Atovenem (At-toe-ven-nem)

Atovenem is a major city of the Final Choir of Vetevism, the mainland counterpart to the Holy Island of Ekanima. Ships from across Nafena sail here, drawn by the logistical needs of the choir and filled with trade goods. Selkie ships from distant Garadel arrive here in increasing numbers as well, bringing new peoples and ideas and goods. Even wizards from around the world have started to arrive, now that The Darzan University has opened an outpost here. Truly this city has ascended, going from a minor city to a port of significance in about a century. And it is still growing rapidly.
Now, Atovenem is a city of scholarship, commerce, and power. It is a center of learning, where bards across the Vetevic world aspire to go to. It is also the Nomic center of Vetevic political power; this is the most openly theocratic city in mainland Nomion, where the monarch's power wanes and the Choirmaster reigns supreme. Foreigners and heathens are welcome in the port, but must seek a faction's protection if they wish to settle inland - the people here see any failure to religiously and biologically assimilate as an attack on their very being. The conditions of the city's suburbs, diseased in parts and horrifically exploited in others, are blamed squarely on foreigners and heathens, and opportunity is culturally tied to evangelism and violence. Behold the gilded port, the laboratory of the New Age where Cosmic Heirs to the world will be born! Behold, the pilgrim's treasure, the destroyer of worlds!

Demographics

Around 100,000 humanoids live in Atovenem. The population is 95% Chorical, and 5% Other.

Government

Atovenem is the Nomic stronghold of the Final Choir, but it is technically ruled by an independent bureaucratically-selected mayor. Atovenem's mayor is Nominu Toukya, a capable administrator from an elite family. Nominu is more loyal to the Choir than to the Kingdom - they are a zealot known for their discipline and asceticism, who once sought to be a general of the choir's armies abroad. Nominu is quite loyal to Nomion's choirmaster, Suvatoi Foroba, who is also a native of Atovenem. Nominu has a masterful stranglehold over the politics and behind-the-scenes intrigue of the city, and has kept the power of the Choir supreme. Nominu's military training and connections also makes them a very effective leader of the Butterfly legionnaires and city militia. Unfortunately, his administrative skills falter when it comes to infrastructure - they truly believe that the final stage of evolution is imminent, and don't really prioritize long-term local sustainability. 
The Mayor has a number of officials underneath them, which manage fairly loose bureaucracies (that are flexible enough to both adjust quickly to any condition, and become horrible corrupt in the wrong hands). These are the Guard Captain, the Tax Overseer, the Captain of Trade, the Censor (who manages press censorship and local investigations into fraud), and the Captain of Waters (which manages infrastructure). Each primary official has a lieutenant for each district of the city, and then a number of local bureaucrats (or guardsmen) that do most of the actual work. Each office is overseen by the Mayor, who can fire, hire, or create new positions as they see fit. Unsurprisingly, the bureaucrats of the Choir tend to flutter between their own bureaucracy and these bureaucratic offices quite frequently, and the two sets of offices are closely interconnected.

Defences

Walls encircle the city's core and divide the elite districts from the common ones. The New Quarter and Mire are outside of these walls, though. A citadel sits in the Gilded District, and serves as the nerve center of the local garrison and the last line of defense for the city government. The defenses here aren't showstopping, but they are competently made.

Industry & Trade

Atovenem has a whole host of local trades, from weaving to brickmaking to metallurgy to carpentry. Much of this work is coordinated by small shops or workshops, but a few industries have larger-scale production going. Fire Termite oil farmed in the countryside is processed and bottled for shipping in the New Quarter, all organized on a large scale. Salt is mined from the hills near the Salt Quarter and boiled from seawater in large centers. Printing houses tend to be large and centralized. The carpentry trade is centered around two large sawmills on the coast, in the Salt Quarter and the New Quarter. 
More than industry, though, Atovenem has trade. Trade between Maltana and Nomion, trade between Nafena and Garadel, luxury trades using the Darzan University, cross-Nafena trade carried on Choir ships. And, for that trade, the city produces specialists as a kind of trade good: fully-literate clerks, capable bards, and accountants are all trained here in large numbers.

Infrastructure

The infrastructure of Atovenem has struggled to keep up with its recent growth. Over the last century and a half, the population has quintupled, and the city's geographic area has sprawled outwards. The influx of new money and new technologies has led to the city's commercial and elite cores being renovated to have better sewers and cleaner water, but the fringes of the city are essentially a free-for-all. While some coin has gone to improve these conditions, much of it has gone towards contractors (the mercenaries of bureaucrats), who have funneled the coin towards small pockets of effective infrastructure.

Districts

The Choral Keep: The Choral Keep is the only part of the city formally ruled by the Choir. This small section is largely bureaucrats, priests, and Butterfly Legion; it is an enclave of pure theocratic power. It is walled off from the rest of the city, and has its own dockyard. Once a city within a city, the Choral Keep is now the de-facto center of government, and other bureaucratic offices have moved close to its gates.   
The Gilded Quarter: The Gilded Quarter is the formal center of power, where the Mayor and the heads of office all reside. Elite pockets are ringed by servant's housing, and many of Atovenem's richest live here. Another walled district.
The Butterfly Port: The main port and harbor of Atovenem, a bustling commercial district with many markets. The most diverse district by culture, religion, and species, and the most tolerant towards outsiders. Small temples to Pratasam, Saraka, and Zihari line the port, welcoming visitors from the far East. Shrines to the Howling Melody, the greatest Leviathan of the Southern Great Ocean, operate openly here. The Guild of Beast-traders is headquartered here. 
The Old Quarter: The Old Quarter is the original core of the city, near the Butterfly Port. This is a residential district, but also a kind of temple district. Dozens to hundreds of very old temples and shrines dot the old Quarter, small pockets of old architecture hidden in all the new, larger buildings. These shrines and temples serve as a kind of pilgrim's tour for the faithful. The Guild of Weavers is based here.
The Academic Quarter: Another smaller, walled district, this time devoted entirely to schools, academies, printing houses, and libraries. This is the official intellectual hub of Atovenem, where students go to learn in an environment kept pure of outside influences. The printing houses are rather rowdy, and many students go there to indulge themselves, but the rest of the district is basically kept quarantined. Visitors seeking knowledge must either bribe the gate guards or get approval from the Censor's office. Anyone caught taking books in or out without a note of approval is subject to jail time or hefty fines. 
The Salt Quarter: The new counterpart to the Old Quarter, basically residential housing, shops, guild work, small markets, and fishing docks. The Guild of Carpenters and the Guild of Smiths are based here. 
New Quarter: The New Quarter is essentially mass developed land on the edge of the city, run by contractors known as Guarantors - people who manage properties for landlords and also license and approve renters. Essentially, if a renter fails to pay rent for a month, the Guarantor pays the owed sum to the landlord; they also often act as rent collectors and renter approval personnel. The Guarantor's Base is a powerful thing tied in deeply with the debt and debt collection infrastructure of the city and they basically privately run the New Quarter; they gather debt on tenants and then leverage that debt to compel them to work cheaply for businesses that partner with the Guarantors. Those who want cheap housing go here. On the bright side, there is also a booming entertainment scene here due to relaxed licensing - anyone can build anything here, and the landlords are very permissive as long as it pays, so all sorts of unusual shops and enterprises pop up here.
The Mire: The Mire is area near and in the swamp on the far side of town, which the rest of the city has avoided settling due to issues of disease. This has become a slum in the last century, a place for those unwilling or unable to live in the New Quarter.

Guilds and Factions

The Choir: The Final Choir of Vetevism is the greatest power player here. The Vetevic choir controls the local garrison, which is part of the Butterfly Legion, and exerts immense influence over the bureaucracy, the merchant elites, and the city guard. Conductor Petai Ketakori manages the local affairs when the Choirmaster is busy, and oversees the lesser priests of the city. The Conductor is a stable and generally mediocre leader, good at maintaining public order even if they are personally miserable at matters of trade and accounting (keeping them deeply dependent on the Choirmaster to run the more important elements of the city). 
The Cliques: Cliques are commercial groups tied to certain elite families (often nobility supported by rural holdings). Several families run cliques here in Atovenem; they compete and cooperate frequently, but rarely form long-lasted grudges or alliances with each other.

• The Foroba Family, a prominent family with very old ties to the Final Choir and with ties to the distant Kingdom of Sokuwa
• The Targo Family, a traditionalist family that makes an effort to distinguish itself from "common" merchants, with ties to the neighboring Kingdom of Maltana
• The Toukya Family, an old noble family that claims to be the descendants of the original monarchs of this patch of coast. The Toukya family is well known as patrons of the arts and as bards, and they have increasing ties to the Darzan University
• The Ketakori Family, a martial family with deep ties to the Nomic navy, and connections to the nobility of the distant kingdom of Aido.

The Bases: Nomic guilds are a common thing, but the greatest guilds are in a special legal and cultural class. These are the Bases - guilds that have special licenses, political power, and run "platform markets", typically tied to a temple or other large community building. These Bases are local, but they can have ties to other Bases. Base descriptions here will talk about structure, culture, and the politics of their leadership - they do not represent a monolith of opinion. Several prominent Bases operate in Atovenem:

• The Clerk's Base, a guild for clerks, accountants, and bureaucrats. Banned in many other cities, but legal here. The leadership of this Base is almost exclusively held by Choir loyalists. Their platform market is basically used by the Choir for overflow goods and services.
• The Printer's Base, a guild for print-workers of all stripes. This base is rowdy, semi-populist, and has a long-running grudge with the clerk's base. Their platform market sells books, pamphlets, and arts.
• The Beastmaster's Base, a base for all those who work with and trade beasts ranging from Sudraco and Flowyrms to horses and cows. Known for being decentralized, light on rules, and unusually open to foreigners
• The Carpenter's Base, a base for carpenters, shipwrights, wheelwrights, and other woodworkers. A traditionalist guild with lots of old rituals, that avoids politics and styles itself as semi-populist.
• The Smith's Base, a base for metalworkers of all stripes. The most overtly monarchist faction in Atovenem, that actively praises the monarchy over the Choir and acts as a voice of political dissent.
• The Weaver's Base, an extremely ambitious and somewhat domineering base, with lots of ranks and marks of status. A self-styled meritocracy, with very vicious internal politics. Overtly religious, with growing xenophobic elements.
• The Guarantor's Base, a guild of contractors who serve as property managers, debt collectors, and lenders. Deeply unpopular with the majority of the population. Their platform market mostly sells repossessed property.

The Pressbarons: The pressbarons are those who are approved by the Censor to run printing houses, and they are the gateway between aspiring journalists, artists, and authors, and the general public. There are a number of pressbarons, who are tied to a number of factions, and they represent an additional layer of power rather than a unified group.
The Choral Deans: The council of deans of the Choral Academy are influential bards with increasing political power. In the late 1980s, they connected the Academy to the Darzan University, and they now act as the middlemen between the city at large and the wider world of luxuries and technologies accessible by the teleportation network. They also control how many bards get trained and to what quality, making them powerful on their own terms - but until they started playing at merchants, they mostly avoided politics altogether.
The Jellimperial Outpost: The Grand Jellicle Imperium is an empire among cats in the very far West of Nafena. While their base of power is in distant Tamuko, many of their ambitious heirs are sent out with bards to conquer other influential cat areas. One such group arrived a few decades ago here in Atovenem, hitching a ride on the trade route to the Highest Choir. This Jellicle Outpost is small and isolated, loyal to the Imperium in name only. These cats are instead loyal to Young Septagent, an Imperial Heir and master conjurer in one who led this imperial expedition as a kind of political exile from his homeland. The Jellimperials have conquered Atovenem, bending the strays to their will and destroying the neighboring clans - all cats are either Jellicles, Jellicle Thralls (known as light-ee-lives or lightilives), or resistance cats. Young Septagent has even made contact with the humanoids and traded gold in their markets, and is the owner of the grandest theater in the city.
The Hikan Infiltrators: Cultists and assassins of the Order of Quiet loyal to Hiku Matsune. Once a powerful force here, the infiltrators have been reduced to a small hideout with only a few people - the current Mayor has thoroughly decimated their group.

History

Old History

Atovenem had humanoid settlement dating back many centuries before its formal founding, but the city as we know it began in 290 ME, when the legendary Vetevic prophet Mizubotay founded the city as the mainland counterpart to the new temple at Ekanima. Atovenem was arguably the true political and economic heart of the Final Choir during these early centuries, and it grew to great sizes thanks to food imports and countless victorious expeditions abroad. But, over time, power shifted from Atovenem to more sustainable river cities to the West - notably, the city of Janalo, the current capital of Nomion. This slow trickle of lost power became a flood when new naval technology allowed for safe and speedy naval journeys from Janalo to Ekanima. Atovenem stopped being necessary as a port connection for the sacred island of Ekanima and the rising political power in Nomion dragged the Choir's power Westward. By keeping the Choir's offices and laboratories in Janalo and other river cities, the monarchs of Nomion could keep the Choir's power closer to them. Atovenem shrank. During the civil wars of the 1200s, Atovenem was also right on the border between the warring factions of Maltana and Nomion, and the city was looted evacuated, and almost left to ruin except for a supply depot sending food to Ekanima. 
In the religious re-awakening of the 1400s, Atovenem became a center of pilgrimmage and resettlement by new religious movements. The war of 1450 between Maltana and Nomion did put a damper on this return to power, but Atovenem never reached the levels of abandonment seen in the early 1300s again. The reforms of the 1650s saw a major resurgence in Atovenem's population and influence, as the cheap land and symbolic power of the city made it a major fixation of the new theocratic regime. The city became an academic town, a safe and insulated place where scholars could be trained and texts could be stored. It also became a useful military base against Maltana (protected by the Choir, but still Nomic enough to store troops). And so, Atovenem slowly grew.

Modern History

The city became politically important again in the 1850s, when the new monarchies of Nomion began their secularization of the kingdom. Atovenem's close proximity to the Choir's elite made it a natural bastion for them, and the city emerged as a hub of the religious faction. More and more Choral activity drew more trade (and then people) to the city over the 1800s. When a new governmental branch was given to the Choirmaster in 1913, Atovenem became their seat of power. The wealth and population of the city skyrocketed again. The Choral Academy grew in size and prestige. And then, in 1955, Atovenem got even luckier: the selkie trade arrived, and Atovenem sat almost perfectly as a gateway to Garadel. New money, new technologies flooded in. The social chaos introduced by this sudden change also drew people to the Choir - to the city of the Choir. In the late 1980s, The Darzan University also threw their hat in the ring and partnered with the Academy of Atovenem's bards. A whole new kind of international cultural and technological exposure began, much more limited in scope but also much more extreme. Atovenem has started a new golden age - though not everyone has profited equally.

Points of interest

The Chrysalis Cathedral Complex: The Chrysalis Cathedral is one of the largest temples of the Final Choir, a monumental artistic and architectural achievement that symbolizes the power that the Choir has in Nomion. This is the center of the local choir administration, filled with priests, bureaucrats, and Choir Agents. It is said that, in the labyrinthine complex below the Cathedral, strange magical and chemical experiments are undertaken to further perfect the Chorical species. In the Choral Keep.
The Choral Academy: The Choral Academy of Atovenem is the largest and most prestigious bardic university currently in operation, ever since the prior greatest school of bardism (the Hikan academy of Yahati Cove) was looted in 1945 and its scholars and resources were split between many different academies across the Orishan world. Even with the looting of Yahati Cove, the Academy had only a slim lead over it until they partnered with The Darzan University in the late 1980s. This partnership has flooded the Academy with money and ideas, allowing it to flourish in the last few decades. Now the Choral Academy of Atovenem has become the bardic university of Nafena. The Choral Academy is where most Vetevic bards aspire to attend - it has the greatest resources, the greatest teachers, and the most prestige. Researchers here are also kept close to the Choir to help with their eugenics program. In the Academic Quarter.
The Grand Bathhouse: The Grand Bathhouse is the oldest, largest, and most elaborate public bathhouse in the city. Once a public accommodation, it is now a paid luxury with beautiful décor and plenty of services (such as food, clothes washing, and music chambers). This Bathhouse has it all - heated spa rooms, salons, and a large gymnasium. In the Old Quarter.
The Merchant's Academy of Nomion: The Merchant's Academy at Nomion is a school to teach merchants and noble children the arts of business, administration, accounting, and foreign culture and technologies. It is a great place to network, but it is more than a place for wealthy scions to mingle - it is a Vetevic institution that aspires to analyze as many foreign cultures as possible and tactically integrate their useful practices and ideas, to both elevate the True Culture and arm their merchant-adventurers with as much knowledge as possible to trade and evangelize abroad. In the Academic Quarter. 
The Heaviside Theater: The Heaviside Theater is the largest and most elaborate theater in Atovenem, an engineering marvel capable of adapting itself to just about any performance - opera, plays, puppet shows, wrestling, music, dances. The standard performances here tend to be elaborate puppet shows in the Western style, where the puppets can be even larger than people in some instances. Many of these puppets (especially the smaller ones) are operated by cats. Cats own this theater, operate its more sensitive machinery, and rule it like a fief. This is the stronghold of the Atovenem Jellicles, who rule the cats of this city (though the humanoids don't particularly notice this). While some worry that these cats are agents of the the Way of Brambleshanks, the Choir has protected them from xenophobia and religious fears - some cats whisper that the Jellicles have purchased their safety by helping collect cats for the Choir to experiment on. The Theater is in the New Quarter.

Founding Date

290

Type

City

Population

100,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Atovenic

Location under

Nafena

Owning Organization

Sacred Kingdom of Nomion