Paraten
Demographics
The people of Paraten are rather insular. Anything even slightly different is cause for alarm.
Government
A man named Rendall of House Sholken is the current mayor of Paraten.
Industry & Trade
It has a few bakeries, at least one eating establishment of some sort, and a seamstress.
The town's lamps are lit by hand instead of with magic as they are elsewhere in the Alliance.
Assets
They have a valuable statue of one of the Founders of the Soulforge Alliance: Mithralyu of House Tarniken, Knight of Water. It's a copy of the original, the one that sits in the Hall of Warriors in the Aurora Palace, but the armor it wears is authentic, having once been worn by her. It's the set she died in.
Guilds and Factions
Order of the Rose
Lamplighters Guild
History
A posting to the city of Paraten is often viewed as a joke as well as a very sadistic form of punishment. Magic is highly restricted due to its proximity to the Forbidden Lands, but each member of the Order is required to practice at least the words and methods of magic daily.
Architecture
Each house on this street was identical, with white stone walls and red tiled roofs. There were few decorations on the outside and those were limited to a few flower beds and pots of herbs that could be brewed into teas or ground up for their medicinal properties. The cobblestone streets beneath their feet were swept clean of any refuse. Both women carefully avoided the gutters to both sides of the road as they could hear the faint sounds of wastewater trickling through them on their way through the city.
The city itself was laid out in a circular pattern
it hadn’t expanded much past its original walls
The Order of the Rose has a branch in the center of town, located in a library. The door is made of thick white oak and is over 14 feet tall. The door had handles, but they had no real function, being simply decorative in nature. The key was a vocal recitation in the ancient language of Ardren. The door itself was ornately carved with roses, the symbol of the Order of the Rose. Above the door is a guardian statue. The statue was one of Aquhilte the Winged, a lunyari goddess. She wore flowing robes standing proudly and holding one hand out, her massive wings spread out to the side in a welcoming gesture. Her upraised hand was cupped as if it was holding something, but her hand was empty and should remain so. There was a niche to place a sphere in the centre of one of the roses at her feet. The hand was carved that way so as to deceive those who hadn’t been instructed on how to get inside.
The incantation to open the door is as follows:
Dremak likte sairaichen, ofre carei massu. Revas mai sekvre lokshe yvers kilu. Dremak likte anglisu, mai wrelpeku anglisu. Ofre carei massu.Translated, it means: Guardian Spirit of the door, open to me please. I seek knowledge locked within your walls. Guardian Spirit of the door, I beseech you. Open to me please. The magic on the door wasn’t an intelligent one and didn’t discriminate on who it let in. All that the spell needed was the proper words and the proper placement of the right kind of candle. Once the doors to the library were open, they would remain open until they were closed. A shai'then knight was assigned the daily task of opening the library for the day. While it was open anyone could go inside, but few did without a good reason. At the end of the day, the doors were closed and the sphere removed from its place by another shai'then. A similar sphere and the correct words were required to get back in. Not many needed to go in late at night as not many were members of the two accepted winged races of Melphor and few liked to deal with cranky shai'then if it wasn’t important for them to be woken up. Some of the students and wingless members that were incapable of casting a flight spell of any sort brought a ladder with them at night in order to get in and took it back with them when they left. The pros and cons of leaving one there permanently had been a topic of debate ever since this problem was first discovered back when the Rose Knights were first founded in the year 1321 BF, but no one could agree on where to put it or who should provide it in the first place. As it was considered a fairly minor problem, they just made do with whatever they could at night or simply waited until morning to get the scroll or book that they needed, occasionally camping out on the doorstep of the library, much to the annoyance of whichever winged member was charged with opening the place up for the day. If the wrong kind of sphere was used or if it was placed in the wrong niche, it wouldn’t just not work; however, if the words were said incorrectly when the sphere was in its correct spot, alarms would sound, bringing anyone from the Order of the Rose that happened to be nearby. At this time of the night, all of the members of the Order were inside the Order’s headquarters, a large structure located in the center of the city. That building was a short walk away from the library for convenience’s sake. Paraten was not a large city as far as such things went. In the meantime, the secondary spell on the door would trap whoever was standing near it. Inside, the building itself is massive with stairways going off the main spiral seemingly at random. The bottom floor has prison cells. The building also contains a vault for valuable artifacts.
Type
Town
Location under
Included Locations
Owner/Ruler
Ruling/Owning Rank
Owning Organization
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