Kraticium
Kraticium is a populous and prosperous Shin city located at the southern tip of the Apps Mountains, that was originally founded as a mining colony by the Jakonian Empire. The prosperity of the city has faded in recent years, along with the fortunes of its resident university. As the borders of the Shin Empire have continued to tighten, Kraticium has been left out in the cold, largely alone to its own devices. Responsible for the management of defenses against the Kingdom of Bamard, the rulers of the city have been forced to close the borders to trade, and send more and more men and material into the hinterland of the Apps Mountains. With even the citizens of Kraticium less and less welcome in the interior, the city has begun to attempt to eke out greater self-sufficiency and independence over the past few decades.
Demographics
Kraticium is a border city, and consists of predominantly Shin humans, but not a majority. A substantial part of the population are descendants or recent migrants from the Kingdom of Bamard or the Sypi Confederacy. Bamardis make up over thirty percent of the populace and maintain close ties to their old homes and culture, chafing against the increasingly restrictive border controls.
Government
As with most Shin territories, the city of Kraticium is managed by a legate, specifically one of the Immortals of House Bede. The Legate oversees all affairs of the city and the surrounding countryside, appointing magistrates and other officials to manage situations as they occur. The legate has ample flexibility and autonomy from the hinterland, and levies taxes and soldiers as they are required. In Kraticium this has been expanded as the legate has allowed independent representation of minorities such as Bamardis in advisory posts to his government. The legate selects neighborhood and district representatives to enact his own will, when required and to inform him of any growing concerns or issues among the masses.
Defences
The Eleventh Legion is the primary defensive unit of Kraticium and the surrounding countryside. A fully equipped legion, they have unfortunately been forced to recruit from local citizenry only, and therefore have begun to rely more and more upon auxiliaries and forced labor from prisoners. Their equipment is quite old and out of date, with only a handful of selected elites to serve as the Legate's bodyguard. The weapons consist mostly of handcrafted local gear or even aging captured Jakonian weaponry from the Great War. The town can muster a militia of around 1,400 people if Kraticium came under direct threat of invasion.
The city wall is in a similarly sorry state to the Eleventh, with portions of it dating back to prior to the Great War. Designed by Jakonian military engineers, the walls were once fairly impressive, but were badly damaged during the war. Token attempts to repair and restore it were made after the city was annexed by the Shin Empire, but ultimately all they did was rebuild the wall itself with none of the built in arrow slits, or defenses. In places, the stone is so unsteady, sentries cannot even walk atop it. The city rests entirely within the walls, as it has diminished from the size and importance it had at the height of the Jakonian Empire.
Industry & Trade
The industry of Kraticium has by necessity been focused on achieving self-sufficiency and accommodating local demands. Therefore the city and its environs produce everything from iron goods to agricultural products to lumber. All of these goods are sold within the city itself, and only a stream of gold and taxes depart for the treasuries of the Empire. Despite the lack of trade and support from the hinterland of the empire, the Kraticites regularly trade with the town of Minorium and provide food and support to the legions stationed at Gladium Hold and Testimonium Hold. The two fortresses are some of the largest consumers of Kraticite goods, and one of the key sources of what income the city achieves.
Infrastructure
Kraticium boasts the same quality of living as much of the rest of the Shin Empire, including sophisticated plumbing, paved roads, and an intricate sewer system to eliminate waste from homes and streets. As with most Shin cities, there existed a unifying automated trolley system that provided transport around the city for all citizens in large numbers. However, the tracks for these and the trolleys themselves proved difficult to maintain and have been allowed to fall by the wayside. Today only a single trolley remains in operation, servicing the wealthier districts alone.
The city also possesses an increasing self-sufficiency in material production, with numerous local industries allowing the city to survive on its own. These include lumber mills, forges, and numerous farms and mines in the surrounding hillsides. All of these are connected by well maintained roads, usually worked by prisoners captured from orc and goblin raiders from the Confederacy. The roads and bridges in town have therefore fallen into relative disrepair when compared to other Shin cities, as more primitive construction techniques have had to be used. Erosion and other factors have caused maintenance costs to rise considerably, and in some poorer outskirts, the roads have been allowed to be stripped away into dirt roads instead.
Assets
Kraticium is well known for its well supplied marketplace, but with the closure of international trade to the south, most of the goods and services are offered only to local business and citizens. Technically it is illegal to sell to foreigners in the marketplace, but these regulations are ignored for the most part, and the city is fairly welcome to travelers who find their way across the border. This occasionally has been exploited, as the legate and his men will use these laws to arrest those they view as enemies or rivals, and will imprison travelers on the slightest provocation.
Points of interest
The University of Kraticium is of course one of the primary points a visitor to the city may find interest in. The University of Kraticium once possessed the largest collection of Apps relics in all of Emicara. The outbreak of the Great War and the liberation of Kraticium in 818 by the Shin Empire led to the looting of many of these treasures by the Shin and Jakonians alike. Many of their old relics were returned to the Imperial University in the south before the invasion or taken instead to Novanass. The University recovered for a time with the return of foreign students after the war, particularly from Bamard, and made good with new funds. Unfortunately, the closure of the border in 999 has also led to many of the professors and most experienced students being transferred to the college in Novanass, rather than remaining here. Only the Arts department remains at full strength.
The second place that attracts study and observation is the crater that gives the city its name. A massive crater stands at the center of the city, with a diameter of nearly a half mile. Kept as a park, it has since been overgrown with trees and footpaths that allow the people of the city to use this as a place of meditation and relaxation. No one knows how the crater was created, but it is believed to have once been the original location of the settlement before it expanded in the centuries to follow. During the Jakonian Empire, a cathedral to the One Sun was constructed here, but it has been since converted into a Shinist temple.
Founding Date
416 AF
Alternative Name(s)
Craterville
Type
City
Population
28,000
Inhabitant Demonym
Kraticite
Location under
Owner/Ruler
Owning Organization
Characters in Location
Comments