The Imperial Palace is a massive, opulent structure made out of magically shaped metal, ceramic and stone. It rises out of a mound of rock in the center of the Fallows. It has numerous towers and domes and these are often girded by sharp spines intended to help protect it against large predators.
The inner sections are decorated with innumerable shiny objects, whether gems, metal or glass. Plush woven carpets line the corridors, and the truly important rooms are lit by floating glass spheres that contain magical lights... enchantments created by the ancients, back when magic was more plentiful.
Only a small portion of the inhabitants are actually nobility. The vast majority are servants. Those mice who serve specific nobles have higher status than those that serve the palace as a whole... the personal assistant of one of the royals is a more important individual than many minor nobles, and wields considerably more power.
The Alabaster Temple is a sprawling complex of white stone buildings. Officially dedicated to the worship of the gods, it's basically a monestary populated by the priesthood. The brothers and sisters here spend their time copying books and records, studying ancient texts, and practicing the magical arts. The priesthood, while nominally the spiritual leaders of the land, spends most of its time acting as accountants and bureaucrats for the nobility.
Noble children with an interest in learning are often sent to the Temple to be properly educated and a portion of the complex is dedicated solely to the housing and training of young noblemen and noblewomen. Some of these children have higher status and more authority than their tutors, making discipline difficult.
There are several smaller monestaries scattered through the empire, most of which try to copy the polished white walls of the Alabaster Temple. Even small town churches are painted white whenever possible.
Grennedell (sometimes known as Forest Edge) is a community built on and around the trunk of an ancient oak on the edge of the Fallows. It was established to guard against intrusions from the forest itself, but the guards have grown lax over the years since no real dangers have materialized of late. It's said that the tree was alive when they started building their community in its branches, but over the years the community expanded inwards, carving out new rooms inside the oak's core. The tree has been dead for generations now. A few, more foresighted folks worry about the rot slowly weakening the city's core, but they're generally regarded as fools by the locals.
Stump (or The Stump) is a moderate-sized mouse community in the central portion of the Fallows. The town is built into an enormous treestump, which has now been entirely hollowed out and turned into a mouse town. According to legend, the Stump was once a huge oak that one of the White Lords cut off at the base so that it would fall and crush a terrible Ka'at, but if so, no one is sure what became of the tree itself, because no sign of it has ever been found. There's only the Stump itself.
Stump is most famous for its breweries, as a small patch of wild berries grow nearby that the locals ferment into alcohol. It's most commonly bottled in distinctive heavy ceramic jugs, each of which bears a carved picture of the city... the older, more expensive wines have detailed and intricate pictures that are minor works of art themselves, whereas the cheaper wines rarely have more than a brown square on the side.
Lakeside is a fishing town on the shore of the Great Lake. While the ordinary populace makes do with little wooden boats and rafts, there are a couple of Imperial mages here whose job is to ensorcell turtles so that parties of vacationing noblemen can fish off of their backs. The roof of Lakeside's town hall is made from the top shell of an ancient turtle and is considered an important landmark in the area. Mice are normally forbidden to climb onto the roof to minimize wear-and-tear on the slowly decaying structure, although servants polish and shine the scutes so that it'll look more impressive whenever a party of important nobles come to visit.
Posted by Kiz at May 28, 2005 09:10 PMCommentsPost a comment