Elysia

Elysia's city centre, facing north-east. Visible are the incomplete Elysia-New Ume line station (left in stonebrick), City Hall (middle, with berry plantation on the roof), and the Convention Centre (right with glowstone).

### Mayor

Clarence

**Elysia** (or **Lysae**), officially the **City of Elysia**, is the capital city of the Province of Elysia in Goruid, Great Thornia, and the central business district of the Metropolitan City of Elysia. The city sits on the plains island of Elysia (and also a peninsula directly south of the island) on the west coast of the Goruid peninsula, on the eastern side of the Bay of Thornia.

The settlement serves as the principal maritime port of the Goruid peninsula and has also become an increasingly important centre of military command for the eastern half of the League of Palus.

The discovery of extensive deposits of iron and gold has also made the settlement wealthy in a much shorter period of time compared to Palus Urbem. However, recent intensive government (Goruid) investment in local industry has made its purchasing power significantly less in the short-term.

## History

### Discovery and settlement (Mid to late 2019)

The site of Elysia was first discovered during the early Umic expeditions to the Bay of Thornia in 2016. Only the swamps (where Palus Urbem is now located) were actively visited and developed thereafter. There were plans to transform the northern plains of Goruid into vast farms but these plans were abandoned with the advent of the Tyavylian slopped field mechanism (redstone and water harvesting contraptions).

It was only after the de facto end of the Umic nation with the great migration to Palus Urbem under the Palus Plan that the area around Elysia received attention from authorities. The rediscovery of Elysia Island prompted the Thornian government (now the state government of Goruid) to establish a settlement there as a regional operations base.

The first building constructed in Elysia was the Governor's manor house (built in the early Thornica wooden style of architecture). A wheat farm was tilled in front of the house.

### The Spruce and Birch Boom (Late 2019 to January 2020)

Elysia is steadily growing from a farming station, to a village, and now to a town. The unexpected influx of villagers from Thuron has seen Elysia become increasingly overcrowded and lacking in public housing. The Governor's manor house was soon followed by a two-story hollow building for the Elysia nether portal as well as housing for villagers.

On 18 January 2020, Elysia annexed the neighbouring village of Thuron and the surrounding fields on the south bank of the Rai River. This gives Elysia a metropolitan area roughly as large Ume City's.

On 27 January 2020, the third pillager battle to occur in Elysia took place with Thornian forces facing an overwhelmingly large pillager force. The Elysia Town Hall (which also acts as the temporary headquarters of the Royal Government of Great Thornia (the Secretariat) was completed earlier in the day. The completion of several large-scale public housing complexes have allowed the settlement to greatly increase the number of available units and beds, leading to a sudden population boom.

### City status (February 2020 - April 2020)

On 2 February 2020, the Crown of Great Thornia granted city status to Elysia due to its developed status as well as its increased population size and built-up area.

City authorities began expanding the developed area of the city across the river into the peninsula south of Elysia Island by building a barn for sheep and cattle. The older dirt-walled grazing area in the south-east corner of the island was demolished. Elysia Convention Centre (ECC) is being built in its place, though work was disrupted by the Fifth and Sixth Battles of Elysia Island. The ECC would later feature a stained glass recreation of the Great Thornian banner.

The city's rapid growth by mid February had convinced the Crown of Great Thornia to regard it as the metropol or new home city of the Thornian nation, rather than Palus Urbem. This recognition went a step beyond the city being the capital, as the Crown saw the city and its environs as the core territory of Thornia.

### Socialist era (April 2020 - August 2020)

The dissolution of the Crown and the takeover of the Northern Revolutionary Socialist Party saw little change in the governance of the city, as the Crown already had largely left-wing policies in regards to public housing and the funding of urban development. However, unlike the monarchy, the party's leadership ruled the country from other strategically important settlements such as Volovna, Sabara, and Baoratovia, though Elysia remains the official capital.

The monarchy was partially restored in May 2020 with the monarch ruling in an alliance with the NRSP. The new alliance also brought an end to the Pillager War, which also saw less military activity around the capital.

### Golden Trident era (August 2020 - Present)

The NRSP was overthrown by the Order of the Golden Trident in Petrodis in August 2020 in the aftermath of the failed intervention in Tyavyli and Umia due to The Great Plague, and the less-than-smooth reoccupation of Xandu. The order initially made Petrodis the new capital, thus ending Elysia's run as the national capital.

On 29 August, Elysia was attacked by the largest pillager raiding force ever seen. Financial hardships caused by the Pillager War and The Great Plague meant that iron golems in the city were not replaced one-to-one, meaning that the defence against the pillagers was inadequate. The Thornian Army was also unprepared for the scale of the invasion and was at times forced to evacuate the city until better opportunities to counterattack were possible. Although the government was eventually victorious, a majority of the city's iron golems were destroyed and nearly 80% of the villager population was killed. The government declared the start of the Second Pillager War in response.

#### Reorganisation into a metropolitan city (September 2020 - Present)

The government moved the bulk of its operations back to Elysia and once again made it the national capital. From here, the entire Province of Elysia became the sole focus of the government. Incomplete building projects in Elysia were completed whilst formerly ignored settlements like Adanon received a boost in funding and development (turning them into important regional centres for trade and army supply production). New towns are in the process of being established at the outskirts of the losely defined Elysia Metropolitan Area, starting with Mesapedia.

On 7 September, the Elysia Metropolitan Area was renamed to the Metropolitan City of Elysia and plans were revealed to expand the metropolitan area greatly with plans to expand north of the Elysia River Delta.

On 18 September, a new nether portal building was built behind the Elysia-Mesapedia line station in Palusian-style stone brick with a Mesapedian-style roof. Work on the Agora of Elysia also began on this day, which will house a marketplace, the Elysia-New Ume line station, and workshops (mass smelting and composting facilities). Much work was done to clear the man made forests around Elysia due to fire hazard.

On 24 September, a farm was established on the island for the first time in several months. What was first meant to be a shipping warehouse, then the Order of the Golden Trident headquarters, was repurposed as a vertical farm due to the farm in East Elysia being cleared for construction.

## Economy

The main industries of the City of Elysia are wool products and metal/redstone tools. Extensive mining below the city has given the city access to vast quantities of iron and gold.

Intensive trading with the villager population of the city has also brought dozens of exotic materials to market.

The Metropolitan Economic Diversification Code of September 2020 has required the city to cease cattle farming. The city's cattle will be moved to New Ume once that settlement's facilities are ready.

## Transportation

The town's main forms of transportation are walking and horses. Elysia is part of the Goruid highway system, meaning that it is possible to travel by foot or horseback from Elysia to other settlements such as Thuron and Carcea.

Work on the first section of the Great Thornia Metro (GTM) along the west coast is due to begin with selection of stations and the design of the rail bridges under consideration. The GTM is intended to be a proof of concept, as well as a part, of the SuperMetro system proposed in the Palus Plan II. An island-peninsula light rail or single-track system similar to the Shanjing Metro was previously under consideration before being scrapped in favour of new GTM lines connecting the city to neighbouring suburbs (e.g. Line C).

## Architecture

Elysia is melting pot of various Thornian regional architectural variants and Umic-Palusian architecture. Elysia's first buildings were based off Palus Urbem's Fourth Republic style, with wood as the primary building material.

At the beginning of the Spruce and Birch Boom, a combination of spruce, birch, and oak were used for buildings. By the middle of it, birch had been replaced by jungle wood. Spruce has slowly made a comeback for newer wooden buildings.

The transition from growing smaller spruce and birch trees to growing huge spruce and jungle trees made wood greatly cheaper, and thus led to even larger, multi-story wooden buildings. Almost all public housing since the jungle wood transition are now significantly larger, allowing for more beds, thus leading to a massive population boom in the settlement.

Palusian/Umic style stone brick buildings began appearing in Elysia in late 2020, mostly thanks to the city's mining infrastructure having reached a mature state. The nether portal building in southern Elysia Island was the first to be built in this style, with its small and high windows ressembling those seen in Palus Urbem. The Agora is the first large building in Elysia built in this style.

The only building with a style unique to Elysia is the Convention Centre at the southern end of Main Street. It is mostly made of unpolished andesite, polished diorite, and white stained glass. Its extensive use of glowstone and netherbrick, both mined from the nether, for decorations is most unusual for Thornian architecture. The Convention Centre was built at a time when Elysia wanted to be taken seriously as a major city in the wider Umic civilisation (Umia and Shuxian's Domain have significant interest in the nether).

## Administrative divisions

### After August 2020

The Transitional Council removed the wards system and replaced it with a 'metropolitan city' system. The centre of a metropolitan city would be a city in its own right. Component settlements of a metropolis may be towns or villages in their own right.

It defined Elysia Island (and the peninsula to its south) as the 'City of Elysia'. Nearby settlements such as Thuron and Mesapedia are to be considered towns or villages within the wider 'Metropolitan City of Elysia'.

### Before August 2020

The city was divided into several wards (larger areas), which were further divided into precincts for the purposes of policing and urban planning.