Whitelake

On the eastern edge of White Lake, a mighty waterfall sends the pure, fresh water cascading into the Bluecap Sea below. Built of the shining white stone that gives the lake its name, on an island above the falls, the grand city of Whitelake stands. Walled and dominated by nine soaring towers of alabaster stone, the city is the oldest upon the continent of Terultimae, and the center of worship for The Nine.

Culture

The people of Whitelake are, by and large, very religious - the default assumption of any citizen is that they worship at least one of the Nine, most often more. The culture is tied to the waters of the White Lake - a yearly cycle of flood and fallow dictating the seasons and calendar first established by the city that proved the foundation for the reckoning of the year used by the rest of the continent.

History

The city was founded long ago, by sailors from across the Bluecap Sea, fleeing some untold disaster - the specifics of which are lost to the mists of time. Landing upon the shore of Terultimae, they found a vast freshwater lake - closer to an inland sea, in some senses - and settled upon the clifftops.

Notably, the peoples of Whitelake are the ones who made The Bargain With The Nine, providing mortals with a degree of protection from the whims of the divine.

Territories

The city of Whitelake controls a nation known as The Nonary Land; reaching as far north as the Iceflats and the Valley of Swords, and as far south as the beginnings of the Boundless Desert. Many small villages and towns exist within this nation, usually with one of the Nine as their individual patron; this means that the churches of those individual deities are responsible for the management and tithing of those settlements.

Religion

As may be expected of the religious center of power on the continent, the Church of the Nine Gods is the predominant religion in Whitelake. However, the further you get from the city itself, the less strongly this influence is felt; outlying regions often paying little more than lip service to the Nine - although there are strong believers in even the furthest settlements.

Trade & Transport

Ever since the Teleportation Circle network started to be established, Whitelake has taken to it eagerly - wanting to reduce the logistical load that comes from transporting goods across their own nation and to their neighbours. Shipments are regularly sent to each outlying settlement, as well as a steady flow of goods to both The Academy and Coastview.

Crime and Punishment

Crime in Whitelake is fairly uncommon, and they boast of the lowest recidivism rate of all of the nations of Terultimae - the main reason for this is because of their system of imprisonment, known as The Fold.
When a criminal is due for imprisonment, depending on if they are sentenced to a long-term or short-term interment, two different methods of access to the Fold are used.
For those prisoners who warrant only a short-term imprisonment, a small pocket of a magicless, featureless demiplane is opened and they are sent through it with enough food, water, and other very basic amenities to last them until their sentence has expired, and a portal opened to permit them to leave.
If the crime warrants a long-term imprisonment, however, they will instead be sent through a Teleportation Circle into a larger pocket of the Fold - still featureless and magic-less, but the place where all such lifelong prisoners are sent. One way in, and no way out, with daily teleported shipments of food and water sent to keep them alive.

Architecture and Layout

Primarily constructed of the white stone quarried from the lakebed, Whitelake is a gleaming city of shining marble. With the weather near-continually raining the majority of the year, streets are built to drain easily, with a large portion of the houses raised from the street level on platforms of wood or stone. The most populous streets have magical, invisible covers, causing the rain to catch on them in a pattern that sends striating, rainbow patterns over the white stone, causing the High Streets of Whitelake to be renowned as places of beauty all across the continent.
On the Low Streets, however, such amenities are not provided for their inhabitants, with their houses often sunken into the ground with long years of neglect, and flooding of basements and cellars is commonplace.