20 KiB
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Erogent
Crest: A black bastion atop a silver ridge, beneath a setting sun
General Information Realm Temerian Empire Population ca. 85,000 Dominant Culture Imperial-Tul (western Mentralian ancestry) Local Demonym Erogentine Ruling Authority Tribune of the Western Marches Key Features Founded As Kingdom Capital, pre-Empire; annexed ~Year 52 of the Empire Known For Military logistics, western trade, former independence Landmarks The High Ring, Fortress Wall Terminus, Bastion Archives Military Presence Sixth and Ninth Legion garrisons Temples Creed Shrine of the Vigilant Flame, scattered Seeker shrines Trade Goods Timber, tools, foreign textiles, spices from Par-Thalax
Overview
Built atop the bones of a proud, fallen kingdom, Erogent is a city of dual faces - imperial bastion and merchant crossroads, fortress and forum. Its tiered stone architecture recalls both its sovereign past and its present role as the westernmost military staging post of the Temerian Empire. The streets are lined with armories and customs halls, but also buzzing markets fed by caravans returning from the Free Cities. In the high citadel, the Tribune of the Western Marches presides over matters of defense and diplomacy, while down below, foreign traders, freedmen, and smugglers haggle beneath watchful legion eyes. It is a city that remembers freedom - and thrives under the tension of its loss.
History
Once the proud capital of an independent western kingdom during the age of the fractured Mentralian realms, Erogent stood as a bastion of regional authority long before the banners of the Empire ever approached its walls. That independence ended during the First Expansion, when Emperor Temerian I led a decisive campaign into the west. Erogent, after a brief but brutal siege, fell to the imperial legions. Rather than raze it, the Emperor repurposed the city - its palace turned into a fortress-command, its avenues widened for supply lines - and established it as the westernmost military hub of the burgeoning empire.
In the decades that followed, Erogent served as the spearpoint for the Empire’s advance into the Reaches. From here, the legions marched westward, carving roads and raising bastions. These efforts culminated in the construction of the Fortress Wall - a massive fortified ridge linking three great strongholds: Tor Taris, Tor Ingol, and Tor Parat. These bastions became the immovable border of the Empire, with Erogent their beating logistical heart.
However, the Empire's ambitions found their match in Par-Thalax, a fiercely independent Free City whose coalition armies halted the Second Expansion a century ago. The defeat was a rare humiliation for the legions, and the border lines froze. With conquest thwarted, Erogent adapted. What had been a war camp evolved into a regulated trade hub, facilitating the cautious, state-sanctioned exchange of goods between the Empire and the Free Cities. Caravan guilds and merchant houses flourished under the watchful eyes of imperial inspectors, and a new era of pragmatic coexistence began.
More recently, during the northern campaign against Talpis, Erogent resumed its martial role. Its barracks and stockpiles were filled once more, and its plazas rang with the iron rhythm of marching boots. From this city, the Empire launched its decisive assault across the Danals River, shattering the Kingdom of Talpis and claiming its lands. Though the legions now occupy new ground to the north, it is from Erogent that those campaigns were planned, supplied, and remembered.
Geography & Layout
Erogent is carved into the edge of a weathered stone ridge that slopes westward, offering a commanding view of the plains stretching toward the Free Cities. The city’s layout is tiered and fortified, shaped as much by conquest as by terrain. At its highest point lies the High Ring, once the heart of a sovereign kingdom. Its old royal citadel still crowns the ridge, though its halls now serve as the command center for imperial legates, military tribunals, and the Tribune of the Western Marches himself. Much of the original architecture remains, though overlaid with imperial banners and reinforced with blackstone ramparts.
Below the heights sprawls the Outer Ring, a dense urban ring encircling the core. Here lie the barracks of the Sixth and Ninth Legions, vast customs yards for the inspection of Free City goods, and the bustling foreign merchant quarter. This lower district hums with activity - teamsters, scribes, quartermasters, and traders all moving through streets shaped by both discipline and necessity. Though regulated and surveilled, this quarter remains one of the most culturally diverse in the western empire.
To the south, the Bastion Road cuts through the hills in a broad, stone-paved artery leading to the Fortress Wall, where the Empire's western military frontier stands anchored by Tor Taris, Tor Ingol, and Tor Parat. Supply caravans and legion patrols travel this route daily, watched from watchtowers that dot the rise like stone sentinels.
Scattered within the city’s older sectors, the remnants of the former royal quarter still stand - elegant, if faded, villas and towers now occupied by Free City merchants, retired officers, and politically useful exiles. Here, the past lingers uneasily with the present: old heraldry carved into gateposts, forgotten shrines to regional spirits, and garden courtyards overgrown with creeping moss. It is a quiet reminder that Erogent, though deeply imperial in function, has not entirely forgotten who it once was.
Governance & Law
Erogent is governed by the Tribune of the Western Marches, an imperial appointee with sweeping authority over both civil and military affairs across the region. From his seat within the High Ring citadel, the Tribune oversees not only the city’s internal management but also the wider coordination of western frontier defenses and trade. Day-to-day enforcement, however, is largely delegated to an intricate network of legates, military magistrates, and imperial auditors, each empowered to act in the Tribune’s name.
Though imperial law dominates on paper, the practical governance of Erogent is more layered. Many older statutes from its time as a kingdom still influence local customs and judicial process - especially in disputes involving land, merchant contracts, or guild rights. These vestigial laws are tolerated so long as they do not contradict the Temerian Codex or interfere with legion operations. As a result, Erogent’s legal culture is a careful dance between bureaucratic precision and grudging tradition, with court records often containing both imperial script and archaic phrasing handed down through generations.
Foreigners from Par-Thalax and the Free Cities are permitted to operate within designated trade zones, though they remain under constant watch. Their movements are tracked, their goods inspected, and their contracts vetted by imperial agents. Many are required to post bonds of loyalty and submit to regular questioning - officially for trade integrity, unofficially as a precaution against espionage. Despite this scrutiny, many continue to trade here, drawn by opportunity and protected, to an extent, by Erogent’s reliance on foreign commerce.
Beneath the surface, however, enforcement is uneven. Smuggling - especially of forbidden books, spices, and unregistered coin - remains both common and poorly contained. Though raids and arrests occur frequently, much of the illegal trade is quietly tolerated or redirected through channels controlled by the legates themselves. It is an open secret that some inspectors are on a merchant's payroll, and more than one Tribune has chosen to look the other way - so long as the ledgers balance and the legions are fed.
Society & Culture
The people of Erogent are known across the western provinces for their pride, sharp tongues, and unflinching political awareness. Shaped by conquest but never entirely broken by it, Erogentine society is defined by a constant tension between loyalty to the Empire and a lingering memory of independence. Even a century after the city’s fall, many of its old noble families remain quietly powerful - having traded crowns for ledgers, estates for trade charters. Though they have sworn fealty to the High Throne, their influence persists through merchant ventures, advisory roles, and private networks that extend deep into both imperial and foreign territories.
The population is a volatile but functional mosaic. Legionnaires and officers march alongside scribes, freedmen, laborers and traders from the Free Cities. This mixture has created a hybrid culture - one that outwardly embraces imperial discipline while quietly resisting its homogeneity. In the public squares, imperial law is respected, and military parades are attended with dutiful applause. But behind closed doors, in old family halls and foreign merchant taverns, different toasts are raised - to former kings, to old gods, and to freedoms lost.
Language and custom in Erogent reflect this dual identity. The Temerian Trade Tongue dominates courtrooms and contracts, but Low Mentralic, laced with regional inflections and Free City idioms, remains the voice of the street. Fashion tends toward practicality, but often includes subtle flourishes - colors, stitches, or jewelry - that quietly signal clan heritage or regional loyalties. These expressions are rarely overt enough to draw legal rebuke, but they are noticed by those who know what to look for.
Festivals sanctioned by the Empire - such as the Day of Unification or the Legion’s Triumph - are celebrated with banners and processions, yet often carry a second, unspoken meaning. Some citizens mark these days with private ceremonies, honoring the city's former royalty or ancestors who resisted the conquest. These small acts of cultural memory are neither wholly loyal nor openly rebellious. They are Erogentine - resilient, shrewd, and always aware of the shifting balance between what must be said and what may be remembered.
Religion & Education
Religion in Erogent, as with much of its culture, exists in layers - officially uniform, privately diverse. The Creed of the Veil is the dominant faith, its presence centered around the Shrine of the Vigilant Flame, a solemn and austere temple nestled in the High Ring. Here, imperial officials, legion commanders, and loyal citizens attend rites that emphasize duty, sacrifice, and the protective mystery of the Veil. The temple also functions as a civic court and occasionally as a tribunal for disputes involving land, inheritance, or religious defiance.
Beyond the citadel walls, however, faith becomes more fragmented. In the crowded alleys and merchant quarters of the Outer Ring, small Seeker enclaves operate in cautious secrecy. While technically tolerated under the Empire’s laws of religious freedom, these followers of the heretical offshoot of the Creed are closely monitored by imperial legates and sometimes subjected to quiet purges. Their shrines, often hidden in basements or disguised as homes, are places of whispered prayer, trance-chant rituals, and faded murals of the stars beyond the Veil.
In recent decades, a new spiritual current has begun to flow through Erogent’s foreign districts: The Scaled Doctrine of Par-Thalax. Brought by Free City merchants and their households, this faith is markedly alien to the Empire - ritualistic, transactional, and deeply disciplined with obligation. Worshippers perform their rites privately, burning small offerings in polished stone bowls, drawing serpentine sigils with oils, and sending monthly tithes of gems, gold, and slaves back to Par-Thalax. Though these observances are largely hidden behind closed doors, their presence has not gone unnoticed, and some within the local clergy have begun to quietly petition the Tribune to formally restrict or register its practice.
Education in Erogent reflects its dual identity as a military hub and intellectual crossroads. The city maintains two state-funded scribal academies, overseen by the imperial Ministry of Records. These institutions train civil servants, cartographers, and quartermasters in the Trade Tongue, law, arithmetic, and logistics. Attendance is free for citizens, though advancement is tightly controlled by merit - and occasionally by lineage.
Yet beyond the sanctioned curriculum lies a far more perilous undercurrent. In the shadowed parlors of Erogent’s merchant villas and forgotten rooms above gambling dens, secret salons gather - less centers of learning than of forbidden indulgence. Some claim to be philosophical circles, but in truth many engage in unsanctioned spirit binding, practiced with only fragments of proper knowledge, often gleaned from smuggled texts or whispered bargains. These rites, conducted without imperial oversight or proper containment, risk not only personal ruin but spiritual corruption. Several of these gatherings are whispered to be heavily influenced - if not outright hosted - by vice spirits, entities drawn to pain masked as pleasure. Here, wine flows without end, wagers spiral into obsession, and whispered promises of ecstasy and power bind desperate souls to things they cannot name. Imperial agents occasionally break these circles, but more often, the salons simply vanish, only to reappear under new names, in new homes, behind doors that always seem to open for those willing to gamble more than coin.
Trade, Craft, and Industry
Erogent stands as one of the Empire’s most tightly regulated trade hubs - a city where commerce is both lifeblood and battlefield. Situated at the frozen frontier between imperial order and Free City autonomy, it serves as the primary conduit for controlled trade with Par-Thalax and its allies. Exotic goods - glass, perfumes, high-grade paper, rare dyes, and spices - enter the Empire not freely, but through caravan routes under constant inspection, escorted by licensed guides and subject to detailed documentation at every gate. Every crate is tallied, every ledger double-checked, and every foreign merchant expected to obey imperial tariffs and curfews.
Despite these constraints, trade flourishes - because it must. The luxuries of the Free Cities are in demand throughout the inner provinces, and Erogent's customs guilds have mastered the delicate balance between enforcement and exploitation. Some goods vanish before reaching official markets, others reappear with different seals or forged manifest stamps. Everyone profits - if they know the rules, and when to bend them.
The city itself produces a broad range of export goods, feeding both the frontier provinces and the legions. Ironworks, from nails and hinges to weapon components, are a staple industry, drawn from local mines and smelted in the forge-yards of the Outer Ring. Rope-makers, tanners, and grain-dryers operate in tightly packed blocks near the southern walls, producing materials for imperial outposts and supply trains. Much of this labor is performed by slaves or bound servants overseen by guild-trained foremen, often veterans of the legion logistics corps.
Military & Defense
Erogent is, at its core, a city forged for war. Once a royal capital, now a keystone of imperial defense, it remains one of the most heavily fortified settlements in the western provinces. Its walls are thick and angular, shaped for siege resistance rather than beauty, and its streets are broad enough to turn entire cohorts on the march. The Sixth and Ninth Legions maintain a permanent garrison within the city, occupying sprawling barracks complexes in the Outer Ring and manning the watchtowers that crown the ridge. Their presence is constant - seen in drills on the parade grounds, felt in the weight of the guard’s gaze, and heard in the call of the morning horns.
To the west, the city anchors the Fortress Wall, a vast line of interconnected fortifications that stretches like a stone spine toward the frontier. The Wall connects Tor Taris Tor Ingol and Tor Parat - three bastions that stand as the final imperial bulwark against the Free Cities. Together with Erogent, they form what many call the Iron Chain, a line that has not moved in over a century but is never allowed to rust.
Within Erogent itself, the machinery of war hums constantly. War-stock depots line the Bastion Road, storing arms, armor, and rations for long campaigns. Siege workshops - hardened, smoke-belching foundries - produce and maintain engines of war, from iron-banded mantlets to compact bolt-throwers adapted for river campaigns. The War College of Erogent, while smaller than its counterpart in Raveas, is respected for its rigorous focus on supply logistics, quartermaster training, and siegecraft. Officers trained here often rise quickly through the legions, armed not just with steel, but with strategy.
The city also maintains a seasonal militia, drawn from citizen volunteers and merchant guild levies. While rarely deployed outside the city, they are well-drilled in street control, fire suppression, and defensive holding tactics. In times of crisis - such as border raids, civic unrest, or attempted sabotage - they fall under the Tribune’s direct command and are expected to hold the line until the legions mobilize.
Points of Interest
Erogent is a city where history and power are etched into stone, and its landmarks reflect both the glory of conquest and the scars of resistance. From ancient halls to shadowed alleys, its key sites offer glimpses into the city’s layered identity.
The High Ring Citadel towers over the city from its perch atop the ridge, the last remnant of the old royal palace. Its courtyards are paved with cracked flagstones bearing faded heraldry, now overshadowed by the black-and-gold banners of the Empire. Within, the Tribune of the Western Marches holds court, flanked by stone effigies of both fallen kings and imperial war heroes. The citadel's archives, strategy halls, and audience chambers are a blend of old grandeur and new authority - each bearing witness to the transition from throne to command post.
Tucked away behind fortified walls and layered with wards, the Bastion Archives are among the most tightly guarded structures in the western provinces. Here lie volumes of forbidden treaties, censored correspondences, and detailed records of imperial losses - especially those concerning the failed expansion beyond Par-Thalax. Only tribunes, high-ranking legates, and licensed archivists are permitted entry, and rumors persist of scrolls written in blood-ink and vaults locked not with keys, but with oaths.
At the edge of the Outer Ring lies the Market of the Bound Coin, the official trade hub where Free City caravans unload their wares under the scrutiny of imperial inspectors. The market is flanked by tax halls and counting houses, and patrolled by legates trained in both economics and subterfuge. Every transaction is watched, every contract sealed with red wax - and yet, somehow, contraband still flows.
Standing in a solemn plaza near the southern barracks, the Wall of Refusals lists the names of every legion lost in the disastrous campaign against Par-Thalax. The wall is stark - black slate engraved with names in tight imperial script, repainted each year with iron-infused lacquer. It is both a warning and a tribute, a reminder of the cost of ambition and the weight of duty. Soldiers are required to pass it before deploying west, a ritual few take lightly.
Finally, there is Nightglass Alley, a winding maze of cracked cobbles and leaning buildings near the South Gate. Here, beneath flickering lanterns and draped awnings, smugglers, forbidden spirit-binders, and black-market traders ply their trades with quiet efficiency. Imperial agents patrol nearby - but rarely enter. Whether by bribe, fear, or silent complicity, the alley remains untouched, a place where coin is king and oaths are made with whispered names and sharpened smiles.