prepared for, with outer outpost tunnels branching out from the city to detect any possible under-attacks and allow for a timely defense.
This is all to say that Artoril has been attacked in virtually every way possible, and has led to a comical over-preparedness. It is even said that the city has ethereal defenses, as no ghosts seem to be able to enter the city (and any ghost there quickly vanishes for some reason). By air, by earth, by climbing forces, by overwhelming firepower, Artoril has been menaced by every kind of threat and bears the scars as proof.
The greatest flaw with Artoril's defenses is upkeep: these layers of protection are expensive to maintain, and almost certainly have holes in them that have gone unnoticed. Similarly, the garrison is simply too small to man all of the defenses (particularly the underground tunnels and the Valenside defenses) and much of the defenses have simply been abandoned with the assumption that they can be dusted off and used when a threat emerges. Given that Artoril has held strong since 1700, that is three hundred years of decay, not to mention opportunistic scavenging for building materials. Rather than protect anyone, some of these ruins have become hubs for criminal activity, or have been turned in emergency housing.

Industry & Trade

Artoril is a minor manufacturing center, where guilds coordinate weaving, tanning, textile work, pottery, and smithing. These guilds also run local community operations and serve as vehicles for local elite families, so efficiency isn't always the primary goal. There are guilds for just about anything, but there are three big blocks of guilds:

• Northtown Guilds, which manage animal products moving in from the Northern flats to the coast; tanning, meat, weaving, and monstercrafting
• Southtown Guilds, which manage plant and mineral products coming in from the South: smelting, smithing, pottery, food processing, and woodworking
• The Inner Guilds, which manage Artoril-based industries, such as mining, jeweling, stoneworking, and internal trade

Artoril is a big center for domestic trade between the cities of Hain - while foreigners are basically absent, merchants and immigrants from across the kingdom can be found here.

Infrastructure

Artoril's infrastructure is adequate, though some of the non-prism parts (lighting, food storage, sewers) are not well maintained in the Heillenfel. Northtown in particular has been left to fend for itself, a perceived punishment for the district's refusal to work with the government.

Districts

Heillenfel: Heillenfel is the heart of the city; a densely populated mountain complex that serves as the administrative and social center. Heillenfel where the palaces are, the military is centered, and the prism elites live. Plenty of non-elite prisms live here as well, and some non-prisms also reside near the grand plaza and crossroads. Heillenfel is basically a large prism-hold that also doubles as a massive fortress, so it can function as a prism-city unto itself. Heillenfel also physically connects the other three districts together - moving through the city requires moving through the massive cave-roads and plazas of the crossroads.
Valenside: The expanded part of Artoril that sprawls into the nearby secluded valley of Vallenka, Valenside is a mixture between the decaying remains of the old non-prism city, which is sparsely inhabited, and the majority-prism mining communities that cluster along the edge of the district. Valenside is also known as "old town", and there are neighborhoods here that still are active that trace back to the earliest days of Hain.
Northtown: A more recently made part of town that specializes in trade, weaving, and animal processing, Northtown is a combination of non-prisms and prisms who are more integrated into the rest of Hainish society. Also known as Skunkside for its fowl stench, Northtown is the most commercially bustling and rowdy part of Artoril.
Southtown: A more recently made part of town that specializes in trade, farming and food access, woodworking, and smelting. Southtown has thrived with the recent creation of the Southtown aqueduct and grand cistern, which has funneled significant water necessary for smelting into the district. Southtown is less economically fluid than Northtown despite all of this, and is largely dominated by Southern merchants.

Guilds and Factions

The Nobility: The prism nobility of Artoril holds great power over the city, and is involved in most institutions here. At the top are the Original Families, who can trace their lineage back to the days of Ustav; below them are the Golden lines, or prisms who can trace their lineage back to the golden era. There are a few new aristocrats in Artoril, but these are extremely rare and are under constant pressure to marry into the pre-existing lines. The aristocrats of Artoril are a combination between commanders and policymakers - they are expected to oversee new mines, maintain the defenses, and help keep the courts working.
The Mining Guild: The prisms who are not tied to the nobility are largely employed in mining, stonecutting, construction, and smelting. The Guild of Miners is the largest organization for common prisms, and has worked to build a coalition with the Masons, Smelters, and Stonecutters to lobby for the newer prism families. Oftentimes, these guilds represent new money families that don't have titles rather than poor prisms, but they do make the occasional attempt. While the mining guild urges for more prism social mobility, they are extremely limited in the reforms they are seeking and might be classified as generally conservative and risk averse.
The Northtown Burghers: The Northtown Burghers control the Northtown guilds - weavers, ranchers, shepherds, tanners, tailors, merchants - and are the faction hungriest for radical reform. They see Artoril's autonomy and detachment from mainstream Hainish feudalism as a chance to make a truly radical new project, though they often disagree about where exactly Artoril should go. The Burghers have a tendency to host unorthodox thinkers, and are a voice of constant opposition.
The Southtown Burghers: The Southtown Burghers are the heads of the Southtown guilds, and they have a very particular vision for Artoril: bringing the city in line with the rest of Hain and making it more like Ozaren. More sprawl, more rural connections, more titles (particularly among non-prisms), more order and hierarchy and royal control. Closely allied with the mainstream Uvaran Priesthood.
The Crowngardeners, the Cult of Ustav-Irunek: A religious group that holds great influence and prestige here. The Crowngardeners hold a monopoly on handling mutated life in Artoril - the holy mosses, the living crystals, the flowering ore, and other marvels are kept under close watch and cautiously used by the Crowngardeners. They are also in charge of reading omens and prophecies, which they keep archived; when Ustav Reborn comes to claim their throne, it will be the Crowngardeners who test their legitimacy. They perform sacred rituals both to the Gentle Prince Kofalin and to the Irunek yet to come.

History

Early History (-100 to 610)

Artoril's Prism-hold has foundations that trace back before the arrival of Ederstone, but it wasn't consistently inhabited until the late 100s ME. Over the course of the 200s, Artoril grew from just a prism-hold to a mixed settlement; a patchwork of small townships allied together in mutual solidarity against the great monsters and natural disasters of that century. The city formally combined into one settlement (and adopted the name "Artoril") after a brief civil war in 233 ME, which was ended by the legendary hero Ustav in 234. For a century after the Century of Suffering ended, Artoril existed as a lonesome city state perpetually balancing the needs and demands of its resident clans; in 445, its monarch fell in battle to the army of the Empire of Andrig, and the city surrendered to the Empire by the end of the year. Under Andrig, Artoril became the center of diplomacy and trade with the Northern Hainish tribes, and the city thrived as an in-between space. Even after the Empire fell in 477, Artoril persisted as the place where the North and South met and intermingled.
With the Empire of Andrig was consumed by infighting and the Kivishta invasions barreling from the North, Artoril hosted the great Hainmoot in 480, a meeting of the great tribes of Hain where they agreed to confederate against the oncoming Northern threat. And when the first Kivish wargroups arrived in the late 490s, Artoril served as the center for military coordination. Refugees swelled the city, and the mines went into overdrive as Artorans struggled to mass produce weaponry and armor for the war effort. When warriors from the South camped at Artoril and prepared, they brought a powerful ally with them: Vetka the First Druid. Vetka trained druids, made peace between factions, and began introducing Samvaran techniques for making prism holds comfortable for other species (such as Halpara Mushrooms he also introduced Samvaran technologies and specialists to Artoril to aid the war effort. Hain's Northern tribes migrated to Artoril seeking refuge, and the Northern prisms conducted a massive cross-cultural effort to transform Artoril into an unbreakable sanctuary from 490 to 560. As Artoril became larger and more fortified, it was able to close off Southern and Eastern Hain militarilly - if the Kobolds wished to take everything, Artoril would have to fall first. From 560 to 565, the Empire of Kizen tried with all its might; Artoril was bombared with Ederstone and swarmed with monstrosities. In 565, Hainish forces were able to encircle the Kivish army and strike a major blow against the Kivish for the first time in their history - Artoril as an immovable object had stopped the Kivish unstoppable force and provided the coalition with an opportunity to properly counterattack. The city had scars from the relentless assault, but it stood tall as a symbol of victory. When the League of Eight declared itself a permanent government in 610 ME, Artoril was unsurprisingly decided upon as Hain's capital.

The Golden Age of Artoril (610 - 1300)

Artoril thrived as a symbol of royal power from 610 to 910. Hainish regimes legitimized themselves one of two ways: by attacking the Kivish and by building up Artoril's glory. The only limiting factor to Artoril's growth was freshwater access and distribution, but the bountiful springs and easy well access in Valenside still allowed for immense growth. The prism invaders of the 700s further built up Artoril's mountain complex and brought some techniques and technologies from the Adira Mountains. The human/Dryad regimes, meanwhile, transformed Valenside into a flourishing garden. The most useful Ederstone mutations and foreign technologies were all routed on Artoril squarely. The first hiccup in this stratospheric ascent was the Yellow Death Epidemic of 918 and ensuing Kivish invasion, which failed to take the city but did exacerbate the plague problem by besieging it - 25% to 50% of the mammalian population of Artoril died or fled from 918 to 920. The Kivish invasion failed, but it did herald another devastating plague a few decades later: Mageplague.
Even with plague and war decimating the population, Artoril's political authority was only growing. The city became enshrined in royal ritual with the new electoral system of 1001, and Artoril became a kind of essential government nerve center with a shrinking population that was increasingly wealthy. And as power diffused and rural power centers ascended, Artoril began to lose that political relevancy as well. The population and trade finally began increasing again in the 1200s, but it was unable to match the obscene growth of Southern Hain during this time. The golden age of Artoril was over, though it had not lost its sheen as the one true capital just yet.

The Time of Crisis (1300 - 1700)

By the time of the Third Kivish Scouring of Stildane, the Kivish had learned from centuries of change; Artoril had not. When war broke out in the 1390s, the new Empire of Kizen avoided a direct assault on the bastion, but focused on cutting the city off from supplies and using a more subtle approach to undermine the city. In 1396, a group of monster hunters and mercenaries hired by the Kivish were able to sneak into the city and attempt a takeover. While unsuccessful, the attempt sowed chaos within the Artoril court, which was panicking in the face of war and squabbling over who would be elected next as monarch. The next monarch made a point of making Artoril their capital in name only, and withdrew the royal guard from the city's defense. The city was still well-populated, politically important, and symbolic of the Kingdom as a whole, though.
During the Fourth Scouring, Artoril finally fell. The city had been starved periodically by wars and monsters from 1352 to 1425, and the garrison had been thinned by battle. Midsummer in 1425, the city was vulnerable. What forces the city did have were sent outwards, to protect broader Hain from the warring Kivish armies; rumors of a secret Kobold invasion approaching unseen were dismissed. When tremors struck the city and warriors were spotted on the outskirts of the settlement, forces were sent to the outer walls. The Kivish came from below this time, inside massive Ederstone-warped burrowers. Such an attack was impossible in 1390; these creatures were made by decades of horrific experimentation by a radical Kivish sect that had seized a massive arsenal of Ederstone during the ongoing Kivish civil war. The Kivish leader, Karlana the 'Mad' Prophet, had coordinated this brazen assault with her fiercely loyal cultists to promote her own brand of Kivish religion: the Exalted Path, a movement that rejected all materialism and empathy in the name of power and prophecy, which Karlana hoped to unite under herself as "Verkhon Reborn". Her ambitious play worked, and Artoril crumbled from within. The Hainish defenders desperately collapsed as much of the city as they could, while Karlana unleashed a barrage of Ederstone and carefully engineered monsters. When the royal sanctum fell, all hope was lost for the garrison - she had the great fortress, the Heillenhold, under her thumb. Only the intervention of a slapdash alliance of paladins spared the city. These paladins were able to convince Karlana to simply loot and spare Artoril, and to turn away from Hain entirely, in exchange for future support from the Lunar Pantheon. The city's holiest sanctums were defiled, and Karlana was crowned the Irunek and Queen of Hain on the throne of Ustav; the Uvaran elites were humiliated and the treasures were looted. Karlana did eventually leave, though, and her group would eventually unite the Exalted Kivish with a goal that brought a sigh of relief across the land: to leave Stildane entirely.
After the sack of Artoril, the city was no longer the symbol of indestructibility and national unity it once had been. It would take decades to rebuild, and the city never recovered emotionally from the attack. The capital was moved in 1430 and never returned - it eventually settled on Ozaren in 1605. The massive defenses and strategic positioning of Artoril would continue to serve Hainish military purposes, though, and the population would begin to rise again in the 1500 through 1600s. A new series of underground and magical defenses in this period restored public trust in Artoril's safety, though resources pivoted Southward after 1605.

Modern Artoril (1700 to present)

Artoril's non-prism population basically did not survive the Fifth Scouring. The radical Kivish of the early 1700s were particularly unkind to Artoril, and the Hainish government had a habit of baiting them into attacking the city. While the defenses held against the assortment of nasty tricks the new regime cooked up, the Fifth Scouring regime decided that it if no weapon could breach the city they would simply render it irrelevant by force. By tactically irradiating and infesting the lands surrounding Artoril and by employing rapid-growth mutations to artificially overgrow the great gates and towers, the Kivish were able to seal off Artoril alive like a great tomb. Diseased bodies were sealed in with them, and plague and famine did the work. The prisms survived, but few others did.
The nightmare that was the 1718-1728 siege took decades to clean up, and the city never recovered. Centuries of hard work has mostly attracted prisms to the city - to the rest of Hain, Artoril is half-dead, cursed, to be visited and honored but not lived in. The military importance of Artoril still remains, but even that has been left unused in order to divert resources to rebuilding.

Points of interest

The Royal Crypts: Where the monarchs of Hain are preserved, petrified in preserving crystal moss and lying as if asleep in transparent crystal coffins. A place of royal ritual and pilgrimages, as the dead are said to grant rituals during the winter solstice (the peak of the season of death).
The Gudring: A massive plaza and hall used for Hainish clan politics; largely used for large ceremonial gatherings and announcements for the non-prism clans, though the other prism holds do keep representatives here. Also used for ceremonial dueling, theater, wrestling, and debates.
The Elderhall: The ancient palace of the Old Hainish monarchs positioned at the peak of the Heillenfel, partially restored into an aristocratic hosting hall. Extremely exclusive, requiring invitation from the Junker to stay there as a guest.
The Chapel of Ustav Reborn, and the Irunek's Throne: A chapel in the Heillenfel used for government ritual and the worship of Ustav as the reborn god-king. The cultists here are focused on divining the future, and omens and prophecies from across Hain are presented to the Crownsgardeners here for archiving. The most sacred spot here is the Irunek's Throne, a massive stone throne that supposedly predates the Empires of the region and was created by Ustav himself in the mythic days. It is said to be the destined throne of Ustav when he is reborn, the seat from which he will be recognized by all as the savior of Stildane. For a non-cultist to even touch the Throne is a supreme blasphemy.
Heavengrove: A hidden cave system in the Heillenfel that is used for storing and testing the most benevolent and useful Ederstone mutations. Mossweaving, or the use of sacred mosses to strengthen items or preserve bodies, is to be practiced only here. There is said to be a secret passageway here that leads to the Ederstone vault, though its location was lost to time and the entrance was destroyed centuries ago.

Architecture

Half-timbered and brick buildings with tall, steeped rooves and large basements are common in Artoril. Buildings tend to be stocky but often reach up to three or four stories, with either white plastered brick and black-brown wood framing or orange-tinted brick and black framing. Large, open frontal facades are common, as are small towers or spires. The older districts tend to be more squat and subterranean, while the newer districts build up more.

Geography

Artoril is a city at the Western edge of the Gardog mountains (the Northern mountains of Hain). Much of the city is concentrated in the great cavern-riddled Heillenfel mountain, which serves as the basis for the Prism population. The rest of the city orbits Heillenfel, sprawling to the North, the South, and into the insulated Vallenka valley to the East (which is closely ringed by mountains, making it extremely hard to enter without tunnel access through Heillenfel).

Natural Resources

Artoril sits in a mineral rich area, with lots of copper, tin, iron, and jewels in the mountains. There is also good aquifer access and a handful of large springs, so Artoril is also rich in clean freshwater.

Founding Date

234 ME

Type

City

Population

17,000 humanoids

Inhabitant Demonym

Artoran

Location under

Stildane

Ruling/Owning Rank

Junker

Owning Organization

The Kingdom of Hain