))
Description by Lain Ikari
Exits: Sylvan Lands (Sylvan Lands Kingdom), Apathy Guildhall, Wracod Suburbs, The Harem, Red Bear Inn, World Council HQ, Wracod City Sewers, Northern Wastes (Northern Wastes Kingdom)
Wracod City is Dykal’s trading center and its largest city. The city is divided into three main districts: the governmental district, the residential district, and the commercial district. The borderlines between these three areas are not clearly defined and they often bleed into each other. All of the city’s streets are covered with either cobblestone or pavement (in the case of the later, the pavement has usually been laid over the older cobblestones), and nearly every form of transportation from foot travel to horse-drawn wagons and carriages to crude Adavenish motor cars can is used on them. Smog resulting from the many wood and coal burning furnaces in the city hangs heavy in the air, and most full time citizens carry thin cloth emergency masks with them.
The governmental district contains the headquarters for all of the institutions needed to run the city and nation of Wracod. This includes the building housing the Wracod Parliament, the police barracks, and the city hall, among others. The Dykal World Council Headquarters is also located in the city. The structures in the governmental sector strike an uneasy balance between the ancient and the modern. Most of the city’s governmental buildings date back hundreds of years, and are largely made of stone or, in the case of the more important buildings like the city hall, marble. The buildings serving the newly formed national government, on the other hand, are almost exclusively examples of the newest trends in Dykal’s modern architecture. These building were designed by teams composed equally of freelance artists and architects, and usually contain large glass windows with steel frames. They are often more strictly geometric in appearance than the older buildings, tending to be large cubes or half-spheres or some combination of the two.
The residential district evidences the differences between the living conditions of the rich and the poor that can be found in most any city. The wealthier areas of the district are composed of large brick buildings containing large townhouse style apartments with balconies. Traffic into the wealthier areas is strictly limited to only actual by the police during the night hours in hopes of keeping smog levels down (as well as for security reasons). These measures have been only marginally successful, but have resulted in a noticeable difference in air quality as compared to the rest of the city. The poorer areas of the district consist mostly of cramped tenement buildings made of untreated wood. These buildings are covered with graffiti (usually profanities and gang symbols), and most have holes where arrow heads and the lead balls from crude rifles have been removed from the walls. Discarded drug paraphernalia and broken liquor bottles lay in the street. Rats and roaches are common place, as are the homeless, usually individuals who have failed to pay their rent and were turned into the street by the strict policies of the Wracod Inter-Planar Merchants who own almost all of the tenement buildings.
The commercial district is the place where the trade that made the Wracod City what it is takes place. In addition to numerous small shops and merchants’ booths, there are a number of office buildings where the Wracod Inter-Planner merchants come to trade agreements with other cities, nations, businesses, and planes. Nearly all of the shops in the city are owned and controlled by the W.I.P.M. Those that are not are usually bought or forced out of business within weeks of opening. However, there’s also a thriving black market operating in this area of the city, mostly dealing in goods stolen from W.I.P.M. shops at reduced prices. Most black market merchants work out of carriages or carry their goods on foot, making escape easy if they are spotted by the authorities. Some also work out of the basements and back rooms of W.I.P.M owned shops, and are often disgruntled employees.
Description by Nugan
Exits: Wracod City
Located on the plane of Dykal this is the home of the thieves guild Apathy. The small wooden outer door looks like it was once locked, but the lock has since been smashed by some visitor. It opens to a large, well lit, room which looks to be on the clean side (although there's discarded papers here and there). In the center of the room in a long, marble-topped, rectangular wooden table. Along the long sides of the table are a number of silk-backed armchairs, each one with an Apathy member's name embroidered into it. At each shorter end sits two similar chairs, the names "Biantium Wrenloft" and "NamelessOne" are embroidered on the ones on the end near the doorway, while the ones on the far end bear the names "Straak" and "Nugan Wracod". At one side of the room is a large wooden tackboard with a number of small pieces of parchment pinned to it. ((If you wish to use the tackboard, their forums are just above this one.)) At the back wall is a deactivated portal with a sign reading "Trophy Room" above it. Next to the portal is what looks to be a keyhole. The left wall contains several doors leading to temporary member quarters with a sign reading "We are not a Boarding House. Don't abuse your guild priviledges!" hanging above them.
Description by Nugan
Exits: Wracod City
The Suburbs of Wracod City are the
home of the city’s richest residents, mostly merchants and diplomats, who do not
desire to live among the pollution and poverty of the city proper. The suburbs
are surrounded by red brick walls, approximately the height of two and a half
humans, which are topped by a coil of barbed wire. The walls have been enchanted
with an alarm spell that emits an “eeeep-eeeep-eeep” sound whenever someone or
something comes in contact with their exterior sides. The exterior sides of the
wall is surrounded by a thin layer of litter, usually discarded liquor bottles
and scraps of cheap food, left behind by inner-city teenagers who gather near
the wall during the night to “hang out” and play cat-and-mouse games with the
guards. The exterior of the wall also contains graffiti, including the letters “S.E.F.”,
the word “Reparations”, and the crude image of a pig with its throat slit in
several places drawn by artists who have become skilled at painting with the
finesse necessary to avoid triggering the alarm. This graffiti is painted over
on a monthly basis, because it causes distress to the suburbs’ residents, but it
inevitably begins to return the night after the repainting. The interior of the
walls is surrounded by rows of carefully trimmed hedges, some of which have been
shaped to resemble animals and abstract shapes, and contain murals depicting
pristine natural scenes, including babbling brooks, serene mountaintops, and
untouched forests. The only legitimate entrance to the suburbs is a cast iron
gate at the north wall that is guarded at all hours.
The suburbs themselves consist of ordered rows of homes, all in the same mold.
They are three stories and made of the same variety of red brick as the walls
with large bay windows on either side of the door on the first floor and sets of
smaller windows on the upper floors. On the door of each house hangs a wreath,
identical to all other wreaths in the suburbs, made of thin flexible wooden
sticks and dried flowers, sprayed periodically with a light perfume formulated
to mimic the sent the flowers would emit if they were still alive. Each house
has a rectangular front lawn, exactly one quarter of an acre, which is split in
halves by a stone walkway that extends from the road to the center of the porch
of each house. The only section of the suburbs not divided in these housing lots
is a rectangular stretch against the south wall on which an eighteen hole golf
course has been erected. This course uses more water on any given day than ten
of Wracod city’s poorer residential blocks.
The suburbs employ their own private mercenary police force that is paid through
dues that all suburban residents are contractually bound to provide. The primary
responsibility of this police force is to prevent the entrance of unauthorized
nonresidents into the suburbs, and they are mostly present near the walls and
the gate, although they also periodically patrol the suburbs on guard for
individuals who may have discovered some way to sneak past the external
security. The police force is not legal authorized to enforce the laws of Wracod
or solves crimes, as they are not officially sanctioned, but they do
occasionally help their employers cover up crimes that are committed within the
walls of the suburbs. In addition to the police, the suburban streets are
patrolled by cliques of bored teenagers, sons and daughters of paying residents,
who, having no practical hobbies available to them, create increasingly bizarre
fads, styles of dress, and slang. These cliques readily proclaim the superiority
of the lifestyle that they have created, and openly deride other cliques. The
conflict between these cliques frequently escalate into emotional gang warfare,
with the exchange of hurtful remarks and occasionally even acts of petty
vandalism against the homes of rivals. This conflict is partially responsible
for the number one cause of death among suburban residents: teen suicide.
Description by Nugan
Exits: Wracod City
Outside the Harem
You see a large mansion made of red brick and wood. The structure looks like it was at one time a state building of some sort, but its pink curtains, along with a red colored lamp swinging from a post, give it away as a house of prostitution. A large pink sign that reads “The Harem” sits outside in the yard. Below the name is the logo of the Wracod Inter Planer Merchants, and next to it is a picture of a stick figure walking with a cane, indicating that the facility is handicapped accessible. A large set of double doors sits at the front of the building.
Inside
Entering the Harem, you are greeted by a pair of large half orc bouncers dressed in leather chaps and tight muscle shirts. One of them holds out his hand and nods to you. After passing them, the room opens up into a large area that has been separated into different sections via pink curtains. The floor and ceiling are made of translucent glass, and above and below you can see rooms identical to the one you’re in. Prostitutes, dressed in outfits ranging from suggestively cut street clothes to equally suggestively crafted armor, move about the room entering and leaving the booths. Surprisingly, none of the typical sounds of sexual activity can be heard, and the room is quiet save for footsteps.
Serving Booth
Stepping into a booth of your choosing, you will find that it contains a bed, an ornate dresser and a small lamp. Green colored crystals float in the corner of the room, probably functioning as recording devices. There is a panel attached to the side of the dresser that has various buttons on it, as well as a key hole. The panel has several options on it that range from polymorph to anti-gravity.
Description by The Nefarious JFK
Exits: Wracod City
The Red Bear Inn is a crude three story wooden structure located in one of Wracod City’s poorer inner city residential areas. The outside of the building has been haphazardly painted deep red, and a sign holding the red outline of a bear hangs over a dirty four panel window in the front of the structure next to a thick wooden door on leather hinges.
Inside on the first floor is a large room with several small low windows, and a bare wooden floor that looks to be a splinter hazard for anyone with bare feet. The room is full of crude square tables, each surrounded by four worn wooden chairs. A long table on the right side of the room with shelves behind it full of liquor bottles serves as a bar. A smaller, higher table covered with papers bearing the dates of check ins and check outs sits next to the door. There are three doors at the rear of the room. On the far left is a wooden door similar to the entrance with a small rectangular piece of parchment hanging from it that reads “Stairs”. The center doorway is wider than the others, has no actual door, and leads to a small kitchen. The door on the right is the smallest, and is always closed, locked, and bolted.
The second and third floors contain small, poorly lit hallways lined with doors, each leading to one of the inn’s rented rooms. The rooms contain a cheap bed, a stool, a one person table, a coil of hemp rope, and a chamber pot. Each room has one window that is just about the right size for a slightly larger than average medium sized humanoid to slip through. The door to each room is thick, and has a conventional lock, and a sturdy bolt lock.
((The Red Bear Inn serves as the unofficial headquarters for the Socialist Employee Federation, a quasi-militant/political group that wishes to overthrow the government of Wracod, which is often seen as a figurehead for the Wracod Inter-Planar Merchants, and replace it with a socialistic government. S.E.F. members (or seffies as they’re often called) are often coming and going at the Red Bear Inn, and a number of them actually live there. The room behind the latched door on the first floor is their meeting room.))
Description by Nugan
Exits: Wracod City
The Wracod City Sewers are a system of waste disposal
tunnels that run under the entirety of Wracod City. The tunnels are constructed
of rectangular limestone blocks connected with mortar to form a semi-circular
arc over the sewage channel that is approximately tall enough for a man of above
average height wearing a tall hat to stand upright without discomfort. Stone
walkways exist on either side of the central river of waste, and these walkways
are occasionally connected by railing-less bridges made of the same limestone
blocks as the rest of the sewers. Metal tubes extend from just above the
walkways in various places, and hot water streams out of these pipes during the
late fall and winter to prevent the sewage from freezing.
The sewage river itself consists largely of the obvious: human biological
wastes. However, the river also contains just about anything that someone would
wish to dispose of, ranging from large quantities of domestic garbage from the
Wracod Suburbs, such as unfinished food, paper products, sporting goods, and
sometimes pieces of furniture, to drug paraphernalia from the inner cities, to
shredded paperwork from the governmental district, to the occasional humanoid
body from either section of the city.
The sewers contain nearly as much biological and social diversity as the city
above them. Rats, leeches, poisonous snakes, bats, and giant crocodiles provide
it with a rich base of indigenous wildlife. Crude doorways have been carved into
the limestone walls, providing entranceways into Dykal’s underground, and
similarly crude tunnels connect these entranceways to various underground
cities. Wracod City’s sizable homeless population have established a number of
small settlements on the sewers’ walkways and bridges, since the hot water vents
provide the homeless with the same privilege that they provide to the sewage:
protection from freezing during the winter. These settlements are unusual small
collections of friends and family, and often have impermanent locations and
diffuse barriers as the homeless have few limits to their mobility.
A bronze plaque, less than five years old, is connected to a limestone brick by
four corner screws on the right wall of one of the sewage tunnels. It reads:
“Wracod City Historical Marker. King George I, ruler of the nation of Provas,
was born on this spot. His egg was incubated on this walkway by his mother, Lady
Katharine VII, until he hatched, and was raised here in the style that nobility
demands.”
Description by Nugan
Exits: Wracod City
The World Council Headquarters, the meeting place for foreign officials wishing to resolve international problems, is located in the governmental sector of Wracod City. The plot of ground in front of the building is one of two areas in the city where grass grows (the other is in front of Mr. Wracod’s estate). The left side of this plot contains several small open-air buildings where various art and cultural exhibits from Dykal’s different populations have been set up. The right side of the plot has been turned into a “Unity Garden” where wild flowers from each of Dykal’s eight nations have been planted. In the center of this garden is a statue depicting eight figures seated around a table. The figures are only rough outlines of humanoids; the artist’s way of indicating that they could easily be anyone on Dykal. A path of small marble bricks extends from the street between these two areas and to the front of the building.
The building itself is an eight story steel structure with many large glass covered windows. The main entrance consists of four sets of glass double doors set side by side in the front of the building. Two guards in brown uniforms are stationed on either side of each set of doors. Similarly dressed guards patrol the premises and can been seen stationed on the building’s roof.
The interior of the W.C. Headquarters consists almost entirely of large offices for foreign diplomats and W.C. employees. A large tile-floored lobby is just beyond the main entrance, and is furnished with small glass-toped tables and steel chairs with leather seats. Beyond the lobby through a set of oak double-doors is the main council chamber. In the center of this chamber is a long oak table with four seats on each of its sides and a single seat at the head of the table. Setting on the tabletop in front of each of the seats on the sides are smalls plaques reading: “Gerhane; President; Adaven”, “George XI; King; Provas”, “Nugan Wracod Sr.; Prime Minister; Wracod”, “Kssrak; Tribal Council Leader; Sylvan Lands”, “Pasitte; President; The Democratic Republic of Allom Gon”, “Dreen; Emperor; Lruun”, “Pike; Ruler; Northern Wastes”, and “Nugan Wracod Jr.; Representative; The Xill Nation”. The plaque in front of the seat at the head of the table reads: “Zyzek; World Council Mediator”. The seats themselves are similar to those in the lobby, save that the one for George XI is more of a platform, raised to table level, with a ramp leading up to it. A seven foot by seven foot mirror is bolted to the wall behind Zyzek’s seat.
Exits: Wracod City
As you enter this mansion you come
into a large hall. The hall is very elegant with many candles lining each side.
On the ceiling there are three crystal chandeliers each glistening with the
light of the candles within them. On each side of the large hall are two
staircases that lead up the second floor. As the stairs reach the top they curve
into each side of a balcony over the hall. In the center of the hall is a statue
of an Angel and a Demon strangely entwined. Around the two figures are flowers
of many variety that are very healthy and lush. The hall is furnished with
oriental style furniture. There are quite a few love seats and a few couches at
either side of the hall. The floor is a polished marble with black and grey
swirls in it. To your left are a set of double doors near the stairs. If you
enter those doors you will find yourself in the dining area. A large table sits
in the middle of the room with six chairs on each side then one chair at each
end. Luxurious candle holders sit on the table along with fine china and
flowers. As you pass the table you see a bar and behind the bar is a large
kitchen. The kitchen seems to have all the essentials needed to prepare a feast
for all visitors. To the right as you enter the kitchen area there is a door
that leads into a long hall of other doors that seem to be rooms for visitors.
The doors to all of the rooms meant for sleeping or staying in and sliding
doors, like those of an oriental nature. Standing in the main hall again, if you
turn to your right there is another set of double doors. both set of double
doors the ones to the left and right are made of a finely finished wood. the
door lead to an indoor garden that is the size of the dining room. The plants
within the garden are healthy and the flowers are in full bloom. Fountains set
along the garden the water falling gently onto surrounding plants and sending
out the relaxing sound of rain through the room. The walls are made of a green
marble reflecting your image as you look into it. As you examine the plants you
see a few fruit trees that you may have never seen before. One that you see has
lush red apples growing from it but they have orange strips in then. The stripes
do not look like that of rotting or dying attributes, the stripes go well with
the fruit. Red ferns line the walls all the way around along with Ylang-Ylang
flowers and Roses. There is a door to the left of the garden as you enter, the
door leads into another hall of rooms with sliding doors. The hall is dimly lit
setting off an eerie feeling as the hall is strangely quiet as well. At the end
of the hall there is a set of stairs going down to your left, and to your right
a set going up. At the stairs going down there is little light and strange
sounds come from behind the single metal door which looks rusted. The stairs
going up lead to the second floor which consists of rooms for guests, a lounging
area, the bathes which there are six up there and six down stairs in the halls
of guest rooms. There is a public bath upstairs as well with four fountains
surrounding its oval shape. The bath is only 3 1/2 feet deep and the water is a
comfortable temperature. Around the bath is what looks to be a gravel garden.
Statues set in the gravel garden which surrounds the pool and stops about 5 feet
out from the pool. There is also a dining area up stairs right above the
downstairs dining area. ((Rooms are available for night stays. Either PM Lain
Ikari or if I am not available just tell me next time I get on and we will work
it out then.
))
Description by Lain Ikari
Exits: Wracod City
The Dragon’s Eye Tavern is a large
structure in front of and connected to another larger structure. There's a sign
above the door that says "The Dragon's Eye Tavern". The bar is against the front
wall with a large table top to the left near the entrance. There are many
bartenders pouring drinks for the thirsty patrons at the bar and also preparing
trays for the bar maids to deliver to the tables and booths. In the middle of
the tavern is a roaring fire in a fire place surrounded by cold and weary
travelers warming themselves. On the other side of the tavern are venders
operating out of makeshift booths. In the back corner is a Man behind a counter
with a open book (( for the inn)).
((OOC Note: While the Dragon’s Eye Tavern and the Red Bear Inn effectively serve
the same dual purpose of bar/hotel they exist in vastly different sociological
conditions. The DET is located in a commercial strip not far from the
governmental district and the headquarters of the WIPM, and serves mostly a high
class clientele. It is a place to appreciate the “city culture” without
experience any of the harder realities of city life. The RBI, on the other hand,
is located within one of WC’s lowest ghettos. It is, in fact, in a residential,
rather than a commercial, district, but the city council pays little attention
to zoning in the poorer areas. The RBI is mostly visited by the poor and members
of the Socialist Employee Federation. It is largely avoided by those who
frequent the DET out of fear of crime and other social ills known to exist in
the WC ghettos. – Nugan))
Description by Turonik