Eveko

Eveko, shining capital of the Empire of Kizen, is the largest and richest city in Stildane. It is the future of the continent, a city freed from the threat of chaos and filled with bustling manufacturing jobs. The ports and roads are clogged with Corpse Carts and merchant caravans, bringing in huge quantities of raw lumber, metal ore, wool, cotton, and livestock and leaving packed with manufactured product for sale abroad. The murky and polluted river buzzes with life, as water-powered mills, factories, kilns, and smelters grind with work sleeplessly and mutated crustaceans are herded across the swampy delta.
The city itself is welcoming and friendly at first glance. Large signs and statues welcoming immigrants and tourists from across the continent. Town criers promise jobs with guaranteed housing for any willing to work, and great construction projects are everywhere. Huge multi-armed apelike creatures, driven by Kobold handlers, are used alongside wooden cranes and pullies to assemble great new buildings; huge metal-shelled beasts swim through the earth like enormous living plows, carving paths for new sewers. Bloated mammoth-like creatures with distorted human or dryad faces haul goods from the port as well; Eveko is a city more than happy to flaunt the beasts their warlike ancestors fashioned from the victims of conquest, for all sorts of civilian and military projects. Similarly, wealthy manors and company offices quietly moan as organic doors and elevators convenience residents and visitors alike - parts of the city are beasts themselves, coasted in wood and clay to give the illusion of being ordinary buildings.

Demographics

160,000 humanoids live in Eveko; they are 45% Kobolds, 25% Dryads, 10% humans, 10% Starspawn, 5% Prism, and 5% Other

Government

Eveko is ruled by the Lord Mayor, who is chosen by the Empress and often nominated by the major landowning families in and near Eveko. The local priesthood and merchants also have a limited say in government as well. The Star Chamber (the supreme religious body of Kizen) appoints a Reverent Overseer to the city, a religious judge-bureaucrat who is placed in charge of the city's religious law and priestly hierarchy and who plays a significant role in approving laws issued by the Lord Mayor. The Merchants have the Eveko Commission: a reporting body that provides knowledge of the city and trade law recommendations to the Lord Mayor, but which tends to act as a voice for the merchant elite of the city.
The current lord mayor is Irika Nikrem, a high-born former merchant with a reputation for being a bit of a scumbag as a person and businesswoman in the past. Rumor has it that she was offered the position with the deal that she could embezzle for herself only if she cut out the corruption down the rest of the administration; the commonfolk can't imagine how else she got the job. The city has been running fairly well under her, though that could also be a coincidence rather than her specific doing. Other aristocrats and elites still largely avoid her for being a habitual liar and backstabber, but she seems to have contented herself for the most part with her position here.
The current Reverent Overseer is a woman by the name of Miana Stenek, and she is an imperial patriot through and through. A lowborn who rose through the priesthood thanks to charisma and diligence, Miana considers herself an avatar of the Empress' justice just as much as she considers herself a priest. She and Irika's distaste for each other are palpable and public, but so far it hasn't blossomed into outright political infighting.

Defences

Two sets of defensive walls run through the city: the Kivish Walls, ancient fortifications that are now ruins that run through the old part of town, and the Imperial Walls, which encircle the central parts of town but leave out much of the newer city. The Northern fringe of the city also has a system of watchtowers and patrols that keep an eye out for monsters from Rumakel (which are extremely rare, but not impossible).

Industry & Trade

Eveko is the workshop of Stildane, a massive city with a huge manufacturing sector. Great water-powered textile mills transform bushels of wool and cotton into textiles, while enormous kilns and smelters produce great amounts of pottery and metal. The grand butcheries, meat lockers, and tanneries operate on a larger and more impersonal scale than would be found in most cities. Many industries have imitated the mass assembly model through by-hand assembly lines or through old craft practices implemented across mega-workshops; the small-time guild artisan has been losing ground and independence in Eveko. It has yet to reach full industrial revolution levels, though: many of these large industries have not entirely simplified their tasks into purely 'unskilled' labor, and almost all are supplemented by legions of purchased small-time artisans who work out of their homes or small workshops and have been bought out by larger companies. 
Not all trades have becomes pre-industrial, nor has the factorial lifestyle entirely overtaken the old urban rhythms of life. Smithing of smelted metals is still largely done by hand, as are trades like candlemaking. People still spend parts of the day working side jobs or growing their own local food within the city. The pre-factories are still fledglings in many ways, threatening traditional life in the distance while not fully replacing it.

Infrastructure

Eveko has a fairly well-constructed road system, as well as a robust fresh water supply that draws from wells as well as aqueducts funneling water from the Southeast. Plumbing is a rare luxury here, with most water delivered into fountains, cisterns, or water pumps and carried by bucket. The sewer system of Eveko serves the central and Southern parts of the city well, but the Northern and Eastern fringes are still being caught up to and have to rely on more basic sewer infrastructure (such as waste canals and commission wagons).

Districts

Southern Oldtown, on the Southwestern corner of the city, is the most glamorous and iconic of Eveko's districts. Old castles are preserved as museums, massive Kivish holy stars sit on every rooftop, and experimental gothic cathedrals with stained glass and gorgeous acoustics sit next to stylish manors and government buildings with highly-decorated facades. Company buildings, with their ominous and monumental early-1700s Kivish architecture (made to be as intimidating as possible), have been painted and decorated to look more cheery and welcoming, and their organic amenities can be addictively convenient.
Northern Oldtown, which is closer to the river, is a bustling commercial corner of town. It is a violent patchwork of isolated hyper-religious communities that have gated themselves off, booming nightclubs and taverns, portside markets, and old apartments packed to the brim with petty merchants, wealthy newcomers, and artisans. This is where most tourists and travelers tend to stop by, and the combination of middle-class prosperity, multiculturalism, and tight spaces creates a very strong impression of Eveko as a booming city of the coming age. Most newcomers imagine themselves living here, but they very rarely actually do.
Northport, the Northwestern part of town, is a bit newer, more industrial, and a lot less hip. And it only gets worse from there: the further East or North you go from that central strip of Southern Oldtown to Northport, the worse conditions become. The public services become worse, the streets begin to smell, buildings become even more cramped, and local gangs become rowdier. Eveko is a city with a lot of variety neighborhood-by-neighborhood, and that variety is ever-shifting as the city is built and its population is shifted around internally.

Guilds and Factions

The State Companies: Eveko's marketplace is dominated by massive textile, meat, pottery, and metal companies, each run by military-aristocrat groups. While elites invest in these companies, they do not actually own them; stocks are only legally legitimate if created and sold by the state, and these stock companies can never fully leave state administration. They are state projects that offer returns to investors and where investors are given opportunities to try their hand at management, and investors are exclusively the Kizen military and commercial elite. The only exception to this are the two private companies, which use informal agreements between aristocrats rather than formalized stock and are just larger versions of traditional merchant companies: The Sisters Erlain Textiles Company, and The Kostlin Meat Company. These companies are large, aristocratic, and hungry for power (possibly even more than profit). They hunt lesser merchants almost for sport, eagerly subsidizing and consuming all competition. They have also begun to look outwards from Eveko in recent years, and are preparing to use their built up monopolies and excessive production to expand their reach across North Stildane. The main companies in town are: The Imperial Textile Company, the Imperial Pottery Company, the Imperial Metalworks Company, the Imperial Meats Company, The Sisters Erlain Textiles Company, and The Kostlin Meat Company.
The Garrison and Guard: The city guard and city garrison have a lot of cross-pollination, and both are run by the same aristocratic military officers. Often tied by blood to the Company families, officers often align themselves with one company or another.
The Reverent Path Priesthood: The Reverent Path Kivish establishment has immense power over law and administration, as well as great influence over public perception and the actions of Kivish hardliner sects. The Reverent Path priesthood has its central hierarchy, led by the Reverent Overseer and the Judges, but also includes a network of less-integrated specialized priests and local gurus who handle particular problems or appeal to specific groups. Even these lesser priests must be licensed and registered with the Overseer's office to legally operate (with a few rogue actors illegally operating without a license). The Priesthood tends to prefer stability over change, and has been a thorn in the side of the more ambitious company and military actors.
The Kivish Hardliners: The Kivish hardliners are puritanical Reverent Path Kivish communities that pool their resources and political influence for maximum effect. Within these communities, they can be critical social safety nets and mutual aid networks in an otherwise cut-throat world, but they can also verge on cult-like behavior at times. The Kivish hardliners want big Kobold-only families, and a total separation between Kobolds and non-Kobolds; they also demand that believers push away and avoid those who fail to live up to the faith. Kivish hardliner militias can get rowdy at times and have been known to terrorize Kobolds who seriously break taboos, though they largely ignore non-Kobolds who leave them alone.
The Uvaran Temple: All non-Kivish religion is considered Uvaran here, and the Uvaran temples are a permitted parallel religious structure to the Kivish hierarchy. A council of Uvaran priests chosen by the Reverent Path Overseer are in charge of making religious rulings for Uvarans for legal purposes, as well as defining what is acceptable Uvaran doctrine. So far this council has been very lax, allowing small Sunekan, Ishkibite, and Lunar Cult groups to operate without harassment as Uvaran temples. For the most part, the Uvaran elites are imperial collaborators: they try to represent and support their communities, but they know better than to try and seriously unionize workers or compete economically. Instead, they focus on social issues and cultural autonomy.
The Elder-Guild: A group of traditionalist merchants who have not embraced the company system or freelance work, the Elder-Guild is a rejection of modern Eveko. Led by a combination between nostalgic Kobold artisans and Lunar Cultists (particularly aligned with Jade and Lily of Red), the Elder-Guild has swept up the vestigial remnants of a number of the old guild structures and has done its best to create pockets of traditionalist culture and life. The Elder-Guild does some work organizing weavers and smiths in the name of better pay and conditions, but it is extremely classist and anti-immigrant within its own structures: it doesn't particularly oppose the idea of an upper class, just the decline of guild hierarchies and urban pollution.
The Street Scamps: Gangs are big here, though they aren't entirely criminal. Some are just groups of workers or displaced communities that came up together seeking work, that drink and fight together for their own corner of the city. Others are gangs in the more negative sense of the word, groups of violent petty criminals who feel lost in the world and take out their anger on the vulnerable. It can be hard to differentiate the two on sight, and there is some grey area between them. Most of the more successful ones that have actual turf tend to have some local law and order they enforce, even if that law is informal and somewhat arbitrary.

History

Early History

Eveko was founded in 600 ME by Kivish Empress Joveka the Builder, in the ancient days of the First Kivish Horde. Eveko was a novelty for that era, a permanent center of administration and industry for the Kivish to use as a headquarters. It was founded down the river from the Azkurbak Wastes (what is now Rumakel), close enough to easily receive orders from the royal cult there but far enough away to not be constantly under attack by the chaos wastes. The city was still for the most part a bit too close to the chaos wastes and still periodically threatened by various monsters and anomalies. It is said that Joveka intended this to keep the residents battle-ready, but it also prevented the city from growing to the size that it reasonably could. Complications resulting from that danger burnt the city down completely in 728 ME, and provoked the creation of new, safer cities across Kizen in 730 - but Eveko was rebuilt as the capital once again. This actually somewhat insulated parts of the settlement from Mageplague in the 900s, though it still killed off entire parts of the city wholesale. The civil wars of 980 and 1000 also undermined the city's relevance and dissuaded many from returning to the city. For a century, Eveko was barely inhabited, and largely fell to ruin.
The 1100s brought some life back to Eveko. The construction of Rumakel needed a base of operations that wasn't constantly being irradiated, and Eveko made sense geographically and symbolically. Eveko was mostly an administrative city for the Reverent Path priesthood in the early 1100s, but it grew to be the capital of the Kingdom of Kizen as well in 1150. Over time, Eveko grew and recovered, and by 1200 it had returned to being a city with a life and purpose outside of paperwork and symbolism. The 1200s and 1300s were a time of prosperity and growth for Eveko. The city of Rumakel shrank the chaos waste, opened up farmland, and lessened the number of monsters as it grew in effectiveness. And the Kingdom of Kizen was transforming into an Empire, and Eveko was glutted with loot and captives. The caste system provided cheap forced labor to construct grand walls, roads, and monuments, which were filled with trophies of broken kingdoms.

The Fifth Scouring

The War of False Prophets, which raged from 1420 to 1440, was rough for Eveko. The city was fought over by the many religious factions of Kizen, and the end of the caste system meant total social upheaval within the city. But after the war, the city adapted to the less hierarchical new order. The Third Empire funneled resources and specialists into Eveko, building it back up to its former glory and beyond. The new Eveko was much more class-oriented now, though, and income inequality grew over the centuries even among Kobolds. By the 1570s, the gap between the rich and poor had become vast, with land speculators and military-merchants buying up much of the land and constructing their own opulent districts on the Northern side of the river. Class resentment grew as rents soared, moderated only by imperial interventions to try and create more affordable housing and conditions in the early 1600s.
In 1630 a rebellion in the Southern reaches of the empire forced the administration to pull back public subsidies and support in the North, and a terrible economic recession hit Eveko. Jobs vanished, food shortages struck, public services were rolled back, and the elites would not stop wringing ever cent from the common Evekan that they could. Some poor communities rallied together to provide mutual support and coordinate protest, though these were often led by Uvaran non-Kobolds and were promptly blamed for causing many of the problems that had them organizing in the first place. The city's kobolds had already been increasingly radicalized by what they perceived as a recession caused by non-kobolds and moderates in the South; many were receptive to this call to arms against these mutual aid groups. Kivish hardliner militias were armed and supported by a faction within the priesthood, to encourage more faith and as a tool of public order; when the mutual-aid groups performed acts of public disobedience or tried to in any way act against the city's elites, the religious paramilitaries would descend upon them with violence that the city guard largely refused to stop. But the hardliners were not so easily controlled; they were fueled by hatred of religious outsiders, true, but they were also fueled by a hatred of the opulent elites who sat in their mansions and allowed Kizen to be bullied by 'weak and soulless figments' and who allowed Kobolds to starve. The more extreme paramilitaries turned on those elites who weren't radical enough or militaristic enough, and the moderates put up little fight to stop them. When food riots hit the city again in 1650, paramilitaries were joined by defectors within the guard and garrison, who burned the Uvaran temples and turned military warbeasts against the guards of the wealthy; mansions were looted and merchants kidnapped for ransom, while non-Kivish communities were set ablaze and many were killed among them. When the radical cult known as the Children of Verkohn seized the government in 1680, these paramilitaries secured Eveko for them. The Children of Verkohn regime, with all its violence and injustice, may have been a product of a deranged cult, but it was only possible thanks to Evekan religious extremists.
Eveko thrived under the Children of Verkohn - it was their revolution to a certain extent, after all. Slaves and loot were diverted to Eveko, which was expanded and improved upon even as the old Uvaran districts were demolished. A slave revolt in 1699 did put a halt to the expansion for a time, but the new regime had its own horrifying solution to the problem of rebellion. It was an old practice of the Kivish to melt down rebels or surplus captives into beasts of labor or war through Ederstone, and the new regime certainly did that; but what if it could be more specific, more efficient, and less a matter of upkeep? What if people could be alchemized into tools, building components, and more? That question was answered nightmarishly by the Fleshwarpers of the Fifth Scouring, who used Eveko as ground zero for this experimental new craft. Eveko was built to its modern glory using the flesh and bones of the enemy.
All evils must come to an end, the Children of Verkhon's regime surely did. As the wars went on and the Kivish started losing after 1728, the city became increasingly divided between even its kobold residents, and paramilitaries turned on one another in a kind of frenzy of social cannibalism. Many of the residents had grown so sick of the regime that they formed their own militias and fought the feuding radicals in the streets. Slaves again revolted in 1743, assisted by Hainish knights, paladins of Theia the Liberator, and rebellious militias, and the full enslaved population was able to escape. As the rest of the empire was taken over internally by moderate factions, only Eveko and Rumakel remained under full radical rule, until the last Children of Verkhon emperor was killed in 1749 by foreign Questing Knights. In 1750, the radical elites were cleansed in what is now known as the Week of Cleansing, and the anti-radical militias promptly went to town doing the same to the more extreme hardliners in Eveko. Many hardliners switched sides to join the moderates, but all the Truthful Path loyalists were slaughtered before the dawn of 1751. It was finally over.

Modern Eveko

From 1751 to 1870, Eveko recovered. While the Kingdom of Hain tried to seize direct control of the new government, the new regime refused to allow them full access and control - they kept their Ederstone weapons, their warbeasts, and Eveko kept its Fleshwarped novelties. They seemed in bad taste and were largely left covered up for decades, but they slowly were filtered back into use over time. Eveko rebuilt, refilled its coffers, built new housing, and did its best to forget what had just happened.
During the mid-late 1800s, Eveko began to prosper once more. Trade was restored; people, kobold and not, were moving back in significant numbers for the well-paying jobs Eveko offered. New trade connections were made, through the Kizen Corpse Carts and through new actors. Selkies were invited into the city, to siphon in healing potions from the Borim Healing Circle. A blossoming era of Stildanian trade was afoot, as South Stildane and North Stildane forged an oceanic trade route that allowed easy and robust trade across the continent. Sunekan currency and goods entered the market, and the economy was raging and roaring again. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Kizen's 'Invisible Empire' of trade connections and control diverted massive amounts of trade and raw resources in Kizen for manufacturing and resale, causing Eveko to suddenly balloon in size and wealth. The struggle was increasingly how to produce enough. Evekan aristocratic elites turned to the Suneka for answers, going so far as to send an exploratory commission to the continent in 1910. The wondrous workshops they discovered in the Gatrev March fascinated them, and a number of these elites forged pacts with members of the lunar pantheon promising to bolster the moderate faction in exchange for technology and inspiration. The Lunar Gods were suspicious and it took time for these agreements to actually be made, but once the first was forged the others followed suit.
The resulting economic scramble of the 1950s was the product of these competing Lunar Cults, which each had a piece of the puzzle that they so clumsily assembled. It was also the product deduction, imitation, and a few hired Sunekan merchants. A government Joint-stock office was formed through the military, which enabled state corporations to be made (but not private ones) and capital to be pooled. Through these state companies, and through the joint investment of the very rich and insular military aristocracy, the first grand workshops were built. They were and are not equal to the pseudo-factories of Gatrev, but they were able to use new technology and centralization to finally process all the raw resources coming in. Huge water-powered textile mills, pottery kilns, and smelters arose, and even where water-powered technology wasn't ready, mass assembly lines that used by-hand work were opened. Modern Eveko was born - the production capital of Kizen, and perhaps even Stildane.

Points of interest

The Imperial Palace, on the Southwesternmost edge of the city, is a walled and fortified little town in itself. Behind the imposing walls is a luxurious white-black-and-gold mansion, a garden of legendary beauty, and even a tiny menagerie of domesticated mutants bred for their beauty and docility. Only those of great status can enter the Palatial complex, and a ring of bureaucratic buildings has cropped up to both serve the empress at her home and to bar outsiders from trying to get in. The Imperial Palace has some distance from the city's core, and
The Temple of Rumek's Truth, seat of the Reverent Overseer and prior seat of the Star Chamber (imperial supreme religious body and court) before they moved to a small town a few miles South, is a gorgeous cathedral of stained glass that is a kind of museum of Reverent Path history as much as it is a shrine. Across the street from the Temple is the Pilgrim's Station, a massive hospice and place of tranquil respite for those preparing for their journey to Rumakel.
The Kivain Academy, on the Northern edge of Southern Oldtown, is the premier magic academy of Kizen and a place for arcane research and training. It also feeds into the mysterious Kizen Temple of Knowledge, the elite clique of Kivish wizards who serve the empire behind closed doors; this group in turn feeds into the Darzan University . Attached to the Kivain Academy is the Kivain Market, which sells magic components and magic services and allows the university to hire temporary workers. One can also find magic items here, at steep costs. Nearby is the Sacred Kestlig Sanitorium, a religious hospital devoted to psychiatric study of the mind and soul, as well as the health of the mind. The Sanitorium's theories and practices are a mixed bag very much shaped by each of the individual priests who work there, but some of them are leaning in the right direction and offer actual therapy and even rudimentary mental health medication.
The Sleepless Manor, meanwhile, is a nightclub and den of vices in Northern Oldtown famous for its experimental music and never-ending festivities. Also in Northern Oldtown is the Zomenden Hotel, an old manor that has been converted into a literary salon, cafe, and high-class hotel. Both locations are seen as dangerous and provocative spaces for blasphemy - or innovation, depending upon your politics.
In Northport, there is the Selkie district (which sells healing potions) and the Eldersgrove - a tiny town of traditionalists that seeks to act as its own tiny slice of old Eveko recreated.
And in the Northeast is the Beastmarket, the largest market for Irradiated creatures anywhere in the world. Any kind of weird mount or pet can be found here, if you wait long enough for it to be cycled through.

Architecture

Evekan architecture focuses on square buildings with steeply pitched roofs and broad eaves, made of brick and plastered wood. Eveko likes to build tall, and even the poorer buildings tend to have large facades, patios, and extra pieces of wood jutting out; these are buildings built with Kobold climbing abilities in mind, and extra-large windows that act as secondary doors on the upper stories are not uncommon. Large community firewood stacks are common, as are large basements.
Some buildings have 'Fleshworks', or organic conveniences created by Fleshwarping, added to them. These can vary from automatic doors, to elevators, to organic furnaces, to 'trainable' cleaning tendrils that act as in-house servants. Fleshworks are rare, and entirely confined to wealthier parts of old town.

Geography

Eveko sits on the delta of the Zuran river. Its older districts sit along the Southern side, though it now straddles both. The land is temperate, though the winters can get quite cold.

Founding Date

600 ME

Type

Capital

Population

160,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Evekan

Location under

Stildane

Owning Organization

Empire of Kizen

Related Historical Events

• 1650 ME
  Eveko Riots; the Petty Revolution