Vakenbyer
Vakenbyer, also called the City of No Souls, or pejoratively the City of Stink is a busy manufacturing and trading port located on the northern edge of Siegl Bay, just west of the Larendalyth peninsula.
It is controlled and run by the group known as The Grey Lords, and is notable for both its majority undead population and workforce. Part of the city's founding charter was the recognition of the rights of the sapient undead, and the use of non-sapient undead as a resource and workforce.
It is controlled and run by the group known as The Grey Lords, and is notable for both its majority undead population and workforce. Part of the city's founding charter was the recognition of the rights of the sapient undead, and the use of non-sapient undead as a resource and workforce.
Demographics
Roughly 10% are sapient undead, 10-15% are sapient humanoids, mainly humans and dwarves with the rest being commanded non-sapient undead. The variability in the living population is due to the influx from trading vessels and caravans.
Industry & Trade
Vakenbyer's main resource is the undead - an never-ceasing supply of manpower that requires no food, water or comfortable housing. This has lead to its main industries to be manufacturing based, more specifically easily reproducible low quality goods e.g. planks from lumber, or the carving of stone blocks to size. For more complex tasks, such as the basic metal casting of tools, an Adept of the City will usually be present alongside a skilled craftsmen (undead or not) to ensure that the undead workers complete the task satisfactorily.
Infrastructure
Having been built on top of, and from the faded ruins of the aelf city Seln Themar, has allowed Vakenbyer's roads and municipal buildings have been planned to a much higher degree than other cities of it's size and the land clearance and reuse of the aelf stonework allowed for the enforcement of several city building and construction codes, for example:
- Roads must be two carts width as a minimum, with main thoroughfares such as those that leave from the ports, or the main street of the Living Quarter being double that.
- All manufactories and workshops must provide storage areas for their entire workforce for any unplanned moments of downtime.
Architecture
Given its unique populous, Vakenbyer's architecture is starkly simplistic and functional in all areas outside of the Living Quarter, the area designated for non-undead residents. Few buildings have windows or light fixtures such as sconces and all lack embellishments or decoration except perhaps the embelm or crest of the owning Grey Lord.
