Trostev

On green hills overlooking the shining blue Lake Genoril sits the fair city of Trostev. Great white walls circle the city, running from the lakeside port around the hills to the great Green Gate of the South and Yellow Gate of the East. Small hostels and farming markets cluster near the gatehouses, and the traffic is often intense. Pilgrims and tourists bearing Uvaran holy symbols and wearing as many colors as they can afford flock into the city, either in a steady drip of caravans or a massive deluge around the holidays. Over the gates are copper statues of Ustav, dead but preparing to rise and flanked by a kneeling knight and worshipful priest. This is the sacred city of Ustav, his birthplace and tomb. 
Behind the walls, the city is divided into four quarters by large white-stone walls: the Sacred Quarter, the Burghen Quarter, the Green Quarter, and the Gated Quarter.
The Sacred Quarter, in the North, is what people think of when you say 'Trostev'. It is the district of knights, manors, temples, and relics. The Garden-Palace of Trostev, the seat of the royal government of the Kingdom of Gennorholn sits in the Sacred Quarter, near the North Gate. The Tomb of Ustav, a massive temple that houses the most sacred relics of Uvara, is near the Western corner of the Quarter, closer to the lake. The Tomb, which is surrounded by an enormous garden-cemetery, is where the spirit of Ustav once lived. It is overgrown with massive white-bark flowering trees that seem to cradle the black-marble structure, and the land is infused with magic. Once, a solar blessed the tomb and hallowed its ground, and that consecration has been protected and bolstered by some outside force (quite possibly Ustav himself). All true Uvaran believers can understand each other regardless of language here, and all true believers are filled with a sense of comfort and courage that protects them from panic or despair (magical or non-magical). Hostile ederstone creatures, including Mageplague, cannot enter the boundaries of the Tomb either - it is a truly wondrous place. 
The actual bones of Ustav are kept in the small fortress right across the street: Castle Geinfel, the Northern headquarters of the Spring Knights. Dozens of other temples contain relics associated with Ustav or other spirits, each manned by its own local mystics or monks. Also worthy of note in the Sacred Quarter is Ertinar's Grove: a grove of enormous trees long-associated with local cult that have had a magical academy built around them. While druidism is obviously one of the first and foremost concerns of the grove, it also hosts the greatest Uvaran-exclusive wizarding studies program. 
The Green Quarter, which skirts along the West and South, is the opposite of the Sacred Quarter in many ways. It is the commoner's district, full of farmers and fishermen and lower-class artisans, and it is the largest. Normal people tend to community gardens or relax at small parks after work, goats and chickens are kept at little enclosed common pastures, and people go about their daily lives like any other city. The Green Quarter is quite nice for a Stildanian city, full of art and park spaces, and with parks and streets kept clean by a regiment of public servants known as the Commons Brigade. Tourists are not uncommon here, especially along certain routes, but the further one strays from these routes the less the residents tolerate rowdy strangers. The Common Brigades, local youth groups, and neighborhood militias respond to unwelcome rowdiness through beatings and humiliations, and no pilgrim is safe from such treatment. 
At the North end of the Green Quarter, at the heart of the city, is Spring-runner Square, the largest market in Trostev. Spring-runner square is welcoming to all pilgrims, and acts as a massive all-you-can-sell market for textiles, produce, manufactured goods, and luxuries. But come holiday-time, many of those stalls and shops move to the edges of the square to make room for the festivities. The Square hosts grand parades and parties every major Uvaran holiday, which attract tourists and pilgrims from across the continent. 
The Burghen Quarter, smallest of the districts, sits in the center of the city and is a mixture of middle-class artisans and entertainers. Local government tends to take place here, as do guild meetings. The nightlife here is also quite nice.
The Gated Quarter in the East is the district for non-Uvarans, pilgrim housing, taverns, and other eccentricities. It is the strangest and rowdiest of the districts, with the poorest residents and richest outsiders living side-by-side. Parts can be quite dangerous, and the Common Brigades take on a milia-aspect and blend more with the small city guard here (though sometimes it is the Brigades and guards that make the danger, shaking down outsiders and mixing with organized crime). 
The largest and most famous building in the Gated Quarter is the Pilgrim's Hall, a massive hostel for Uvaran pilgrims run by the Hainish Order of Charity. A massive social center for pilgrims, the Hall is always alive with low-level commerce, socializing, and the like. Despite the best efforts of the Order of Charity, parts of the sprawling complex are prone to rowdy behavior and are basically lawless zones where many local residents and pilgrims alike go to buy drugs, gamble, carry on illicit trysts, and the like. 
Underneath all of these districts are the Burrowdens: a mysterious and unexplored network of underground tunnels and bunkers used by ancient Trostevites to survive foreign attacks. After the bunker's residents were largely wiped out by plague, starvation, and poison in the 1700s and the complex was buried under the remnants of the old city, knowledge of the network was largely lost. No one knows what undiscovered secrets lie down there in the bunkers-turned-tombs, though the hints to where these bunkers lie and how to get in lie encoded in the ruins that are built into (and buried under) the city.

Demographics

25,000 humanoids live in Trostev; for a statistical breakdown, they are 35% starspawn, 25% dryad, 25% human, 5% kobold, 5% hybrid, 5% Other

Government

Trostev is ruled by the Junker of Trostev - a hereditary minor aristocrat who serves directly under the Monarch of Gennorholn. The Junker's authority is absolute, excepting intervention from above; local titled merchants, known as Burghers, exist and serve as state-appointed guild heads, but the Junker has the power to revoke or modify these titles at will. Burghers manage small private bureaucracies and are often community pillars, so they do have great power in their immediate spheres.
The current Junker of Trostev is Klineg Valastren, an old Half Prism aristocrat who has worked hard over the decades to revive Trostev's economy and put it on a more stable and sustainable new course. While his accomplishments have earned him respect from just about everyone in town, his attitude of late has tested the limits of the townsfolk's love: he acts with little regard for any kind of etiquette, cares little for the world beyond Trostev, and acts with an air of autocratic imperiousness that the burghers find infuriating. The burghers also worry about his daughter, Orda Valastren. Orda has all of the charm that Klineg lacks and much of his political acumen, but little of her father's brilliance in urban design or economics; she was tutored in distant Hain, and has an innate disdain for matters of coin and common life. The time will soon come when Klineg's systems either prove sustainable without him at the helm, or collapse like the bubble before it.

Defences

Trostev has strong exterior walls, and interior walls that divide the four quarters and provide additional protection for the religious-political core. The garrison is strong, and a large number of holy warriors and knights can be found here at any time.

Industry & Trade

Trostev relies on small-scale manufacturing for its industries, and many who live here regularly move between town jobs and farming or fishing jobs at the edge of town. Local guilds, managed by state-selected merchant-gentry known as Burghers, manage all local production. The largest of these are the weaver's guild, the carpenter's guild, the tailor's guild, the cobbler's guild, and the Monstercrafting guild. All foreigners are banned from owning land or businesses here, and any kind of foreign investors or moneylenders are strictly banned - the big exception being anyone who has a recognized title from Gennorholn or Hain. The local Junker sometimes skirts around this by offering certain merchants ceremonial titles in the local court, but this makes entering into Trostev's market very dependent on personal relationships. 
Trostev's magical academy, the best of the midlands, provides magical services and labor for those willing to pay, and is the premier wizarding academy for Hainish gentry and merchant elites. The local entertainment industry is also unusually large, as the relics and holy places of the Sacred Quarter draw many pilgrims and Questing Knights who are happy to pay for food, drink, and fun. The First Flower Festhall is the most iconic of these pilgrim-facing entertainment businesses: this festive, nature-themed bar and entertainment house is owned and decorated by a small circle of druids who hire all kinds of entertainers for Uvaran pilgrims. The First Flower is rowdy and has a way of making you spend more than you expect, but boasts excellent food and atmosphere. Every spring (building up to the springtime Frelden Festival) they host a lineup of the best musicians of the midlands, known as the Gilded Host; your arts must be truly impressive to get you in, but it is easily one of the best gigs in the continent for exposure and payout for any aspiring minstrel. 
Questing can be a business in itself here in Trostev. The most accomplished example of this is the Temple of the Victorious Dawn, a special temple run by a rather peculiar holy order. The Order of the Victorious Dawn is a home for old retired adventurers, bards, and paladins of Hiku the Muse, who turn the typical adventuring paradigm on its head: rather than paying those who complete their quests, the Temple is paid by adventurers for quests most glorious. For a fee, the Order grants Questing Knights and adventurers premier access to leads on quests that can make them famous; if the Questers swear to complete one of these quests and then does so, the Temple then sends proclamations of their glory across Northern Stildane, ensuring that they will be heard of throughout the land. These Quests tend to be extremely challenging, the procurement cost is high, and the Order can be picky about accepting applicants (particularly if the applicant is Kivish), so the Temple is quite a niche industry - but quite popular among disgraced nobles and hungry young adventurers alike.

Infrastructure

The city of Trostev is well-designed and has spent considerably on its infrastructure. The roads are clean and well-kept by a small force of street cleaners; a unified sewer system exists (though no indoor plumbing or anything of the sort fresh water is brought in from wells, rain water cisterns, and aqueducts and kept purified by magic and sand filters. Local gardens provide access to emergency food supplies, and even the parks are kept stocked with food-producing plants and medicinal herbs.

Guilds and Factions

The Aristocrats of the Court: The Garden-Palace of Trostev, which houses the royal family and court of Gennorholn, sits in the Sacred Quarter and hosts a wide assembly of nobles and courtiers. While they do not have places in the formal government, they do often have their own spheres of influence and do their best to suck outsiders into their petty squabbles and intrigues. 
The Uvaran Temple: Trostev, as the holy city of the Uvaran religion, sees religion play a very active part of daily life and local affairs. Holy orders abound, and monks and holy knights are everywhere in the city. The Temple, run by High Priest Olkin Devrunen, manages them all as well as the court system and magic regulation. Priest Olkin is an uncompromising human man with a stoic attitude and a love for the finer things in life (such as money and fineries), who makes sure to keep the holy warriors and paramilitaries on a short leash and is not afraid to set them loose on those who displease him (especially non-Uvarans). 
The Burghenhall: The Burghers are state-chosen merchants who have special rights to guild leadership and trade deals, as well as tariff and tax exemptions, who are beholden to the Junker (local aristocrat). The Burghers have remarkably little autonomy here and are kept on the knife's edge of disgrace and replacement, and many are unhappy with that. The current Junker has been allowing certain families of them to accrue power and stability in order to allow the merchant class to have some stability, but the close regulation and tight leash they are kept on is most uncomfortable. 
The Assembled Temples of Rumek: The Assembled Temples of Rumek are the Kivish temples of Trostev, who wield little power in the city and must answer to the Uvaran Temple in all matters. The Assembled Temples are notably not led by Reverent-Path Kivishta priests, who are kept out of all positions of power. Instead, Promised and Liberated Path priests sit on the council and dictate Kivish holy law and policy. The more locally popular Reverent Path priests are none too happy with this arrangement. 
The Arcane Assembly: While all magic is managed by the Uvaran temple, the temple's specialties and areas of focus are druidism and sorcery, and only those arts receive representation among the important priests. To try and gain a voice, the wizards, warlocks, and bards of Trostev have formed their own assembly. Based out of the local Magic School, Ertinar's Grove, this semi-legal assembly is quite controversial among the priesthood but has grown close to the current Junker, whom they advise on matters of magic and natural philosophy.

History

Ancient History

Trostev was built in the early days of Stildane, during the early apocalypse known as the Age of the Cursed Storms. The city was a fortress-refuge constructed by the Azgita tribe and protected by their prodigal son, Ustav. When Ustav ascended in 258 ME, his spirit persisted in Trostev and became its protector from the irradiated elements. And from 258 to 460 ME, Trostev emerged as the grand metropolis of North Stildane. The city had its own empire, that of Gennorholn, and it spread from modern-day Kizen to Andrig. But the God in Trostev grew more distant over time, more diffused, and the empire and cult collapsed into infighting. A new power rose to match these early states: the Kivish Horde, which rode on warbeasts and wielded Ederstone weapons and crushed the armies of Gennorholn. The Kivish found Trostev unusually difficult to capture, given the God inside, but were able to make it increasingly unlivable. In 470, Ustav finally left Trostev completely and the city fell. But the Kivish occupiers were never truly comfortable either destroying or fully occupying Trostev, and the city remained a town cloaked in the ruins of an ancient metropolis for centuries.
Over time, the Kivish grew more comfortable with the existence of Trostev. Many among them were fascinated with the arcane research the ancient Trostevites had conducted, and a research facility and monastery were founded on the outskirts of the town in 599. In 730, Trostev was made an official township of the new Kivish order and settlors were sent to try and rebuild parts of it for the glory of the Empire. Trostev was not the Kivish metropolis that the city of Savelov (to the South, in modern-day Verzavek) was, but it grew over time and eventually became a city again. The Mageplague wiped out much of Trostev's population again from 950 to 980 ME, but the city was quickly resettled following the collapse of the First Kivish Empire in 1001 ME. 

Modern History

From 1002 to 1570, Trostev was either independent or autonomous. The Third Scouring of the 1300s and the Fourth Scouring of 1400 to 1440 (massive wars of Ederstone weapons and mass chaos) were both difficult times, but neither destroyed the city entirely. The core parts of the city survived, largely thanks to the emergency burrows and bunkers under the city that allowed the population to survive hellish magical anomalies and monstrosities and quickly rebuild. It was the centralization of the Kivish empire that proved more dangerous to Trostev than any weapon. From 1570 to 1680, the Empire of Kizen slowly increased control over Trostev and worked to eliminate the local language, culture, religion, and government. This stranglehold chased away many Genorans and drained money and resources away from the city. And when a regime of religious extremists took over the Empire in what is now known as the Fifth Scouring of 1680 - 1750, the radical reactionaries descended upon Trostev with great spite and cruelty. As a holy city of Uvara with a history of independent from Kizen, Trostev became a symbol of what was seen as wrong with Kizen. The radicals used it as a punching bag; districts were incinerated, populations were enslaved, cathedrals were desecrated and destroyed. The underground bunkers and burrows survived for years, but were fed diseased corpses and poisoned gas to try and flush out the survivors. Some of these bunkers went unnoticed and unscathed, but most were ultimately killed. 
In 1740, rebels from Verzavek and Knights from Hain won their war against Kizen and liberated Trostev permanently from Kivish rule. Trostev was made the capital of a new state, the Kingdom of Ustavet, which would be an extension of Hainish power and a buffer against the Kivish. Trostev went from being a ruined carcass of a city to being the center of Ustavet's reconstruction and worship. Trostev was built up into a shining jewel, with resources diverted from across the greater region into the city. The temples almost seemed to rebuild themselves, and the flora seemed to help sculpt parts of the old city back into what it once was. It was as if the old city had a ghost, which served as a blueprint for the new. 
In 1903, Ustavet collapsed and Trostev was cut off from the funneled resources of the South. The city slumped for several decades as the economic bubble burst, but it has gotten back onto its feet in the latter half of the 1900s.

Tourism

Tourism is a major industry here in Trostev, as pilgrims flock to the holy city of Ustav to find blessings and enlightenment. These pilgrims are rich and poor, young and old, and come from across Stildane in a mix of class and culture united in religious excitement and desperation. Some of these pilgrims are in dire need of something, others come for fun or status, but there are expectations of equality among them that are uncommon in broader society. And they do get rowdy, as the local residents will certainly tell you. 
Many pilgrims come for the Frelden Festival, a major Uvaran holiday in early Spring that is a joint holiday of life, fertility, and remembrance. It marks the true end of winter and the promise of the return of Ustav as the Irunek; the story of the dances and rituals depict Ustav's struggle, self-sacrifice, and triumphant return. First the dead are honored, who struggled and fell as Ustav did; then the new souls who are to be born (or have just been born), who stand at the end of Death and the dawn of Life; then those who are coming of age are honored and made adults in the victorious finale, after everyone has eaten of the sacrificed livestock and drunken their ale and mead. Mourners, new parents, those seeking children, and young adults all star in parts of this major holiday, and the festival itself takes all day and much of the night. As the largest Frelden Festival in Stildane, Trostev's extends across the entire preceding week in what is known as Frelden Week (which is done in many agricultural settings to even out the ritual and partying to allow for farm chores, but rarely anywhere else becomes a whole week of wildness). 
The Frelden Festival is the biggest holiday that attracts pilgrims and tourists for wild festivities, but midsummer, Kraginten (harvest-time), and the winter solstice also have their great parties.

Architecture

Trostev has steep rooves, rectangular buildings, deep cellars, and a love of conical towers. The city has been carefully beautified in the last few centuries, and is aggressively decorated. Maypoles festooned by colorful ribbons are common in any market square; buildings are adorned with painted statues of Uvaran spirits; stained glass is unusually common outside of churches. Public gardens are quite common - a few of the walled utilitarian gardens common in Hain, but far more public gardens for both food and flowers as well as public parks. The city has a love for nature and plantlife that is easy to see walking the streets, and even the poorer residents have places to relax and enjoy the flowers.

Geography

Trostev sits on the Eastern coast of Lake Genoril, on a series of relatively small hills overlooking the open valleys of the Southern coast. The area is temperate forest, with colder winters.

Founding Date

238 ME

Type

City

Population

25,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Trostevite

Location under

Stildane

Owning Organization

The Kingdom of Gennorholn

Related Traditions

• Frelden Festival