Arindell

From The Coursebooks Wiki
Revision as of 17:31, 17 July 2019 by CourseDirector (talk | contribs) (New Day Era Alterations)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Capitol City of the Unity Earth Sphere Alliance. Also famous for its public library. It is in Stormreaver Valley and is connected to the Valley of Sleeping Dragons. The city of Arindell lies in a very large flat dimension that has never been fully explored. The dimension commonly bears the same name, but most uses refer to the city.

The City

The city of Arindell is the capitol of the Alliance as well as the home-base of the Slayer Dragons. The city takes up most of Stormreaver Valley. In the center of the city lies Valley Gail Keep, surrounded by several capitol buildings. Around this are the large manor houses and market districts which cater to high-ranking Alliance officials. The rest of the valley is made up of suburbs and neighborhoods that house the civilian population.

The valley is also home to a small airbase from which the Alliance military flies patrol sorties. Flights are very limited as dragons have the right of way.

The city ends rather abruptly as property lines established before its construction dictate where Arindell ends and the lands of High Mountain begin.

Layout

Arindell is laid out in roughly the pattern of a celtic cross, with eight main roads forming the shape and Valley Gail Keep at the center. The four curved roads are named for the cardinal directions; if one were to stand at the center of Valley Gail Keep with a compass, each road would line up acording to its name: North Road, East Road, South Road, and West Road. Hunter maintained a safehouse for himself somewhere on West Road.

The four main roads are the Tribute Road, the Triumph Road, the Long Road (ironically the shortest in the city), and the Victory Road. These roads are aligned north to south and east to west. The four satellite roads that form the circular portion are named for the cardinal directions (to which they are not aligned). The inner portions of the city (between the outer roads and the Keep) are named for the roads, creating four quarters. When the city was planned, these quarters were intended to serve specific needs; but as the city grew the plan was abandoned.

The Library of Arindell and Necromancer Temple are located to the north-west. The Tribute Road to the north leads into the mountains and eventually to an entrance to the dragon eerie. South of the city lies a large military base, and to the south-east is the headquarters and training grounds of the First File.

Clustered along the Triumph Road are embassies and estates belonging to various Alliance member nations. Outside of the city center to the south of the road lies the Modern District, which includes numerous shops and tall buildings made with what most would call modern technologies and styles (whereas most of the structures in the city center date back to the Golden Ages).

North of the Triumph Road outside the city center is largely empty. The area has been tilled at times and used to grow food, but is generally regarded as a green space. It is also sometimes called the exclusion zone, as it separates the Necromancer Temple from the city itself.

Maryn Beach

Every iteration of the city has the Mourn River flowing through it, with a large stretch on the northern side set up as a swimming beach. Early on, this became known as Maryn Beach. While the river has some commercial traffic, it sees mostly pleasure craft and primarily human-propelled water craft. Along the stretch of the beach, there is a strictly controlled boat lane and a large area set aside for swimming, protected by pilings and jetties. The city has always made an effort to keep the water as clean as possible, with many techniques borrowed from Grakest Bay to avoid runoff and sewage inflow. The river is fed by Long Lake which in turn sees most of its water coming from glaciers and snow melt. As such, the water is clear and clean.

Maryn Beach is best known for its beautiful white sand, originally from marble deposits washed down from the mountains. While the sand was naturally white, other white sand was later imported and sometimes created to keep up the appearance. Maryn Beach is a popular tourist attraction as well as a common hangout for the locals. While no barrier exists, it is commonly accepted that there is an 'upper beach' for locals, and a 'lower beach' for tourists.

Construction

Arindell was built in the early Golden Age, construction began officially in A.Y. 11, with the Craftsmen responsible for design, construction, and layout. Thousands of years later when zoning laws were introduced, they perfectly conformed to the plans set in 11.

History

Pre-Alliance

Atayan settlement and farming of the region began sometime during the Gray Period. There is no evidence that there was ever an ancient city on the site, the Library of Arindell is the only structure every discovered that pre-dates Atayan settlement in the region.

During the Mage Wars, the Atayans were chiefly focused on protecting the library from looters, and expended some effort to bring additional books and artifacts to it. The chief activity in the surrounding valley was substistance farming; the Atayans tasked with guarding the library did need to eat.

Alliance Era

Eieber founded the city of Arindell in A.Y. 11, or the first year of the Golden Age. At the time, construction was laborious, the Dragons of High Mountain refused to let any stone be quarried from their eerie, and the stone on the far side of the valley was considered of poor quality. While work on surveying and grading the land was underway, the first major project was the construction of the dam and filling of Long Lake. The lake then supplied water to a series of locks and canals, which connected Arindell to Lake Bara, and by way of the Thenius River to the Brutish Sea. At the time, this was planned to be the main concourse in and out of Arindell, as it also connected the city directly to Ataya.

However, as the Alliance began to take shape, the main population and economic center of the region proved to be at Sun's Beacon. The route out of Long Lake and through the Agras Plain was efficient for moving cargo and materials, but much too slow for the people needing to go too and from Sun's Beacon. As such, a new route, through the relatively uninhabited Lowland Plains was selected. To aid in rapid travel, the new technology of steam locomotives was selected, and a rail line built to connect the two cities.

Ritual Site

During the city's initial construction, a very complex pattern of roads was laid out that at the time didn't correspond to any of the existing structures. These were very fine stone roads, much nicer than the dirt or log tracks that dominated the rest of the sprawling community. The roads were part of a massive spell-form, during the entire valley into a permanent ritual site. As structures were invariably built around the newly-added roads, originally the life-blood of the citizens walking the streets actually powered the spell(blood being a ritual element, no power was actually drawn from it; instead the scale of the spell-form meant people simply standing on the street could fulfill the ritual component).

By the end of the Golden Age, the original function of this pattern was forgotten, and most of the city had stone roads. The old road surfaces were ripped up and replaced(though the actual spell-form was deep underground), and by midway through the Second Age, the pattern had been obliterated; replaced by modern roads featuring improved urban planning. Fortunately, the city was then densely-populated enough for the spell form to always have power. There was no longer a need to concentrate people on the actual streets.

The ritual powers both the city shield and the Slayer Dragons themselves.

Shield

Arindell is protected by a magical shield, a sort of ethereal dome in the sky. It does not interfere with weather or dragons, but will bring down most aircraft and blocks attempts to transport into the city either magically or technologically. A further unique aspect of the shield is the way it diverts the attempts. Those trying to 'jump' into the city invariably end up at specific points in either Boarder Watch or Long Lake where they can be dealt with by attendant guards.

Though never tested, it is believed the shield would also block attacks by Mage Towers.

Important Structures

The city of Arindell is home to three very important buildings and the institutions houses therein:

New Day Era Alterations

See: New Arindell

The Dimension

The dimension is vast, one of the largest ever discovered, whereof the edge has never been found or mapped. It is theorized, however, that several dozen flat dimensions may actually be connected, forming one super-massive flat dimension. It has been estimated that, if they are indeed connected, the distance between Panta (a settlment near the edge) and Arindell the city would be approximately 92,000,000 miles. The city of Arindell is thought in roughly the center of the dimension; meaning that if it were round, the approximate diameter would be 184,000,000 or one-hundred-eighty-four-million miles. Slightly less than the diameter of a standard earth-normal planet's orbit around its star.

If these assumptions are correct, the total surface area of the dimension containing Arindell woubld be roughly 26,619,000,000 or over twenty-six-billion square miles.

A traveler who left Arindell and started walking to Panta, assuming an average of 20 miles each day, would take 12,602 years to reach Panta.