Suranor
Nestled up against the southern tip of the Overlook Mountains, built largely from the stone of those mountains, the small city of Suranor is one of the more self-sufficient of the City-States Region. Thanks to the mountains and the waters controlled by the Sura Dam, the city grows much of its own food, produces its own metals, and even features a number of water-powered workshops providing goods production. From this somewhat-isolated position, the residents of Suranor enjoy a life quietly detached from the politicking of the other cities. As one of the younger cities in the region, with its growth flourishing in just the last century, Suranor finds itself looking to its future in a way few other places do.
Southern Refuge
Overlooking the flow of the Sura River after it falls out of the Great Plateau but before it reaches Surtor at the sea, Suranor lays claim to wide range of lands away from the reach of the other cities. The waters of the river are held back and moderated by the Sura Dam, built just a hundred years ago, which spurred the growth of the city to where it lays today. Farmland lays in the wye created by the meeting of the Sura and a tributary out of the Shifting Jungle, pulling water from the lake created by the dam. Downstream, workshops line the river, taking advantage of the steady flow to draw power via waterwheels carefully set into the moving waters. And from the Overlook Mountains themselves comes stone for construction and ore for production. Mines on a much smaller scale than those of Aratosa delve under the low mountains, bringing up sufficient ores to provide materials for the workshops down the river but not enough for industries such as weapons production. With its southerly position that isn't on any major trade routes - most of the trade out of The Sink goes via Surtor - and with its production being dwarfed by older and larger cousins to the north, Suranor is not a particularly wealthy city. It exports a small amount of what it produces (much of its income results from growing fruits which are not as amenable to the high lands in the Fertile Lands) but its self-sufficiency means that its residents are not left wanting. The pace of life within Suranor is thus fairly relaxed. There is no great rush to deliver orders to merchants, there are not often traders looking to scramble up a guard crew for a trip, and there are certainly no great fortunes to be made. The town can certainly be noisy, as loads of ore come out of the mine and are loaded onto barges to be carried downstream, small units of town militia march through town keeping their skills fresh, or farmers shout about their latest harvests in the town's market square. But at the end of the day, when the sun gets low in the sky, the city becomes much quieter. Lights of various colors strung along walkways come to light (a Mage of the Artifice school took up residence along the river and is experimenting with some strange arrangement of water wheels and gears which can cause light to spontaneously appear). Music begins to be heard from various homes, and the small city takes on an air of leisurely celebration of the end of another happy day.
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