Stromguard
The Frozen City
What can I say about Stromguard? It is a living testament to the human will and a marvelous achievement. It also shows the human tendency towards stubbornness and fighting nature for survival. Anywhere in the Bruton Kingdom is a struggle for survival and it is no different in the nation's capital. They spend all summer carving out what farm and crop land they can, hunting, fishing, and stocking up for the brutal winter. They spend all winter mainly stuck inside and just waiting for the dawn to return. For someone like me, who grew up in the Great Forest of the Vaitis and it's perpetual summer my winter there was a nightmare.Stromguard is the capital of the Bruton Kingdom a small sparsely populated kingdom to the south of the Aeslurin Kingdom on Austros. Stromguards people are much like the rest of the Bruton, no nonsence, practical, and stubborn enough to survive in this harsh climate. They do a swift trade with the Grimguard Dwarves who seem to understand and even enjoy the weather. The members of other races who come here do so because of a mighty need for resources the Bruton have access to. Stromguard is also home to the fabled, Fekreth, Academy of Magic, a school for those who wish to master ice magic.
Defences
Much like the steam works near the center of the town, the Grimguard also taught the Bruton some of their skills at building strong defensive walls. Before the Dwarves came, the Bruton had only a palisade of wood around their fortress. The Grimguard, with some skill at predicting expansion as well, helped build a massively thick stone walls that are also heated by the steam works. On each rampart, they even have boilers which hold excess steam. In times of peace, these boilers are used to keep heat evenly distributed across the city but in times of war they can be weapons to unleash boiling hot steam on anything attempting to climb the walls. Output pipes are placed every 20 feet or so for strategic purposes and also if the steam is released it creates plenty of fog that will confuse and bewilder the Bruton's foe. This defense has only been used once in the last few centuries when a Horde from the Clans attempted to conquer the Stromguard.
Industry & Trade
There is a huge trade in natural resources, both mining and logging. The entire southern peninsula the Kingdom exists on is filled with hardy pine and oak trees that can withstand the cold. There are also a few mountains around, but even digging into the frozen earth there are deep veins of most common ores. All of the Kingdom's trade funnels through the capital as every other collection of people in the Kingdom could barely be called a village.
Amongst each other, however, currency is almost never exchanged. The Bruton tend to exist on a trade for trade basis and only deal in currency with outsiders.
Infrastructure
Near the center of the city is a large warehouse like building that is filled with a gigantic steam heat generator that carries heated steam through the pipes to all of the residences in the city. This provides free heating to most of the buildings and helps keep the roads clear of snow. In the extreme winters, tents are pitched and the homeless are allowed to stay near the walls of the building which give off enough heat to keep them warm.
History
Founded approximately 400 years ago, Stromguard was built to be more of a fortress than a capital town. It was originally meant to guard against the Aeslurin to the north and the Orc Clans to the east. The people there struggled greatly, a lot more than the smaller villages in the Kingdom, simply because of the sheer amount of resources it took to support so many people. Eventually they opened trade with the Grimguard, and taking a little pity on them the Grimguard taught them how to make the steam works at the center of the city. This invention, not much different than the Grimguard's own heating systems they implement in their country, helped Stromguard not only survive but thrive. For the last century, it has become a trade hub for those looking for raw resources for their trade as the small villages all over the kingdom bring their goods to Stromguard to be sold, so merchants from all over the world come to buy up tonnes of wood and ore to ship back to their kingdoms.
Architecture
The architecture is very viking inspired with a lot of the administrative and civil buildings being long houses. The long houses often have a small sign out front to let you know what purpose the building has. Other than that they are laid out practically the same with a single large room with people milling about and at least one official person at a desk.
Many of the private residences being covered turf houses so that the dirt, grass, and snow provides an extra layer of insulation, however, without the steam pipes radiating heat into each house people could still die of exposure to the cold in the winter.
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Author's Notes