Natare
It is not the centre of the realm, it just is a city that wants to pretend it is. Just look at their maps.
Natare, free city, socially and culturally independant and 'superior' to its neighbours. A city grown from a small settlement on the Natahim, its living towers watch over the great Sakura tree from which the city gets its crest and its magical core. The shining beacon into the new age of the world of Levis and armed with the glowing circuits of the Academy of Natare as its weapon into this time of strife and chaos, the city of knowledge has never seen a problem it cannot ignore - instead needing to solve everything.
Natare is split in twain, the upper city is designed around the spiral of nature and the mathematics that surrounds all things and holds the mages and those with the mage-stic mind. While the lower city holds those that work the city, and grows upon itself, developed based upon what is needed.
As with all Levis, the gardens are what makes each space special, and the Natare Arboretum is the cherry on the delicious cake that is the city of rational thought. All of Natare is surrounded and built upon its gardens, both in the public spaces, and in the residential and rooftop gardens of its people, the city a mass of compressed lushness - bordering to the Forbidden Forest to the north.
Defences
The first defence of Natare is the thick woody wall that surrounds both the upper and lower cities. Laced with circuit magic, the wall was originally powered by sun blooms (io-altered flowers who would absorb magic from the air) but now has a canopy of solar cells played in intervals along its surface. With 4 surface entrances to the city through the wall, and access across the bridge, there exists the gate system that allows access to the city.
The largest gate exists on the upper city and is adjacent to the combat mage and city watcher hub, this double sized entrance is the main welcoming portal to Natare and is open more often than not - often the entrance that lets through the breeze that comes in off the forest - a ghost of the coastal breeze. The other gates include the main entrance to the lower city, the gates over the tongue, and the gate to the raised funicular.
Smaller gates are provided by the accessway to the academy, and to the underground sewers of the city, mainly the Path of the broken way.
Further defences include those two combat mage staging grounds. One is the training zone near the laboratories within the academy, this is the more frequently used area, where those from the academy go to learn and update their lessons of both martial forms, flexibility and circuit tattoos and their uses. The other staging ground is more a residency and organisational hub, with excess free rooms for storage and to house visiting Tracker and Hunters, along with the standing Watchers - who at one point were coordinated by Br1n but now work as a unit under the guidance of the city council.
The largest gate exists on the upper city and is adjacent to the combat mage and city watcher hub, this double sized entrance is the main welcoming portal to Natare and is open more often than not - often the entrance that lets through the breeze that comes in off the forest - a ghost of the coastal breeze. The other gates include the main entrance to the lower city, the gates over the tongue, and the gate to the raised funicular.
Smaller gates are provided by the accessway to the academy, and to the underground sewers of the city, mainly the Path of the broken way.
Further defences include those two combat mage staging grounds. One is the training zone near the laboratories within the academy, this is the more frequently used area, where those from the academy go to learn and update their lessons of both martial forms, flexibility and circuit tattoos and their uses. The other staging ground is more a residency and organisational hub, with excess free rooms for storage and to house visiting Tracker and Hunters, along with the standing Watchers - who at one point were coordinated by Br1n but now work as a unit under the guidance of the city council.
Infrastructure
The biggest infrastructure within Natare for the longest time was Br1n and the terminals network that linked the city. The AI Br1n was the one in control of movement of water and magic from the solar cells and the water tanks around the city. With each resident of the city owning their own water collection device, and much of the city now connected to the magic networking that comes from both the solar cells and the sun blooms, Br1n had been working all these systems, with ruthless efficiency. In the current day several shifts of gardeners and administrators work to maintain the control she once had.
Terminals act as both communications (something like the reader's video call) and as holographic information packages. For the longest time, connected to the vast information network Br1n could lay her hands on, these nodes still reside all throughout Natare, just without the AI that laced through them. The network itself still provides unprecedented communication across the city, unseen of within other settlements within Levis, but in current times is forced to work with the Br1n Network to provide the on-hand knowledge of the past.
Beneath the city lies the sewers, once a functioning waste export system, the task has been replaced by a series of paths run into the sewers, aphidelites carrying fresh waste away from the waste sites and into the mulch heaps outside the city. citation needed.
On the east wall of the city is the train port for the land train between Saburra and Natare. Other train routes have been discussed (namely the Starberry fields, but Saburra-Natare holds the only land train currently outside of the land train to Gracetown within the Solaris Kingdom. The train port also acts as housing for transports of barter goods from around the realm, before they are moved up the raised funicular to the market.
Speaking of the funicular, the device is a raised rail made of intertwined branches from trees grown up the side of the hill which Natare sits. Its two large carriages are counterbalanced and rotate along the path at a steady and regular pace, taking barter goods directly into the Academy, and much faster through the city than the winding path of the main gate. It also moves visitors from Saburra up and into the academy, allowing their fist image of the city to be the vista of the mages and their works.
Terminals act as both communications (something like the reader's video call) and as holographic information packages. For the longest time, connected to the vast information network Br1n could lay her hands on, these nodes still reside all throughout Natare, just without the AI that laced through them. The network itself still provides unprecedented communication across the city, unseen of within other settlements within Levis, but in current times is forced to work with the Br1n Network to provide the on-hand knowledge of the past.
Beneath the city lies the sewers, once a functioning waste export system, the task has been replaced by a series of paths run into the sewers, aphidelites carrying fresh waste away from the waste sites and into the mulch heaps outside the city. citation needed.
On the east wall of the city is the train port for the land train between Saburra and Natare. Other train routes have been discussed (namely the Starberry fields, but Saburra-Natare holds the only land train currently outside of the land train to Gracetown within the Solaris Kingdom. The train port also acts as housing for transports of barter goods from around the realm, before they are moved up the raised funicular to the market.
Speaking of the funicular, the device is a raised rail made of intertwined branches from trees grown up the side of the hill which Natare sits. Its two large carriages are counterbalanced and rotate along the path at a steady and regular pace, taking barter goods directly into the Academy, and much faster through the city than the winding path of the main gate. It also moves visitors from Saburra up and into the academy, allowing their fist image of the city to be the vista of the mages and their works.
Districts
Upper City
The districts of the upper city mostly follow the spiral of the road that winds through its gardens and spires.Coming off the main gate you have the staging area a wide area of limestone worn smooth from the constant footfall over the centuries. Below it is the Hunter and watcher area, as discussed in defences.
Moving around the edge of the upper city, we next come to the Two Suns district - full of spires, and connected by Sky Bridges. Within this district are the Crystal Spires of VRPI and the Sky Terrace, a brilliant ballroom for the upper class. Those of prestige and influence live here, in massive apartments, with sprawling gardens and later large almost-metallic Solar cells down the side. Some have traded their work within mage study for the life found here, while others barter influence. Many of the Bist suspect that somewhere along the line a scunt deal has found its way through, though all recognise that living here is its own way of making the occupants well off.
Continuing around we come to the entertainment district of Erony. Within this district is the luxurious teahouse Moonlit Melodies. It borders the Academy of Natare to the west, whose multiple gates welcome the city in its spendor. Erony has always been one of the places of wonder and mischief - many a late night wanderer has found their way here in search of adventure - and found it with good company, good drink and good fun. From Deluna Vesperine the dancing bard, to Mrs Estain the kindly old teahouse lady, each generation has had its eccentric personality waiting within Erony to welcome those with a wandering heart.
Further around journey takes you to the Primaris and Secondus residencies, for those who live adjacent to the Academy but have yet to achieve the fame of accomplishment and the wonder of a great work or discovery. The apartments here are multi-levelled with rooftop gardens that are shared by the inhabitants (along with their own smaller balcony gardens). Living here is tight but orderly, frugal by neccessity and the lack of space to store great trades. The people here are driven, missing the relaxed nature of most of the rest of Levis, and instead pressed into a small intensity that study barely takes the edge off.
Moving along the spiral, you have the market district, large tiered leaves that allow for stalls to be grown into place to meet the rotating group of sellers in the place. Woven seats and embedded circuit power sources are built into the functionality of this place, and all of it is watched over by the Trademaster. It is defined by the administration buildings hosting the Council Members and the massive green space that leads all the way to the watcher barracks.
In the centre of the city is the dual areas of the arboretum with its massive Sakura tree, and the central amphitheatre. In distant times the staging platform was within the academy, but time and design has the stage now a central part of the curve of the city, allowing the wonder of the academy to be shown to the masses of the city.1
The jetty and docks on the island collects the resources travelled up the river from the Oceanus region. Other methods are then used to bring the resources to the city proper.
The lower city contains two districts, though has been reorganised in recent years as new demographics have joined Natare. Traditionally, one district was for the workers - those who tended to the Academy grounds, those who worked as the hands of Br1n, and those did many of the tasks that were deemed less socially sexy. As housing and food are mandatory within Natare, it has always been viewed then that these 'lesser' tasks are a choice and therefore should be out of sight. But has led to people of like disposition finding community far away from the eyes of those that might look down on them.
The second district in the lower city has become groupings of the new and rearranged types of people from across Levis set large. While a renowned Troll captain might trade up to the Two Suns district, a troll family who has moved from one of the towns down Vertus way, or a Nocturne family from Oceanus , or even one of the lesser demons from Xylos' camp might end up here, brought together through choice.
The buildings in the lower district are less defined, growing upon each other with need and a conscious look at the space needed for the gardens of its residences. Those of the lower city would rather life sprawled upon one another with larger spaces for their communal gardens than live like the residences of those in training, their Mother and their Apothecary centre to their community.
Geography
Natare is situated upon two hills, low and rolling in the lower city, and high and hilly on the upper city side. The long slope down to the land train station in the east was a design challenge that vexed the people of Natare for awhile and the deep cave system beneath the city only survives under the weight of the upper city by the creation of the sewer system that reinforces the hill.
The Natahim carves its way through the two hills, and the walls of the lower city are built to reinforce that land for when the Natahim occasionally floods.
The Natahim carves its way through the two hills, and the walls of the lower city are built to reinforce that land for when the Natahim occasionally floods.
Climate
Natare experiences warm dry summers, and cool rainy winters, protected from the heat of the plains to the east by the Forbidden Forest to the north. Its leafy bulk slows and gathers the moist air as it travels up the local hill upon which Natare sits, dulling the bite of those summers and giving the local area more rain than their surrounds.
There is a dull wind that blows in off the coast and the town is angled and opened to allow what remains of it to flow through the city, blowing out the residual warm air that collects there during the summer and venting it from collecting in urban heat concentrations.
Natare City Crest by CoolG
Maps
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Natare
Alternative Name(s)
Lux
Type
Metropolis
Related Ethnicities
Included Locations
Ruling/Owning Rank
Related Tradition (Primary)
Related Traditions
Characters in Location
Related Plots
Thank you for reading, feel free to give feedback.
You asked for some feedback, so here we go! Natare is a really inventive city, so solarpunk and verdant! You've got some excellent ideas here, and some very strong visuals! I think with some more work on the flow and formatting of the article, others will really fall in love with Natare too. Some formatting notes I have are to make sure you have an empty line before each of the headers. Do you see how the headers for Infrastructure and Districts brush up against the paragraph above them? That makes the article look a bit off. I also encourage you to try adding subheaders in longer segments like the districts. Something like Upper City and Lower City would be helpful for orienting around the article. Flow is a bit trickier to teach, but it's basically how the article goes from idea to idea. Like how you first describe the upper class areas, then the middle class, then the lower class. That flows, but occassionally the flow is broken, like at the very start of the article your quote opens with "It is...", but we don't really know what *it* is yet, and new readers don't know what Solaris is either. That's an issue of flow, we generally need to have something defined before we can simplify to "it". Flow is also where and how we divide up our paragraphs. Often we don't want more than one big visual or complex idea per paragraph, because people usually read one paragraph at a time. Keeping it to one big idea or visual lets us sit with that and imagine it for a bit before we start on the next. I hope you find this feedback useful, and wish you lots of luck with your worldbuilding!
Solaris -— a sapphic space opera
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Thanks Sage, the feedback is fire