Ezdhûlian Mountain Citadel
The enormous, sprawling mountaintop cities built in ancient times to house untold millions
For a list of the various Mountain Citadels, their names, and brief descriptions about them, please see the Ezdhûl ethnicity page.
Demographics
Due to the sheer, overwhelming size of the Mountain Citadels, the amount of demographic variety is extremely expansive - most any species can be found in the citadels in some form or fashion(While species like Dwarves, Guīmogoa, Dirge, and Humans are the most common), and while Ezdhûl is the most prominent ethnicity found in any given Citadel, others can be found sporadically if their homelands are nearby, or if others are visiting the citadels from afar.
Due to the lifestyle of the Ezdhûl people, the wealth classes found within the mountain holds tend to be fairly distinct and structured, as the wealth classes are incorporated into the very architecture of the citadels themselves - ranging from the average worker or citizen to the highest and wealthiest guildmaster. Professions in the mountain citadels tend to be overwhelmingly biased towards blue-collar jobs such as miners, laborers, and the like as well as more experienced tradesman jobs such as smithing, leatherworking, and other crafting jobs. In contrast, jobs such as city planning and management jobs tend to be extremely rare and merged with governmental positions, such that those in charge of guilds or smithing shops tend to have minor governmental responsibilities in some form or fashion.
In all, there are almost no jobs in a Mountain Citadel that others would classify as useless - every single worker has a purpose and serves a specific need in the massive machine that is the Citadel economy, government, and/or workforce in general.
Government
Ever since the life and death of the great and legendary Ezdhûl hero Thorgrom Blackgranite, each of the Seven Mountain Citadels have become entirely independent city-states without a single unifying ruler to bring them together - now, the citadels are run by the Thanes, who sit at the head of the Citadels as a monarch. The means of how the Thane are appointed vary between the seven Citadels exactly, but aside from this Thane that serves as the seat of Executive Power, each Citadel also is partially run by an entity known in the Ezdhûl tongue as the Kibil-Dûm, known less formally in the common tongue as the Silver Synod - a massive council made up of business owners, guildmasters, and any citizen who either owns a business or similarly official seat of power that holds meetings typically once a week and several times a month to vote on various Citadel matters, speak with the Thane, decide city policy, and handle countless other internal matters. Typically, the Silver Synods across the Mountain Citadels are full of divisive and cutthroat politics where guilds, churches, and other groups vie for "seats" and the votes those seats give them, convincing independent councilmen such as small business owners to join up with them to hold more sway over the Citadel's decision-making.
These two governmental entities are supported by a plethora of well-funded and well-organized "Chambers" each headed up by an appointed "Head" who handles matters as decided upon by the Silver Synod and the Thane themself - these "Chambers" range from the Chamber of Taxation to the Chamber of Excavation, each efficiently and smartly divided up and organized into spheres of power and control, given authority to handle all matters relating to their charge. Laws, similarly, are handled by various chambers that oversee the enforcement of the laws in the Chamber of Public Trust which usually oversees pubic welfare, security, and the payment and routines of the Town Militia, while the Chamber of Militancy handles most all matters of warfare and national security. As one can surmise from this, the Government of each Mountain Citadel is built upon thousands of years of well-built and highly efficient bureaucracy, which may be a pain for outsiders to deal with(As many chambers have appointments booked out for years and do not allow walk-ins), but allows for the titanic and enormous Mountain Citadels to exist as wholly independent nations.
Defences
True to the nature of the Dwarves who originally constructed them long ago as well as the Ezdhûl people who have come to inhabit them in the modern day, the Mountain Citadels are unassailable fortresses the likes of which few can fathom - built into the hardened peaks and interiors of mountains and spiraling for miles into the ground, Mountain Citadels are unbreakable bastions by even the hardest standards of modern siegecraft and warfare. The signature stone gates of the Mountain Citadels, each easily 100ft tall and dozens of feet thick of metal-reinforced solid stone built high into tops of Mountain peaks, lay perched at highly defensible mountain chokepoints such as across perilous chasms, thin pathways barely eight feet wide, or other places that the massive fortresses can use to easily deter invaders.
Though, even finding the entrances is a challenge in and of itself - the Ezdhûl people have gone to extraordinary lengths to hide these entrances from all maps and public knowledge, forcing others through even more defensible side passages closer to ground level that can be easily collapsed in case of emergency. In terms of defenses, however, none are superior to the Ezdhûl in this regard - dozens of layers of thick walls lined with bristling Palisades guard the Citadel both inside and out, lined with state-of-the-art Ezdhûlian engineering such as Siege Ballistae, Dragon-Spitters designed to hurl globs of alchemists's flame downrange, to even the legendary earthquake generators said to guard the hardiest and oldest of the Mountain Citadels - to say nothing of the seemingly infinite Rockcrusher Legions that guard the Citadels themselves.
These hardened, veteran units are deadly combatants whose tactics, experience, and veterancy were gained during the Invasion of the Infernal Host and the subsequent Fall of Nan-Dhurgalir when the armies of the Celestial Host turned upon those who had summoned them - deadly and lethal armies whose experience in this ancient wars of yore have only been multiplied in the ensuing War of the Boiling Skies championed by Thorgrom Blackgranite. And while they may have lost this terrible, bloody war, the Rockcrusher Legions have had centuries untold to sharpen their blades and perfect their craft of defensive warfare, shamed as they were by their loss in the War of the Boiling Skies and the death of their one true liege-lord, Thorgrom Blackgranite. Now, the Rockcrusher Legions stand greater than they ever were - a veritable and unbreakable wall of the world's most hardened warriors that would die before yielding a single inch of ground to an invading force, upon which entire armies of man and demon alike have broken like water upon steel.
Industry & Trade
Mountain Citadels are largely self-sufficient, but after the War of Boiling Skies which saw Thorgrom Blackgranite die at the hands of Kyra Aenai and the armies of the allied forces, the Citadels were forced to open their gates and begin trade with the outside world once more. As such, they largely export the highly skilled craftsman they possess, exporting beautiful creations such as arms and armor while jealously guarding the secrets that allow for such creations, also exporting the countless raw materials such as ores, gemstones, stone, and the like their highly industrious miners have excavated over the centuries.
Infrastructure
In an ever-expanding monument to the industrious glory of the Ezdhûl people, the infrastructure of the Mountain Citadels is a resplendant, perfectly designed marvel of engineering that is constantly churning, working, and grinding ever and inexorably onwards - the central structure of the Mountain Citadels is somewhat standardized, typically arranged into massive, concentric "rings" stacked atop one another like some kind of titanic stone cake.
These "rings" take the shape of enormous stone chambers thousands of feet across, truly and unfathomably massive caverns dug out over decades by the highly-efficient mining teams sent by the mining guilds - each "ring" connected to the one above and below it by means of highly complex lifts allowing for travel up and down much faster than what one's legs could provide, typically powered by metallic cables and pulley-systems(Though sometimes massive Golems are constructed to crew the biggest of these lifts). The sole exception to this is the bottommost ring(Known as "The Slab"), which is always rendered mostly inaccessible through conventional means to ensure only those authorized to travel down into its fiery depths can do so unaided, to protect the sanctity of the countless smelters, forges, workshops, and the penultimate Ezdhûlian Worldforge that dwells in the center of "The Slab" to power and heat the entire Citadel as a whole.
The walls of each Ring, lined as they are with beautiful glowing crystals, roaring torch sconces, and heat-giving ores and rocks, provide enormous amounts of heat to the "rings" that make up the levels of each mountain citadel - and even when the dimming of the great Ezdhûlian Worldforge at the end of each 36-hour day signals a dimming of each "ring", the sheer heat radiating up from "The Slab" at the bottom of the citadel is enough to provide the entire Citadel with heat while the starstone crystals embedded in the walls of each "ring" let the residents stare up at a beautifully warm, starry sky even so far underground.
Districts
Typically divided into titanic caverns known as "Rings", each Mountain Citadel delves miles into the mountain or beneath the earth, as each "Ring" serves as a city all unto itself, linked to the Rings above and below it by means of massive conveyor lifts crewed by metallic winches and Golem and Steam-powered pulley systems. While "The Slab"(The bottommost Ring of each Citadel) serves as a home to its largest and most crucial forges, smelter factories, roaring heatlamps, and the penultimate Ezdhûlian Worldforge that powers the entire Citadel, many Rings are built out and adjacent to the central rings that form the core of the citadels, as The Slab forms the bottom layer and prevents further downward development - these "Exterior Rings" are linked to the central rings by large stone tunnels known as "Highways", and often are formed together into eight-ring circles known as "Layers" once fully constructed. Though a fully constructed "Layer" of eight massive rings linked to the central ninth is extremely rare as such a thing takes an enormous amount of time to finish even to the highly skilled miners of the guilds, such things are wonders only able to be seen in the wondrous worlds of the Mountain Citadels.
Each "Layer" of a Mountain Citadel(And all the "Rings" contained within them) typically form the Citadel Equivalent of Districts, as each Layer tends to abide by a theme - Layers closer to the surface tend to be more general living areas, slums, and the like while the further down one goes in the Citadel the close one gets into industrial zones, areas for the Citadel Nobility, and more.
Assets
Because of their immense, unfathomably enormous size, Mountain Citadels have by no exaggeration a seemingly limitless amount of Assets - enough forges, smelters, ironworks, and crafters to supply entire armies with arms and armor without limit, enough citizens to serve nearly any purpose, and have vaults large enough to supply themselves with enough resources to last for years. In truth, the sheer volume of Assets that Mountain Citadels have at their disposal is such that only the most dedicated of Ezdhûl recordkeepers can even keep track of it all - distributed as it is throughout miles of underground tunnels, vaults, hidden buildings, and palace dungeons.
Guilds and Factions
The guilds of the Mountain Citadels are as numerous as the starstones that line the walls of the Citadel's interior "Rings" - each holding sway in the Silver Synod which rules as a single council alongside the Thane to decide upon the Citadel's affairs and day-to-day businesses. These guilds handle almost all aspects of life in the Citadels, from mining to public security, and are checked by the power of the Chambers which serve beneath the Silver Synod and the Thane to enforce the laws made by the government, to ensure the Guilds do not attain unchecked power. Typically, Mountain Citadels are thriving hotbeds of faction and guild based politics, as each faction and guild vies for "seats" in the Silver Synod to get more votes in the council's voting sessions, and thus more power over the Citadel.
History
Each Mountain Citadel has a massive and storied history of its own - the oldest of which stretches back into antiquity over 6,000 years ago. For a better idea of the history of the citadels and its people, see the Ezdhûl page, the pages for Thorgrom Blackgranite, Ezdhûlian Worldforges, and all other related pages in the "Related Reading" sidebar of this page.
Points of interest
The points of interest in each citadel tend to vary, as each is unique in its own ways - though the massive, central Ezdhûlian Worldforge that powers each Citadel is the greatest interest point that all yearn to see for themselves within the Citadels. Otherwise, nearly each corner of the Citadels can wow and amaze the unprepared - the massive, overwhelmingly large cielings of the Guildhalls and meetings tabernacles as well as the huge domed cielings of the Citadel's interior "Rings" wow and amaze those who see them at night, while perhaps most notably are the churches to Soo-min the Sorrowborn that lie in each of the Citadels, often the most resplendent and powerful buildings in the Citadel's rings.
Tourism
All sorts visit the Mountain Citadels for all manner of reasons - either to find work in the hundreds of shops, smithies, and craftworks inside of them or to simply visit and see the massive, towering architecture of the Citadel's rings for themselves; to glimpse the beautiful underground starry sky reputed the world over as one of the most beautiful sights in all the world.
Architecture
The architecture of the Citadels is that of the Dwarves and Ezdhûl people - towering, overbuilt, oversized, and designed to withstand the end of days. Stone is the main building material, and buildings are built out of this thick stone and reinforced with metal - sensibilities are geared towards utility and grandeur, serving as the perfect blend of utility, defense, and opulent splendor as buildings and architecture towers above normal creatures, dozens or even hundreds of feet tall.
Geography
Mountain Citadels, while built high in the mountains, are always built atop rich mineral reserves as well as underground riverways and thick magma streams with which to power the Ezdhûlian Worldforge that powers it.
Natural Resources
Each Mountain Citadel is built atop an overwhelming wealth of natural resources such as ore, stone, metals, and the like deep within the bowels of the earth.
Founding Date
The oldest of the Mountain Citadels, Nar-nolûhm, is reputed to have been constructed nearly 6,000 Years Ago. The most recent citadel to be founded was Thileldûr, founded around 800 Years Ago near 3700 ASK.
Founders
Alternative Name(s)
The Mountain Holds, The Holds
Type
Megalopolis
Population
Even the smallest of the Mountain Citadels is reputed to have a total population easily stretching into the realm of Millions, but exact population counts are known only to the Ezdhûl.
Inhabitant Demonym
Ruling/Owning Rank
Comments