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Maande

The capital of Anealeas tries to be the capital of all of Oenklay and almost succeeds. Maande is the largest city in all of Oenklay, a busy inland port serving the breadbasket farmlands of Anealeas, and the founding city of what later became the unified monarchy of Oenklay. Oenklay's elite send their younger children to Mybourdy for an academic education, but send their oldest to Maande for education in society and culture.

Geography

Ancient history says Maande started out as a fortified camp and it's never lost that identity. The Grand Square lies roughly at the traditional heart of Maande, crossed by Crown Street, Carters Way, and Grand Street. On the east side, Palace Hill rises up to the walls of the palace-citadel of Suzerain Drani. The facades of Grand Temple, Maande's University of Aneale, and city hall dominate the square along with smaller temples and the halls of the more prestigious merchant houses. The homes of the elite spread southeastward over the hill of the High City with other notables making their homes between the slopes of the hills and the southeastern corner of the hill. To the south west of the square lies the Old City and its craftspeople, screened by the clumps of temples lining southern Crown Street as it runs toward Wheat Gate. North of the grand square, the Merchant Quarter lies east of Crown Street and to the west is the flood-prone and squalor of the Low City wrapped around the crime-plagued slum known as the Jos. These neighborhoods are all surrounded by the old city wall. New walls enclose the business focused neighborhoods to the west of the old city core. The Foreign Quarter lies closer to the Imsea River with many gates connecting its warehouses to more docks along the river. Uphill and inland is the Craft & Trade Quarter. Outside the walls and downstream along the banks chaotic Old Fish Lane - home to the malodorous workshops of the tanners and other essential but undesirable industries.

To the southwest of Maande, a sprawling slum town known as the Squats suffers the stench of the tanners and harassment of the city watch. Most of these residents are runaway serfs from Romhai's plantations and Anealeas's manors. Even though conditions are horrid and prospects bleak in the Squats, the Jos still presents a greater danger to the person who has no guild or employer to protect them. Suzerain Drani's troops relentless push the shanties back from the city walls, maintaining a clear zone to make sure an attacking army can't use the Squats for cover and to keep the frequent fires in the squats from threatening the city proper. These same troops push the shanties well back from the roads leading south and southwest so that travelers coming to and going from Maande do not have to navigate a maze of shanties and panhandlers just to get to the gates.

Bridges from the Low City and Merchant Quarter connect the Maande's south bank to the New City on the north bank of the Imsea River. The once unwalled northern bank felt the brunt of the Pestilence so walls now protect this trade district, its warehouses, and docks. The same building program turned the western suburb of Peronche into a fortress town while the approaches to the New City from north and east have strong castles to defend them and the many, many manors spreading out from the new city.

Religion

Maande has more temples, shrines, and other places of worship than any other city in Oenklay and probably anywhere in western Klothia to boot. Southern Crown Street is lined with temples all the way to Grand Square and each district, even the Low City, has at least one temple to rival the largest house of worship in any other city in the Five Provinces. This abundance leads to a unique trend in all Oenklay - Maande has many temples that specialize not only in a single faith but even in the veneration of a single divine entity or as a memorial to individual holy persons even when said entity is a member of a pantheon.

Diversity does not equal tolerance. Hardly a month goes by when the city watch or the Syndicate needs to intervene in inter-factional violence. Murder and doomsday cults pop up, but at least with less frequency than in Mybourdy. Even in Grand Temple, fights break out when factions argue over priority and schedule. A ladder left behind by a worker who ran home when Maande came under siege in the Pestilence sits propped on a ledge of the Grand Temple as one faction claims priority over the ledge, another claims priority over the window that gives access to the ledge, and another claims it owns the ladder!1

Academics

The University of Aneale is the preeminent institution for higher learning in courtly etiquette, diplomacy, law, and politics. The elite and noble of Oenklay send their first born to Maande for the social access and teaching of finer graces. The students from non-elite families are clustered in the study of law and bureaucracy while the courses the elite attend lectures that are often indistinguishable from social gatherings. Little of the natural or arcane sciences beyond basic survey courses can be found in Maande. Students interested in those matters seek admission to the university in Mybourdy.

Maande

Simplified Map of Maande

  1. Palace Hill and the Citadel
  2. High City
  3. Grand Square
  4. Merchant Quarter
  5. Old City
  6. Low City
  7. The Jos
  8. Foreign Quarter
  9. Craft & Trade Quarter
  10. The Squats
  11. Old Fish Lane
  12. The Docks (older docks)
  13. The Far Docks (newer docks)
  14. New City
  15. Peronche
  1. Crown Street
  2. Carters Way
  3. Grand Street

  1. For the real world inspiration: Immovable Ladder. I can make stuff up, but I can't make up stuff like that. ↩