Coppercog
Sitting atop Mount Ziltare like a crown, the gnomish city of Coppercog is a technological marvel. The city is suspended around the peak of the mountain, made up of a number of levels, each shaped like a cog and each a few hundred feet apart, supported by angled struts anchored in the rock, decreasing in size from lowest to highest. The struts and base plates for each level are sturdy, but coated in a thin layer of copper, which gave the city its name. Small lifts that cycle continuously from the lowest to highest levels aid in traversing the city. These lifts, identified as North, South, East, and West, are like metal cages, running automatically between cogs with a short wait at each, with passengers exposed to the city. They lie on the outer edges of the topmost cog, ending up fairly close to the center of the lowest cog.
Access to the city is possible by air travel, by magic (for those who know how to access, and have been granted permission to use, the city's teleportation circle in the Moste Mysterious Thaumatergium), or by The Great Lift, a giant mechanical elevator at the north end of the city that ascends or descends the 4,500 feet between the ground and the lowest tier in only 8 minutes, opening near the outer edge of the lowest cog. The elevator car is copper with large glass windows all around, so passengers can enjoy the view. A similar but slower lift, with cars similar to the inter-cog lifts, runs through a shaft in the heart of the mountain, providing access from the city to the Coppercog Mines beneath Ziltare's surface. Buildings in Coppercog are mainly metallic, and are more functional than decorative. The more esoteric ones are modeled after gadgets and gizmos, a seeming mishmash of spare parts and machinery.
At the base of the Great Lift is The Terminus, an open-air transportation area made of copper that's carved into the base of the mountain. On the surface, there are sheltered benches for passengers waiting for a lift to arrive. Two flights of stairs head into the ground, giving foot passengers access to the Ziltare stop of the Temshai Tram Network, and a freight lift allows goods to be transported as well. A worn footpath leads north into the forest, and a more developed road leads west to the coast.
Engineering is the lifeblood of the city. Tinkerer's labs can be found throughout each level. The lowest level, the Foundry Cog, is where much of the metalwork takes place. Heat escaping from furnaces is collected and distributed around the city via pipes, using the excess energy to keep the city warm, despite the elevation. Much of the west side of the cog is a large shipyard, constructing anything from huge airships to single-occupant flying machines.
The next cog is known as the Tinkerer's Cog, full of workshops of varying sizes. One can always hear the hammering of metal, the whirring of gears and machines, and the spark of magical energy. Artisans, artificers, and engineers are always hard at work, building the gadgets and creations for which Coppercog is highly revered across Temshai. Temshai's guild of engineers and creators, the Mothers Of Invention, is headquartered near the south lifts.
Next up is the Cog of Experimentation. This cog is magically shielded and isolated from the other cogs, and it provides a safe place for inventors and magic-users to hone their skills or carry out particularly risky tasks without harm to the rest of the city. The Veracious Registry of Ostensible Mechanical and Magical Machinations (VROOMMM) is in a large, well-fortified, building near the north lifts. All experiments need to be cleared with Registry officials, who also provide a team of clerics and wizards standing ready to help those injured by their pursuits or contain fires and explosions. The cog is segmented into numerous isolated cells of varying sizes, designed to isolate and limit the scope of any mishaps.
The Domicile Cog contains most of the residences in Coppercog. Some of the more esoteric inventors and wizards prefer to live where they work, but most of Coppercog's residents live on this cog. The streets are clean and well-organized, lined by houses of varying sizes and shapes. Above the residences is the Cog of Commerce And Exchange, crammed full of every kind of shop, with taverns and pubs interspersed with precise frequency.
The top tier is the Cog of Spires, dotted with towers of all sizes. Some are home to wizards, and some to the leadership of Coppercog. Governed by a High Engineer, Coppercog citizens believe that one who is successful in keeping their own creations ordered will be successful in keeping the many components of a large city operating just as precisely, a belief that has seldom proved wrong. The Thaumatergium, a library and residence for the city's most valued inventors and practitioners of magic, is a large multi-towered complex towards the west.
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