POPULATION: 132,000
DEMOGRAPHICS: 62% Humans, 12% Dwarves, 8% Hobbits (Halflings), 6% Mendalevi (Half-Elves), 3% Dor'guul (Goblinoids), 3% Shifters, 2% Khoralevi (Elves), 2% Orokha'ar (Orcs and Half-Orcs), 1% Changlings, 1% Other
The first thing you notice, approaching the city of Korth, are the walls. Massive, heavy structures over a 100 feet tall and 40 feet deep, the walls are scarred with black soot and glittering spatters and white slicks, all where siege-engine and spell failed to find purchase. The walls are at once old and worn and proud, powerful and regimented. No siege against the city of Korth has breached the walls, the citizens say. None that they know, at least. And during the past hundred years of brutal, near-constant warfare, under countless sieges, they are right. The walls have not fallen.
At the very top of the walls are reticulations, battlements, and steep gables. Interspersed, massive trebuchets and spellcannons face outward. Almost, it seems, built by giants, the walls have warded the city for more than a thousand years.
The weight of age is apparent even as you pass under the gates and enter Korth. Many of the stone buildings here are crumbling edifices displaying the decorative arts of a bygone age. And the buildings are as massive as they are old. Some take up entire city blocks and stretch to fill the sky.
In general, the style is heavy and symmetrical, gothic, with city blocks set forth in a grid or radiating out from central plazas. The buildings and streets are a dark red-brown brick, daubed over and painted pale gray or burgundy or green, with exposed dark wooden beams. Stone steps lead up to doors about 10 feet above the road, and deep gutters lead into extensive sewers below the city. Each year for a month of spring, the flooding river turns the Low District streets into canals.
The roofs are deeply pitched and lean out aggressively over the street, with heavy support beams to help bear the weight of deep winter snow. Reticulations and battlements are common throughout the city; the militaristic influence that infuses all of Karrnath society permeates Korth and helps define the monolithic appearance of the buildings, including decorative features such as monuments, obelisks, columns, and tombs.
Each approach to the city is guarded by platoons of soldiers in pale glinting scale-mail hauberks covered in white coats with fluffy hoods, belted down the front. The the summer, the coats are replaces with a white vest. Emblazoned on both are the quartered white lion rampant and the red wolf's head of Karrnath. The soldiers are armed with halberds, silvered truncheons, bucklers, and pistoletis. The White Lions of Korth are the constabulary and the military of the city, swiftly enforcing the rule of the law and maintaining order. Once the White Lion constabulary had been the police force of the great kingdom of Galifar; now only this remnant in this city is left to carry on the grand tradition.
Korth is an orderly city with well-maintained roads, regular waste disposal, and clean water. Streets march like soldiers, and tenement buildings tend to look regular. The city imposes strict fines for littering and loitering, and the pace of life is brisk. Citizens and visitors must be ready to have their papers inspected at any time, and the White Lions are free to enter anywhere without provocation, and city curfews after dark are strictly enforced. Propaganda extolling the strong work ethic and military history of Korth in proper crimson and black can still be found decorating the city, and speaking against the crown is a crime. The Red Wolf flies from windows and flagpoles. Here, the Last War has not been forgiven, though the King now fights for peace.
The City of Kings has a long legacy of powerful rulers and military conquests. For many in the Five Nations, Korth is synonymous with armies and generals, even more so than Rekkenmark. “Officers come from Rekkenmark but wars come from Korth,” as the saying goes, and that heritage has shaped the city. Crownhome, the seat of the Kings of Karrnath and the source of many of those wars, sits above the city like a crown in itself. Half fortress and half palace, its high walls on King’s Hill shadow the road to the south.
To the east of Crownhome is the wealthy borough of Holycrown, so named because it is in the direction of the massive Cathedral of the Sovereign Host. Many nobles have townhouses here to be close to power, protected from the violence of the Last War. Further east is Highcourt, a part of the city that used to be filled with nobles but now is dominated by wealthy merchants and other rich people without the right bloodline. Displaced nobles moved over the course of the last century from Highcourt to Holycrown, but their legacy remains in their former ward.
In the other direction from the fortress-palace, Rivercrown is the traditional home of wealthy industrialists and the upper middle class but it is increasingly being populated by foreigners. Low District, towards the Karrn River, is firmly the home of the middle class and is the beating heart of the city’s life. It is this part of the city that yearly floods. The nearby Community Ward is more residential and up a steep set of cliffs from there is the mercantile district of the Commerce Ward. These four wards hold the bulk of the city’s business and cultural centers, and the majority of the population of Korth.
The largest ward in the city, though, is the massive Temple Ward surrounding what was for some time the broken shell of Korth’s famous cathedral. It was heavily damaged and even ransacked during the Last War food riots, but its history and presence in the city were reclaimed after the cult of the Blood of Vol fell out of favor with the royal family, and it is in the process of reconstruction.
Opposite the city from the temple is the Deep Ward which, confusingly for outsiders, mostly sits above the city on a cliff. The “low” part refers to the populace rather than the altitude, though there is a lower section along the river. This part of the city houses dwarves and goblins for the most part, and considered a notorious loci for crime.
Railside sits on the other side of King’s Bay, unsurprisingly gathered around the lightning rail station. It includes some camps outside the city as well and is a part of the city rapidly growing as the traditionally industrial section of the city changes into… well no one is quite sure. Change is something that Korth abhors and the tensions in Railside are rising.
The Lightning Rail of Karrnath uses grand, 2-story trailers with sloped roofs and gabled windows for the first class passengers, complete with comfortable dining areas and sleeping quarters. For most, food on the rail is a simple affair, and sleeping quarters limited to a single bed among dozens in a shared room. Still, the rail is swift and safe.
Sources: Eberron Wiki Mephit James Blog
No comments:
Post a Comment