Castillon (cah-still-on)

The city of Castillon is a sprawling metropolis and capital city of Oestbernia. It is one of the most populous cities in the entirety of Ayndrinor and also one of the more technologically advanced -- rivaling but not quite surpassing Kort in that regard. A good portion of the city exists to support and run the bureaucracy that the nation relies on, though there are many other industries and professions.
The city was established in the fifth century of the Second Age, making it a fairly young city. Settlers from foreign areas were scouting the vast plains looking for a suitable place to found a new city. They came upon a large plain where the Castillon River meets the Frozen Strait, an area that should be able to support a massive population center. That the area was unsettled suggested to many that a First Age supercity had existed here and its demise in The Smiting had left the area blank and ready for a new city.
From its founding, Castillon has been rapidly growing, always able to attract new citizens with its bountiful farmland and plentiful jobs. This made the kingdom that sprang up in the city very powerful, and it was able to expand and rule over much of the plains between the Castillon and Toldrun rivers despite it not being located centrally to this area. This kingdom came into conflict with its neighbors regularly over the centuries, conquering its northern neighbor of Nordtvein around 500 years ago. These new territories brought new migrants to Castillon, helping it grow ever larger.
The change from empire to republic has only helped Castillon continue to grow, as the new National Council and its vast support network were located here. The entire "Old City" area has been remade to accommodate the Senate building and housing for all levels of bureaucrats that are needed to keep the government running, though it is open to all other inhabitants of the city, as the rest of the city is open to the Old City denizens.

Demographics

Castillon has historically been almost entirely human, though the consecutive centuries of growth have brought other races and peoples, whittling this human majority down to about 65% currently. There are also significant halfling and gnomish populations, not to mention elves and huundari which also have small enclaves in the city. Even a few goliath have settled in the city from their usual tundra homes north of Nordtvein.
The city of Castillon is so large and established that many industries exist just to support the city itself: smiths, masons, carpenters, streetsweepers, grocers, etc. These industries are supported by a robust agricultural infrastructure located all around the city, as well as a vast caravan network that brings goods from all over the kingdom. The city is clearly stratified into roughly four different wealth classes: the impoverished, the modest working class, the comfortable middle class, and the elites. Contrary to what one might expect, the members of the National Council tend to be middle class, unless they were aristocratic themselves before joining the government. Many workers in the various service and manufacturing industries are part of the modest working class, which means they can comfortably afford housing and food but do not have much excess money for luxury and finery. The impoverished lower classes are usually found in large tenements, living in small flats provided by charities or the city's government; many others are simply homeless and sleep in a room only when they can afford the nightly rate after paying for food and drink. The aristocrats of the city mostly live in their large estates on the city's outskirts or slightly smaller estates in certain wealthy neighborhoods -- and by and large want very little to do with the Senate or the levers of government.

Government

The citizens of Castillon elect their mayor every 5 years, at the same time they elect members of the National Council. This mayor is given autonomy in their decisions and policies that affect the city, but the city's five members of the National Council can overrule any of the mayor's laws with a 4-1 majority. This arrangement is customary for the entire nation, intended as an extra layer of security for the electorate to ensure their wishes are being followed. In practice, the members of the National Council rarely weigh in on policies in their hometowns, though most tend to follow these proposals closely.
Also elected every five years are five City Advisors, who oversee various aspects of the city: housing, roads, sewers, food and drink (also called public health), and business/entrepreneurship. These advisors oversee their specific area by coordinating with several different guilds, which themselves have quasi-government status (for the city's guilds, use the list from Waterdeep: Dragon Heist as a fairly accurate guide). The guilds are responsible for overseeing their respective industries and workers, making sure all are working safely and honestly, and they also take the workers' concerns to the city government. While they are not explicitly part of the government, these guilds play a massive part in ensuring the city runs efficiently and have a good reputation for taking care of their workers while also helping the government enforce necessary standards.

Defences

The city of Castillon has had three different external walls in its relatively short history, but its continuous rapid growth has left all of these obsolete, and now the former walls exist mostly to divide the city into various neighborhoods and areas. Only the innermost wall remains wholly intact, with the others having been partially dismantled here and there as needed for the city to continue building and expanding. The last few years have seen a variety of proposals to build a new perimeter wall to protect from unspecified future threats, but the vast farmland surrounding Castillon that would have to be included inside this perimeter renders these proposals too ridiculous for serious consideration.
In lieu of formal walls, Castillon has several Watch barracks spread throughout the city's neighborhoods, as well as a formal military fort on the northeastern side of the town, bordering the river. This fort houses about 5,000 troops who are highly trained and make up the vast majority of the nation's standing army. These troops are a mix of infantry, scouts, and cavalry, all of them passing on their knowledge to future generations of soldiers, though the nation has not seen a major war in several centuries. The most common deployment of these soldiers is to smaller towns on the plains that have been hit by roving bands of goblins, gnolls, giants, or other creatures. They are in charge of guarding the towns while they are rebuilt and hunting down the perpetrators to make sure it doesn't happen again.
The port facilities are defended by defensive towers placed roughly every half mile, with one arcane cannon and one gunpowder cannon on each. These towers are manned by a separate contingent of the nation's military, the Artillerists, who watch the port facilities and coastlines of all coastal settlements. Between pirates, occasional sea monsters, and the odd Inquisition ship that gets too bold, these port watchers do not see too much regular action, though they stay on alert just in case.

Infrastructure

In many regards, Castillon is one of the most advanced cities in the world. The vast majority of roads are paved and well maintained, with the exception of a few roads near the city's exterior farmland -- and even those have plans to be paved in the near future. There is a vast sewer network under the city, which drains all waste into the Frozen Strait several miles away from the city. Clean water is pulled from the Castillon River and a sprawling network of wells around the city. The shipyards and port facilities are also massive and fairly sophisticated, with cranes that can handle more weight than average and a series of carts on rails to help carry goods from one area to another.
Several public squares in the city have clock towers, developed with guidance from the experts in Kort. Several taverns and inns, as well as the Senate building, have begun to use boiler rooms and pipes to spread heat throughout the rooms instead of maintaining many fireplaces and hearths. These are fed by coal and wood from the Northern Forest that is mined or felled and then transported to Castillon. Similarly, several mills in the city run on power generated by this coal or by watermills situated on the Castillon River.
More than most other cities in Ayndrinor, Castillon resembles early Industrial or Steampunk era technology, where coal-burning and steam-powered machines are beginning to proliferate into many areas and aspects of life.

Architecture

Many buildings in Castillon are built in Spanish styles, with more intricate designs reserved -- as expected -- for government buildings and temples. These tend to utilize the Spanish Renaissance style of brick or plaster exteriors with roofs made of red tiles. The estates and manors of the wealthy tend to be more sprawling than stacked and lean toward Spanish Gothic style with the Islamic influence of central courtyards and plastered decor. Smaller, more modest homes have brick or adobe exteriors, with the same red tile roofs of the larger buildings. These red tiles are made in the area surrounding Castillon from the red soil found therein.

Founding Date

467 2A

Type

Capital

Population

55,348

Inhabitant Demonym

Castillons

Owning Organization

Oestbernia