Aelyria Prime
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Sprawling across the southeastern quarter of
Aelyria Prime is the Mercantile District, the premiere commercial and financial center of the known world. Travelers approaching the city by sea witness a vast fleet of merchant ships being served at the docks on the
Great Sea and the
Ioannes River. Anything and everything throughout Aelyria and beyond is sold at one of the many marketplaces and bazaars, and the Mercantile District caresses the eastern coastline of the city while embracing the city's political heart of the
Forum. Traders and merchants travel far and wide to ply their goods and services, while artisans and craftsmen sell the wares of the finest quality. The streets of the Mercantile District are regularly crowded and swarming with people, though each part of this lovely and scenic commercial paradise has its own flavor.
The Mercantile District is organized into the seven wards of the
Ioannes Gates, the
Market,
Rynshaven Harbor,
Aucore Wharf,
Durnside Parish,
Duselby Parva, and
Qurstat Autonomy.
Ioannes Gates
In the south central part of the Mercantile District, resting on a south bank of the
Ioannes River which runs through the city, can be found the Ioannes Gates parish. It is a bustling hub of trade and economic exchange extending outwards to an assorted collection of colorful docks at both the west on the river and the east on the sea. With no natural docks originally on the river shore, the original inhabitants took advantage of old irrigation from
Hriemalis and engineered wooden planks and construction techniques to deepen the river beds and structure pikes, building docks out of the city itself. Known for its expeditious delivery of exports and the timely arrival of imports, Ioannes Gates remains a thriving pulse of activity named principally for the river that runs by it. At its core can be found the headquarters of the wealthy
Merchant's Guild. To the south, two large and tall rounded towards narrow off the thick grey and brown city walls at the
Hero's Gate, where travelers can enter and exit the city by way of the surrounding
King's Highway which then connects to the principal road of the realm, the
Via Ioannes. Greeting citizens and adventurers as they enter the city is the almost market-like and adventuresome
Hero's Square, home to numerous merchant stands seeking to capitalize off of the fresh customers of the day.
Races
Human,
Ratta,
Lutran
Social Classes
Merchants, Tradesmen, Laborers, and the Poor.
Common Housing
The Shore Complex - Made of almost entirely of tall brick buildings, this complex of common houses in the Ioannes Gates parish has the advantage of having a spectacular river view and access to the steep streets and byways leading down to the wharf. Most of the workers commute simply by walking back and forth from the Shore Complex through these simple trails. A common room on each floor is a prominent feature, with usually shared bedrooms around ten foot squared in size. The Latrine can be located just outside the kitchen, behind the house.
Prominent Features
The Hero's Gate 
The Merchant Guild Hall
Hero's Square
The Shore Complex
The Prime Industrial Center
Featured Businesses
The Daily Grind Coffee House
Shipwrecked Beads and Other Oddities
The Fifth Season Spices
Old Salt's Wharfside Tavern
The Fish Monger's Stand
The Three Gates Tavern & Inn
The Three Suns Trading House
Celestial Fury Emporium
Xestal Imports
The Market
The Market Place is the crowning jewel of the Mercantile District of Aelyria Prime. Named for the famous
Market Square, anyone who is anyone has a commercial presence - even if it is just a stand - in the busy and densely crowded streets of this ward. More business than anyone could ever track or record is conducted here at any given moment, and it said that new shoppes and traders establish places of work in the other wards of the city largely based upon what happens herein. A famous saying heard in the street is, "if you can make it in the Market, you can make it anywhere," and it rings true reflecting shrewd business skills and competent craftiness needed for a merchant to succeed. Given the overflow of business, a secondary
Market Plaza exists to sell softer goods, such as perishables and textiles, and much of the newer parts of the city exemplify an overall neat array of street plans gravitating northward due to the presence of the mighty river bordering the ward. To the northwest can be found
The Exchange where the legendary
Aelyrian Stock Exchange lists and trades everything from commodities and properties, to ownership in guilds and even wagers and bets. Across the street on
Exchange Place is the more austere
Auction House. To the south can be found the regal and proud greywash building of the
Bank of Aelyria.
Races
Human,
Elf,
Katta, and
Halfling
Social Classes
Craftsmen, Merchants, Traders, Artisans, and Laborers.
Common Housing
The Plaza Lofts - Almost all of the housing in the Market consists revamped warehouses that were cleared out and converted into tiny apartments situated into the buildings overlooking both the Market Square and the Market Plaza, while extending on inter-building walkways over the roofs into the small tenemants on top of shoppes and businesses serving the public below. All of the best real estate is always taken by merchants and traders for commerce and barter, so all that remains are quirky structures in hollowed out residences above the shoppes, or sngle living spaces with outdoor privies and common rooms located usually in the center of the lofts with rooms arranged outward like spokes of a wheel.
Prominent Features
Market Square
Market Plaza
The Plaza Underground
The Exchange
The Auction House
The Plaza Lofts
The Bank of Aelyria, Prime Branch
The Bounty Hall
The Aelyria Prime Circus
Featured Businesses
The Fruit Market and Teahouse
The Livestock and Meat Market
The Merchantile Market
The Exotic Market
The Fish Market
The Sundries
Mercantile Textiles
The Healing Station
Cloud Swift Stablery and Equine Supply
Ithuriel's Archery
The Silk Leaf Clothing Shoppe
Windsor's Traveling Goods
Sweet Bread Bakery and Treats
Sugar Tooth Candy Shop
The LaurylCo. Depot
Felicem Toy Store
The Vibrant Greenhouse Herbal Shoppe
In Vino Veritas
Rynshaven Harbor
A masterpiece of engineering, the larger ward of Rynshaven Harbor is the center of shipping and sea trade in Aelyria Prime and handles hundreds of ships through its docks. Filled with the largest warehouses, haulier companies, and tradehouses, Rynshaven was once dominated by the holdings of the
Lauryl Company and associated with the
Lylles family's stranglehold on the most lucrative businesses. Today, Rynshaven is the province of the most successful merchants and highly transactional traders. The hustle and bustle of the ward results in part from sailors partaking in the delights of its local taverns and periodically causing scandals at inns. Because most of the merchants exhaust the imports almost as soon as they come in, the cost of living in this parish is considered extortion by many. Through the arrival of raw materials and staples, Rynshaven provides most of the manufacturing and fabrication material for construction in the city. Artisans and craftsmen flock to Rynshaven Harbor to obtain the essential reagents and components of their tradeskills. Deep downtown can be found one of the few bodies of realm governance not in the
Forum, the ebony townhouse of the
Board of Trade.
Races
Human
Social Classes
Merchants, Traders, Seafarers, Sailors, and Laborers.
Common Housing
Whitestone Castle - Overlooking the harbor is an elegant coastal fortress that was once falling into disrepair but was refurbished for the needs of the ward. Whitestone Castle has been converted from a rambly house or drafty castle into several hundred small rooms that serve as a source of inexpensive housing in Rynshaven. Rooms are twelve foot squared, built in arrangements of six around a common room with an indoor water closet just off of it.
Prominent Features
De Bruso Lumber Yard
LaurylCo. Headquarters
The Diamond Brick and Mortar Company
The Skysea Foundry
Rynshaven Shipyards
Whitestone Castle
The Board of Trade
Rynshaven Foundry
Temple of Orod
Featured Businesses
Wholesale and Bulk Importers
Jenco Olive Oil Company
The Green Mortar and Pestle
Madame Ranclon's Design Studio
Maritime School of Cartography
The Museum of Ships
Aelyria Prime Leather
Jaleiya's Cook Emporium and Groceries
Aucore Wharf
This small ward rests aside the
Forum right next to the
Ioannes River, and the locals here have nicknamed it Goldcrown Parish. Home to the
Royal Wharf, the official mooring of the
Royal Yacht, Aucore Wharf also offers storage of other waterborne conveyances used by members of the
Royal Family. This is a trendy haunt, and the river here is lined with restaurants and walks. The buildings tend towards the better quality and the streets are wider, many of them avenues, such as
Prestige Avenue and
Integrity Road, and one of them a large marble-fountained gemstone street,
Realm Boulevard. Shoppes here sell mainly to nobles and high ranking civil servants, though the
Palace receives its merchandise directly from its own factors. Price in this ward are high but fortunately fair as the goods one exchange for the premium are of the highest caliber. Crime is virtually unexistence and almost unheard of, and Aucore, above them all, is considered to be one of the safest wards in Aelyria Prime. A few nobles and some relatives of the upper aristocracy make their homes here in posh mansions lining the river and on some of the parish's gentle hillsides.
Races
Human,
Elf
Social Classes
Royalty, Nobility, Aristocracy, and the Wealthy.
Common Housing
Fresia Manor - Also called the Fresia House, this mansion has long been considered the finest servants quarters in the city, and it features close accomodations along a major transit route of the rich and powerful. Those in the service of noble families may find themselves housed in these tiny ten by eleven rooms which are emaculate but scaled down with tiny hearths and no real way to truly keep warm during the harsh and unforgiving winter weather of Aelyria Prime. The common rooms all have firepits and the residents generally end up bedding down around on the coldest nights. Each resident has the right to use one small garden plot out behind the Fresia House, which is ironically considered a perk to living there.
Prominent Features
The Royal Wharf
The Museum of Fine Arts
The Museum of History
Integrity Road
Prestige Avenue
Realm Boulevard
The Fresia House
Featured Businesses
Edgewater Fine Dining
The Center for Debate
Razor Sharp Mind Collectibles
The Gilded Mirror Furniture Shoppe
Dio's Runic Hunters
The Farwater Cafe
La Vieja Restaurant
Durnside Parish
Settled on the edge of the Mercantile District and the
Scholar Quarter, Durnside Parish greets the river traffic coming from inland and is a major center for livestock and meat markets. As a result, there are numerous rendering yards in the area. The
Butcher's Guild has a strong presence here and uses its membership to negotiate for fair rates on the slaughtering of animals and the preparation of fine meat. Also featured prominently at the center of the parish is the
Auction Yard, where it is rumored that more than merely livestock is auctioned off here. Generally a quiet neighborhood despite the routine preparation of animals, on the surface, Durnside Parish is orderly and reserved, though suspicions that criminal activity may exist in the
Underground persist.
Races
Human,
Dorin,
Ratta
Social Classes
Merchants, Traders, Laborers, Farmers, Shepherds, and the Poor.
Common Housing
The Knackery - This shared establishment is an enormous pentagonal-shaped building with an inner courtyard in the center. Salvaged from a collapsing rendering plant, the Knackery is infamous for its sketchiness and seediness in the housing community. It is said that the courtyard is used as an arena for gladiatorial combat and wrestling games, having been converted to an inner holding corral with a sandlot and homemade cobbled bleachers for entertainment. Animal fights are also held in this area, especially among chickens and dogs; tenacious breeders will often compete to show off their finest spawn. The rooms themselves are said to be nothing special, with ten foot squared accommodations, but the prized rooms are unsurprisingly the ones that face inward to enjoy leveraged views of the combat below.
Prominent Features
The Butcher's Guild
The Auction Yard
The Knackery
Featured Businesses
Nelsion's Kennels
Kalamus Meat Market and Butchery
Joshin's Hemp Supplies
Calabrin's Cookery
Duselby Parva
Duselby Parva parish is perhaps one of the most industrious and productive wards in Aelyria Prime, despite (or perhaps because) being nowhere near the docks and harbors, instead being closer to the southern walls of the city. It has average neighborhoods filled with hard working laborers focused principally on the production of textiles and construction materials to ensure that the city's roads, sewers, and services remain functioning and fully operational. A factory in Duselby Parva is no simple foundry or workshoppe, but instead is known as a
Fabricator, a megalithic mill of clockwork and gadgetry. Large textile mills dominate much of the parish, but so do the smeltries, breweries, smithies, and a great many smaller cottage industries. Life is not easy in the Duselby Parva. Wages are typically at a base rate, and given the generally high cost of living within the capital city, most workers have difficulties making ends meet. Crime is higher than average here, and most streets are unsafe to travel at night. The parish is darkened by the smoke stacks of the smelters, cloaking the ward in a dingy residue. Children have often been pressed into labor, ensuring that no age group is truly immune from poverty, or as one resident puts it, the price of productivity.
Races
Human,
Ratta,
Katta,
Gnome
Social Classes
Laborers, Craftsmen, the Poor.
Common Housing
The Glass House - This old building used to be a massive glass factory that has now been converted into common housing, but the name is rather deceptive. With few windows in the building, the Glass House was perhaps one of the first fabricators ever commissioned, the dark side of the reign of
High Queen Melody de Lylles. Conditions are crowded. Whole families live in ten foot squared rooms and resources are stretched thin. Latrines are outside, and ten apartments share a single kitchen.
Prominent Features
Fabricator Row
Millstead Park
The Wesson Metal Smelty
Worker's Union Hall
Duselby Parva Plaza
Featured Businesses
The Abandoned Cannery
The Kitchen Sink Eatery
Dalmino's Pub and Brewery
Laseya's Fine Spirits and Essences
The Black and Red Inn
Qurstat Autonomy
The quiet hamlet of Qurstat rests just outside the southeast city walls of Aelyria Prime, and despite its residents deep pride in their town, it was quickly overwhelmed as a suburb of the thriving capital of the realm. On the
King's Highway leading to such country retreats as
Lysandria, Qurstat has long been a favored town of many noble families where they escape the intrigues of court life to this scenic respite, and create new scandals and intrigues to call their own. Of particular note is
Castle Vaderia at the top of an outlet facing to the sea, in that its simple style and old traditional squared towers would be ineffective at protecting Qurstat from any naval assault, but it is nevertheless an eccentric museum displaying such fine items as weapons to even tapestries. On a hilly rise to the southeast rises
Castle Solis, an elegant palace with capped towers and stained glass windows amidst its classic grey brick. Named after the legendary
Mateo Solis, the Castle serves as an ongoing residence for local magnates. Within the walled shire is the picturesque
Qurstat Church directly across the street from the imposing
Qurstat Council chambers. A small set of wooden docks constitutes the only real port in this region, but everywhere can be found homes of all shapes and sizes. From the colorful manors designed by the
Halfling architect and artist
Gordi to larger tenemants and apartments used by citizens and adventurers facing the overflow from overcrowding in the city, Qurstat's cleanliness and picturesque environment make it a desirable and inexpensive place to live, as long as one does not mind the commute.
Races
All common races represented.
Social Classes
Citizens and Adventurers, the Middling Sort, Nobility, the Aristocracy, the Wealthy.
Common Housing
Montmolin House - A large and elegant manor found just off of
Adolphus Square, Montmolin House was once occupied by revolutionaries bent upon destabilizing the monarchy, but for centuries has been used to house adventurers and citizens trying to make their way in Aelyria Prime. There are two spacious common rooms and private latrines on each floor, which each individual room is designed after a stately guest room and over fifteen feet squared. Tall floor to ceiling paned windows provide excellent light, but extra large fireplaces are needed to ward off the frosty winter chill often felt in Qurstat. An iron fence encloses the property, which includes a small reflective park with benches and a stone fountain.
Prominent Features
Castle Vaderia
Castle Solis
Qurstat Church
The Council of Qurstat
Montmolin House
Talisen Manor
The Fountain of Fortune
Qurstat Docks
The Carolia Prison
Qurstat Militia Barracks
The Fingers
Featured Businesses
Qurstat Dry Goods Store
The Magic Eye
The Tales Inn
Qurstat Guild Hall
Mercantile District
Linear Mode
