Forgegate
| Forgegate | |
|---|---|
 The River District bridges, with the guild quarters behind.
| |
| CLT name | Foergaet |
| Strength | Skill |
| Position | Confluence of two rivers, central northern landmass; flat river valley; every overland route passes through |
| Population | 250,000–300,000 |
| Walls | The most technically advanced in the world: clockwork detection in the foundations, angled smooth face, brass drainage channels |
| Government | Meritocratic republic; guild council |
| Coin | See Money |
| Makes and trades | Clockwork of every kind, difference engines, surgical instruments, pure Blaenda, Vinaith, optical glass — and a share of everything crossing the north |
| Stance on slavery | Reform as professional standards: does it work, and are the results good? |
| Founding cohort (not in-world) | Mughal Indian — see Meta:Cultural References |
Forgegate (Foergaet) makes, and the world takes. It is the largest city on the northern landmass, the most densely populated anywhere, and the source of nearly all the clockwork the Known World runs on. It sits where two rivers meet and every overland route on the continent crosses, and it is a working city because that is what it is.
Geography and population
The confluence of two rivers created a natural crossroads, and the city grew around it. The rivers give fresh water, waste management, and short-haul river trade. The terrain is flat — a broad river valley — which is why the walls matter more here than anywhere and why the city spread outward rather than up. Between 250,000 and 300,000 people live here; the combination of a craftsman population and a trading hub gives it the highest density in the north.
The walls
Not the most beautiful (Shining Reach has that) but the most functionally advanced. Clockwork detection systems in the foundations ring alarm bells in the watchtowers whenever a large creature approaches. The outer face is smooth and slightly angled, which defeats climbing and turns carnivorous root systems away from the foundations; brass drainage channels at the base suppress growth. The four gates correspond to the four overland routes and are engineering marvels rather than monuments — layered clockwork portcullises, brass gear trains driving massive stone-and-iron doors, and detection systems that identify approaching traffic.
Layout
More organic than Shining Reach's: the city grew around the river crossings and the guild districts. The old districts are dense and maze-like; the newer ones, built outward as the population grew, are more orderly. The look is red sandstone with white marble inlay, cusped pointed arches, jali lattice screens on windows and balconies, chhatri pavilions on the rooflines — and brass and copper clockwork on the facades more visibly than anywhere else in the world, because it is made here and used liberally.
Districts
- The River District
- The oldest quarter, built around the original crossings: narrow streets, the original covered market halls, and bridges that are engineering landmarks — wide stone and brass with clockwork drawbridges for river traffic. It smells of water, old stone, cooking, and the metallic tang that hangs over all of Forgegate.
- The Guild Quarters
- The heart of the city's identity. Every major guild has its own district, identifiable by sight, sound, and smell: the metalworkers' quarter rings with hammers and hisses with steam; the clockwork makers' ticks and whirs; the textile quarter hangs cloth between buildings and its dyers' vats have stained the walls jewel tones over decades. The guild halls are the most impressive buildings in their districts, as intended.
- The Merchant Quarter
- The liveliest district in the north. Banking houses, factor offices, some of the largest market halls in the world, caravan staging yards, and streets wide enough for several Dorath teams to pass. The slave auction house here is the most efficient in the world and handles the largest volume.
- The Civic Quarter
- Less imposing than Shining Reach's, because Forgegate's government is practical rather than ceremonial: guild council hall, merchant court, trade registry, civic registrars, in functional stone that communicates competence. In the civic square stands the largest public clockwork display in the world — a great brass mechanism tracking time, temperature, and river level, which people check daily and which is the reference for all commercial timekeeping in the city.
- The Medical District
- The best surgical theaters in the world, with scope and projection systems, apothecary halls, the physicians' guild precinct, and clockwork instrument makers next door. Deliberately the quietest district in the city.
Dress
Forgegate dresses by guild. Clothing says what a person does and how far they have come in it, and almost nothing about wealth; a rich merchant and a master metalworker are not dressed to be compared and would not find the comparison interesting.
Men wear a long coat fastened to one side over loose trousers gathered at the ankle. The coat is a guild garment: its color, collar, and the border pattern at hem and cuff belong to a guild, and rank shows in the border — a single line for a journeyman, several colors and weeks of a specialist's work for a master. Then the hardware: buckles and rivets past any need, straps across chest and forearm holding nothing, goggles pushed up on the forehead as ordinary dress, brass fittings and tool loops in numbers that would slow a man who actually used them. Sashes are earned. Working members wear shorter, undyed versions with the guild color only at the collar, and their hardware is real.
Women wear a fitted tunic over loose trousers with a light drape over one shoulder or the head, carrying guild color and border exactly as the coat does; a woman who has earned a master's border wears it. The same hardware rule applies — harnessing across the bodice, buckled cuffs to the elbow, brass worked into the drape so it holds its shape. A second garment is as common as the tunic: a long length of fine cloth wound at the waist and carried over one shoulder, over a short fitted bodice, with guild color and rank running the full border, worn with the leather-and-brass harness strapped over it. A woman in fine silk with a working harness buckled over it is dressed entirely correctly for Forgegate and would look deranged anywhere else. Black is the one color that belongs to no one, worn when the border should be the only thing noticed.
Slaves wear the same cut in plain undyed cloth with no guild color anywhere; in a city where every free person carries a mark, wearing none is the tell. A skilled slave working in a guild workshop is a common sight; the guild vouches for the work without extending the mark to the person, an arrangement it has seen no reason to revisit. A companion wears the same forms with most of the cloth taken out — a tunic reduced to a fitted panel, a sheer drape pinned tight, fine brass chain and worked leather in place of harness, all made by the same hands that make instrument fittings and to the same standard, and still with no guild color anywhere.
Music
Old and modal. A drone runs under everything; plucked strings and hand drums carry it; a soloist takes a form and works it, long and improvised, over a rhythmic cycle everyone in the room is counting. The city itself is in the music — hammer strikes, steam releasing, the tick of a workshop, a treadle at pace — deliberately and for as long as anyone has made records. The ensembles are large and loud: struck metal, tuned plates, drums, instruments built by makers who treat them as mechanisms; the Resoenra appears in performance as often as in workshops. A Forgegate piece is built rather than composed and admired the way a good mechanism is, for whether every part is doing something. The largest performances happen in the metalworkers' quarter. Visitors from Shining Reach find it unbearable; Forgegate finds this funny.
Infrastructure and agriculture
The most extensive of any city. Two rivers give the most reliable water supply in the world; the engineers' guild constantly improves the underground works, including flood management for the confluence. Lighting is the best available because most of the world's lighting is made here. Clockwork is displayed on the architecture rather than integrated into it — guild halls run working mechanisms on their facades as advertisement. The agricultural ring is slightly larger than most, very productive through river irrigation, and organized through the farmers' guild, which is Forgegate's answer to almost every organizational question.
What it makes and trades
Clockwork of every kind: the Kroenvra, the Sextra, the Koempsei, and the five instruments. Difference engines. Surgical instruments and the Glaera-silk thread that goes with them. Gaerblaed for those who want one; Hyddra for those who ask no questions. Pure Blaenda, which no other city can free reliably, and the zinc-dipped fittings and hull anodes that follow from it. Vinaith from the Angwyr of the river valleys, the finest wine in the world and priced accordingly. Taedh from the ponds along the Guild Road. Ground optical glass. It imports more Kravoe from Stormharbor than anyone, because without it none of the clockwork runs, and it takes a share of everything that crosses the north, because everything that crosses the north crosses here.
Character
Dense, busy, narrow-streeted outside the merchant quarter; red stone, white marble, lattice, arches, pavilions, and brass over everything. The rivers are always visible and audible. Smoke and steam sit over the city as a permanent haze. Residents call the smell of Forgegate the smell of working; visitors call it something else. Forgegate convened the Pact of Reason, having lost more to a war it had no part in than either side fighting it.