Toleva and Wraquo

Where is Wraquo?

With impassable mountains at its back and two of its three neighbors useless for industry, Toleva runs the most isolated industrial theome on Theoma. It is adjacent to Themif the Iceheart and Skorvald and Yaquisa, which are the useless connections; it is adjacent to Cortacaffakallyenay & Nyberinz, which is not useless though it IS a final challenge for merchant caravans.

How is Wraquo classified?

Despite its isolation, Wraquo is a common urban theome in terms of its Fate.

What kind of population and economy does Wraquo have?

"Wraquo the Factories" is a popular phrase for what kind of economy Wraquo has. It is a place that is trying to get ahead of the curve in every technology and produce so many amazing things that merchants will travel all over the world just to sell it raw materials. This isn't easily done in general, and it's even harder to do from the frozen mountains so far north that the Deathwall looms over them. Wraquo's industry scrapes by with frequent shortages and occasional blunders that leave it with warehouses full of unsaleable goods. Fate manipulation only works for intra-theomic markets; Wraquo is trying to play the world economy from an isolated position in the corner. It can't always find the market conditions that it needs to have.

Despite these downsides, the trade caravans do come, and the wages at the factories of Wraquo are good enough that amicable turnover is a problem. Many of the people who migrate to Wraquo are doing so in search of wages, with no real loyalty to Toleva or her theome. It takes centuries to get a position of influence in Wraquo; it only takes decades to build up enough wealth to return home notably more prosperous than one departed. Wraquo is a source of wealth for the whole region.

Many of the most important people in Wraquo are Swaivshon whose communal society has managed to extend to a new place firmly enough that they send regular remittances home. This practice of supporting-from-afar bolsters the loyalty of the swaivshon who engage in it, as they are more committed to the jobs that are making their communities more prosperous. In turn, employers in Wraquo look fondly on occasional vacations. The wings of the swaivshon are bound by their own will, so to speak (literal wing-bindings are almost never in fashion).

Conversely, Vohntrai who immigrate are known for being particularly disloyal. The impossibility of them holding any substantive office tenders some disgust in them, as they cannot dedicate centuries to advancement at all. Their four hundred year memory means they would lose so much of what they learned along the way!

There is a very prestigious minority of Myrghon in Wraquo. The local stereotype of Myrghon is that they are technically advanced people who have a great understanding of machinery. This is due to the theome managing to attract immigrants from the underworld (via the deep routes in Hydalath). The specific skills that make the Myrghon prized are over-represented due to the efforts of Wraquo talent scouts!

What is Toleva like?

Toleva manifests as a short, fat Myrghon. Her plumbob-gems declare the age of Theoma when they float about her, but they're usually bound up in the bun on her mane. She prizes working with her hands and making machines that do not require a Myrghon gem to actuate. Most of the land gods face an existence without apparent struggle, but Toleva seems to have established for herself a challenge game of sorts. The factories of Wraquo exist near the northern edge of Theoma, at the end of a long and difficult trade route. To make something profitable at this level gives her one of the hardest positions of the urban theome land gods.

She runs her theome like a business, as Boghegd and Griolor does far to the south in Tachamund, at the other end of the north-south trade route. The two are friends who try to see if they can set up trade deals that will be profitable despite the distances involved. They play the route together as well, doing their best to keep trade lively across the north-south corridor even if it isn't always feasible to deliver goods directly to one another.

Like Boghegd, Toleva's blessings are unusually purchasable. She wants to have massive reserves in her accounts, and geomancers who work with her find that she's hard for them to turn a profit on. Wealthy geomancers willing to lose money to her find that she's efficient in time instead, as she demands prices fulfilled literally, rather than demanding quests from geomancers. Indeed, some people who are not geomancers at all (but who have attained some measure of wealth) work with Toleva in this way. Unlike Boghegd, her theome as a whole has substantial fate pressure to try to keep the factories running. Some people have said that Wraquo would be a great place for a Regularity beacon, but Toleva says that beacons support the competition so much that the only beacon she's really considered running is a Dream Beacon to get more immigrants from farther away.

Continent
Kelkaith
Local Jewel
Cortacaffakallyenay & Nyberinz
Beacon
None
Fate Pressure
4/5 (Orderly factories)