Kiazerov

Kiazerov is a city in Eastern Eketen, revered across Stildane as one of the home of the first wizards. The great screw-shaped spires of the Founding Academy rise above the rest of the city and shine with magical light. A strange, otherworldly haze cloaks these towers and colors the light with a faint indigo hue. The spires always seem to push the limits of space from a distance, appearing taller and thinner from a distance but slowly adjusting to more comfortable dimensions when approached.
But Kiazerov is more than a center of magical learning. It is an island of stability and normalcy in an otherwise chaotic and collapsing Empire of Eketen. Its old wizarding cliques and Prism clans bicker over city policy like usual, and the only sign that there is a civil war going at all are the massive new outer walls. The war refugees, the mercenaries, all of the deeper signs of trouble are pushed out of sight and into a growing underworld by the city's elites.
The river districts are where most of the new arrivals end up. The Kitess River, with its great width and slow current, is a river alive with traffic, Giant Lobster herding, fishing, and farming. The river islands and far side of the river are pockets of incredible wealth amidst what is largely the poorer part of Kiazerov: great river-side mansions, estates, and Sudraco ranches claim their corners of the river, keeping a healthy distance and a few walls between themselves and the city docks. The river districts themselves are semi-agrarian and house a great number of peddlers, merchants, fishermen, lobster-herders, laborers, and farmhands. Wooden houses layer together on massive elevated wood-and-stone platforms, while a nest of sewer systems and massive storm drains below act as a secretive under-city that floods every rainy season. This undercity also acts as a 
Moving inland, the city rises up into the middle districts: old stone houses and apartments that house a mix of artisans and workshop laborers. Things can get a bit eclectic: Gardens and in-city fields are surrounded by rings of old housing blocks that act as their own little gated-off communities warily neighbor more recently built mass apartment complexes tied to bustling workshops. Punctuating the mix are the Prism-lodges, that rise from the hillsides with large sharply-pitched stone-and-tile roofs. These Prism lodges becomes more common the more one travels inland, into the hills, and they burrow directly into the rising earth. Each is joined by a small smokestack and an irrigation canal that runs into grates in the hillside: signs of hustle and bustle hidden beneath the earth. 
The lodges are just entrances for a whole other side of Kiazerov: the Prism-warrens. Parts of the warrens are mines, parts are crafting and lodging, and they all interconnect in a great labyrinth. This labyrinth is carefully divided between the dens and the clans. The den tunnels tend to be dank, soil-walled, and relatively cramped areas with low lighting and humble lodge-entrances. The prisms within these den-lodges tend to be a diverse gathering that includes prism-Starspawn and prisms from across Stildane. Their humble tunnels are alive with music, a great variety of dialects, and all sorts of fashion. The culture of the dens is best described as tolerant friendliness and libertine individualism. The clans, meanwhile, sport brightly-lit, stone-walled warrens with ostentatious lodge entrances. Their spaces are exclusive, discerning, and well-guarded. 
The most prestigious clan-lodges are mostly present in the Tower district with their fellow elites. The tower district is home to the Kiazerov University, also known as the Founding Academy; it is home to the great Temple of Kragen the Prism-Mother; and it is home to the ruling aristocracy of the city.

Demographics

100,000 humanoids live in Kiazerov. 25% Dryad , 25% Human, 15% Starspawn, 15% Prism, 10% Kobold,  8% Half Prism, 3% Half-Dryad.

Government

Kiazerov is controlled by Grand Duchess Nomeka of the Udrelet Clan, who commands Kiazerov and the surrounding lands as an autonomous state-within-a-state. The Duchess does not claim the throne of the Empire of Eketen, but keeps herself and the city neutral. Nomeka is an ambitious newcomer and young by Prism-clan standards, but she is hardly an unexpected choice - she is the carefully-primed scion of one of the oldest and wealthiest Prism clans in the region. What is unexpected has been her recent moves to centralize power around her, particularly within the Udrelet clan. Nomeka is very much the perfect product of old Prism-clan authoritarianism and human-dryad aristocratic tendencies. 
Beneath the Duchess is a squabbling mix of factions that all have limited power. Most of these have representatives in the Duchess' court and wield local power.

Defences

A large new outer wall has been built around the outer perimeter of the city, and five ruined internal walls ring the middle and tower districts. A squat-looking semi-subterranean castle, known as the Dunahos also sits in the tower district as a refuge for the nobility.

Industry & Trade

The city of Kiazerov is a mixture of artisans, agricultural workers, miners, scholars, and laborers. Monstercrafting, ink-making, textile production, carpentry, steel-making, paper-milling, and a hundred other trades are all common here. The warrens produce prism-food, ores, and stone for building and the riverside docks coordinate agriculture and labor up and down the river. 
Most trade is conducted along the river via barge, though the road traffic isn't light either. Extremely precious goods and knowledge is traded through a unique asset of Kiazerov's merchants: the great array of teleportation circles in the tower district's Arcane Gateshrine. These circles can only be accessed by powerful magicians, but they allow the best of the best to use Kiazerov as a crossroad town and attract elite travelers from as far as Nafena and Ekraht.

Infrastructure

Kiazerov's infrastructure is functional (even robust), but incredibly messy. Maintenance of the roads, the canals, the sewers, and the warrens are all kept localized unless there is some kind of major crisis, so it all gets really messy on the ground. 
The sewer system is a mixture of surface sewers and underground sewers that all mix together with the great storm-drain system under the river districts. The irrigation system, meanwhile, is an elaborate system of covered canals and aqueducts that flow from both the river and the mountain spring in the tower district.

Guilds and Factions

The Founding Academy, the Universal Society of Scholars of Kiazerov: The Founding University is an elite magical university, home to the greatest wizards of Southern Stildane. It is an ancient and powerful institution, the first wizarding university to exist, and it has a powerful gravity it exerts over the city. It also is increasingly close with the Darzan University 
The Prism Clans: Ancient and esteemed, the Prism clans made Kiazerov. They rule the warrens, they design the city, they command the Prisms and the burrowers. The mason's guild and smith's guild act as their agents on the surface, and they would wield immense power if they ever stopped bickering.
The Lower Nobles: The barons and counts of this area once kept to their rural estates, but have partially relocated to he safety of the city since the civil war began. Lesser noble children and family members are kept in the tower district for safekeeping and to better exert power in the grand duchess' court. 
The Burgenheld: The Burgenheld is the guild of greater merchants, the financial elite of the city who have long appointed themselves the leader of the common guilds. 
The United Temples: The high priest of the Grand Temple of Kragen (goddess of war, prisms, and the earth) acts as the loose head of religion in the city, but for the most part the temples are a herd of cats with little formal organization. Most are Uvara, but there are some Nedira and Kivishta temples as well.

History

Ancient Kiazerov

The first inhabitants of Kiazerov were the Prism clans, who built a prosperous town here for trading and mining in the late Divine Era. It was a great metropolis of prisms, humans, and dryads in relative harmony. When the Scouring of Stildane destroyed most of the continent's population centers, the Prism clans were again the only ones who remained, as they were able to dig into the Earth to survive and endure the chaos. After the dust had settled, Kiazerov immediately began rebuilding - but was again wiped off the map by the Cursed Storms of the 200s ME. Again, only the prism-clans endured.
The raw endurance of Kiazerov's semi-subterranean holds made it a regional legend of sorts. It was rumored to have secret magic and technology from before the Scouring, and its walls and gates were said to be unbreakable. While these reports were exaggerated, they to the formation of the Cult of the Old World - a mystery cult dedicated to artifacts and knowledge of the Stildane that once was. This mystery cult eventually became a kind of archival knowledge cult. When non-Prisms made their own government here in 590 ME, the Cult of the Old World became a symbol of royal power and legitimacy (as the royals claimed to be reincarnated souls from the Old World).
From 590 to 1000 ME, Kiazerov was a flourishing little kingdom and a center for Eketeni river trade. But, in the late 900s, something amazing happened: the Courier Confederation reliable brought trade and travel from West Eketen, along with a surge in knowledge from far-off Kizen. Kiazerov became East Eketen's Courier Confederacy headquarters, and its center for document copies, production, and storage: the Cult of the Old World kept excellent records and had legions of monks dedicated to perfectly copying documents. And so, with knowledge from across Stildane flooding in, the Cult's finest were able to make an astonishing discovery: the art of Wizardry.

Modern Kiazerov

The newly discovered wizarding arts spread quickly, but Kiazerov had a head start in terms of supplies and educated youngsters. It had no wars or calamities to distract it from exploring wizardry completely, and it was not long before the Cult founded the Universal Society of Scholars - the university. The University slowly consumed more and more of the cult's public duties, and by 1600 there was no public presence left. Public veneration of the old world quickly declined as the Uvaran religion (which was focused almost exclusively on renewal and the new), took hold in the city's government and populace. Some whisper that the Cult still is secretly maintained by the University's leadership, but no evidence exists to that claim. 
The premier supply of arcane spellcasters Kiazerov now had quickly made it the richest and most venerated city in East Eketen. Even when it lost in war Kiazerov did not decline, as any damage to the University could cost a conquering kingdom more than the city's loot combined. The kingdom is was conquered by eventually named itself in honor of the city, as the Kingdom of Kiazen. And that Kingdom of Kiazen was itself consumed and absorbed, passing from hand to hand like a precious jewel. And in 1788, Kiazerov was made the crown jewel in a union of Eketen's wealthiest states: the United Kingdom of Kiozen-Itzanka. 
From 1810 to 1920, Kiozen-Itzanka went on a conquering spree and became the Empire of Eketen. Kiazerov became comfortable in this larger imperial structure, and enjoyed the fruits of the empire's conquests. But, twenty years ago, that came to a sudden end. The great Eketeni civil war began, and Kiazerov has drifted on its own since then. During the first phase of the civil war, Kiazerov was deeply involved in the war and traded hands a dozen times. But since the death of the last imperial heir in 2014, Kiazerov had withdrawn into a fortified isolation.

Architecture

Kiazerov has something of a deep affection for stonework and brickwork, and nearly always has. You can tell when a building was made by the style and sediment of its stonework, so walking the city is almost like tracing the layers of sandstone. The roofs here are steeply pitched and exaggerated, with grey-and-black clay tile being the norm. Subterranean elements are common here, with sunken cellars and basement rooms being a common feature of any house not in the river districts.

Geography

Kiazerov sits among the hills between the Kitess River (which flows down to join the Rolden river in the South) and the approaching peaks of the Western Adira Mountains. To the North and South, the mountains retreat into open fields and abundant farmland.

Natural Resources

Kiazerov sits on a diverse geology that is perfect for a balanced prism diet. Salt deposits are frequent and the stone here is excellent for construction.

Founding Date

300 ME

Type

Large city

Population

100,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Kiazeran

Location under

Stildane

Owning Organization

Empire of Eketen

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