Vision
The Capital of Freymoor
The Halfling looked at me with a fiery glint in his eyes. His hand near his belt, my hand near mine. A crowd surrounded us, the local inn towering over. The haze of smoke from the nearby blacksmith fills the street, as we sweat in anticipation. In less than a second, we both whip out our wands, and with my hair-trigger I beat him by a second, a small ball of force flying out of my wand and into his chest, knocking him flat on his rear. The Crowd Roars in delight, a few guild-members walking by grumble as they hand each other their lost bets, and I am quickly ushered into the bar where the Tavern-keeper gives me a drink on the house. The Halfling grumbled quietly but came in to congratulate me. The whole ward seemed to be on fire for the span of a breath before everything settled back into its normal state. This kind of brief spark was not uncommon for the Elven Ward, and it's why I live here! ~Lionel Tyrune, Local Sport Wandslinger. Interview with Mer Daily describing a typical WandDuelVision is the Capital of Freymoor, if not the cultural center point of the Continent of Nevarine itself!
A metropolis in the very sense of the word, it's melting pot of culture combines the best and worst aspects of every civilized culture known to history. From Elvish celebrations and foodie culture to the high-leaning socialite culture of Halfling and Human nobility, this city embodies the very aspect of freedom!
With liches gathers undead in the sewers for an invasion on Little Orkin, local mobs working over the local businesses while the Constable turns the other way, illegal magitek filtering through local crime in an ever-increasing arms race, the city has no shortage of its problems. However, it's citizens have learned to keep on keeping on, with the courage and tenacity of its citizens being one of Vision's cultural highpoints.
The City is divided into several wards, each with its own culture and economy. The wards are as follows:
- The Mercantile Ward
- The Elven Ward
- Little Orkin Ward
- The Olde Vision Ward
- The Education Ward
- The Outer Ward
Demographics
Demographically, Vision is a good reflection of the demographics of the entire country. A majority of the population is a mixture of Humans, Halflings, and Gnomes, with Humans greatly outnumbering the other two. They form a little over half the population of the city. The rest of the city is Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Tieflings, Animus and other smaller populations of other species.
When it comes to Human ethnicities, Freylian culture is the most prevalent, with Moorian being the second most. There is a slight prejudice against Teutano traditions and culture, but this has died down in recent years.
Wealth wise, there is a massive disparity between the Human and Non-Human species. Humans, Halflings, Dwarves and etc. make up the top 25% of the wealth in Vision. Elves and Orcs are particularly disadvantaged, mostly being shunned to the slums and ghettos of the city.
Most people in the city work for either the Guilds, The Government or The College, with those three making up a third of the industry and commercial production in the city. The two other thirds form the manufacturing of basic goods (such as bread, iron tools, weapons, etc.) and Inn/Church industries.
Government
Vision has a "Ward, Sector, Governor" style of government, which goes as follows:
- Ward: Each section of the Metropolis is labeled as its own "ward". The Elven Ward is the slums where most Fey Culture exists, The Olde Vision Ward is where the expensive manors and capital buildings are, etc. Each ward has an elected councilman who participates in the house of commons.
- Sector: Sectors are groups of two or three wards that share a common goal and work towards a better industry, commercial and residential goal. Sectors include the Mer Sector, including the Elven Ward and Little Orc Ward. Each Sector has a spokesperson, who works with councilmembers to implement specific in-ward plans and legislation.
- Governor: The Governor of Vision is the head of the House of Commons, and is the liaison between the city and the countrywide House de Republica. The Governor can only implement plans that have been approved by 45% of the seats in the House of Commons.
Ward Councilmen are elected by the members of their ward, with a sort of laissez-faire attitude towards campaign financing and campaigning. This has led to a large streak of corruption within the various ward electoral races. This affects the poorer districts more, as richer members of Vision society come in to sweep elections.
Sector spokespersons are appointed by the councilmembers of their wards and are mostly advisory figures for their ward councilmembers. The position is normally held by only one person, but it is not uncommon for up to 4 to 5 people to share the position.
Defences
The city is surrounded by a massive stone and metal wall, with constabulary regularly patrolling the wall and doing minor repairs. The Wall has been assembled out of modular pieces, that can be moved and expanded with the defensive needs of the city. However, around 30% of the wall is made of stone in a classical freylian style, and is considered an architectural relic. Thusly, there are small portions of the wall that are less patrolled than the rest of the city, giving rise to a larger amount of crime in these areas. The gates of the walls are either massive pneumatic gates that can be raised and lowered with plenty of Mana-Power. These gates are nigh-impenetrable. The gates on the older walls are either simple portuculli or drawbridge gates.
The Cities polic force is comprised of 36,000 Constable and Guard-Mages, who patrol the wards in paths set by Chiefs, who report to a Overseer. Focus is placed on patrolling the Mercantile, Elven, Little Orkin, and College Wards, due to their high traffic and high crime rates. Palisades are used to block off crime scenes in the main streets, and cross street/cross alley checkpoints are often used in areas of high smuggling and high kidnapping, usually involving very small bastions and encampments made out of modular metallic palisade and portuculli.
Vision's river is deep and wide, and functions as a natural moat that seperates the city. Most of the bridges crossing this river are raisable, and certain areas of the river are blocked by grates, preventing warships from going too far up-river.
Industry & Trade
Vision is the mercantile hub of Nevarine, nothing goes to or from the coast of the Eastern Sea without going through one of the wards of Vision. The two major wards for Merchantry and Trade are The Elven Ward and The Mercantile Ward.
Mercantile Ward
The Mercantile Ward is where all the trading happens, as well as being the base for a majority of the Guild Business. In this ward every major trading and production guild has at least one building, and it is not uncommon to see even the most foreign of ships and guilds funneling some sort of resource into this ward. The E.S.T.C controls a majority of the property and trading rights for the port, with the
Alchemists Guild, Magitek Corporation, and Interplanar Research Group covering much of the buying and distribution.
Goods of all variety pass through here, from the exotic to the mundane. It is much easier in this district to sell and buy rare magical items, due to the sheer volume of merchants. Bulk goods are the most common good traded here, with the biggest import to Vision being either
Processed PSYKE Crystals and the largest export being magical goods, mostly wands and potions.
In this Ward, massive shops such as the Hall of Alchemy and Magica Rotunda give even the most common of buyers a chance to get their hands on cheap magical goods. In the streets, pop-up stores and merchant stalls are common, with the streets right next to the port where tourists get off being quite literally flooded with stalls and small stands selling everything from diluted potions of healing to useless trinkets passed off as magical.
Elven Ward
The Elven Ward is home to thousands of small-businesses, forming the backbone of the entrepenuer and inter-city business. Inns, Small General Stores, and Gift-Shops fill the streets, and most business takes advantage of the "Elf-ish" feeling of the ward by exploiting Fey culture. Most guilds have small franchises here, with the biggest presence being had by the Alchemists Guild, who sell potions and arcana items for recreational and medicinal purposes. Work is plentiful down here, and craft ale and cuisine are one of the biggest selling items.
The ward's biggest export is Craft Ale and Artisanal Food. These can range from the ever-present
AeroHol to Fey-Glazed Rampori. It imports plenty of food from the Agricultural regions of Freymoor.
Infrastructure
The roads of Vision are sett brick, crisscrossing through town in a mixture of grid-like street and avenue structure, and more "Artistic" road design that remains after the classical period of Vision Architecture. In the northern wards of vision, architecture is more similar to Victorian and late 19th to early 20th century English and French architecture, with a few medieval-style buildings. The styles mostly used are Victorian, Beaux-arts, Brick-Gothic, Art-nouveau, and Timber-Frame style houses. Many residential buildings are multi-floor, and most traditional houses have been replaced with 3 to 4 floor apartment complexes that can house quite a few people.
A massive aqueduct runs through the city as a relic of the classical era of Vision when it was used to funnel water, but it has been largely replaced with a complex sewer system that snakes throughout the underground. This provides running water and a functional sewage and plumbing system to the city. This sewer system act very much like catacombs and much of its layout has been lost to time. Rumors state that there is a very functional thieves guild based out of the lower areas of the sewer.
The city has several modes of transportation strewn through the various wards, but the major two are Teleportation Runes and Crystals, and
Airships. Teleportation is facilitated by two objects, TeleRunes and TeleCrystals. Airships are mainly run by the E.S.T.C, and faciliatate both transport and intercity cargo runs.
Cultural epicenters of the city include Twighlight Boulevard in the Elven Ward, a curved Sett street that borders a massive fountain and courtyard. The courtyard is one of the nicest areas of the Elven ward, containing one of the few
Cleansing Stone in the entire ward! It has a few of the wards most famous businesses, such as the Drunken Homunculus, and Kereniv's Store de Magica. Another cultural epicenter is 27th Street, a street in the Olde Vision ward that is host to hundreds of festivals a year! It is host to the Vision Hospital and Ligel Square.
Assets
The city is host to nearly 1.8 billion GP in assets, ranging from property, liquid assets and commercial cargo.
The City is host to 45,000 armed soldier and constables worth of equipment. The city owns around 14,000 public properties and lots that serve as public health centers, government buildings and leased apartments.
Guilds and Factions
The City is home to nearly ever guild in existence in some capacity, however the main guilds that inhabit this city are as follows:
- E.S.T.C: The E.S.T.C facilitates over 65% of the importing and exporting, and is the main good transporter for the city. Most of the goods exported or imported can be found in a E.S.T.C guild crate.
- The Solar Church: The Solar Church is the biggest organized religion in Vision. They do the most philanthropic work in the city, and have a very high influence over the cities politics.
- MagiTek Corporation: This Orkin Corporation sells nearly every Magitechnological artifact and item in the city. This company has a stranglehold on the transportation and electrical/mana-net systems in the city, and employs a large percentage of the cities working population in its various stores and factories.
- Alchemist's Guild: This guild produces most of the arcana and magical items that flow in and out of Vision. They produce wands, potions, and scrolls, and function as a sort of catch-all manufacturing guild.
Architecture
Victorian, Beaux-arts, Brick-Gothic, Art-nouveau, and Timber-Frame are the most prominent styles. Various wards have various different styles of architecture, with the Elven Ward and Little Orkin having a much more slummy and ramshackle style of construction.
The Elven Ward is constructed mostly out of wood and canvas, with massive structures looking like ships that were turned on their side. Traditional Elven architecture is mostly abandoned for a more "unique" style that makes the Elven Ward have a look very much its own.
Little Orkin mostly is made out of sheets of corrugated metal and emergency tents that have been extended into large, tent-metal hybrids. The more developed regions of this area have begun to utilize more traditional Orkish architecture.
Geography
The City is located on a flat marshland, with a single massive river running through the city bisecting it into a larger upper section and a smaller lower section. It is located in a bay, with the bay and river being incredibly deep, allowing ships to of all sizes to dock. It is on the coast of the Eastern Sea.
The city is most comonly known for its beautiful coastal views of the distant islands, and its wonderful view of the local smaller mountains that are located to the east. The tallest public building, the
Ruins of the Freylian Castle located in Old Vision, give a perfect view of the city and its surrounding beauty.
Natural Resources
The City is directly adjacent to several farms which grow specialized crops, allowing harvesting of many hard-to-grow planar crops and seasonal crops. The city is also located next to a small yet highly compact forest which is used for building and manufacturing.
The only natural resource that is heavily exploited as of 20 AB is a major fishing industry that has boomed in recent years. Otherwise, the city acts mostly as a trading hub and gets most of its money from trading and mercantile-related taxes
Alternative Name(s)
Capital of Freymoor, City of Progress, "That lovely Metropolis Out West"
Type
Capital
Population
2.96 Million
Inhabitant Demonym
Visionites
Location under
Included Locations
Owning Organization
Characters in Location
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