Boots

Boots is a small town in the Free Faces League named for its location near the feet of two narrow mesas whose lopsided buttresses give them the appearance of giant cowboy boots. An otherwise unremarkable 'low country' town, Boots is a tourist destination and an important cultural center for the professional Mesa-Style Wrestling circuit.

Demographics

Boots is notably more Elovisian and mixed in ethnicity than most other League municipalities, though there is still a sizeable New Voxelian with local roots dating back to the League's founding period. There has never been a religious census in boots; the only temple in town is affiliated with the Church of the Unexpected, the three clergy members thereof being partial to Selevati, Goddess of Dramatic Irony.

Government

Boots is governed by an 11-member town council. Meetings of this council occur in the same old court house that houses the local court of law, sheriff's office, assessor's office, and motor vehicles registry. In the rare cases where votes on issues are tied - typically as a result of absences or abstentions - the Boots town council indulges their cowboy heritage by having representatives on either side of the issue break the tie with the draw of a card from an antique Vyozha deck, the side pulling the higher value card being declared the winner.

Defences

Boots lies in the protected core of Coalition territory, making it an unlikely target for attack by the Grand Army of Voxelia.
One aspect of the town's relation to national defense that is rarely discussed in public is the fact that The Boots themselves represent an important training opportunity for successive classes of the Crowcover special operations training program. Crowcovers near the end of their training abseil directly onto the observation areas atop The Boots from airships under the cover of darkness, have barbecue, clean up any evidence that they were there, then are picked up again by their airship. This is as much as celebration of the course's completion as it is a training exercise, as the mesa tops offer a stunning view of the surrounding countryside on a clear night. Any lights or unusual air traffic spoted above the mesas by members of the public are explained away by League Army command as being the result of 'maintenance crews' or other benign activities, but requiring the graduates to police up any evidence so that no one suspects the truth is an exercise in attention to detail.

Infrastructure

Boots only has three paved roads, the intersections of which demarcate the town square. All other roads are packed dirt or gravel. A small biodiesel plant provides waste treatment and limited auxiliary power, but most of the town's electricity comes from high-tension lines leading back towards the Triple Mesa grid. More than many other settlements in the League, Boots is sparse enough that centralizing utilities is of limited help; windmills, solar-thermal generators, septic tanks, and wells are more practical for the small farm plots that most residents live on.

Districts

Boots can broadly be separated into downtown and country, with the former representing the commercial and light industrial developments clustered around where the paved roads meet. Tourist trails and gondolas (see Tourism) closer to The Boots themselves are considered part of the country districts because, while they see a comparatively large amount of foot traffic, they aren't manned by locals as consistently or as densely as downtown businesses are.

Assets

Rawhide Arena is one of the pre-eminent competition venues - and, in the off-season, training facilities - in the sport of Mesa-Style Wrestling. Wrestlers and wranglers from across the League convene in Boots every summer to practice their art under the blazing sunlight for the entertainment of local and visiting spectators alike. In keeping with its roots as a ranching town, Boots is the birth place of numerous home-grown wrestling champions.

Tourism

Aside from sports fans (see Assets), the most famous tourist draw of Boots is The Boots themselves. The Boots are considered a national park and national heritage site under League law and recieve a lot of advertising on those grounds. The tops of these two tall, narrow mesas are crowned with observation platforms and gazeebos where visitors can take in the natural spectacle of the surrounding countryside. A system of catwalks, hiking trails carved into the cliffsides, and lifts, known collectively as The Bootlaces in park ranger pamphelets, provide access to these observation platforms. Easier trails ring the bases and buttresses of The Boots, and a visitor center positioned directly between them is a popular site for field trips. Some faces of The Boots are suitable for rock climbing, and bases are established along the The Bootlaces to facilitate these activities, though the sheer verticality of the features and summertime heat make for strenuous climbing more suited to experienced mountaineers.

Climate

Boots' environs are low-lying, open, and flat aside from the eponymous landmarks, with only a few eroded rock outcroppings breaking up the terrain. For this reason, the climate of Boots is warm and arid even compared to other parts of Medial C.

Natural Resources

Land in Boots is considered most suitable for animal agriculture, though locals also dabble in farming alfalfa, hay, garlic, and onions. Seasonal rains sometimes fill a series of small creeks and reservoirs eroded into the surrounding landscape, but there is otherwise little in the way of surface water; most water lies underground and is tapped through a system of wells and pumps. The town was established primarily to support mineral exploration in the region, but gold and silver deposits have long-since dried up, leaving a series of abandone mine shafts that still pose a hazard to unwary off-roaders and outdoorsmen to this day.

Population

Approx. 12,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Bootite(s)

Location under

Medial Tesseract

Owning Organization

Free Faces League