Crossings

Government

A city founded by free peoples, Crossings has no interest in bowing and scraping before an aristocracy. Instead, the city elects a mayor to take charge for a term of a few years, with the position lasting until the people decide to put someone else in office.
A council advises the mayor, featuring members who represent the city’s districts, industries, and other interests. All council members are appointed by their predecessors, but the council can expand or contract its numbers based on a vote among its members. Council members check the powers of the mayor, and take a quiet role in goading the population to oust an uncooperative mayor for one more favorable to their positions.

Defences

The city maintains a small militia of two hundred to protect against outside threats. Members of the militia occupy the city’s watchtowers, guard the gates, and patrol the lands around Crossings. Most militia members come from the lower classes, since the meager pay is better than nothing and the work is easy for the most part. They wear hard leather armor and metal caps, and carry spears and small shields. The brown tabards they wear over their armor display the city’s device—two crossed spears.

History

The present city is the latest in a long line of communities that have stood on the shores of the Dark Waters. Evidence of previous settlements can be seen in the city’s architecture, from looming faerie spires to the arches left by the First People, to the castles raised by the Edene when they ruled these lands. The city’s cobbled streets, ancient cemeteries, and statues of people and events long forgotten have all withstood the tide of years.
The Crossings of today grew from exiles, bandits, and refugees fleeing the Empire’s tyranny and squatting in the ruins of a town emptied by the plague. Though the new settlement was a lawless and dangerous place, the influx of settlers and the march of the crusaders to establish their citadels tempered the community’s excesses and helped its people establish a rule of law that has made the last century a stable one. Isolation and wealth have given Crossings a great deal of autonomy, and the city acknowledges the rule of the provincial capital of Sixton in name only.

Geography

At the center of the Northern Reach, Crossings spreads across a ring of hills overlooking the lake known as the Dark Waters. Six pale spires rise above the city, obscured by the perpetual smoke spewing from the stacks of its industrial district. Miles of farmland spread to the east, while the rolling hills known as the Barrows form a natural border to the south, curling around to the Black Hills where the city pries iron ore from dwarf-dug mines deep within the earth.

Type

City

Location under

Northern Reach

Owner/Ruler

Katrin Edgerton

Ruling/Owning Rank

Mayor

Characters in Location

• Elder Fobb
• Katrin Edgerton