Sota

Shining Star of Everen

The technological supercity of Sota, stands as the pinnacle of urban creation, with ideas of the future built on the ashes and monuments of eons long passed. Settled along the winding Cobra Canal, and embedded securely in Banrich Valley, the city is home to a population of just over 20,000, split between a multitude of races. The land Sota is built on has thin Planar Fabric, which allows for easier travel between realms - a feature truly realised by many ancient portals found in the Planar Catacombs at the heart of the city.

Sota Institute of Technology, Dragon Spire

Demographics

The city of Sota is, by far, the most racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse city in all of Everen. According to the census of 520 AXR, around 6,400 (32%) citizens of Sota are Tirion purebloods (Humans, Half-Elves, Elves). 11,600 (58%) are made up of the other common races (Halflings, Dwarves, Gnomes, Goblins), and 2,000 (10%) are exotic races (Tieflings, Dragonborn, Half-Orcs, Genasi etc.)

Government

Sota is a democracy, and has been for a number of years. It is currently under the authority of elected Mayoress Amonica Blythe, a forward thinking politician, who, like her father, promises to propel the city into the next century. She works incredibly hard trying to break away from the oppression of the Empire and its old-fashioned, totalitarian way of thinking - for the good of her people. However, her soft spot and good-willed nature unfortunately make her an easy target, resulting in her, despite being the Mayoress of the city, having no real power whatsoever

Industry & Trade

The city's main trade and export is Arcstone, formed and crystallised thousands of years ago from the Planar magics and the ancient portals. The raw Arcstone is then processed and refined, and either sold on to merchants, artificers and mages in crystal form or used to power the revolutionary tech created with materials from Metris, Sota's partner city in the faraway realm of Chronomachina. This tech sells for a fortune overseas, as well as throughout the rest of the continent, as Sota's ingenuity when it comes to forward progress is unrivaled in Σu'ryxia, a drive that could swiftly bring the city back up to date with the tech of its Xandrian Predecessors. Quite a hefty amount of Dark Amethyst actually remains in the city, in vaults underneath the Spire Ward, in the rare case that emergency power must be channelled to the city. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Districts

Located in the direct centre of the city, the Spire Ward is the political, military and technological heart of Sota. Its Five Spires overlook the city, a mixture of towers and domes meant for only the richest few. At the plateau of the ward's central Spire is what city folks refer to as the 'Core' - a huge portal to Chronomachina on a rotating gear that periodically opens. Underneath the Core are the Planar Catacombs, a set of crumbling corridors that house the ancient portals built during the First Age of Dragons. The Trades Ward acts as the economic head of the city. It thrums with the economic buzz of an independent merchantile town in its own right, nearly thrice the size of the Market Spire. Unlike other areas of the city, the Trades Ward never truly sleeps; there is always the hustle and bustle of business to be done, be it on the streets proper or in the hundreds of balcony walkways that can run the length of blocks and stretch as much as 5 stories into the air. The Quay Ward is the “old money” of Sota. Contrasting with the raucous extravagance of the nearby Spire Ward, this area is a quiet, polite neighborhood, with its taverns and stores tending to cater towards a more refined class of clientele. All residents here usually have enough coin to spare to hire a servant or two. The most fabulous section of the ward is its namesake, the Quay, a tranquil promenade running either side of the Cobra Canal, filled with the fresh scent of seafoam and the small comings and goings of seafarers, merchants and wharfers trying to make a living in the city. Widely reputed as one of the most unsavory and dangerous locations in all of Sota, the Lantern Ward is home to bawdy taverns, shady markets and dark, winding alleyways in which all manner of ruffians and no-goods lurk, waiting to relieve unsuspecting passerbyes of their valuables. A black network fuels the shadowed veins of the ward, made up of a dozen slippery Thieves' Guilds trying to make a living away from the prying eyes of the Greyblades. The majority of its residents live in, what Lanterners call 'the Gutter', a collective of lean-to’s, piers and derelict ship hulls lashed together along the riverbank to form a ramshackle neighborhood. Unlike the vast majority of settlements in Everen, Sota's Candle Ward is home to a sprawling network of churches, temples and shrines all of different faiths and religions, something the Empire doesn't take quite kindly to. Due to tensions of faith that build up here, a constant patrol of Greyblades monitor its steep cobbled banks, quelling any heretics and enemies to peace that turn violent. Indeed, the Candle Ward is replete with places of worship for all manner of divinity, the most famous being the House of Heroes' Valour, devoted to the Divine Protector of Archon, Solen, and major contact point for the Legion of the Nine Suns. The East Ward hosts the closest to what could be called a “middle class” in Sota, made up primarily of travelling merchants who have come to settle in the city. It's a common held belief that everybody living in the East Ward can trace their ancestry outside the city. An infamous rumour originates from the East Ward long ago, that tells of 'Hemlock Street' - a dark passageway cobbled with midnight blue stones and tiles that appears periodically in different places within the ward. Hemlock Street is said to claim the lives of any who choose to wander it at night, mysteriously disappearing as if they never existed in the first place. The Hill Ward isn't actually much of a ward, but more like one huge cemetery for the past residents of the city. The ward is decorated to be an enormous park full of grassy hills, beautiful flowers, dizzying architecture and carefully curated landscaping. The practice of burying the dead was abandoned long ago in Sota in favour of entombing them in mausoleums. Those who can afford it memorialize the departed with statues, resulting in an enormous open-air museum of all manner of spectacular sculpting, chief among them The Dragon's Bane Monument, depicting a 60 foot relief of the Great Wizard Sota the Grey banishing the Dragon Tyrant Dreiszejein during the Battle of Banrich Valley.

House of Heroes' Valour, Candle Ward

Guilds and Factions

Sota is home to many traders' guilds, political factions and religious sects, however, the real power belongs to those greedy enough to seize it: corrupt nobles, black network merchants and the many warring factions within city walls, the most infamous and notable of these being the Shadar-Kai crime syndicate Da'ernam Grye, ran by mastermind brothers Murdoch and Skeen. Though, unbeknownst to them, a hidden mob of dopplers who operate under the elusive Rakshasa, Ryokai, have long since seized the power from the Shadar-kai unnoticed and plan to reform the city as their own in what they call 'The Genesis Project' - an immediate danger to all inhabitants of the city.

History

The portals that the city's foundations are built on were first constructed over 15,000 years ago by a group of insanely powerful wizards of an age bygone, who first raised them in an attempt to banish the Great Dragon Tyrant Dreiszelhein during the First Age of Dragons. Whilst channelling their magics into the portal, Dreiszelhein discovered their plans and came down from Mount Gartavella to wreak havoc on their settlement. All but one died, the oldest and most resilient of the wizards: Sota the Grey. He stood his ground as the dragon breathed its great fire, but they didn't harm him. The dragon was powerless to stop the great wizard, and as he uttered the final words of his incantation, the valley erupted with brilliant light, and the dragon was no more, forever banished to another realm. Skalds would sing the song of Sota for centuries to come, and when the area was repopulated again by humans after they rediscovered Σu'ryxia, the city was named after the great wizard, and soon grew to live up to his legacy. becoming one of the most powerful and influential cities on the Alta-Nova Coast.

Tourism

A large portion of Sota's tourism derives from a festival they hold twice a year in the city coined the 'Carnival of Creations'. It is an event funded by the honourable artificer Auldron Feugelhaig in which the citizens of Sota build and feature a display of technological creations and inventions in a citywide parade, most of which are revealed from the first time during the festival. The inventions can range from the simplest small devices to enormous autonomous constructs. There are also marches made by members of the Warforged Legion Deus Ex Machina of Chronomachina, to celebrate the unification of the two cultures, worship of the Curator, and acceptance of the living constructs within the city. The Carnival of Creations runs twice a year, in the third weeks of Võrtamís and Ŋamís.