Adra
The small kingdom of Adra sits on the northwestern tip of the Irelessan Archipelago, north of the merchant-state of Elm Hill. Adra is a city of smoke, steam, and chemical smells, of canals, severe buildings with high walls and tall windows, and of martial law. The Legion of Thunder marches in the streets, holding their rifles close in hand.
The Queen of Adra has two wives, one a stately, regal priestess, one a stunningly beautiful socialite. Both wives hold an uncomfortable amount of power over their queen. How much, exactly, is hard to say. No one has spoken to one of the three women alone in years.
Built on the ruins of a long-ruined construction of unknown purpose, Adra's streets are protected by a unique property. Arcane magic does not function within the city's limit due to the influence of an ancient artifact buried within the ruins: the Antithesis.
Government
The kingdom of Adra is ruled by the Queen and her Royal Wives. Her right hand, the Legion of Thunder, patrols the streets and reports all that they see to her and her council of advisors.
Defences
The primary defense of the city of Adra is the Antithesis, a powerful magical artifact from the Dawning Days. This strange relic creates a great arcane dead zone, nullifying the process that Speakers must undergo to transform cosmic energy into their Voice.
Infrastructure
Adra's primary industry is manufacturing. Carpentry, stonemasonry, metallurgy, alchemy, and shipwrightery are all common trades within the city. Adra is actually well-known across the world for the large amount of smoke, steam, and other gases that rise in great plumes during the work day. It's fairly common for heavy fog to settle in the city's streets, and this fog can range from mildly irritating to the skin to toxic when inhaled in more than a small quantity.
Assets
As a center of alchemical development in the world, Adra prides itself on its stores of highly sought-after components for complicated alchemical concoctions, experimental weapons, and rare components for other scientific endeavors. The sources of these new technologies are poorly kept secrets: the chained alchemists of Her Majesty's Ingenuiters. These artificers are often imprisoned in their workrooms, forced to toil to exhaustion on new projects for their queen.
Guilds and Factions
The majority of the people that live in the kingdom of Adra do so without strong affiliations for any guild or other organization. These sorts of membership are generally frowned upon by the government. Religious orders such as priestly sisterhoods are kept a close eye on, and tradesmen are strictly forbidden from forming guilds or unions.
This hasn't stopped every resident from avoiding these groups. An international crime syndicate called the Blink has recently moved into Adra's shadows, recruiting members from the desperate, the skilled, and the revolutionary. The Church of the Silver Flame holds Argent Bonfires weekly, in a flagrant and hitherto unseen flouting of the law. And in the corners of tenement halls, among the workers in Adra's infamous factories, something else stirs. Rebellion is on the tips of tongues these days.
History
The city of Adra was founded as a direct response to what the first king and his followers saw as an abuse of godly power. These accusers saw the mancers around them wielding quasi-divine powers over reality, and decried such acts as blasphemy. This viewpoint was not one welcomed by the masses.
In the face of scorn from the world at large, the first king of Adra and his followers uprooted themselves from their ancestral Hibernian home and moved south, across the stretch of the Stormbreaker Ocean known as the Windward Straits. There, at the northwesternmost tip of the Irelessan Archipelago, they found a place more perfect than they could have imagined: the landing site of the ancient Antithesis, a relic from the Dawning Age, a shard of some ancient machine that deadened the touch of magic upon the world. There, on the island of the Antithesis, the Accusers built a fortress. Around the fortress grew a town, which became a city, which became Adra.
Architecture
Adran buildings are built to be tall, not wide. The limited space on the island of the Antithesis means that only the extraordinarily wealthy can afford such lavish trappings as back gardens. Many of the buildings that line Adran streets are more than ten stories tall, with tenements holding a dozen people at a time. These buildings are excellent places for self-contained communities to spring up, and many of the larger buildings in the city function as tiny cities of their own, complete with rooftop gardens, schools, and markets.
Most of Adra is built of a glassy, polished stone the color of a stormy sky. Very little green grows within the city's walls, and the little that does is often choked out by the smoke of the alchemical plants whose stacks rise past the more stout buildings around them.
No Adran home would be complete without an elaborately decorated balcony. Most (if not all) tenements have a small space open to the elements, and folk hang banners, flower baskets, wind chimes, and other decorations from the railings. Many streets are cast into shadow by long lines of laundry, colorful pennants, and other decor that hang between buildings.
Alternative Name(s)
City of Accusers
Type
City
Population
68,000
Inhabitant Demonym
Adran
Location under
Included Locations
Owner/Ruler
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