Equilum
Equilum is the spiritual center of the orderly world and the home of the Probare. The city is surprisingly small compared to its significance. It boasts no wall, or other significant defensive structures, relying solely on the Westatoras army stationed in a nearby fortress for its protection.
The city is situated at the bottom of a valley through which the river Curvamnis flows. The city does not have a lot of trade routes going through it, but the river sees quite a lot of commerce.
The most important building in the city is the Grand Cathedral of the Probare, also known as the The Tenet Library or the Throne of Order. It is a massive structure towering above the city and the landscape and houses the complete set of the tenets, the core religious text of The Church of Order. It is also the home and workplace of the Probare, the spiritual head of the religion.
Originally, the city probably had a different name, but it was renamed to Equilum in honor of Enequila.
Despite its limited size, the city unfortunately has a thriving underbelly, which prays on the abundance of pilgrims, travellers and mercenaries who visit.
In the outskirts, various nobles have constructed palaces and mansions as living this close to the center of their religion gives prestige and influence.
Important Factions
Despite the overwhelming power of The Church of Order in the city, it is not the only player in the interconnected web of the inner politics of Equilum. Various factions fight secretly on the senate floor and sometimes on the streets to control parts of the city.The Church of the Order
The Probare is the de jure ruler of the city, who has the right to overrule the urban senate and usually enjoys the protection of the imperial military. However, his authority over the city is mostly limited to the Grand Cathedral of the Probare and its surrounding clergical buildings. The Tenet Wardens serve as elite guards for these buildings and they are rightly feared by all who crosses them, however they very rarely leave the side of the Probare and don't have the numbers to enforce his will across the entire city.The Urban Senate
The senate is supposed to be comprised of the representatives of the local population, but it is more of a collection of the other factions in the city. It has members from the clergy and all of the guilds in the city. Some of them are larger than the others and together they keep a balance in the senate.The Town Guard
Working closely with the church, the town guard is the official militia and peacekeeping force in the city. They serve as the urban senate's enforcement force and patrol the city to catch criminals, collect taxes and help in emergencies, such as fires or floods. Its members are all volunteers who get payment from the city's treasury. While their headquarters could serve as barracks, because the town guard members are all locals, they rarely live there. Instead, the building works as storage and command center.The Breadhouse Guild
Formed centuries ago, the breadhouse guild controls the southern half of the city. Their monopoly on the Breadhouse Brew earned them huge wealth throughout their existence and they are willing to go to great lengths to stop others from reproducing their secret recipe. Despite their name, the Breadhouse Brewery, where the main guildhall is located doesn't make any bread anymore, but they do serve as the main baker guild in the city. With their power they control the entire bread supply chain and control the prices of this essential food source in the city. They have a substantial budget for mercenaries who work similarly to the city guard to keep order in their territory.The Bathing Guild
All 3 baths in the city formed a guild decades ago to enforce their collective will on the city. While they lack the raw manpower of the Breadhouse Guild, they control the northern half of the city via the Town Guard and bribery. The most influential burghers in the city enjoy the hospitality offered by the baths, which gives them great opportunity to exert control over the wealthy. They also pay mercenaries to protect their most important locations, the baths, but they seldom extend this strength beyond their own buildings.The Shepherd's Union
A large portion of the city's exports come from wool and high quality clothing. Lots of shepherd herd sheep in the outskirts of the city and their products are turned into quality clothing in the Garment Block, where this organization is centered. From all of the factions in the city, this group has the least direct power, but the most soft power. They keep enforcing benefitial deals for themselves while they have no need to dominate areas of the city for power.History
A small settlement was founded by dwarven miners around 500 BO at the top of the Equilum waterfall. This served as an outpost and resting place for the gem miners that travelled down the river to get their gems from the Ghemrucks to where they could sell them. To sustain the outpost, the dwarves settled humans in the fertile valley just below the waterfall. These settlers established farms and a small village began to take shape. While the miners kept their few stone buildings above the waterfall, the humans built their abodes from the nearby woods. Over time, the forest that was inside the valley was cut down to give way to an ever growing settlement.
The village grew to around 200 people by the time the first Probare fell from the sky and the construction of the Tenet Library began. The stone was mined from the eastern hill to lay the foundations and erect the first walls of the building. At first, the library, which now forms the eastern half of the complex was a separate larger building and three smaller buildings served as dormitories. With the help of generous donations from Eorgios Atoras this building complex was finished around 90 AU and its construction marked the true beginning of The Church of Order. Probare II stayed in Equilum to turn the library into a cathedral by connecting the separate buildings into one. The first version of the cathedral was essentially a large, covered courtyard, inspired by the grand halls of the dwarven holds at the time. Dozens of parallel columns held up a wooden roof that was slightly slanted, nothing like the dome that now covers the area.
As the religion spread, more and more of the faithful began to flock to Equilum to serve the gods by joining the cathedral's monks. The nearby village also started to shift focus towards supplying the people of the cathedral. This was not appreciated by the dwarves, who regularly led military crackdowns to enforce taxes on the local populace. These worked for a while, but as the cathedral's population grew, it began to turn more and more militaristic and after a while, the monks could fight back against the dwarves by evacuating the locals into the building and fighting them off from within. These warriors were named the Tenet Wardens in 142 by Probare V. In a sense, for two centuries, the cathedral served more as a fortress. Its construction also reflects this as the outer walls of the building feature arrowslits as windows. Although defiant, the town never achieved full independence from the dwarves until Gennadios Atoras defeated the dwarves and placed the land, the church and the religion under his protection. Since then, the city is known as Equilum in honor of Enequila. However, not all encounters ended in bloodshed. The building now known as Ad Ecclesiam was constructed as a place of diplomacy, where the emissaries of the church and the dwarves could meet and discuss terms. Centuries later, the building still stands, albeit as a tavern.
As the Atoras Empire and The Church of Order grew, so did the wealth of the Cathedral. In 578, the end of the Mountain War left the Atoras dynasty with more gold than they could spend, so a lot of it was given to the church. From this wealth, Probare XXV ordered the expansion of the cathedral. The dormitories were placed outside of the main building along with refectories, the kitchen and the winery, which have been cramped within the cathedral as it turned less and less military focused since the Atoras dynasty took over. The Tenet Wardens' barracks as well as the scriptorium were also place outside as separate buildings. The original library remained the only segment of the building left in its original form and the other inner walls were demolished to give way to a larger area. With the help of elven and dwarven architects, the central dome was designed and construction began on the cathedral. The original outer walls were kept, reinforced and heightened. The central hall, once divided by internal walls now stood as one gigantic hall with the dome held up by 8 large columns, each dedicated to one of the gods of Order. The construction went smoothly, but such a large project took time. According to the plans, the new cathedral would have been finished by 900, but this was an optimistic prediction.
As the construction took an amount of resources and manpower never seen before, the surrounding settlement began to grow. Stonemasons, carpenters, blacksmiths, artists and others moved to the city to work on the construction of the cathedral which saw a huge population boom. In 570, the settlement was barely larger than 500 people, which included over 200 members of the church, but by 670, the city grew to around 2500 inhabitants, around where it sits today. This size didn't change much during the centuries as the construction could only occupy so many people.
Due to being strategically insignificant, but culturally sanctified, the city was never attacked since the Atoras Empire took over, although various internal conflicts took place within the city a couple of times. One such incident occurred when two of the architects, one dwarf and one elf had a disagreement. This escalated rapidly and ended in a bloody clash between the two architects' supporters and the burning of the cathedral. While the building itself is made from stone and marble, the scaffolding and supports were wood. This incident is estimated to have put 50 years of extra work on the cathedral's construction. The project was finally completed in 1036, where the final holy symbol was placed upon the top of the dome by Archibald Felix, whose family has been working as goldsmiths on the cathedral for 200 years.
In 1351, despite the prenunty, Probare LVI. did not die, and for the first time in history, two Probares co-existed. The event eventually led to a bloody clash between members of the Tenet Wardens. Those that accepted the newly elected Probare LVII. eventually defeated the others, but some of them could escape with Probare LVI. through a secret tunnel leading away from the Tenet Library. Whether this tunnel was constructed during the renovations, nobody knows.
Maps
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Equilum
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