Visawashri (visɑʋɑʃɹi)
The Capital
Visawashri, meaning 'Throne of Visava', is the capital city and seat of power of the Visavan Imperial Family. The Imperial Palace is here, situated against the side of an ancient volcano, as is the Visavan Institute Alchemical.
The Imperial Palace is one of the wonders of the world. Built out on a series of wooden platforms held aloft by whole maharukh trees driven into the side of the mountain by Emperor Visava II's divine magic, the Imperial Palace consists of five great buildings and many small residences.
Climbing the ninety nine steps from the city below, a visitor will first come to the Recieving Hall. The majority of the recieving hall is taken up by a single grand chamber that houses the Imperial Throne itself, as well as waiting areas and the rug of imperial glory, a tapestry laid out upon the floor in a semi-circle before the throne that depicts the glorious history of the Empire. As that history is still being written, so too is the rug still being woven, with a great roll of fabric resting to one side of the throne where it has been taken up to allow for more space at the working end.
Leaving the Recieving Hall, a supplicant may climb to the left or right. The ramp to the right curves around the side of the mountain to the Council of Peers, a decorated building that is home to the governing body of the same name. To the left, a set of straight stairs leads to the House of the Guard, where the elite soldiers of the imperial household live and train to defend the imperial family to the ends of their lives.
Beyond the Council of Peers and the House of the Guard, two sweeping ramps lead up to the Imperial Residence, where the household of the Empress live. Empress Nayar III broke from tradition when she refused to install her parents in the Imperial Residence upon her ascension to the throne. It was the first of many signs that the fifteen year old Empress was not going to be the easily controlled pawn that the Council of Peers had planned for.
The city itself sprawls outwards from the foot of the palace, which sits at the top of ninety nine sacred steps. It reaches down towards the nearby bay, where one of the greatest deepwater harbours in the world serves its needs. The city is divided into four quarters. Three of them are separated by walls and checkpoints to ensure that the citizens stay within their relevant quarters, while the fourth quarter and the military district lie beneath the city in the ancient dwarven city below. There is no curtain wall around Visawashri, however - an arrogant statement of its unassailability that has not gone untested.
Districts
Government Quarter
The government quarter sits directly at the foot of the palace in the northern third of the city. It is here that the vast beaurocracy of the Visavan Empire does its work, hundreds of scribes toiling away to record the daily business of the Empire. The most prominent building in the government quarter is the Aviary, a sixty-metre-tall, dome-topped spire that is home to the Empire's postal service. Messenger birds, mostly ravens, can be seen coming and going at all hours of the day.Harbour Quarter
The southeast third of the city is the harbour quarter. A sprawling mass of shipyards and warehouses serving the fourteen piers of the great docks, the harbour quarter is rarely entirely dark.Foreign Quarter
Beneath the harbour and market quarters, in the ancient dwarven city, lays the foreign quarter. It is home to the embassies of epicentre, trademeet, satara, and the southern continent. The foreign quarter is also where most of the city's inns are located, as well as a hosting a large market where goods are traded and deals haggled, for elves and foreigners are not permitted within the market or government quarters.Market Quarter
The market quarter lies in the southwest of the city. It is populated mostly by merchants and crafters who toil the day away to create and sell goods to be transported through the rest of the Empire and sold to the traders who make port in the harbour quarter. Most Visawashrii live above their shops or in business-owned dormitories.
Military District
Visawashri's military district is as large as the surface city, for the army is stationed in the ancient halls of a pre-shockwave Izaran city that survived almost undamaged. Most of the district is empty, however, as even the mighty armies of the Visavan Empire do not need an entire city for their headquarters.
Demographics
Visawashri's population of just over a million souls is a microcosm of the empire as a whole. The vast majority of the population, about seventy five percent, are humanic with a large portion of those being Touched. Of the remaining population, roughly twenty percent are beastkin, with a quarter of those being slaves. The remaining five percent are a mix of halfling, kerren, mon'taar, elven, and elfkin. Visawashri also boasts one of the greatest concentrations of dwarves in the world, with nearly five thousand members of that fallen people calling the city home.The Celestial Shield
The city of Visawashri has been criticised by foreign visitors for leaving its borders undefended. Those visitors were swiftly corrected, for the lack of a curtain wall does not mean that the city is helpless. Soldiers can appear anywhere in the city or along its borders from their underground barracks, and in times of war the ancient Izaran arcanima at the heart of the city can be activated to project an enormous energy shield over the entire city and much of the surrounding farmland.Controlled from a nerve centre in the long-dead magma chamber of the volcano above, the Imperial city Defence Grid is as much weapon as shield, able to direct searing beams of light capable of destroying galleons and knocking ancient dragons out of the sky.
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