Cars

Cars sits as a major centre of trade on the river Bellier, acting as a gateway and nexus for barges and other traffic. The city is cut through with various canals, allowing boats to navigate across its breadth quite easily. This is done mostly for unloading goods in the warehouses that dominate the city, but also serves for people within the city to travel between destinations. The city and kingdom itself are dominated by commerce guilds, each with its own grand hall in the city itself. These guilds spread their tendrils into the kingdoms across Routot, using Cars as a central point from which to conduct their business. Queen Isolde runs the kingdom as a very capable administrator, having successfully cultivated a very large business empire alongside her own royal influence. Under her guidance, Cars has grown into a powerhouse amid the central kingdoms.

Politics

The court of Queen Isolde is a very strange occurrence among the Routot kingdoms. Rather than filled with nobles and other counsellors, Queen Isolde has gathered around her various traders and merchants. Guildmasters sit in seats of honour, while those few nobles who do make appearances are inevitably tied to the Queen’s own business ventures. Isolde has made a career of crushing competition, using her status and authority to rout her rivals. This has led to a virtual monopoly within the city and kingdom, with practically all businesses in some way owing at least a portion of their profits to the Queen. Many of the burghers and merchants within the kingdom consider it a form of extortion; an even more invasive tax than other kingdoms demand on goods. And yet the privileges she provides for the largest guilds has ensured that business remains within Cars, forcing smaller merchants to remain if they wish to do business with the larger trade guilds. The guilds operate on a system of precedence, each tracing their founding back across the centuries. The oldest guilds are heaped with the most prestige, and granted seniority in disputes with their rivals. This helps to solidify and support older groups while discouraging new competition.

Outside the borders of the kingdom, Isolde has reputations both as shrewd and a bully, using her influence to dominate and coerce neighbours into agreements. The larger of the central kingdoms she tends to treat more fairly, seeing them as equals rather than rivals to shove around. This sort of attitude has earned her an unkind image among her neighbours, and yet they have little recourse but to acquiesce to her whims. She uses the trade guilds as a weapon, cutting off trade to any who displease her, and forcing them into bowing to her wishes. Cars has been alternately under the thumb of the Kings of Houlm across its history, resisting their influence or succumbing to it depending on its ruler. Isolde has fought throughout her reign to have herself viewed as at least equal to the western kingdom, and has even sought to steal those traditionally allied with Houlm. If it were not for other forces in the kingdom resisting the goals of the central kingdoms, it seems that Isolde would have Cars rival Houlm for dominance within the confederacy.

Groups

Goldsmiths Guild

The Goldsmiths are an unwieldy guild, having long ago folded the other jewellers guilds under their fold. Now encompassing goldsmiths, silversmiths, jewellers, and even blacksmiths, they have various conflicting desires under their own roof. What makes the Goldsmiths so powerful is the near total control of all gold and other metals, precious or otherwise, flowing from upriver. Exclusive deals with many of the mines up there, brokered through Queen Isolde’s bullying of their noble overlords, means that any in Cars or even beyond must deal with the guild to acquire resources. And with some of the most productive mines in the Routot realms stemming from the foothills of the Blackreach mountains, this provides them with plenty of sway and influence in the country beyond Cars. Their main hall is an opulent palace, with golden gables and other fine decorations worked into its construction. The hall acts as a bank for the city’s elites, and employs a sizeable security force to defend its wealth.

Worshipful Company of Haberdashers

With Cars possessing so much wealth, it stands to reason that its people should be well-clothed. The Company of Haberdashers has long provided this service, encompassing fur traders, seamstresses, hat-makers, clothiers and other merchants who deal in clothing of all types. They have made a name for themselves by exporting fine quality goods, setting trends across the central kingdoms and the rest of Routot with their creations. Their top members are fabulously wealthy, patronized by nobles from across the confederacy. Queen Isolde herself owns a stake in the guild, providing them with the privileges of a monopoly within the kingdom in exchange for preferential treatment. Clothing from Cars has certain trademarks that denote it comes from the Worshipful Company, and any selling clothing without that trademark in the kingdom can face tremendous penalties.

Landmarks

Canals

Cars is criss-crossed with canals, allowing river barges to dock and unload at the various warehouses and markets scattered across the city. Two main ones act as thoroughfares through the city itself, while these branch and fork into increasingly smaller tributaries. The canals have been built up slowly over time, redirecting the river as its inhabitants have seen fit. The largest two are simply the Bellier river itself, condensed into a more manageable format and with stone walls guiding its waters. The Lord's canal runs east to west, directing traffic towards Houlm and Lake Tarbel, while the City's canal runs north and south, flowing to Breige and Caulois beyond it. While these two are undoubtedly the busiest, two others are notable. The Prince's Canal houses many of the city's elite, offering a staggering array of beautiful noble estates along its banks. The Dyers' Canal on the east side of the city is home to a large market of craftsmen, attracting plenty of traders and farmers in the summer to trade their wares. Boat traffic is extremely common to get from one side of the city to another, with small gondolas offering the service for a fee.

Personalities

Queen Isolde, Queen of Gold

Ruler of Cars, Isolde is very similar to Marguerite in Borleux. Both are older women ruling powerful kingdoms. They differ tremendously in how they go about it, however. Isolde is no warrior, instead her keen mind for business has allowed her family to grow and prosper immensely, dragging their city along with their prosperity. Directly or indirectly, she has a hand in much of the trade moving through Cars, her warehouses making up a sizeable chunk of available space in the city. Throughout her reign she has resisted the pressures to bow to the central kings, seeking to break what hold they had over her father. This has caused significant tension between her and the current Archduke, though the queen still tends to side with her neighbours on most issues. She is neither tall nor short, standing with nearly perfect posture. Hard is a word often used to describe her appearance, devoid of most emotion and pragmatic to a fault. She is a very cunning woman and rules her assets with an iron fist, refusing to delegate much of the day to day activities. Her hair is shifting to grey, and she keeps it beneath a hairnet or veil much of the time.

Charlot, High Priest of Offig

The Cult of Offig has tremendous sway in Cars and beyond. The nature of Cars itself, and the amount of money that flows through the city, makes it an important hub for trade within the realm. As such, it is only fitting that the god of trade finds his largest temple here. Charlot is the deity’s high priest, governing ceremonies and distributing blessings to all who seek them. Aside from that, he is also a savvy businessman, conducting many underhanded deals in the city to swell and further grow the cult’s influence. A rogue at heart, he cares little for anything other than gold, always ensuring that he is protected by the cult in his dealings. He and his priests live lavishly in the city, elites even beyond the touch of many nobles. He is an older man with a bald head and scruffy mutton chops. He often wears a green robe, belted with a bejewelled golden belt. Several rings and other decorations adorn him as well.

Pacome Astier, Master of Haberdashers

The Haberdashers in Cars are a very powerful guild, having control over the textile industry that thrives in the city. Its members come from a number of professions, yet are all attached to clothing in some way or another. Whether they be tanners, shoemakers, dressmakers, or even simple seamstresses, all must pay dues as members of the guild. Its master is Pacome Astier, a very pompous and stylish individual, who has bought into the idea that the kingdom would collapse without his support. He rose to prominence among the Haberdashers on his own talent as a tailor, making clothing for the Queen herself before being placed at the Guild Master’s post on her bequest. He sits as a respected member of the Queen’s court, using his influence as Isolde’s own tailor to encourage and guide her attitudes towards his guild. His biggest mistake is believing in his own non-existent talents at intrigue, believing he is the one manipulating the QUeen rather than vice-versa. Tall, thin and rakish, Pacome is always exceptionally dressed, using the finest cloth he can get his hands on. He holds some minor estate outside of the city, making him technically a landed nobleman in Cars, a fact he throws around whenever possible. He is older, with a thin moustache and short, slicked back grey hair.

Joelle Maudoux, Master Goldsmith

The Goldsmiths guild is essentially a hard-nosed banking cartel in Cars, using its influence and control over raw materials to dominate and influence production within the city. They have little regard for the common folk, instead solely dedicated to expanding their own wealth and power over the kingdom. As such, it often comes as a surprise to many when they meet the current Master Goldsmith of the guild, Joelle. Having apprenticed as a goldsmith under her father, she came by the trade honestly, applying herself well as a journeyman and later master of the craft. It was her talents for driving men forwards that truly earned her role as Guildmaster, however, well-suited to directing the sort of underhanded deals that have allowed the guild to survive. She has few scruples in business, often times acting more like a mob boss than any sort of merchant. She has a special place in Queen Isolde’s court, and the pair get along extraordinarily well. Joelle has been granted land in the kingdom, along with many other prominent guildmasters. Her estates, however, dwarf them all, encompassing a large swathe of riverbank north of the city. She has brown hair, tied into braids, and is extravagantly dressed as befits a woman of her rank. She often wears an abundance of gold, to signify both her position and her heritage. She is past middle age, and has begun to go grey.

Gaston

With all of the money moving through Cars, it should serve as little surprise that crime is rampant throughout the city. Smugglers risk the dock inspectors and tollmen of the river, thieves seek to pilfer and skim from imported stocks, and extortion rackets try to collect whatever the trade guilds haven’t collected themselves. All of this operates alongside the legal heavy-handed taxes and fees of Queen Isolde, making the criminal underworld a tremendously unpopular group among the citizenry of Cars. The exception to this hatred is those who run illegal gambling halls, one of the few realms still untouched by Queen Isolde. With casinos held in the sewers of the city, or in secret back rooms of shops and inns, all are filled with people seeking to increase their own fortunes. The majority of these establishments, at least the most successful ones, fall under the protection of Gaston. A large, barrel-chested Routot man from the north, he rose to prominence in the city as an enforcer for another gang boss. Now, he has been made extraordinarily wealthy by his illicit business, made only possible through secret deals he has made with the crown. In return for a portion of his profits, he reports on other illegal dens and other crime he gets wind of, acting as an informant on the remainder of the criminal underbelly aside from himself. This arrangement has proved lucrative thus far, but Gaston knows his secret will not be kept forever. He is middle-aged and bald, with eyes that are too close together. His features are pinched, giving him a nervous or disgusted expression at all times.