Ashimachi: Map and Physical Layout
Map
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Ashimachi’s metropolitan area spans roughly six square miles, if one were to combine all the space its residents occupy into a single contiguous element. Surrounded by the endless Everwood, and the Yangshan mountain range to the northwest, the city-state's settlements radiate outward from the capital city perched over the edge of The Fingerprint and are primarily built around around the northern rim of the enormous lake.
The capital city takes the form of a manmade island covering about a square mile with a distinctly rhomboid shape, quadrisected by roads leading off in the four cardinal directions. It was built over the center of the flooded river delta, set upon a platform made from thousands of interwoven trees. Two enormous bridges connect the "floating" city to land via Guanlu Road, with the Shénshǒuzhǐ Bridgehouse to the west and the Oyayubi Fortress to the east.
Guanlu Road rings the flooded delta completely, passing through each of the closest townships with a branch heading north to Kansujian and another heading south toward Xinyuan. The latter road has largely fallen into disrepair, built almost 700 years ago by optimistic and deep-pocketed regional planners who failed to consider that trade/travel between the City of Reeds and the City of Coin is and always has been done by boat instead.
The multi-generational project which flooded the river delta upon which Ashimachi sits involved a complex array of locks and dams that served as control points for allowing continuous ship access to the city. Each of these locks were marked by grand statues which became the namesakes for districts, towns, and villages that sprung up around them.
With farming, mining, and other industries moved to outer townships, the capital city mainly houses residential districts, businesses, and the city-state's centers of government and religion. Ships moving goods into or out of Ashimachi's central island moor up at the sprawling piers of Westlock Mills, which span the northwestern edge of the diamond. Westlock itself is the main industrial center of Ashimachi, covering the north of the island with many of its workers residing in the nearby Kusari District in the northeast quarter. Kusari is the newest residential sector and frequently derided for poor street planning, "cookie cutter" architecture, and excessive air and water pollution from Westlock.
Guanlu Road rings the flooded delta completely, passing through each of the closest townships with a branch heading north to Kansujian and another heading south toward Xinyuan. The latter road has largely fallen into disrepair, built almost 700 years ago by optimistic and deep-pocketed regional planners who failed to consider that trade/travel between the City of Reeds and the City of Coin is and always has been done by boat instead.
The multi-generational project which flooded the river delta upon which Ashimachi sits involved a complex array of locks and dams that served as control points for allowing continuous ship access to the city. Each of these locks were marked by grand statues which became the namesakes for districts, towns, and villages that sprung up around them.
The Capital City
With farming, mining, and other industries moved to outer townships, the capital city mainly houses residential districts, businesses, and the city-state's centers of government and religion. Ships moving goods into or out of Ashimachi's central island moor up at the sprawling piers of Westlock Mills, which span the northwestern edge of the diamond. Westlock itself is the main industrial center of Ashimachi, covering the north of the island with many of its workers residing in the nearby Kusari District in the northeast quarter. Kusari is the newest residential sector and frequently derided for poor street planning, "cookie cutter" architecture, and excessive air and water pollution from Westlock.
The Pagoda's bottom floors house the central temple of Ashimachi, with services held daily and most national celebrations hosted there and in the surrounding curated gardens marked by monuments to all of the city-state's former Shoguns. The beautiful gardens surround the Pagoda, circled by gleaming marble walls, and residences and estates of the city-state's nobility live comfortably in gated communities separated from the common rabble by more marble fortifications.
The Everwood
Outside the stabilizing influence of The Fingerprint, beyond the borders of the townships ringing the lake, is a seemingly endless forest known as the Everwood which extends for thousands of miles in all directions. Though thoroughly surveyed by fifty generations of explorers and adventurers it remains no less mysterious in the modern day, with a thousand years of myths and legends inspired by stories brought back from the Grand Expeditions of the Chains faith. Such fables take many forms, weaving tales of great mythical beasts and the ruins of failed civilizations with vast magical wealth forgotten to time. Seeking fame, fortune, and knowledge, thousands venture into the Everwood each year - most with the backing of the Explorer's Guild. This constant flow of minor expeditions, and the records they bring back with them, has made the Everwood the most well-documented region in the Coast, though the reliability of such information is often called into question due to the shifting nature of the Sea and the difficulty of confirming some expedition groups' claims. The Everwood is primarily composed of temperate deciduous forest, but includes regions of swampland and dry tropical forests both deciduous and evergreen. In all cases, each houses a wild variety of flora, fauna, and geographic anomalies. Weather patterns are inconsistent between regions: while one area of the Everwood may be sunny all year round, another may see never-ending rain or tearing winds; with local life appropriately adapted. The distribution and physical appearance of plant and animal life is also extremely erratic - to the point where one can actually use the shape and color of trees and their leaves as a navigation aid when traversing uncharted territories.
Of note is that the Everwood has the highest incidence of unusually large lifeforms in the Coast, perhaps due to its suitability for the existence of such life. Some of the livestock and domestic housepets of Ashimachi are actually direct descendants of such monstrosities, shrunken as a byproduct of domestication to more suitable sizes for cohabitation with humanity. While megafauna are the most commonly encountered form of monster, behemoths of the vegetal variety exist as well. Curiously, these have proven more likely to be hostile to humans than their animal counterparts - which are primarily composed of docile herbivores but do include predatory beasts such as Great Tigers and Tyrant Lizards.
One who ventures in any direction from Ashimachi is nearly guaranteed to see traces of humanity's exploits in the Everwood after traveling far enough. For a thousand years humanity has sought to conquer the Sea, and it all began in the Ashimachi region. While there are nearly a hundred confirmed abandoned settlements and keeps within a thousand miles from Ashimachi, rarely are they so glamorous as they appear in folk tales - merely places where people tried to form a new life, and failed or died trying.
Its seemingly infinite proportions are the reason the Sea of Trees is so named: it was the first region to be documented in Territorial studies, which led to the widespread belief that the entirety of the Coast was composed of such forests. Despite a millennium of events to disprove this theory, the moniker has endured.
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