Capital¶
The Greatest City in This or Any Age! City of the Great Game! Located west across the Bale Sea from Vasloria, on the eastern coast of Rioja, Capital is not only the largest city in Orden—it's the largest city there has ever been. Larger than the fabled steel dwarf capital of Kalas Valiar, larger even than Alloy, the City at the Center of the Timescape. Capital is the exception to many rules.
It is a city of playwrights and opera, of spies and sorcery. Famed throughout the world as a city of high magic where flying tapestries act as taxis, the reality of living in Capital is somewhat more mundane. Only the very wealthy can afford such luxuries.
The great houses, ancient noble families, reluctantly share power with the upstart guilds who think vast wealth entitles them to rule. The great houses are very proud of their city. They believe anyone, from anywhere, should be able to come to Capital and earn a living, own property, expect justice. They just don't think anyone else should be able to rule.
The guilds, by contrast, are more egalitarian, more democratic, and largely obsessed with accruing wealth, city be damned. Three of them recently used their obscene wealth to buy great house status and now play the great game with the best of them.
The "great game" is espionage, and House Alvaro are the best players in the world. Led by Duke Prospero, House Alvaro sponsor the Imperial University, the greatest center of learning in the world. Nobles from across Orden, including Vanigar, send their children to learn diplomacy and statecraft at the university. While the greatest spies in the world are all graduates of the Actian School, one of the colleges in the university, which has historically doubled as the prince's intelligence agency.
House Vorona run the city's navy, the largest military organization of any kind in Orden. Their engineers perfected the secret of blackpowder and guard it jealously. The Imperial Navy's cannons protect trade across Orden, placing Capital at the center of international affairs. Vorona's Far Mariners, aka the marines, are the closest thing Capital has to a city-wide law enforcement organization. Each great house is expected to police its own district.
Duke Marco Vorona sponsors the Imperial War College, also known as the Academy. A prestigious institution rivaling any college of the Imperial University, the Academy boasts graduates among all the noble families in Orden. This widespread allegiance creates a vast informal network in the city referred to cynically as the Old Class Ring that gives Vorona access to intelligence other factions can only dream of.
House Navarr, oldest of the great houses, enforces the church's law, which they call justice. Led by His Grace Orsino, Duke Navarr, archbishop of the most powerful church in the city—the Church of Saint Ysabella the Pitiless—House Navarr consolidates a vast network of different churches and orders of knights across the region under one elaborate system of patronage.
Arguably the most powerful great house, House Valetta controls the Arbitros Fiat, the tax collectors. Valetta is led by the Duchess Lenore who, in mourning for her assassinated husband Maximo, opened the Codex Mortis and spoke the ritual which should have returned her love to life. Instead, she brought about the Lilac Night, which transformed every mortal in her district, including herself, into deathless revenants. Now, the Duchess Lenore is an immortal vampire queen. A dead lady, ruling over a dead city.
After the Lilac Night, when the prince was no longer able to rely on House Valetta to deliver the taxes they collected, Lady Shirome
coordinated with two other guilds to buy Great House status for themselves.
Lady Shirome runs the city's assayers guild, the Fulcrum. The guild controls the Trade Integrity Board, which sets lending rates and leads trade negotiations between Capital and other governments in Orden. It was the Fulcrum that convinced the prince to switch the city to paper money. As a result, Capital is the first and only city in Orden to have a robust monetary policy.
The Broadsheets, formally known as the Font, publish the thrice-daily news sheets everyone in the city reads. Guildmaster Inān al-Adwiyya uses a vast network of young people called the Paperfeathers to deliver and sell the broadsheets throughout the city. Lady al-Adwiyya knows almost everything happening anywhere in the city.
The Farrier's Guild, popularly known as the Rasp, control transport throughout the city. Led by Lord Kashimir, a heliox from Alloy who introduced the flying tapestries that metaphorically shrank Capital, allowing the rich and powerful to cross the 13-mile-wide city in just a few minutes. He created the Kites, couriers famous for getting a message anywhere in Capital in only a few hours. Kashimir's monopoly on importing flying tapestries from Alloy gives him enormous power, and he is not shy about seeking more.
Three years ago, the prince of Capital died leaving no heir or even a likely candidate. He was a young man, only forty-one, but the events surrounding his death are shrouded in mystery and inaccurate accounts. Was he murdered like a commoner, or assassinated by a political rival? Evidence is scant, rumor substitutes as fact.
Now the great game takes on a new meaning as the four great houses and three newly ascendant guilds jockey for position, each wanting to step into the power vacuum left by the dead prince. Everyone knows a war is coming, a war of succession that means fighting on the street. But each player in the game would much prefer it if someone else made the first move.