Vitayla

The hills and valleys around Vitayla are marked by the glow of hundreds of watchtowers and outposts radiating out from the city. The military presence surrounding the city is enormous, with regular patrols stopping merchant convoys, travelers, and farmers they see on the road before marching on. Small towns dot the farming and herding communities, everywhere brandishing the royal banner of the tree-and-serpent.
The road to Vitayla seems designed to invoke terror and majesty. The Hilltop city looms over the farming valley, the massive Serpentine Gates framed like an approaching maw. The castle at the top of the hill- the Royal Citadel- rises above it all, spires like knives pointed at heaven. Taking the Northern road is even more ominous, as the valley has been largely appropriated for military holdings: labor camps hauling supplies and lumber and ore, new recruits in training, smoke rising in columns from the Northern smelters. The Northern end of that Valley bears its own citadel, the Kilkova, a fortress hewn into the mountain watching over the quarries and mines below.
Entering through the ornately decorated Serpentine Gates of the South, the Fire Gates of the East, the Bat Gates of the West, or the Tree Gates to the North, one finally enters the City of Paradise. The defenses seem to stop once inside the city walls, and aesthetic takes over. Vine covered apartments overlook public gardens. Stone houses with tile roofing often sit atop or beside small artisan workshops, proudly bearing the Martial-Guild seal of their trade. Public fountains adorned with the Goddess Iadra sit at the center of every public square, as small markets cater to each district's needs, selling clothes, food, wine, tools, and luxuries. Street vendors sell dryad foods such as Spiced bakeroot rolls as well as human dumplings and vesper fruit tarts and honeyed crickets. The city smells like flowers, which bloom along the avenues- marking Vitayla as one of the best smelling cities in the Northern hemisphere.
The refinement of Vitayla should not be mistaken for relaxation. The air is tense. Strange, unspoken rules dominate the behavior of the residents. Vespers clad in grey with crossbows and rapiers as well as humans in ornate Desmian-style armor carrying halberds patrol the streets. Humans not in armor often wear green caps and jackets bearing the tree-and-snake and seem to be in a hurry. Outsiders seem to be avoided entirely, conversations quieting as newcomers approach. Status is everywhere, with careful public decorum marking every interaction between races or classes. The castle watches all here. And the bright Gem-iron armor and tools so common here reflects the fate of those who fail to live up to the Paradise City.

Demographics

Of the 16,500 Humanoids living in Vitayla, 75% are Dryad, 10% are Human, 10% are Vesper, 3% are Kobold, 1% is Prism

Government

Vitayla is a very centralized city. The Steward of Vitayla makes all executive decisions and is usually one of the Court Favorites of the Mathari Ursha. The city's population is represented in turn by the Guild Hall, which elects one of the Three Guild Martials of Mathari. These Guild Martials coordinate the Incorporated Military Guilds on the empire and manage urban production and employment. Non-dryad needs are mostly managed by the Imperial Taskmaster, who has a seat in city government and is elected by the local non-dryad population.

Defences

The Grand Restoration of 1690 included the renovation of the infamous gated walls. Large, imposing, armed, and entirely untested, the walls and gates are functional but kept up more for show. The true defenses of Vitayla lie in its surrounding area- the network of watchtowers, outposts, and military bases that allow Vitayla to control the surrounding countryside with absolute vigilance and force. The Ursha-hold castle of the city and the Kilikov fortress to the North are most prepared for a real siege, and are always bristling with weapons and troops. Admittedly this is more in fear of palace coup than external attacks, but it would put any Orthodox invaders to pause.

Industry & Trade

Vitayla produces a great deal of textiles, glasswork, ink, Gem-iron products, printed goods, and mechanical luxuries such as clocks. The most important products of Vitayla are not goods but people: officers, administrators, wizards, druids, lawyers, doctors, engineers, merchants, and teachers for the rest of the empire. A good half the population was not born here and will not die here, but is here for training and status before inevitably being deployed in some other part of the Empire.
Most humans living in Vitayla are permanent residents- the famous "greencaps", or public servants of the Ursha. These servants curate the gardens, clean the sewers, manage the plumbing, do construction, and deliver messages. Technically unpaid servants or imperial slaves, greencaps manage most of their own affairs in democratic fashion- electing their own "taskmasters" who in turn nominate a candidate for the Ursha to make "imperial taskmaster". Greencaps receive education, guaranteed public services, and are often paid in "charitable" wages from the imperial palace.

Infrastructure

The city has undergone amazing waves of renovation by a dozen Ursha- the most impressive being the installation of engineered sewer systems in 1490, the foundation of the plumbing system in 1570, and the Grand Restoration of 1690 celebrating the end of the Crimson Death. Besides these pushes, constant little efforts have gone into making Vitayla a city worth living in. Now there is a robust plumbing and sewage system, public gardens, cobblestone roads, chimney systems, public baths and laundries, and a series of very beautiful decorated walls designating what castes live where.

History

Vitayla was originally a small hold-town belonging to the Nevira tribe- a Mathari clan that had wandered into the Feywilds pre-sanctification and settled in the Northern feywilds to trade with their non-fey federates to the West. Vesper tribes migrating from the South fought and traded with the Nevira. One such Vesper group - the Aspinar- conquered the Nevira in the 320s. The Aspinar united dryad and vesper alike under the warlord Urala, who ultimately launched an invasion of the Mathari in 370. Urala was killed and her coalition broken, but the use of Vitayla as a base of operations made the city a vital treaty-and-warcouncil location of the Northern Feywilds. In 410, one of the prominent young Dryad warriors of the Nevira named Koval gathered a Feywild coalition to press his own claim to the crumbling Mathari Empire. He succeeded, making Vitayla the Mathari capital in 412.
The Second Empire of 412-550 put Vitayla on the map as a real city. The tribute extracted from Mathari fueled great renovations and construction, and Feywild tribes gathered around the city as a trade hub. Even after the Second Empire began collapsing in 550, Vitayla retained control of the Northern Feywilds. The Third Empire simply never took Vitayla, which operated as a Feywilds city-state from 557 to 640. The massacre of Vitaylan diplomats in Reaketh set Vitayla aflame- their funerals in the summer of 640 became a war council, planning a grand campaign of vengeance. The raids of the city turned into an all-out invasion. Kovinia, sister of one of the dead and organizer of the funerals, seized control of Vitayla with minimal resistance before turning her energy towards the West. In 643, she founded the Fourth Empire.
The Fourth Empire remade Vitayla into a "true city" with proper roads, walls, and an organized grid layout. The city was beautified, made to be a living example of the Gardens of Paradise. This proved to be a very expensive and difficult process, and the increasingly persecuted human population was pressed into service to maintain these improvements in 800- forming what would become the Greencaps. The city was set aflame and almost destroyed by the civil war of 1100, leaving it greatly reduced at the dawn of the Fifth Empire.
Vitayla became a subkingdom of the Mathari Ursha during the Fifth empire, though it quickly drifted away with the Northern feywilds over time. As the Fifth empire sought to reaffirm its Okinan connections with trade agreements, Vitayla became a Dusk Travelers outpost- and flourished. Infamous for raiding even Mathari lands, the Aspet of Vitayla rose again as a figure to be feared.
Efforts by desperate Mathari Urshas to undermine the Aspet led to an escalation in Guild power. Guilds gathered together under the Dusk Traveler monopoly began electing Guild Martials to manage raiding- and expand their own power. The Guild Martial of Vitayla began challenging Dusk Traveler domination in the early 1400s; by the 1450s, the Guild Martial was able to openly flaunt power over the Aspet by imprisoning the royal steward. So when Nefira, a prodigy glassblower, rose to the top of the glassblowers guild, she was accidentally entering the halls of power. She quite enjoyed her powers sitting at the Guild Hall, and through manipulation and good luck seized absolute control and elected herself Guild Martial in 1468. When the Fifth empire collapsed in 1475, the Aspet of Vitayla tried to centralize power and put forth their own bid for emperorship. The Aspet failed dramatically, and most candidates sighed in relief that Vitayla was no longer in the running. They did not suspect that Nefira, the glassblower and guild master, had the real army. They were quite surprised when she took over- and in 1479 she was Ursha.
Nefira began a Sixth Empire tradition of demonstrating power by renovating Vitayla. She gave rights to the Greencaps as part of her bid for absolute power, and fashioned the city into the heart of Mathari imperial power. This has only escalated; even the Crimson Death outbreak of 1685-1690 did little to break the city's dominance. The University of Vitayla, founded by Kobold emigres in 1680 for wizarding purposes, has grown to include law, natural science, philosophy, medicine, engineering, architecture, bardism, and druidism.

Type

City

Population

16,500 Humanoids; 200 Cats

Inhabitant Demonym

Vitalan

Location under

The Feywilds