Aegis

City of Half-Elves, Rivers, Pathways and Shores.

Written by Dejers

The Shield, heart and soul. All ride the waves and benefit from the foresight of the Spring's thaw. Her quiet power is what has protected the city and allowed it to recover the history and vigor that the cursed years had pulled away.
In truth, we have seen nothing short of a miracle! To see those same canals that were dug by our ancestors filled once more with skiffs for travel, duty and pleasure. This is a miraculous redemption to see the ways that the city has regained it's ancient identity while still having learned new lessons for the future.
The consolidation of the Council, the rise of the Flow, the adaptation of the guilds and the fortification of the city have all been made and enacted to stop a tragedy like that of the beginning of the Orcish Incursion.
The Shield, is the heart and soul of the city. However, the citizens of the city have truly become the gears and the protectors of that shield.

— An Aegan Retrospective

City of Half-Elves, Rivers, Pathways and Shores.

Aegis is the premier southern port. Placed on the outlet of the Sunnan River, every piece of south-bound industry coming from Iwate passes through the city. Making it a hotbed of dwarven industry and innovation. The high cliffs offer protection from the summer floods and have made it an important port of refuge on summer trips. Finally, southern currents leaving the Aegis Sea make it a beneficial stop-gap for those making trips to Izala or for those making the journey past the The Coast of Teeth.
The city itself is the crown jewel of Uuku, with the city acting as the public ideal of what Uuku is. However, the Council that runs the inner workings of Aegis is entirely disconnected from those politics. With the city acting as more of a vassal or protected ally instead of being an integrated part of the country.
The Shield Spring acts as the heart of the city, filling the grand pools that dominate the center of the city and fuel the canals that act as the arteries and conduits of the city. And like those veins of a mortal body, the canals deliver traffic and resources through Plospryn's Fields, down to each of the gates, and finally through the grates that spew water down into the sea.

Government

The government of Aegis leans lightly on the lackadaisical diplomatic support of Uuku, but holds most matters without referring up the chain of leadership. While most major matters such as construction, resources and devotionary support goes through the Council, a shadow government of business owners and concerned citizens has risen to dictate terms of treaties, trade, business expansion and preparations for the future in the shape of the Flow.

The Council

The Council has been around as long as the spring has, a group of people dedicated to maintaining the land around it and keeping the base of the spring pure. When the orcs marched on the city of Aegis, the councilmembers of the time held people inside the spring until the Wizards of the College cracked open their portals to help evacuate the survivors, helping to reinforce the truth of the Shield Spring.
In modern times, post Orcish Incursion, the council resembles its initial design to a very small degree. While the majority of the leaders are still elven or firbolg, several humans have attained ranking as well as a number of Triton and Mousefolk helping to establish a true sense of diversity in the leadership of the city. They maintain the spring itself as well as the relations with the forests of Uuku and religious devotions that many believe help to protect the city and ensure that the spring will flow.

The Flow

The Flow is a newer invention, a sign of the changing times and waning influences that are battling over the various cities of Ithungsida. Those that represent the Flow are the city community leaders and port officials, the guards that manage the wall and the citizenry that wants some level of protection beyond what they received as Vhaskus stormed the city in the Orcish Incursion. The guards of the receive massive amounts of training and patrol large swaths of land out to the sands of the southern desert.
While they patrol, the leaders of the Flow maintain strong relations with Elven forces of Uuku, the Iwan Fleet and the Forkden Navy as well as practicing annual evacuations of the city and tests against disasters that could strike. The name “The Flow” comes from the wanton state of affairs that lasted since before records started until the fall of Aegis at the hands of Vhaskus.
Those leaders that maintain the Flow hold a motto amongst themselves that stands unofficially for the entire city.

We will not go with the flows of nature or abide by the tides of the DraKaise, we will buck and snap at any trend that ensures the downfall of our city in the way the state of affairs before the Orcish Incursion tore us to pieces and burnt the remnants.

— Motto of the Flow.

Geography

The city of Aegis is separated neatly into 6 districts; the docks, the Deep Catacombs, the Cliffside, the Roc’s Perch, Plospryn’s Fields, and the Shield Spring.

The Docks are fresh cedar. Fashioned yearly and built out from the base of the cliff they are never static. With new crews and ships moving through the docks daily each year forms its own identity that is recorded in a gallery in the city with artistic depictions of the previous hundred years of docks, showing the fast-paced evolution of changes and alterations that have created one of the most efficient docks in Ithungsida.
The only constants of the docks are the Port Authority offices and the inns carved into the rocky base of the cliffs. Which are, of course, repopulated and rebuilt yearly as well to match the new theme and design.

The Cliffside is populated by a variety of ways up to the Perch and the source of the waterfalls. With the waterfalls demarcating the edges of the city and the expansion of the port below, it also marks how wide the cliffs spread in terms of the stairways and homes found there. The class of citizen that finds their home on the wall is either of an eccentric taste or, far more often, of a poorer nature. For a wide amount of the cliffside is slammed by the yearly floods and must be evacuated during those times.
They also serve as homes and inns for those sailors that don’t wish to make the endless ascent or to pay the rates of the lower inns that populate the docks.

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The Deep Catacombs are largely outside of the public Purview, while the cliffside makes the climb towards the very top of the cliffs, the many tunnels that lead into the rock of the cliffs themselves go somewhere very different. Within these tunnels are countless secrets from thousands of years of history from elvish settlers that first cut into the tunnels to the Orcs that spent years smoking out stalwart survivors within the tunnels.
Nowadays, the majority of what is found within are bars, brothels and areas that like to be outside of the public’s eye. But for every alley populated by denizens of those darker crowds, there might be a group taking a much darker turn of events within.

Roc’s Perch is the top of the cliff. With twin pools that are lovingly referred to by citizens as “Plospryn’s Lakes”, they are much closer to ponds and smell as a strange mixture of refuse and flowers that blend in a disturbing manner. Many restaurants find their fortunes here, giving a beautiful view of the Aegis sea and the docks below, while the menagerie of airships make their escape from the city into the skies above.
This is also where all airships, that actually enter the city, make their approach and land. However, the fees and resulting requirements including potential boarding and searching by the Flow guards have lead some areas outside of the city to be established as landing zones for those not dealing with large quantities of passengers or cargo.

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Plospryn’s Fields are the actual homes, businesses and areas that populate the city. Built atop the cliff, these are where the roads, the rivers and the city reveals it’s true nature. That of a cultural paradise with elegant elven architecture mixed with a mortal eye for detail and roughness that gives a sense of feeling as though the city itself is truly alive, well and growing under the care of Plospryn.
This is where business occurs, the majority of people live, and where every road reaches the Shield Spring.

The Shield Spring is the heart of Aegis. A heavily regimented and carefully constructed part of the city, the Shield Spring pours out a massive amount of water into carefully maintained baths and areas that then lead out into the rest of the city. With temples of every deity present and many buildings for the cultural enrichment of the area with longstanding art galleries and meeting places for the rich and poor alike.
This is where the elites gather and where the beating heart of the city can truly be seen.

Alternative Name(s)

City of the Shield Spring, City of rivers, Bulwark against the Desert

Type

Large city

Inhabitant Demonym

Aegiseans

Location under

Middling Plains

Included Locations

• Shield Spring
• The Lighthouse of Aegis

Owning Organization

Elven Collective of Uuku

Related Professions

• Former Longshoreman

Where are these quotes from?

An Aegan Retrospective is a book written at the turn of the new century of the 1100s as many of the cities across Ithungsida began truly recounting the recovering aspects of what was lost in the Orcish Incursion.
The Flow Keeps records and many of it's ledgers and paperheads have this phrase written atop it.