Tezitkal
The road to Tezitkal is a broad avenue through a great sea of golden wheat. Farmers, brewers, and ranchers can be been on occasion, and estates and villages are frequent sights on the road in. The walls of the city rise in the distance from these endless fields, with a backdrop of forested hills in the distance.
Outside the stone walls and gates, traveler's lodges and stables surround a small, informal market selling apples, pumpkins, and yams. The gate guards laugh among themselves and check only the larger caravans, while their captain sips coffee from a clay mug and reads a cheap-papered book. This sleepy atmosphere permeates the city. There are few clocks, only the clocktower on the government forum. The central market is broken into three, to even out traffic, and the city sprawl has space for large community gardens that are fields in their own right. Large schools serve as neighborhood centers, and rural families send their children to attend. Some of these children even have their own 'outsider's blocks': apartment-farm blocs where outside kids are housed, fed, and worked.
The central part of town is the closest you're going to find to hustle and bustle, with the three market squares, brewer's-tavern, central temple, and forum. The Keepers of Olkum and Guardians of Hokzin both have large buildings here as well.
Tezitkal is one of the "Five Great Towns of Ayeto", though it has grown to be a small city demographically. While it is theoretically one of the great urban centers of Ayeto, it is the sleepiest, smallest, and most remote of these - and closest to the rugged and unsettled hills.
Demographics
Government
The Mayor of Tezitkal is elected every fifteen years and acts as the town's chief executive. Any major permanent changes in local law require approval of the local priests and town elders, but the mayor has a great deal of short-term power. The council of elders meets during times of crisis as well as every six months. The current Mayor is Kitchek Zeheno, a cynical old Dryad that is well connected with the big moneyed cliques.
Outside of the elected mayor and oligarchs, the town's priests also have their own council with a great deal of government influence.
Tezitkal, as one of the Five Great Towns of Ayeto, has significant influence over the Ayetan government.
Defences
Teziktal's defenses are nothing to be sneered at: large stone walls with mounted cannon surround the city, and the forum and temple are both built to theoretically act as miniature defenses with their own mortar-cannon placements. Large granaries and many wells allow the city to weather a siege for possibly even years, and a Guardians of Hokzin fortress sits in the nearby hills.
Industry & Trade
Tezitkal has a number of small workshops for weavers, tanners, cobblers, pulpers (for parchment), candlemakers, carpenters, and more. It doesn't have anything in the way of mega-workshops or factories. The breweries are large though, and it does have extremely large bakeries to mass produce food for export. Large mills operate in and around the city, attracting farmers from around the region. And printing presses are here, meaning that all printing in the region goes through here.
The markets here are welcoming and even foreign merchants are given free lodging and storage to encourage trade. The markets tend to boom seasonally, as the end-of-harvest farmer's markets are major events. The city hosts large festivals and produce competitions to encourage these harvest markets, and times their annual Ikutyun or Beer-fest to best attract tourism during the fall harvest market.
Infrastructure
Tezitkal has semi-open sewers that run to a garbage and fertilizer pit at the edge of town. It has excellent irrigation, and the nicer buildings even have running water.
Guilds and Factions
The Council of Elders and mayor both run the local Bureau of Abundance, clerks who manage the daily movement of necessities such as food, medicine, water, and tools.
Significant surplus goods are organized through the Bureau to the Merchant's Commune. The Tezitkal Merchant's Commune has its headquarters in the central part of town. They run the markets and the General Stores. Smaller surpluses not worth giving to the Commune directly are sold at the market, though every community member has a right to exchange their smaller surplus for goods at the general stores. Individual merchants within the commune earn their place in the hierarchy by running parcels of trade goods out of Tezitkal to other cities and towns for trade.
The mills here (of which there are ten) are run by priests (with officially appointed millers managing the day-to-day) and also work as small-loan banks.
History
Tezitkal has been around for a long time, though it hasn't always been this size. It started as a small mill-town many centuries ago, and grew over time as a place where hill-shepherds and farmers met and traded goods. The town rose in the 800s and 900s ME. It was at its peak in the late 900s and then again in the 1700s, but it has been hardest hit during times of war. As the most rural and isolated of Ayeto's cities, Tezitkal has always been a target for raiders and armies. The Calazan in the late 1800s was particularly bad: guerilla fighters hid in the nearby hills, and Calazen used Tezitkal as a based of operations to wage a terrible war of extermination against the hill-towns. Tezitkal's fortifications were improved, but the town withered and shrank. It wasn't until the 1970s that Tezitkal really recovered, and even then the population hasn't returned to 1700s levels. The hills have gone from being friendly territory to bandit-infested ruins. It seems likely that Tezitkal will never return to its former glory as long as the hills remain like this, and the city has accepted that and done its best with what it has.
Tourism
Tezitkal has a number of holidays and festivals that draw in people from the countryside, from the running of the Fox-initiates at the New Year, to the summer flower-dance. But the thing that draws in tourists from out of Ayeto is the Ikutyun, or beer-festival, in mid-fall. The Ikutyun is technically more of an all-alcohol's day and is sometimes known as All-Booze Day, but Ayetan beer is the most popular and abundant beverage. Every Ayetan city has an Ikutyun fair (and the other four of the Big Five are all larger fairs than Tezitkal's), but Tezitkal has its specific audience: cityfolk from other parts of Ikatlan/the Suneka that want a slice of "rural hospitality". Sunekan hipsters seeking folk music and less competition for brews prefer Tezitkal, and the city has opened up an art fair for their Ikutyun to better cater to them. These art fairs were met with skepticism initially, but the locals have made them their own over the last few years.
Architecture
Tezitkal has blocky architecture, with an emphasis on sharp corners. The buildings tend to start wood here and be slowly replaced with stone and concrete over generations, so you can tell the age of a building by its composition. The big, important buildings are more elaborate, with steps, arches, and domes.
Geography
Tezitkal sits on a spring at the base of the nearby hills, where the developed plains meet the wilds.
Founding Date
790 ME
Type
City
Population
8,000 to 10,000
Inhabitant Demonym
Tezetkalan
Location under
Owning Organization
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