Mellopolis

The city primarily is made up of several farmers and their families, like the other agrots. In addition to this, there are more mantepa than in most agrots that live in the Grand Hall of Prophecy in the center of the city. Around the temple, there is a bazaar where many merchant live temporarily to trade with the farmers during harvest season.

Like most agrots, the city is run by a coalition of the farmers there. They meet on a weekly basis to discuss matters that effect the farms in the area, as well as the bazaar and the temple. However, because Mellopolis acts as an informal capital of Agrotia, there is also an extra level of governance in the Hall of Mesit. Each agrot sends a representative, called a mesit, to the city, where they meet in the Hall of Mesit to discuss operations between the agrots. These mesit also determine a megalomesit, who mediates with other nations in the same way mesits do between agrots.

Similar to most agrots, Mellopolis has no formal protection from outside forces. Instead, they outsource this to various mercenary groups they hire with the wealth generated by the farmers. For the past couple of decades, Mellopolis has had the altruistic mercenary group the Wardens of Shelyb on retainer.

Most people in Mellopolis live by farming for sustenance and then trading the excess between each other and the villages nearby. However, the Melloi Bazaar has become a thriving marketplace with some merchants even living in the city year round, having received plenty of food from the farmers in exchange for foreign goods and rendered services.

The city is divided into two parts: the Farms and the Center. The farms are made up of the farmsteads that make up every agrot. The Center is what makes Mellopolis unique as a city. In between all of the farms sits the Grand Hall of Prophecy, the main building in the Mantiro faith. Around the Grand Hall sits the Melloi Bazaar, a large set of shops, stands, and inns where merchants gravel to trade with the farmers, both within Mellopolis and without, after their harvest. The last major site of the Center is the Hall of Mesit, the meeting place of the mesit from all of the agrots, as well as a place to store records of the various farmers through Agrotia.

Mellopolis began not as an agrot, but rather as the center of the Mantiro faith. The first mantepa built the Grand Hall as a place where people with the gift of prophecy can come to train and hone their skills. As time went on, more and more farmers came to the temple to receive divination to help them with their harvests, eventually saving on travel time by beginning to claim land surrounding the temple. Over time, this developed into an agrot in its own right and became the agrot to permanently house the mesit due to the presence of the Grand Hall, allowing it be a sort of neutral location.

Many people come to Mellopolis for three main reasons. The first are those that come seeking prophecy. This includes both farmers from other agrots seeking especially potent divinations from the mantepa of the Grand Hall, as well as foreigners who seek prophecies in their own endeavors. The farmers are always welcome and almost always receive a divination. However, foreigners are often turned away when those requesting an audience seek an end that the priests determine to be against the aims of the hero spirits.

The second reason that people come to Mellopolis is for the Melloi bazaar. Farmers from across Agrotia come to the city to trade their excess goods, hoping to fill in the any holes in their own yield. Meanwhile, travelers from both Agrotian villages and outside of the country come to trade for authentic Agrotian crops. Over time, there have also been enough established merchants that come to the bazaar that many come for the rare goods that come from all over the continent.

The third, newest, and most controversial reason that people come to the city is those that have become obsessed with Agrotian culture as call back to tradition. In other nations, people have became wary of the developing economy based on international trade, services, and the dominance of the Aurous Consortium. Many falsely claim that Agrotia has remained a pure culture, where hard-working people make a living through their own effort and come to Mellopolis to bask in that culture. Many native Agrotians hate these people.

Most buildings in Mellopolis are built from wood in the standard Agrotian style with the two that stick out being the Grand Hall of Prophecy and the Hall of Mesit. Both are constructed from stone with stylized columns in the Classical Shelyb style, meant to evoke the time of the Mantiran hero-spirits. This is especially notable on the Grand Hall of Prophecy, his is cluttered with murals of all of the acknowledged hero-spirts, both major and minor.