Kur-Horia

The population consists almost solely of Heliothian humans, with very few dwarves and a small amount of Herakans. The Dwarves are typically merchants and live in wealth close to the city's docks. The city consists out of the followimg classes: -the edgemen, lowest in rank and almost always live in the river's edge district. They are thieves, pickpockets, sewage cleaners and beggars. Very poor. -townsfolk, middle class workers who are not rich but neither die of starvation. Usually blacksmiths, leatherworkers, clerics, shoemakers, and other types of mediocre professions. A little poor. -glassfolk, intellectuals who can pay glass windows and often wear glasses, hence their name. They are wealthy, but do not have a lot of power. They are merchants, Secretary's, priests, etcetera. wealthy. -low city lords: city lords who were often born into wealth. They are lords who don't have a place on the lords council. This class is divided into two subclasses, the lazy ones and the ambitious ones. The lazy's are content with their position and usually buy many luxury goods. The ambituous strife for a place in the council and spare every coin they have to achieve it. Low city lords sometimes lose so much money many consider them to have become glassfolk. -high city lords, the 78 city lords who have a place on the lords council and are the most influential and wealthy people in the city. They have the authority to improve, change or build anything in the city(except the royal district). Their places in the council are highly contested and therefore they are always in danger. The king decides who is in the council, but listens often to edgemen and townsfolk who to keep and who to send away. Therefore many high city lords do everything to keep the public happy.

The city is governed by the city lord council, wealthy individuals who have bought their way into their influential position. They keep the peace and improve infrastructure and welfare, and in turn the king let's them keep 40% if the towns taxes. The royal district is the only place in town they are not allowed to modify. Because every year the king evaluates what each city lird has done to improve the city and decides wether they can keep their position, the city lords do everything they can to improve the city in any way. Sometimes, the projects overlap. for example, one city lord has decided tp build a marketplace on the city's docks, but another wanted to build a recreational pier. Such things often result in full-blown wars, with private militia's clashing in the streets. Usually the royal court fixes these wars, by deciding which service is more needed.

Every district except River's Edge is encompassed by the city walls, 8 meters high and a tower every hundred meters. There are eight gates leading into the city through this wall, all facing southwest, south or east. On the southeastern reaches of the city wall is a fortified building called the Keep of the Rear, home to the sages of the Rear.     A second wall ring divides the royal district from the rest of the town. The royal district concists mostly of the Royal Citadel, built half on the rock and half into the sea. The ultimate tower, the royal residence built on a rock stack in the sea, is considered the last holdout in an assault.    The city has a professional city guard of 2500 men to guard the walls, keep the peace, combat crime and solve disputes between city lords. This city guard is a completely distinct entity from the Tomodoro Guard, a group of elite warriors with its origins in dwarven tradition. They protect the royal district and the king.

The city is mostly an administrative hub and a trade hub to respectively Helioth and the entire northern part of Morgate. The city has many administrative jobs to run the bureaucracy that the country is built upon. Additionally, the large harbour hosts enough room for most of the Heliothin navy. traders from Nomeria, Grayhan, Herak and of course Tilos come to this city from the sea, and collide with the Mittrellian, Ascilinese and Goldarihri traders that come over the roads from the south and the west. Therefore the city has plenty of resources and goods, even the rarest trinkets of the continent, such as relics from ancient Mirvania, Aerin feathers, dragons scales and teeth, and stones from the ancient Habla's. One can question whether these artifacts are real or not. The city is renowned for its large Snakedragon farms and export. Snakedragons are, as the name suggests, a mixture between a snake and a tiny dragon. Their heads and body look like that of a dragon, but it has neither wings nor legs. It is easily domesticated, and therefore often used for its delicious meat, it's powdered scales as garnish and it's teeth in decoration. The Snakedragon naturally only existed on the Heliothan plains, but since they became very popular their species now only thrives in the large ranches where they are breeded by farmowners. These farmowners sell the raw materials to craftsmen: butchers for the meat, scalegrinders for the scales and teeth. These craftsmen sell the neatly created products to mostly dwarven traders, who distribute them among the citizens of Kur-Horia and sell them on to trading caravans and ships for export. Due to this long line of merchants the goods are often too expensive outside of Kur-Horia, and therefore the city experiences many tourists from all over the continent who want to experience the Snakedragon's products.

As with any large medieval city, services are abundant. Due to the efforts from ths city lords, many great services have emerged, even having a sofisticated sewer system. The central marketplace is clean and sizeable. However, the houses being very old, the roads have a horrible layout, and improving them is tedious and destructive. Thus, this is kept this way, and transportation stays dirty and slow.

Despite being the largest city in the world, Kur-Horia has a much shorter history than the other prime settlements in Aimane. The historic capital of Helioth has always been Ligvalion, in the far western reaches of the country. After the Tucefealan horrors the population of Ligvalion was diminished, and it was eventually lost to the kingdom of Ascilian as a result of the treaty of Methridan. Thus, at the beginning of the third passing, the royal court moved to a coastal fortress in the northeast of the country, and with him came a small town of servants, nobles, soldiers and their families. The fortress, previously known as Belbeb Head, was reshapen into a city, and named Kur-Horia; Baytown. Kur-Horia's early history is one of artificial gentrification of the city; Helioth had no prideful historical architecture since the tucefealan horrors and the Rotary War, and the king personally overlooked construction projects to turn the city into a Heliothin showpiece. Indeed the estuary of the Belbeb river was always a local center of trade due to it's favourable location, and the moving of the royal court and the founding of Kur-Horia put the baytown on the map. Belbeb Head was expanded and reshaped into a grand citadel worthy of a king's residence. It was only after the Rotary war that Mittrellion started to flourish thanks to the replacement of the Tarnun dynasty, and products were being sold and shipped north over trade routes. Additionally, Goldarihr opened its markets to international trade as well, and the wish for products from these two countries in Herak, Helioth, Grayhan and Nomeria made Kur-Horia a great trade center in the decades that followed. King Rothon Stonesetter ordered the construction of a great perimeter wall after the Herakan raids along the Heliothin coast once again intensified, and in TP 98 the Rothonian walls were finished, two years after Rothon's own passing. The city quickly outgrew these walls, however, and today nearly half of the city's residents live beyond the Rothonian walls. After a little over a century, the city outgrew the ability to be personally managed by the king, who had a kingdom to rule beyond Kur-Horia. in TP 145 king Lerdi Appointer gave Redori Goldface, an esteemed and respected trader in the city, the position of city master, a semi-independent form of leadership that most cities in Aimane had and still have. Redori Goldface ruled the city with as much wisdom and diligence as he could conjure up, although the young city had its wealth of problems to face; the riches that flowed along the Belbeb river out into the Bay of Bul attracted crime, caused inequality and thus poverty, and greedy dwarves sought out the city to swindle its citizens and wring the coins from their purses. Goldface's rule kept the worst excesses in check, but after his passing in TP 189 a new city master, Norit Candlestick, assumed office. Candlestick was a corrupt swine, and four years later he died a swine's death; a local crime lord threw him out his bedroom window, and none in the city could be bothered to clean up the mess, until four months later his abandoned house was destroyed in a fire. Candlestick had turned the city into a hellscape; road quality had worsened to being no more than pits of mud, the rudimentary sewer system had degraded to the point of being unusable, nearly half of the residents lived in self-constructed slums and crime was so prevalent that the city was essentially ruled by gangs. King Lerdi was horrified by what had happened to the pride of Helioth, and had to step in once again. He abolished the position of city master, and hoped that by dividing the power in the city over all of the most influential individuals, a balance would be shaped. Thus the council of city lords was founded, and the king approved the construction of the great hall of Helioth, where the city lords could convene and where the governmental offices of the city were located.

The royal district of the city of Kur-Horia is built upon one of the high rocks that define the Heliothin coastline. This particular rock, called the royal mountain, has gentle slopes on it's southern side, on which the houses of the wealthier people stand. the plains surrounding the rock and reach far south are built-up with middleclass houses. east from the rock the Belbeb river flows into the bay of bul. where the river actually meets the sea there are many docks and much industry, as well as houses of wealthy traders. Further upstream, however, are shacks of the poorest citizens of Kur-Horia, hugging the city walls. Everywhere south, west and southeast of the city are the endless Heliothin plains. On these plains the mega grazers graze. Among them are the Long-haired Akraia's, the Lindi's and the Gaoroks. although there is a severe lack of wood available on the plains, about 30 kilometres to the northeast are some decidious forests, and further north also lies the border with Herak. There the large Taiga forests start.