Of Baths, Waters, Light and Night Embers
Storm Drains
In Toresta drinking water comes through the collection of rainwater. Roofs and streets collect the rainwater that falls on them during the prolific winter rainy season. This water is directed to a large underground storm drain system that directs this water to cisterns where the water is stored until needed. Cleansing stones (see below) are used in the system to ensure water quality and safety.
Cleansing Stones
Cleansing Stones are Wondrous magic items which are common, in Toresta at least. A cleansing stone is a sphere 1 foot in diameter, engraved with mystic runes. It is touch activated by an action and removes dirt and grime from garments and the person who touches it. Such stones are embedded in pedestals in public squares in Toresta and inns and palaces have them, typically in their own alcoves. They also have industrial uses, such as water purification and such.
Baths
While not need for cleaning, public baths are ubiquitous in Toresta. Each district typically has its own bathhouse. Bathhouses are divided by the sexes, though private clubs exists where this is not so. Bathing in a public bath is more of a social occasion, than one of personal hygiene. Most contain cold, warm and hot plunging pools and cold and warm showers. They use elemental magic to control water temperature and cleansing stones to ensure water purity.
The largest most expensive palaces often include private baths, smaller but often as elaborate as the best public baths.
Night Embers
Composting toilets predate Toresta. Most of the founding families came from places where the practice of using composting toilets and collecting liquid human waste was common. Most houses contain a room where both the toilet and urine collection pots are kept until picked up by the Night Soil Men, who incidentally have a very strong and powerful guild in Toresta. At night chamber pots are used by most creatures. Public toilets are uncommon except in the area of markets.
Street Lighting
Most streets in Toresta are lit by Everbright Lanterns. An Everbright Lantern is a device that contains a ley energy shard that sheds light in a 240 ft sphere. The closest 120 ft is bright light and the farthest 120 ft is dim light. The lanterns are installed on poles to provide street lighting. Buildings, particularly those not on the street sometimes have smaller lanterns mount to them. (60 ft bright light, 60 ft dim light.)
Portable everbright lanterns are also available.
Utility
Leveraging elemental magic and cleansing stones, baths provide a safe and healthy place to relax. ;ike many things in Toresta they leverage the ley energy abundant in the city to have more elaborate facilities than many other prosperous and modern towns and cities.
Compost collected by the night soil men is sold for use as fertilizer for crops in Outer Toresta. Magical treatment makes the transmission of disease a non-problem. Urine, which can be used for multiple purposes, is sold to factories and alchemists.
Social Impact
The use of cleansing stones, collection of night waste, and centralized stormwater collection and distribution make Toresta, in general, a very clean city. There are still neighborhoods where the inhabitants live in squalor, but they are few comparatively speaking.
Street lighting, combined with an actual police force (the City Watch) tends to constrain crime in the streets of Toresta, at least the common smash and grab kinds. That more insidious crimes exist is obvious by the existence of the City Watch Detective Inspector Office. And of course there is still the occasional honor duel in the streets.
The public bath houses meet more more social than hygienic need. Many business deals and much gossip is spread due to the baths. Private baths, as exist in palatial homes are vehicles of relaxation rather than cleanliness. Public cleansing stones, as well as private ones owned by the rich, provide for cleanliness.
The value of excrement and urine in the market means that pissing in the street or defecating in a canal is more than a minor crime it is an actual act of throwing silver pieces in the street. This tends to inhibit such behavior.
All these technologies are readily available in Toresta.
Halfling wagons typically have compost toilets, as do galleys and airships. It is a technology brought to the city when it was founded.
Cleansing stones are used the world over, if not being as plentiful as they are in the City of Bridges.
Everbright Lanterns are a known technology, but only the richest cities can afford to use them for street lighting. Often they are found in cities placed on leyllines, as is Toresta, and more rare in other locations.
