Rheinwald

“... and there did settle, at the foot of Bluteisenberg, having driven the Pikes from their towers and their homes. Speaking then to her warriors of the Vigil, quoth she:
‘Go now and make trophies, and build homes, and put away your spears and take up the plough; for these lands now bought in blood may be but kept with sweat.’
And many stayed, yet others did quarrel and there was dissent. Then many and more did march on to the east and to the west, and to the north did many set sail, for the mischief of false gods impelled them farther still. So all those that remained were numbered one thousand and fifteen, and these put away their spears to favor the axe, and the plough, and they tamed the wild land.
And they who marched west did settle, and they who marched east did settle, and even they who sailed north did settle, but they who marched south were lost forever. The Pikes thus were slain, their cities burned, and their grounds sanctified by the pure blood of Man.”
History of the Commonwealth, Primary Module, Chapter I

Government

1. Local government - mayor - Roman-style election with random oligarchs being appointed to select a voting block who appoint a new leader.

Defences

1. The Brass Wall
2. Gunnery towers

Industry & Trade

Industrial work

1. Steel
2. Industrial manufacturing

Trade work

Infrastructure

1. Aerodrome
2. Train station
3. Ferry (down the river, into Lake Athos, and out to sea)

Guilds and Factions

Corporate Authority

1. Republican Steelworks
2. Reichsstadtbahn Aktiengesellschaft
3. Vigil Triumphant
4. Brewing company

Trade Organizations

1. Printer's Union
2. Cooper's Union
3. Wheelwright's Union

History

Rheinwald is one of several Commonwealth settlements constructed over the site of a former Pike settlement. Most often, Pike construction materials have simply been salvaged and repurposed. In several cases however (such as the water mill of Silberhaus), the structures have been kept intact and the technologies and infrastructure therein exploited. There is no purer example of this than the city of Rheinwald, the so-called Brass City.

Pre-History

Very little is known of the Pike settlement as it existed prior to Human contact in the Central Territories. The only publicly-available accounts of the city exist in the works of chroniclers Isa Witte and Wilhelmina Dettling, who accompanied the commanders that settled Rheinwald and Stradtberg, respectively. No other written accounts from the early years of the Central Territorial Conquest exist.

In her account, Witte describes the first time she laid eyes on a Pike settlement, after marching through the heavily forested ravines north of present-day Rheinwald.

As morning came and we prepared to march once more, the fifteenth day, the Commander ordered that the sick should be left behind, and so, too, the injured, and that one hundred healthy soldiers shall remain with them to make camp and tend to them. She ordered that a fire be burned day and night, with many green branches, that there might be smoke to serve the army as a signal in these ancient and endless forests.
It was done, and so they marched for much of that fifteenth day, and onto the sixteenth, and onto the seventeenth, always with a pillar of smoke to guide them deeper amid the interior. And on the eighteenth day, as steep hills at last peeled away beneath them, and they crested one final ridge at the foot of a mountain of blood and iron, they beheld the city of the enemy.
There were twelve tall towers, glittering, set about the base of a still-greater citadel, as if in the shape of a wheel. And this great tower rose many hundreds of feet into the sky. And therein scattered all about were thousands of houses, and many of them coughed steam and smoke, and there were many workshops. In the sky, kissing the Great Tower, were half a dozen great brass fish, seeming to defy the laws of God.
- The Witte Chronicles, second edition, page xvii

This account is roughly corroborated by the Dettling Chronicle, although Dettling is more conservative (and more accurate) in her estimate of the height of the Great Tower. She also counts nine smaller towers rather than twelve. Using these accounts, however, it is possible to infer the following regarding the settlement prior to human occupation:

1. The Pikes used the Great Tower as an aerodrome for ancient airships (present-day aerodrome located in the East Tower, adjoined to the customs house).
2. The design of their airships, as described by the chronicles, defy any current understanding of such vehicles and their engineering. It is possible that these descriptions were exaggerated or romanticized, however, given that no such vehicle had ever been seen up until that point.
3. There were at least seven more minor towers than currently exist today, and perhaps as many as ten more. Today the only preserved bastions are the East Tower and the Watchtower.
4. There must have been at least several thousand Pikes living in the city at the time of the Conquests.

Modern historians and scientists are still trying to solve the mystery of what the city must have looked like prior to the Conquests, but also what it looked like before the Pikes occupied it. The question of the Brass-builders consumes academia to this day, as it is universally agreed upon that the savage Pikes were incapable of mounting such monumental construction. 
Though it is a question which consumes the Commonwealth's foremost scholars, the pursuit of its answer is of little consequence to the average reader. This sort of reader, then, ought to content themselves with the knowledge that Pike history is as meaningless as the weather in as distant a past, and thus devote their attention to the study of more practicable fields.

True History

That is, the history of Rheinwald as the modern city-state...

Archivists are currently compiling this entry. Please check back later for more information.

Geography

Highland, with easy access to rich mines and quarries.

Alternative Name(s)

The Brass City, The Hungry City

Type

Large city

Population

~73,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Rheinlander

Location under

Central Territories

Owner/Ruler

Archibaldt Kranich

Owning Organization

Rheinland