Vruhafen (Vroo-hah-fen)
Sailing along the Stildanian coast where the Suress river meets the open sea, the lush countryside of Hain rises to support Vruhafen. Great white-grey walls rise around the city with menacing towers and ballistae, and the spires and walls of other fortifications peak out behind them. A bustling port sits at the river delta, full of great foreign trading caravels, river barges, and small fishing boats. Rich green farmland sits on either side of the river, and hundreds of small interconnected fishing villages cling along the Southern bank of the Suress, across from the great jewel of Hain.
Entering into the city through port or road, the broad avenues are welcoming and well-paved and the gates and walls are bristling with murder-holes and nasty traps primed for bloodshed. Hainish green banners are everywhere, and the city is a mixture of white-and-black and orange-and-black buildings, grey stone, brown mud and wood, and green cloth. Holy symbols of Uvara, such as the sacred green-red-yellow overlapping circles and rainbows of Ustav, are painted or carved nearby everywhere. The city is alive with color and pageantry, flowers growing everywhere and art painted all across the interior of the city walls. Even the Suress river is something of a muddy rainbow, as the multicolored mutant algae grows abundantly in the mixture of mud, pollutants, and sewage that the river has become.
The great paved avenues that funnel trade into the main markets and ports are lined with tiny alleys and streets that spring off into the main residential parts of the city. Beyond the comforting embrace of the main roads, Vruhafen is a nightmare labyrinth of urban planning. These side streets, which make up the major part of the city where people actually live, are unpaved and often muddy and tainted with manure. Livestock is often herded back and forth from houses and the Hain-Gardens: community gardens that can border on in-city fields, fortified into guard-houses and used as community livestock storage and food safety net. Between the livestock, the riders occasionally barreling their mounts down too-small streets, the stray dogs, and the occasional pot hole, the residential roads of Vruhafen are a free-for-all. Children can often be seen bridging their way across the rooftops and between builds with makeshift wooden bridges, alongside flower-crown-wearing cats and cat-mutants. Roads occasionally collapse into the network of basements beneath the buildings, and the city is always alive with some kind of vibrant chaos or another.
The residential areas tend to stay in the inland districts, while the riverside is dedicated to guild workshops and trade. These areas also tend to host the foreigners that come through Vruhafen, from selkies to Kizen merchants to Ikaren potion-sellers and alchemists to Sunekans. Hain can be a very conformist kingdom, but Vruhafen will tolerate your foreignness and eccentricity as long as you obey the laws. Along the stink of the riverside, with the smelters and the fishing boats and lobster-herders, there is a place where the individual is everything and the hierarchies of Hain fade away. Those wealthy enough to come here love to play here as well, indulging in parts of themselves they wouldn't be able to at home from trysts to personal eccentricity to public irresponsibility. It is the exception that proves the rule.
Along the shoreline the markets and smelters become great fortresses and barracks, with the great Junker's Castle rising above them all in size and status. Moving the other direction, up the river, massive bridges eternally bustling with traffic over the river act as fortified checkpoints - the entrance into the Hainish heartlands and Suress river as well as the end of the libertine and guild districts along the river. East of the bridges are the noble estates, which are themselves ringed with village-like poorer residential areas like medieval suburbs. Through this half-urban sprawl is the Autumn Court; the grand judiciary of Hain, center of the Hainish priesthood, and the site of Hain's great magical academies and priestly college. Once, the Autumn Court was its own little city, but Vruhafen has grown to border it over the centuries.
Demographics
Government
Vruhafen is ruled by a feudal administration of layered titles and offices. The city is managed by a mayor-knight, known as the Junker (pronounced Yun-kar), who rules in the name of the Herzog (pronounced Hairt-sook) or Herzogin, who rules in the name of the Elector-Prince or Elector-Princess, who rules in the name of the monarch of Hain. Every feudal layer out reduces the influence and involvement of that noble; the Junker is very hands-on, the Herzog has some influence, and the Elector-Prince has very little involvement in governance. Liegelords of higher rank are often legally unable to meddle with their vassals in certain ways, preserving the autonomy of each level.
In terms of actual day-to-day rule, most power is in the hands of the Junker and the council of Burghers. The Junker is a semi-hereditary title that is granted by the Herzog, where the child of the prior Junker has automatic nomination for the position but no guaranteed granting. The Junker's job is to manage the local garrison, act as high judge, lead the city guard, and act as overseer and tie breaker for the Council of Burghers. The Burghers (pronounced Boor-gars) are city elites such as major merchants and guildmasters who are granted title and Honors in exchange for services rendered to the city and kingdom. The Burghers are expected to contribute to the city's infrastructure funds and to donate time and energy running the city's treasury and bureaucracy. In exchange, they get a seat on the council that does most of the actual governance of Vruhafen, and tends to come with special perks and privileges.
On matters of magic, religion, and moral law, the priesthood is given full state power to operate courts, set policy, and request action by the city guard. The local priesthood is managed by the Autumn Court, the great assembly of master-priests that meet just outside the city to the Northeast. Because the Autumn Court tends to be occupied with kingdom-level business, much of the city-level religious business is managed by the Rosgen (or High Priest) of Vruhafen.
Outside of the formal hierarchy is the Margreve of Gesurren (the borderlands to the South of Vruhafen), who has no formal power over Vruhafen but a great deal of power over trade, security, and food access. In the past this has led to rivalries and conflict, but the current Margreve, the aggressive and spontaneous Lady Sovda Yulahosk, is on excellent terms with the current Junker and the current Herzog.
The current Junker is Ser Tedrig Deverzek, a controversial and unpopular figure among the people of Vruhafen but a very loyal and capable knight. Ser Tedrig is a Kivishta Kobold associated with the Winter Knights, born beyond Hain's borders and never quite culturally Hainish. He is strict, ascetic, loyal, and quite skilled at training up warriors, a competent and frugal leader that has done well in leading Vruhafen and serving the Herzog. His strict legalism and no-nonsense attitude has paired poorly with his unapologetic foreign-Kivish-ness in making him widely disliked, however.
The current Herzog is a Star-touched human by the name of Ser Goklen Kohshan. Ser Goklen is a humble and friendly old man with a great charisma, theological knowledge, and sense of storytelling but very little in the way of book-keeping or management abilities. Ser Goklen is overwhelmingly beloved as a father of the city and as a hero of old, though his prowess has dulled with age. Goklen now spends his time focusing on doing good, personally involving himself in a number of charities and holiday festivals within the city and the rural townships, when he isn't out pursuing his rivalry with his liege-lord, the Elector-Prince Yamar Geinmen.
Figures in Power
Defences
Vruhafen may not frequently have to fight off invaders (and has only ever had to fight off armies during civil wars or inter-aristocrat fights), but it is ready for the fight if it ever comes. Walls upon walls segment the city, growing larger and more imposing the further out one goes. Fortresses watch over the port, the river, and the bridge. Every community garden is protected by walls and a guards barracks, like a thousand tiny forts within the city. The city is built to accommodate brutal urban warfare, and the broad main streets and large open plazas were absolutely designed with Hainish cavalry in mind. The city garrison is also rather considerable, especially counting local garden militias, Questing knights, mercenaries, and monster hunters. The walled gardens within the city, the fortified bridge, and the river forts also mean that cutting the city off from food would be difficult - woe be upon whoever sieges or assaults Vruhafen.
Industry & Trade
Vruhafen is the great center of Hainish manufacturing, though nearly all production is small-scale and organized by local guilds. The largest and richest guilds are the weavers, smiths, masons, brickmakers, carpenters, leatherworkers, cobblers, tailors, and scribes, but virtually any profession can be found here with its own guild. A small district of the city along the river is also given to smiths and metalworkers just for smelting and metalcrafts, to contain the pollution and encourage shared use of the large riverside smelters. Next to this district and sharing those smelters is the Hainish Crown Mint, the only major coinmaker in Hain and the traditional producer of coins within the kingdom. While an influx of Sunekan coinage led to Sunekan gold, silver, and copper largely replacing the old Hainish Electrum Lillies and Copper-lead Roses, the mint keeps on going all the same. New Hainish versions of the Sunekan gold-silver-copper are now produced, alongside a handful of the old Lillies and Roses; but more importantly, the Mint acts as a rudimentary bank, money exchange, and lending house.
Vruhafen hosts some of Stildane's finest Monstercrafting experts as well as Hain's finest smiths. The greatest of both trades fight for a chance to join the famed Lord's Glory Group. The Lord's Glory is a hyper-exclusive club and market, tucked away near the port. Those with enough status to enter the Lord's Glory will find access to the finest weapons, armor, potions, wasteland artifacts, mounts, and items - all at sky high prices, of course. This is where the great knights of the realm go to equip themselves, and the pilgrimage to Vruhafen to be suited in masterwork armor is something that the upper crust of Hainish aristocrats see as a coming of passage. The Lord's Glory is also where one goes to socialize with up-and-coming heirs and champions, acting as a beacon for elite tourism to Vruhafen.
Since the collapse of the Eketeni ocean-trade fleets in 2000, many guilds and merchants have turned to Selkie vessels and land caravans to sell their goods abroad. In 2010, Hain and the Vruhafen Burghers signed a treaty with the Khilaia granting them special privileges and a strip of land near the port to build an outpost. This outpost is currently extremely small and still being developed, but the possibility of future growth is there.
Infrastructure
Vruhafen's infrastructure is rather basic for a city of this size and splendor. The sewer system is incredibly basic, a series of half-covered canals that dump waste and garbage into the river. The roads are incredibly difficult to follow and are poorly maintained outside of the rich districts and main thoroughfares. And the water system is a haphazard mixture of wells and freshwater canals that is incredibly uneven; the canals and water siphoned from up the river is horribly polluted and needs to be boiled before use (not being pleasant even then).
There are exceptions to this. The main trade port is quite well designed and maintained, as are the ancillary docks. The bridges that cross the river in the Eastern part of the city have been rebuilt to be broad, durable, and capable of supporting river-boat traffic. And the food infrastructure of the city is excellent, with numerous community gardens of significant size dotting the city, careful regimenting of fishing to prevent over-fishing, and well-maintained roads for bringing in food from any direction.
Guilds and Factions
The Burghers: The Burghers are the masters of trade, guild work, and local law in Vruhafen. They are the great merchant and guild families that have earned their titles and become more than peasants or tradesmen, and they run this town. They have their cliques and rivalries but they are well aware that they are unusually powerful for Hainish merchants, and they are quick to rally together to safeguard their collective power. Many of them imitate aristocratic styles, and they do their best to delineate themselves from commoners outside of their home district or governed guild. Within their home districts and guilds they act as community vessels to try and gain representation in the system, and they do their best to maintain these loyalties with community projects and gifts.
The Landed Powers: The local aristocracy of the area surrounding Vruhafen are the Burghers' primary rivals. The gentry and the petty Grafs do their best to try and claw the money and power of the city back into their hands, and many own land and businesses within the city (discreetly, of course - profit is a disgraceful pursuit for noble blood). The great power the petty nobility has is that of food imports, and their clubs and cliques often try to grandstand during harvests by raising food prices as a threat against the burghers - sometimes leading to civil disturbances. The gentry have been losing their battles recently, and while some have been seeking ever-larger displays of power to cow the burghers into submission, others have quietly married into them instead.
The Priesthood and Autumn Court: Vruhafen is a very Uvaran city, and the priests here have great legal and political power. They manage law, magic, and matters of public morality, and their temples are everywhere. The priests of Vruhafen tend to be more lax here than in other Hainish settlements, and tend to prefer the proverbial carrot to the stick.
The Questing Chapels: Questing Chapels are semi-religious, semi-military institutions that manage armed pilgrimages and pursuits of noble glory. Warriors seeking quests, mercenaries seeking contracts, pilgrims seeking redemption, and monster hunters seeking information all go to these chapels to congregate, socialize, rest, eat, and plan. These chapels function in a semi-autonomous network under the Temple's supervision, and they are not without their political power - most land caravans and monster-crafters rely on these warriors, and it is on the Questing Chapel staff to decide what a 'moral' or 'legitimate' contract or employer is.
The Order of Charity: The Order of Charity Among Lords is a bureaucratic order of lesser 'knights' sent by the major aristocratic families to perform acts of charity and to operate charity schools for the commonfolk of Vruhafen. Religious and nationalistic, the Order of Charity demands that those receiving their good deeds act as noble and good Hainish subjects, and tend to exclude foreigners or perceived deviants. They also serve the interests of the great clans and houses, acting as their political arm in Vruhafen.
The Overclan of Starry Ketarin: The Ketarin cats are Hainish cats that follow their ancient traditions and practice druidism for the glory of Ustav and their ancestors in special nature preserves; but what of cats that are so touched by Ederstone that their nature as cats can be called into question? This is where the Starry Ketarin come in. Unlike the normal Ketarin, the Starry Ketarin are more willing to accept urban and settled spaces for their communities, and the Starry Ketarin community in Vruhafen is the largest and most tolerant among them. Strays and travelers are welcomed in, as are mutant cats who are cast out of their local clans. There is a Jellicle Court here that accepts Starry Ketarin rule as well. Cats and humanoids still largely avoid contact with each other, as per the sacred agreements, but they are willing to communicate and comingle in the libertine riverside districts. The order is kept by Barkstar the Eternal, a mutated cat that has grown like a massive tree rather than die of old age and that the Starry Ketarin keep alive in what is known as the Hidden Court.
History
Vruhafen was founded in 445 ME as a fortress and trading center of the Empire of Andrig marking the furthest Southward extent of Andrig's control. When the empire collapsed in 477, the fortress was handed off to local auxiliaries and essentially became an independent military community. The Hainish Hueshtob clan, from which many of these auxiliaries were hired, fully occupied the fort and renamed it 'Vruhafen' in 479. Under the Hueshtob clan, Vruhafen became a town more than a fortress, a hub for trading, fishing, and farming. In 480, the Hueshtob joined the Hainish League of Eight (which would eventually transform into the Kingdom of Hain in the 710). In the 500s and 600s, Vruhafen grew as a safe haven from the Kivish invasions - the furthest South one could go before hitting the chaos waste of Deverkel. For centuries Vruhafen stood as the last stop before oblivion, though its stabilizing presence enabled more and more trade across the Deverkel wastes over time. A consistent safest land-trade route emerged in the early 800s, and Vruhafen thrived as Hain's connection to South Stildane. This prosperity was brought low by the Mageplague of the late 900s and 1000s, and the city was left mostly deserted as its residents either died or fled into the countryside.
The 1200s and 1300s were a time of recovery and rebuilding for Vruhafen, and the rising Second Kivish empire in the late 1300s and 1400s drove many people to resettle in Southern Hain. When the wars were over in the 1450s, Vruhafen was in dire need of greater food-producing land and had accumulated the wealth and population to begin its expansion. From 1460 to 1520, Vruhafen expanded Southward across the Suress river in what was essentially an invasion of the Deverkel chaos waste. This occupation of the wildlands was a huge success that opened up great tracts of arable riverland for Hainish use and allowed Vruhafen's population to skyrocket. In 1510 the monarchy relocated the capital of Hain to Vruhafen, further increasing the city's wealth and importance. This decision was reversed during the civil war of 1600 and the capital was ultimately moved away to Ozaren (where it sits today), but the 1510-1600 royal period greatly enriched and developed the city and its infrastructure.
Another wave of refugees in the 1700s was used to further expand and secure the Southern farmlands, and the city again expanded. It also saw the Margreve of the Southlands (named the March-duchy of Gesurren) consolidated under one title. The Southern Margreves and Northern Herzogs would spend the 1700s and 1800s squabbling and sabotaging one another, and the two even went to war briefly in 1810. Vruhafen continued growing despite its leadership. In 1810, the Council of Burghers worked with the city's Junker to seize additional rights from the Herzog through a combination of guile and rebellion, and the feudal aristocracy was forced to back out of the city or risk kingdom-wide scandal. In 1880, a safer sea route to South Stildane was discovered in the Empire of Eketen and trade through Vruhafen's port expanded wildly. Sunekan currency poured into Vruhafen, along with Eketeni and Sunekan goods and merchants. Vruhafen's burgher elite rose to prominence, and the Margreves of Gesurren saw their influence decline. This period, from 1880 to 2000, is considered Vruhafen's golden age of trade and growth. But 2000 was a most unkind year for the city and the start of an unkind decade. Plague hit Vruhafen badly that year, and monster attacks pummeled the Southern farmlands. Eketen exploded into civil war and trade with the South declined. From internal feuding to bad harvests, everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong in the following decade. Thankfully, the 2010s have been better: several local burghers have invested in constructing Caravels capable of making it to the South around the Haunted Point (restoring at least some of the much-diminished Southern trade), the harvests have been better, and the monsters have been less destructive. Many are optimistic about the what the future might hold for Vruhafen, among both the elites and the common residents.
Architecture
Half-timbered and brick buildings with tall, steeped rooves and large basements are common in Vruhafen. Buildings tend to be stocky but often reach up to three or four stories, with either white plastered brick and black-brown wood framing or orange-tinted brick and black framing. Large, open frontal facades are common, as are small towers or spires.
Geography
Vruhafen sits along the Northern bank of the Suress River, 1 mile East of the river delta. The city's port creeps into the delta itself. Much of the city is on a ridge of small hills right along the river, and the city's edge is mostly raised to prevent flooding during the spring.
Founding Date
445 ME
Type
City
Population
50,000
Inhabitant Demonym
Vruhaver
Location under
Owning Organization
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