Orendarium, Capitol of the Realm

The year is 2833 A3 and Orendarium is a lush, powerful, and decadent city sprawling across both banks of the Agate River where it winds down to trickle through a broad salt marsh into the Southern Sea. As the seat of power of the Realm of Orendaria, it is a place of immense wealth, breathtaking architecture, dangerous intrigue and endless opportunity.
Its foundations stretch back into the Sixth Antecedal Age when it was founded as a Picket Fort and hunting encampment of the Elves, only truly coming into its power with the founding of the Realm roughly 300 years ago in the middle years of the third age. King Herron's decision to make it his capitol not only ensured its prominence but bestowed its name on the entire Kingdom, and the city of Orendarium is the source of the name of the Realm of Orendaria.
It is a warm, humid place of lavish mansions behind marble walls along Herron Heights as well as rotting hovels clustered on tiny islands in the Outflow. Between these extremes, tens of thousands of people call Orendarium their home. a place to rule, to work, to hide - sometimes all three.

The People of Orendarium

The people of the city are strongly stratified by income level and lineage - a distinction marked in the Realm as a whole, though mostly lost on its borders and pointedly ignored in city-states like Marleven which bristle at the Realm's meddling and enjoy quasi-independence from its social laws. Everywhere else and especially in the Capitol, the following disctinctions of class are sharply observed:

1. Exultants - The royal families, aristocrats and noble families, currently comprised of 12 major houses.

   "The halls of the palace courts are very long and very dark, and for those who make the rules, there are no rules."

2. Optimates - The wealthy non-aristocrat families and highest ranks of religious orders. Tied to income - more than 100gp per day - net wealth of more than 10,000gp, and is inherited by surviving children though estate law is designed around suppressing rather than increasing their numbers.

   "The Exultants are shameful, but at least they're not Delabi or Squats."

3. Delabi (plural; a male is a Delabin, a female is a Delabine, or Delabi can be used for either or not-obvious individuals) - the working class, including successful but not THAT successful merchants, landlords and the like. Those who earn between 1 and 100 gp per day.

   "Just gotta keep the hustle goin, Sera, and me and mine will be Optimates like you one day."

4. Squalus (singlular and plural, all genders; usually referred to perjoratively as "Squats") - the destitute, designated to all earning fewer than 1gp per day.

   "You know, this mosquito larva jelly ain't half bad on a scrap of bread after you've had it a few times."

Different laws, rights and restrictions apply to the different classes, and generally those below have no legal status before those above.
Some buildings and an entire section of town, Marble Court, are restricted to Exultants only, and any of their servants or working staff of lower classes who are there for their day-to-day work - as an Exultant certainly would never bake their own bread or muck out their own stables - must provide authorization on demand to city authorities or any Exultant who asks; some of these people have their permission branded on their hands or arms for convenience, but will have it carved out of their flesh should it be lost.
Herron Heights is limited to only Exultants and Optimates, and their authorized staff. Other areas including many governmental buildings and the Optimate Cemetary will allow lower class entry to the approved servants but also to others of lower classes, but only with validated permission from an Optimate or above. Squalus and Delabi aren't permitted to bring a civil case against anyone outside or above their class, and have their own courtrooms fo they have little reason to be up in the Heights.
An Exultant can, of course, go anywhere including into any Delabi or Squalus' private home, and an Exultant cannot be prosecuted for any crime committed against a Delabi or Squalus even in broad daylight; they also will suffer little difficulty if they have a little discretion even should they murder an Optimate.
Having this much power is not a good way to cultivate altruism, but there are Exultant families that at least understand the political and economic value of having the support of the less fortunate; others are kept in line by the threat of uprising that simmers perpetually in the capitol, and which is the reason there's a wall across the Herron Heights separating it from the river and from the Nest on the other side.
Protests are few, but generally violent, and the last one was 26 years ago, known as the Night of Burning Waters when barrels of grease from Herd's End, the slaughterhouse in the Nest, were dumped into the river and then set alight by flaming arrows launched by the guards into the Nest from the wall. Over thirty people were killed in the fighting, but almost three hundred were executed by hanging after perfunctory trials whcih surely killed more innocent than guilty people.
Optimates live safer lives away from all the court intrigue and power struggles of politics, but must instead deal daily with all the intricacies and espionage of high-stakes commerce; the only real brake on their shenanigans is the knowledge that it wouldn't take much for any Exultant to simply seize their wealth, should they be of a mind to do so, so they do what they can to be subtle and stay under the radar for the most part.
On the other hand, many Optimates, especially but not only those in the clergy, were horrified and ashamed of the brutality of reprisals against the Squalus and Delabi accused in the Night of Burning Waters, and feel as though the Exultants learned nothing from it. Several Optimate charities ensure that the meager or nonexistant income of the Sqalus is not a barrier to receiving basic clothing and a place to sleep the night, though these tend to be crime-ridden and focal points of corruption and tax evasion by overstating the degree of charity being given, 10% of which can be removed from the monthly tax burden.
Delabi are by far the largest and most diverse of the categories, including everything from the average merchant to soldiers to gravediggers and priests; truth be told, with perhaps 2% of the city being Exultant and no more than 15% Optimates, the Delabi are the city itself, benefitting from its glorious monumental architecture and the parks and monuments crowding its many public spaces, theatres, and entertainment houses, and adding much to its character and personality from their daily lives and accomplishments.
They also include a wide variety of lifestyles, from the relative squalor of the solder with his weekly 7 to the successful landlord owning a number of townhouses that bring in hundreds of gold each month. Most of the members of the various guilds of the city are Delabi, but their guildmasters are likely Optimates.
The Squalus only comprise about the same proportion of the population as the Optimates, but this is for the disheartening reason that they live dangerous, unhealthy and generally short lives outside of most public and all private services; these are the people too poor to pay for a debilitating injury to be healed or too sick to do anything about it. Some make a livable living begging for alms, and others rely on help from soft-hearted delabi who share extra bread from their bakery or food from their tavern.
But the fear of insatiable hunger is pervasive in the city, as the memory of privation is fresh to many, and those who have little have more to lose than those who have much.
Like people who won't rescue a drowning man for fear of capsizing the boat, charity is fleeting and some of the Squalus really are dangerous; the gangs of feral youth roaming the Nest are an unpredictable threat, and ciminal elements in the Outflow are considered so dangerous that the city guard will stand down rather than tangle with them. To be fair, some of those are Crocodilians and Mosquito Farmers, too.

Defences

The city has been walled in and overflowed its walls several times in its history; Marble Court is entirely protected by high walls and archer's towers, and Herron Heights has its own guard walls; the Elven Quarter has a third layer of complete protection and in the event of great emergency the plan would be to fall back inside the Elven Fortress once more. 
West of the city proper a large seawall rises, an earthworks clad with basalt brick, but it is gentle enough that a determined invader from the sea could scale it with the simplest of ladders. It exists primarily to hold back a storm surge from the delta, and indeed to hold back the people who choose to live in the delta.

Industry & Trade

In addition to Herd's End and the Forge, a number of smaller steam-powered factories churn in the Nest on the lower bank. Most of the crafting guilds including the Farriers, Textiles guilds, carpentry, stonemasonry, pipefitters and the like are based in the upper bank, specifically in the Elven Quarter.
A number of different markets are to be found in all the districts, and indeed having a market is the fact that defines an area as a district; The Elven Quarter has several including the Gazer's Market, the Green District has the Straw Market and the Forge has Metalmarket. The largest market handles the river and ocean import/export trade and is called Bywater Fair. The most exclusive market, open only to Exultants, is Arcadia in Marble Court.

Districts

• Marble Court - near the geographic center of the city, located on the high (northern) bank. Exclusive to Exultants, this is primarily govenrment buildings and Exultant familial mansions as well as the Obregada Opera House and several excluve Inns for foreign dignitaries. The Arcadia market, run by Delabi but accessible only to Exultants, is located at its western end.
• Herron Heights - named after the first king of the realm who established his capitol here, Herron Heights is a section of the city along the river with its most exclusive shops, inns, theatres and housing. Exultants and Optimates only. Located at the SW end of Elven Quarter.
• Elven Quarter - Elven Quarter, Orendarium An upscale, touristy part of town densely packed with festhalls, taverns, gambling halls, merchant shops and chapels. Also contains the Grand Colosseum, the Church of the Increate, a number of gambling halls, and its own port on the Agate river. Lots of Delabi housing in shops and buildings owned by Optimates and a few Exultant Houses.
• The Green District - northwest of Elven Quarter, the Green District is filled with cheery runaway wild herbs like Rue, St. Johnswort, Valerian and Yellow Susanna; it's mostly Delabi residential neighborhoods at the upper end of the scale, with shops and inns to match.
• The Nest - across the river from Herron Heights on the lower (southeast) bank, the Nest broadly applies to the lower working class neighborhoods, the slaughterhouse and meat rendering facility known as Herd's End, and the Ore smelters - that area is specifically known as the Forge, and smoke from the two factories often mingles and drifts through the Lower Bank. Many people mistakenly think the city is named for these Ore smelters and the faint smell of metal that hangs over the town when the wind dies down, but 'Orendarium' means 'Place of the Dome of Peace' and refers to a structure that was once in the Elven Quarter where the Colosseum now stands.
• Cinder Beach - Originally 'Sinder Beach' after Queen Sinder who kept a townhouse here, but as the neighborhood declined after a number of severe floods it changed to Cinder even though for the most part it's upwind of the Nest. Not a wealthy place, but vibrant and full of interesting immigrants' shops, traditional restaurants and cultural festivals.
• Ravenwick - named for a famous Wizard advisor of old to King Herron, Ravenwick is the busy and densly packed core of the city where most of its civic buildings are, as well as Ravenwick Wizard's College and a number of fine Temples and Martial Schools.
• Tiremme - perhaps a derivation of 'Trireme', an old style of ship with a highly raised prow that the district vaguely resembles, Tiremme is a bustling Delabi residential and business area oriented around a number of public places including the main library of the city, the largest parks and the city zoo. Several large temples also add a religious connotation to Triremme, and it is popular with locals as well as tourists.
• Faubourn - Further upriver from the Nest, this is an area favored by Delabi misfits and outcasts, Tieflings, Dwarves and Half-Orcs and the like - the city is much more classist than racist, but if you're poor and a demihuman you'll naturally congregate with others like you are, and this concentration has led to a vibrant, artistic community that attracts Optimates and occasionally an Exultant or two looking for the perfect sculpture or painting. Fauborn School, a highly respected art and theatre college, is located here.
• Reservoir Shores - The area around the freshwater reserve of the city, an artificial extension of a natural lake, is known as Reservoir Shores or simply the Shores. It's a solid Delabi and Optimate district known for taverns, food markets, fresh fish and specialty goods.
• Bywater - Further downriver from the Green District, Bywater is a working class commercial and warehouse area surrounding the main river port and connected by the broad Bywater Way to the Seaport north of the Outflow. This can lead to some confusion, as the easiest route from the river docks to the sea is Bywater Way, but not 'by waterway.' The delta of the Outflow is a shallow, muddy marsh that can't be navigated by merchant ship or anything with a deeper draft than a log raft these days- every 20 years or so they used to dredge out the river's course, as the agate river runs slow and muddy to the sea, but it's about 80 years overdue at this point. The Bywater Way is elevated hundreds of feet above the Outflow and leads to a Melitara,a small city in its own right where it meets the sea. Bywater was recently connected by bridge to South Point, a more upscale riverfront area though the housing quality and income levels drop precipitously as one heads south
• The Outflow - this briny salt marsh below the city floodwall is filled with swamp life and Squalus shacks, but the lifestyle here is more carefree and anti-establishment than the Squalus of the city proper. It's its own ecosystem of hippos and crocodiles in a delicate balance living in the cane sugar reeds, and a humanoid race of lizardmen crocodiles unique to the region can also be found here, where Hippo is butchered like hog meat and sold in markets along with the peculiar and intolerably spicy mosquito jelly made by the native Thri Kreen from larvae they scoop from the slow-moving waters, hot pepper juices, and cane sugar syrup. Though the concept is stomach-turning to most, these Thrikreen are honored as perfoming a critical service to keep the mosquito population to a tolerable level, and considered Delabi despite the total inconsistency of their income. The feral gangs roaming the perpetually shadowed area underneath the massive Bywater Way bridge are considered the worst in the realm, not merely the worst in the city, as a surly bunch of lawless inbreds who prey upon anyone who isn't a crocodile or bug person in their gloom and roam the whole Outflow after dark.
• Melitara - at the far end of the Bywater Way, a town has sprung up around the ocean port of the capitol city in the 100+ years since the last time a clear channel was dredged through the Outflow. In addition to the standard docks, warehouses, shops, housing and taverns one finds in a seaside town, Melitara is also the gateway to the large cemetary of the city, a place on a higher point above the coastline called Oceanview Memorial which also leads to wry jokes about "giving someone a nice ocean view" - a clever way of suggesting you're going to kill someone. Melitara is nicer and safer than the Outflow or the Nest but not by much. It is all free territory, however, and some money is made by the local landlords who have paid tout to greet immigrants by sea claiming the whole city other than Melitara is off limits to travelers of less than noble birth, or that a quarantine has been established, or something of the like. It does collect a fair share of sickly and decrepit folk who can't make the whole mile-long walk on the Bywater Way back into Bywater and the city proper.

Guilds and Factions

• Most of the crafting guilds with the exception of the Ironmongers/Metalworkers are based in various guildhouses and workshops in the Elven Quarter or 

Orendarium is a critical hub for the PCs, containing adventuring gear and supplies, transport, mundane and magical items, weapons and armor, libraries and other research facilities, a Bard college and guildhalls for other guild-related professions - and taverns, lots and lots of taverns. Moreover it is peopled with colorful NPCs motivated by dozens of competing factions, each with their own goals and beliefs about themselves, the PCs, and the World of Tergaith.

Maps

• 

  Essi Estate at 21 Matilde, Street Level

  A map provided to Eldara by Lissa Daine of the Essi estate's layout at street level showing the side streets, doors and windows, wells, outbuildings and other details.

Map Link: 

Orendarium c. 2833 A3

Open full size

Map showing the highlights of Orendarium including the districts of the city, the Bywater Way and the Agate River delta.

Population

88,600

Inhabitant Demonym

Orendarians

Location under

The Realm

Included Locations

• Ravenwick
• The Beggar's Dice

Characters in Location

• Lieutenant Slonsky

Related Reports (Primary)

• S2 E1: A long time ago in Orendarium...
• S2 E2: Crime Scene
• S2 E3: Bearers of Bad News
• S2 E4: into the Wolf's Den

Related Reports (Secondary)

• S2 E3: Becoming Luminous
• S2 E5: Arena Mayhem