Towns

## Classifications

Settlements in the Isle of blades generally fall into three main catagories, villages, cities and holds, each larger than the one before it, villages being the smallest and housing a mayor, cities being the middle catagory house barons, and holds housing the greatest amount of industry, military might, and religious power, house the lords of the region it is situated in, and each settlements leader pays tax to the ones above it, and are given boons by those whom they pay in the form of military aid, financial or political backing and the like.

**Villages:** Often small agricultural hamlets or small trading posts that have gained political fame for one reason or another, they are the smallest of the three key types of settlement and thus, do most of the ground work, providing feed, livestock and men at arms for the greater houses. Home to often a few hundred villagers but sometimes stooping into the double digits or reaching well into the late hundreds, villages are run by mayors who are often democratically elected from amongst the populace, though the hamlets themselves are often too small to allow for political parties to form without having said party include most of the hamlet amongst its ranks, villages often answer to religion first, and their mayor second.

**Cities:** Comprising of mostly the educated middle class, Cities are the most often to produce servicemen rather than laborers, clerks, scholars and other educated officials. People living within city walls usually number in the thousands upwards are usually well defended, having a standing army of soldiers and high walls to protect them, in such a situation it is most common for citizens to fall into a much slower, more lax lifestyle than village dwellers, who have no such heavy defenses. This carefree lifestyle often means cities are home to numerous sports facilities, as well as more adult pleasures such a brothels and combat sports. Cities are home to the barons of a region, each of which have a small number of towns and industries under their belt, which they maintain to the best of their abilities, barons are often placed by higher powers however the mayors of any number of cities can hold a council and establish a barony under the lords should they have the sufficient means to do so.

**Holds:** Inhabited by mostly the upper middle to middle upper classes, Holds are the most expensive and decadant societies one can inject themselves into, comprising of the great minds and means of any given area, holding a great amount of socio-economic power, as well as military might. Holds often have multiple guarded walls, turrets and castles each stocked to bursting with well trained, armed militants, with noble figures having their own personal entourage of dangerously powerful, personally trained guards round the clock. Holds will have large trading squares, multiple residential districts and populations rising into the late thousands, the largest of which reach 10,000 or more. Often they will be home to some large institution worth it's title as well as it's lordhold, often a large arcane study, religious temple, or military, as well as multiple trade and industry guilds housed within its walls.

### **Known towns:**

**Cipiens:** A small city in the upper left hand corner of the isle, disconnected from the rest of civilisation aside from a temple of Acushla, the Deity of love.