Mandrealis

*"New concepts everywhere. New forms of exploitation evolve alongside new forms of industry. And as always, the soot and filth, the itinerant dirt settles to the bottom of it all, while the towers and guildhalls are decked in their brightest gowns."*

## The Snake's Head

Mandrealis evolved, like any city, rapidly during the age of Men. In the early days it was naught but a crude, undeveloped settlement, near the mountain range of the Giantspur Mountains. Nestled tightly inside the crevice of the mountain's foot, where the Galosso river snakes past the rocky plains, the site provided ample support for the growing community that found fertile grounds at the fringes of the rocky desert thanks to the cyclical flooding of the Galosso. However, when the industrial age set in, the mountain became more interesting than the field and soon the first mines were driven deep into the heavy stone, plowing past the minerals to secure ore and coal for the creation of new tools.

Attracted by the rapid technical evolution which was spurned by the extremely favorable conditions and rare geological combination of rich veins of iron and fertile lands, the first mages began to settle in, bringing the gift of magic to the thriving community, that was named Mandrealis (literally: The Snake's Head). Soon, the initial, feeble attempts at progress were bolstered by new ways to power the slowly evolving machinery. Although ungainly and awkward at first, mining machines soon were developed and ushered in an entirely new age, when both agriculture and mining were revolutionized by new ways of performing mundane tasks. Mandrealis became a shining example for technological progress and the comfort it brought, but also for the dire costs of pollution, magical radiation that warped those workers who remained underground for too long and deformed them as well as exploitation and poverty, when the slave trade reached a new apex, as the deadly mines and slimy fields of Mandrealis demanded new workers on a daily basis.

## Slave Trade

*"To own people means to own the future. Luckily, we control the trade of people and thus control the future of Mandrealis. **We** control its future."*

One of the reasons for the rapid growth and rise in wealth and technology Mandrealis experiences, is the unprohibited trading of people, a trade that that is both lucrative and morally ambiguous. However, as long as it helps to further the wealth of those in charge of the city, namely the City Council, a loose conglomerate of the most wealthy inhabitants of Mandrealis, it is readily embraced. The slave trade is a large part of the city's economy and the Cyris Ward's slave market is the largest on the entire continent, if not all of Natalis. The imports are brought from all over Scale, some particularly exotic stocks even imported from Boreal. They are brought in by airship, by cart and by ship and the city's abominable working conditions and the complete disregard for human lives in its obsession with progress result in the need for a steady supply of slaves.

However, since the slave trade has become so deeply ingrained within the society of Mandrealis, so has become the slave culture. Slowly but surely they infested the lower ranks of the city, the farmers and craftsmen, the dayworkers and hewers with their customs, resulting in a cultural melting pot in the words where dirt poor meets the literal dirt of society.

## The City today

*"It is a living organism, you know. Our nurturing mother and our wench if we pay it well enough. We have been birthed by its streets and we will die in them, when she sees fit. When she sees fit, we will return to her unwashed bosom and be suckled on machine oil and tar."*

Today, Mandrealis contains approximately five thousand inhabitants, a number which does not account for the even larger part of slaves that are working on the mines and on the fields outside of the city, as well as factories in Mandrealis's belly. The ownership of slaves is distributed as follows among the main clans of the city:

Al Azif: 1.830 Slaves, exclusively employed in the Al Azif mining operations.

Al Maghfi: 3.710 Slaves, in both agriculture and mining operations. Although the mines in the giantspur mountains are mostly owned by Karrain Mining Company, Al Maghfi provides the the main workforce of approximately two thousand five hundred slaves for the conglomerates operations, which makes both of the institutions co-dependant but also highly influential.

Al Nyad: 730 Slaves, working predominantly inside Mandrealis in the factories owned by the Al Azif family and those who are run by Nyad.

## Magic and Technomancy

*"They took her. I don't know how or why. For some twisted experiments, no doubt. They took my **wife**don't you understand?! She just vanished behind those metal gates and now I'll never see her again!"*

Whether it is sheer pride, or the need to be independent from any outside realm, some kind of innate patriotism, perhaps or simply because the people need their large imposing buildings, the Magi of Mandrealis erected he imposing mage guild, called the Monad. It is adjacent to the Nyad, the academy of science and the two buildings frequently cooperate to bring the newest inventions to the city.

It was in these very halls that the Tharisium Coil was discovered and inside these halls, that the first Clockwork was successfully animated.

## Cartography

Mandrealis is a metropolitan city. Though the population is not that large, the sheer amount of factories and assorted buildings for storage made the inner part of the city a spacious and yet stuffed place.

Since the foundation was laid by the first settlers, the city landscape changed. Once the factories laid their roots, the people were drawn to the outside of the city, wishing to remain outside the pollution area that came from the booming industry.