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thistle salad - maps
   
   
 
   As you can see, I hope from the globe, the country is divided in two by a mountain range. The mountains keep rains from moving eastward, and keep the desert desert. Also, the mountains make politics difficult. The country still periodically has trouble with its northern neighbors who use the hard to defend, remote mountain passes to make incursions into this already politically unstable area.
   
 
 
 
Yeah, I'll never be accused of squandering my talents as a cartographer.
   
  Most of the action takes place in Raphten City, but there are other major cities. And here they are! (There are also places outside the country, but since no one ever seems to go there, I've left all that off.) Port Libertine was a big pirate port a few hundred years ago, Archangel is where you live when you leave the City, the semi-mythical city of Krassngrad is where the seat of power in the desert (if there is still such a thing) is, and Anzimir is under some kind of curse, or something. Or maybe it was a prophesy?
   
  The desert thinks of itself as its own country, Krassidan - Raphten City thinks of the continent as one united country. The mountains serve to make this controversy less bloody than it would otherwise be. Both sides have gotten into the habit of trading with their foreign neighbors (easier than trading overland with each other) and act as if they are independent/ united as they see fit.
   
  This is where I would stick a city map, but I don't have one. Only an embarrassingly general sketch.
   
  Raphten City is about 700 years old. It's a port city. It dates back to the earliest era of colonization. The oldest part of the city is full of stone buildings with decorative facades and statues. It was designed to be an ornamental, but heavily fortified city, built on a swampy delta by Prince Edward Raphten - built with forced labor in malarial conditions. People died. The city is built over a series of islands, connected by bridges and divided by canals, which is something I have completely failed to portray. The city floods occasionally, but there is no danger of the whole place sinking.
   
  The oldest part of town is the so-called 'forbidden city' - back in the last days of EMPIRE it really was inaccessible to the common people and restricted to those who were a part of the government and their families and servants. The walled center of the city was the original fort that once protected the center of the earliest Raphten city, the walls remained in place as the city expanded outward. There are no trees planted in the forbidden city, and it has been a carefully maintained tradition. The forbidden city center is now open to the public, many of the former government buildings now house museums and other government buildings now house whatever government remains. The covert agency "the Wall" takes its name from this wall that... well, actually, completely failed to protect the monarchy.
   
  Most of the people live in the more modern part of the City which is further inland.
   
  The bridges that connect the islands on which the City's built are raised at night to allow cargo boats in and out, which means that traveling from island to island is difficult. Also, there's the whole possibly perpetual martial law situation. And vampires. Wandering around at night is pretty much discouraged. But people do it anyway.
   
  Deep under the City is a metro system - built very deep to move under the canals. Also, there are rumors of another city underneath the City itself, but there are all kinds of rumors, aren't there?
   
  Of the forts built to defend the City from its earliest inception, two still stand remain fixed in the national consciousness- the fort that has become the prison called Hell's Island and the Paul Dedham Fortress that now houses the secret police force known as DEEP.
   
  Outside the City, well, there haven't been any accurate maps made since the Revolution. Having maps of the outlying area is considered (by DEEP) as a mildly treasonous act. There is a lot of disinformation about what you'd find if you ventured out there. And since the countryside's been left to its own devices for forty or so years, I don't really know what you'd find there, either. Although, traveling isn't so much of a problem- well, leaving the City isn't much of a problem. Getting back into it can be.
   
  And when I say travelling, I mean around the country. Travelling out of the country is almost unthinkably difficult these days.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
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