Kilamehal Grand Plaza

The Grand Plaza of Kilamehal is massive town square used for festivals, civic ceremonies, parades, and weekly markets. It is a major site for tourism and leisure in the town of Kilamehal that is often used as a symbolic shorthand for the settlement itself.   The plaza is a vast space, around 700 feet across on each side. It is composed of massive stone blocks neatly fit together into rows, with strips of packed pebbles under polished igneous between each row. Some people have taken to calling this the "Tigerplot" for this color scheme (enormous black stripes across sheer brown stone). Shops run along two of the plaza's sides, selling everything from food to medicines to general merchandise.    One side of the plaza is entirely open-faced, rolling down into a semi-paved dirt slope that meanders towards the sea. This is called the Otterpath. Building on this slope is forbidden, as it is the route that the colossal otter-spirit Kailio takes from the Selkie Shallows up to the plaza for festivals. People have been known to set up temporary stalls here and often use the space for sports, socializing, and unlicensed commerce.    On the other side of the plaza, across from the Otterpath and facing towards the sea, is the Reception Hall: a mix of town hall and temple to Kailio. This is also where people go to buy licenses for selling goods in the plaza, for hosting parties or gatherings at the plaza, or buy tickets to attend an Otter-tied festival.    The Grand Plaza is an odd space socially, which can range from ritzy to low-class depending on the day and time. During major festivals, elites flock here to see the Great Otter and flood the local shops with money; the plaza suddenly becomes an exclusive and elite space. During off-seasons, beggars set up shacks along the Otterpath and rowdy drunks often start campfires and hang out in the plaza in the evenings and nights. Muggings have been known to occur along the Otterpath at night at times. Some days this is a commercial space, other days it is a community space. Many of these groups often share the large space together: wealthy tourists, peddlers, established artisans, drunks, and beggars all concentrated in their corners but drifting together regularly.