Inizio D'Oro
A massive city that is easy to get lost in, with heavy real-world Italian influences.
Description
The architecture sports colorful stucco and terracotta roofing and hilly cobblestone or wheel-worked dirt roads with tightly placed buildings at the main hub. As the city expands outward it takes on a more picturesque countryside appeal with rolling green hills dotted with farm plots. Carvings and decorative structural art are generally centered around the Great Skald, particularly in older parts or centers of gathering places such as mass markets, festival locales, etc. Sometimes they are subtle, the clef note appearing at the top of pillars or in the corners of door moldings or as a door handle. Sometimes they are grand, such as an entire fountain dedicated to their creator.
The city spans for what seems like forever and is such a maze that no matter the starting view you always feel like the building you're after is just the next street over... but then you realize there is yet another street between that and even the relative elevation gives you nothing to infer either as the cobblestone streets wind this way and that as well as up and down. The buildings range in a simple but colorful palate that pair well with the terracotta shingles on the roofs and where applicable the stone walls often have lush green vegetation blanketing them and keeping the beauty natural and making the congestion feeling a little less claustrophobic. Music, string or wind in nature, is often heard as the players practice in their homes with the windows open. Some shops are found strewn throughout as well, little cafes hidden in shaded side streets like little rendezvous points.
The crowds, when encountered, are lively and move with a choreographed precision, with no one bumping into one another that you could tell. Helpful, as the market hub just south of the central plaza is nothing but a mass of bodies in motion. You can hear the calling of the sellers about their wares but you can't actually see their stalls to know if you are positioned right to swoop by. When you do come across one they are simple, flea market style where the merchants must cart in and out their wares daily and their beasts of burden are tied up on posts on one side of this market. It is open daily and is open air in design, housed under a single grand roof so that the rains would not hamper the activity. Often by one support column or another there could be one or a few young performers working together to practice, their worth measured by the coins of passerby.
History
Inizio D'Oro is believed to be the very spot of the one and only sighting of The Skald and the birthplace of the Maestros and the guilds. Declared the capital by the most respected of the Maestros it grew to become a religious mecca celebrating heroes of all capacities and heavily influenced by classical art.
Religion
Skaldic (Primary)
Economy
Main Exports:
- Grapes
- Wheat
- Commissioned art
Places of Note
The Choir
Located at the top of the central plaza, perhaps both the most decorated and spacial part of the city. Large empty space seemingly designed to be filled with standing crowds for proclamations from the massive white and gold building in the center. On sunny days painters would sit with their easels and work on portraiture and public speakers would stand on crates and display their ability to inspire and inform. Up the steps and into the building you would find that it was not a palace but a hall of halls. The guilds have large two room offices each and center of all of them a universal room where they all confer. Rumor says that the leaders meet with the Prima Famiglia there.
The Manor
North from the Hall of Halls and across the long stone bridge is the manor of the Prima Famiglia, walled and gated from the rest of the city. The three-floored manor itself is set to the back of the property with the front yard made up of pathways of crushed oyster shell and hedges manicured to waist-height into grand box designs. Italian Cypress is planted aplenty here, especially along the walls and bordering the main path to the front door. Halfway between the main gate and this entrance is a fountain pool filled with water lilies.
But this is all you can see from the iron gates on the city side of the bridge. There's another gate on the other side of it and the wall surrounding the property doesn't lend itself for people who may try to swim across. The lack of guard suggests that the civilians overall are rather respectful, or in the very least have no reason to try and visit. Or perhaps they know something and stay away on their on violation.
It is here that the heirs to the various guilds across The Tapestry live in splendor and serve the crown, getting intimate with their future as potential king or queen.
