Yurette

Northern Zazriel is a region dominated by a handful of cities separated by immense high altitude grasslands. The largest city in this region is Yurette, located in the heavily forested region found around Rastolk Bay. This city, while independent, has no municipal governance, is part of no kingdom, and declares no loyalty to any state. The seat of the Zazriel Res Publica, a union of cities, cooperatives, and workers' councils, Yurette is at the epicenter of the anarchism that defines northern Zazriel.

The city proper is home to well over one million people, dwarfing its sister cities. At the center of a network of rail lines, roadways, and canals, Yurette imports a great deal of material for the purpose of further refinery or processing. The city maintains a reasonable standard of living compared to its neighbors, but its political instability causes somewhat regular spikes in violence. The city has moved slowly west along Rastolk Bay throughout history, leaving a trail of old buildings, monuments, and structures called Old Yurette which is a distinct city that has a population of over 500,000.

The origins of Yurette's peculiar form of governance and trade is said to have originated with its founder, Conditor. In 2,112 YM, Conditor and his wife had one dozen children and, from these children, it is said that the entire population of Yurette is descended. The immortal Conditor lived long enough to see the population of Yurette rise to 120,000, forming the Kingdom of Yurette. To his horror, it was nothing like the small village he remembered where no one had needs and everyone cared for one another. In 2,721 YM, Conditor went on a rampage through the kingdom, annihilating Yurette's government and replacing it with its current system. Conditor then died, having created twelve weapons to be wielded by chosen warriors to enforce the new state of affairs, that is, the lack of a state entirely.

History

Ancient Yurette

Local legend says Yurette was a small village with a population of no more than one hundred. Given the climate and region, they lived mostly on fish, basic gardening, and small-game hunting. Despite the advantageous location for trade, the Akina river was sparsely populated with villages no larger than Yurette dotted along its length. Harsh winters always posed a threat to the village but their proximity to the sea spared them from the worst of it. The village had a peculiar system of running things akin to a democracy. These ancient Yurites decided how to run their village based on popular vote and had a democratically elected mayor who acted both as judge and the village elder.

The elder was a regular villager like all the others. Usually too old to do much beyond the village, the elder spent most of their days watching over the children too young to help out. On a sunny autumn day, a cool ocean breeze brought with it a taste of the winter to come. The elder, whose name was lost to time, held an infant as she surveilled the fields around the village. Some of the children ran up to her talking about a "stranger." Probably some trader or someone from a more distant settlement. The source of the children's fright, however, was no mere stranger. A beast of a man, over three meters tall, bulky, and covered in wounds from which silver blood flowed, entered. At first, the elder was at a loss as she looked up at the huge intruder.

The goliath said nothing as he continued through the village towards the bay. He walked directly into the water, unphased by the nearly dangerously cool water flowing from the north. After spending nearly an hour under water, the man reemerged, the tentacles of a squirming giant squid surfacing with him. He dragged the frantic creature out of the sea before consuming it on the beach. As most of the village came back from their daily tasks, they had all kinds of questions for the stranger. Seemingly unable to speak, they eventually just brought him a blanket as he fell asleep on the beach. His wounds had already healed, even the much more recent attacks from the giant squid.

Conditor would become a respected member of the village as he proved his usefulness. Sometimes he would wander around the village, helping with whatever tasks were needed by simply imitating others. While sometimes underestimating his strength, he would learn gentleness. No one, not even the stranger, knew where he came from. No one from the other villages new as well, leading the villagers to give him a name. While most certainly not the name they gave him, legend says that he was called "Conditor" from then on.

After some time, Conditor learned the language and customs of the village. He married an unknown woman whose name was also lost to time, and fathered ten children with her. These children had some of the strange attributes of their father. Their blood had a lustrous pink color, reminiscent of the rose gold the village would later mass-produce; they were quite strong; and, while not inheriting his impressive height, inherited much of his durability. Unlike their father, however, they did not have immortality. After a century, all of the people he met in the village were dead, as were his children and most of his grandchildren. Conditor became closed-off, residing in crags near to the village and only occasionally checking in on his descendants.

Kingdom of Yurette

Yurette eventually became a monarchy just like its neighbors. By around 2,312 YM, it had become a formidable nation. The once friendly villages of centuries ago became bitter rivals as city-states began blossoming across Zazriel. The Kingdom had a fearsome reputation for barbarity and armies fled at the sight of Conditor who, with enough prodding, could be made to join the army in an attack on neighboring cities. Any soldier brave enough to attack the giant met a quick end, but Conditor would almost never attack of his own accord.

At the age of 7, every member of the population became subject to harsh training in schools. Boys and girls alike would, at first, be taught things such as gymnastics and calisthenics. Additionally, hand-to-hand combat and basic competency with a spear was taught in case of invasion. At 17, each would be subjected to a test of strength. For the strongest, they would move on to become soldiers in the army. For the average, it would mean becoming a laborer, fisherman, or farmer. The weakest were simply thrown onto the street and, if lucky, could find a job somewhere.

The population of Yurette became fierce, strong-willed, and difficult to defeat. Never once was Yurette captured thanks to this system. Upon age 30, those in the military received citizenship and could vote. The King himself was an elected official that, if incompetent, would be voted out of office.

The Kingdom of Yurette became feared across northern Zazriel, most known for their brutal subjugation of the nearby kingdoms. They took pride in not relying on Conditor for every military victory, later making a point to never take him with the armies. By 2,405 YM, it had captured a massive slave population from nearby kingdoms. It was the first kingdom to institute chattel slavery based on race, the difference easy to find based on a simple test of blood. Yurites retained their pink blood, despite losing all of the other traits that came with being a descendant of Conditor.

The Kingdom of Yurette

The Kingdom carried on until 2,412 YM when Conditor finally looked around his city. It was a typical morning; Conditor trudged out of the nearby hills through the half a meter of snow covering the area. His walks to the city grew shorter every year as it expanded. He passed by a field where soldiers trained in the snowy conditions, their breath clouded the air as they practiced moving around on skis. One of their ski poles was their main spear, the other a side arm. Some of them waved at Conditor as he passed while their commander gave a proper salute. Conditor nodded as he continued.

Conditor brought with him a pouch of coins, too heavy for the average person to carry. The pink coins, made up mostly of gold, copper, and silver, were the standard currency. Gold was hard to come by and the mines in the northern mountains were nearly impossible to maintain. At first meant to spread out the supply, the pink coins soon became a symbol of Yurette's people. They were about half the value of most coins on Zazriel, but they were backed by its strongest power. They were for the usual purpose, buying a reindeer. They were the principle food source of the kingdom. Cattle from the nearby islands had a difficult time during the long winters and brutal nightly lows.

Conditor grabbed the rope around the reindeer. This daily purchase, the sheer amount of food needed to keep his body going, was always met with fanfare. He was essentially a local deity; the Kingdom had no official religion otherwise. People donated to him, handed their children to him for blessing, and even began believing he could heal the sick. The lame and beggars sometimes followed him for kilometers into the wilderness, the former usually receiving help from the latter. After some time he would shoo them away with a small bribe, but when word got out that he did this, he was overwhelmed. For the sake of peace, Conditor began giving the money donated to him to whomever he saw.

A plague struck in 2,412, meaning he was crowded more than usual. Once they figured out he was immune, the people would not leave him alone. After a few more weeks of the plague ravaging the city, the people stopped showing up. Conditor's usual reindeer salesman had died. His hunger forced him to look for another. Civic order had begun breaking down, making finding food harder. Dead in the middle of winter, the bay was frozen as it would be for about a month. Finding a fish in there was uncomfortable even for Conditor. If he spent too long searching, he could risk freezing. One time he spent over two years stuck on the bottom of the bay, the water not warm enough for two summers before he could move again.

As he searched through the city, he saw many of the slaves escape. They stole whatever coverings they could find, often from the piled bodies, and ran for the hills. This was likely a death sentence, either from cold or plague-carrying clothes, but the opportunity would never come again. A small woman, a foreigner from the northern isles who was most certainly a slave, sat against the wall in an ally. Conditor walked past, his shadow startling her as she put up a pitiful attempt at self-defense. Conditor stared at the small form; legend says that she reminded him of his wife from so long ago.

He looked around in a sort of horrid awe; it was nothing like the small village he once knew. His eyes began to weep tears of his silver blood. At once, all of his descendants wept similar tears. Conditor, in his rage, began to kill those with significant power in the city. Generals, business owners that treated slaves poorly, wealthy individuals, and the king all died. Covered in the lustrous pink blood of his descendants, Conditor continued his rampage through the military. Not even their strongest soldiers lasted a minute against his fury.

After several hours of rampage, dozens of destroyed buildings, and thousands of deaths. Conditor began giving a speech to the poor, the enslaved, and the disabled. To those brutalized by the system they had no choice but to participate in. He gave a vision for society, a vision that would return Yurette to its days as a village. No one went hungry, all cared for one another, and all were free to live as they saw fit. People fished, worked, and farmed not just for their survival but for the survival of the whole village. After stating his vision, a large portion of Yurette began following Conditor in his quest to restore Yurette to its former glory. He departed for the mountains once more, satisfied with the work he had done. The people were free from the kingdom and slavery was abolished. While checking in every so often, his mind began clouding once more. The duldrum returned him to his trance state.

The merchant class represented the only remaining power structure. Since they controlled nearly all of the funds needed to feed the population, they formed a temporary noble class. As summer came and the people returned to the fields, foreigners from the north saw their chance to conquer the city. Without much of a military left, the City of Dareum's forces had an overwhelming advantage. Yurette had finally fallen after centuries of hegemony. The feckless merchants, using their connections in Dareum, almost immediately defected.

Kingdom of Rastolk

Dareum's first goal was to enrich itself; it imported tens of thousands of Yurites as slaves. Its palaces raided and its monuments ruined, Yurette's population rapidly decreased. The only thing keeping Dareum from completely subjugating the city was Conditor, who still entered every day. Desperate to stay in the good graces of the dazed giant, the city remained a colony. Somewhat self-governing, Yurette was never fully exploited. However, Dareum had no incentive to treat surrounding villages with the same respect. Many fled to Yurette to escape persecution.

During a protracted conflict with Sorenano, Dareum burned through its currency reserves and soldiers. With no choice but to augment their army with the Yurites, Dareum's military became increasingly dominated by the more populous Yurites. Populists who remembered the old days sprung up throughout the military. Revolutionaries that romanticized the past when Yurette ruled itself.

On the eve of battle, the first snow filled the air. Two armies lined up in anticipation of a conflict. The Yurite-dominated Darean army faced off against Sorenano's mercenary forces. Representatives from the kings of Dareum and Sorenano could not find an agreement. Dareum's representative solemnly returned to the horse-riding commander. Sorenano's representative eagerly ran back, gleefully returning the news of an impending battle. Sorenano's soldiers beheld the Yurite soldiers murder their commanding officers. Their expensive golden armor pieces were the first to be stolen, but the decorated horses made great prizes as well.

Sorenano's army nearly attacked the Yurites, but this attack would be unnecessary. The mercenary army had a far superior target behind them, the undefended city of Dareum. The Yurites returned home to a liberated city, forming the Kingdom of Rastolk in 2,464. With Yurette and a handful of outlands comprising the bulk of its territory, the Kingdom was beset by internal instability from the beginning. The first ruler, King Archytas I, could not cement his power.

Economy

Yurette has a centrally-planned economy in which the official ownership of all assets within the nation are owned by the state. Unlike feudal societies, where the king officially owns all land in the society, sovereignty is vested in the government itself. Since Yurette has no king, the state, of which everyone in Yurette is a part, owns everything. The economy is characterized by state-control of investment; however, different departments are often allocated resources based on how well their products do in foreign markets. Yurette has a very low rate of unemployment and very high job security.

Since the founding of Yurette, its economy was guided by not only the demand for its goods in other cities, but demand for its goods across Zazriel and beyond. It transformed from a highly agrarian society to a more industrial economy as time went on. Metal refining is the largest industry, with large amounts of iron, bronze, and aluminum exported to neighboring cities. Other industries include lumber, glass production, porcelain and other ceramics, agriculture and fishing.

Central Planning

All information about the economy flows from the top down with little room for input from the market. There are four main bureaus which each contribute to the planning of Yurette.

Central Argentaria

The Central Argentaria is responsible for the monetary policy of Yurette. It is the only bank in not just Yurette but the Zazriel Res Publica. This bank mints the various currencies of Yurette.

Currencies

Yurette has four major currencies used for a number of different purposes. For payment for its workers, it issues an "Orose," for a daily wage. By definition, a daily wage for manual labor is an Orose. Coins which represent a single Orose are uncommon throughout Yurette's modern history. Prices for goods are usually given in fractions of Orose, whether regular or irregular.

Subdivisions of these currencies, while not made out of the substance they represent, are redeemable throughout Yurette for the metal they represent. Silver-based coins are used for external trade. Internally, they can only be exchanged for their official value, regardless of the real value of silver in comparison to gold.

Gold Coins
Coin	Value	Composition
Xirose	4/3	24K Gold
Orose	1/1	18K Rose Gold
Semirose	1/2	9K Red Gold
Rinrose	1/3	6K Copper Gold
Onrose	1/4	4.5K Copper Gold
Inrose	1/6	3K Copper Gold
Lirose	1/12	Electrum
Azarose	1/24	100% Silver
Ararose	1/32	75% Silver
Arose	1/48	50% Silver

Factories

Geography

Yurette is the largest city in northern Zazriel and its second largest over the whole continent. It is one hundred kilometers north of the island of Ado and the nearest major population center to the city is the city of Yuyurum, a smaller port city on the other side of the bay. The Akina River, flowing northward from the Starmiin Mountains, provides nearly all of the water for the city and the agriculture around it. Yurette exists mostly on arable land with the exception being sandy soil on the northern end of the city as one approaches its beaches. Consequently, the largest structures of Yurette are located in-land where strong foundations can be built.

Rastolk bay is a deep water bay with a small atoll near the center, forcing ships to use the sides of the bay as they make their way to Yurette's port. The atoll is a part of the City of Yurette and hosts a monument called Conditor's Fist built to recognize the city's founder. The project required accelerating the growth of the coral around the island using alchemy to support the impressive weight of the structure.

The originally somewhat hilly area of Yurette has been largely flattened over the 2,000 years that the city has been very large. Much of the earth excavated was used for land reclamation in the bay. Today, much of the city lies on land that did not originally exist. Due to the fairly common storms that can ravage southern Zazriel, there exist several dykes protecting Yurette from storm surges. These dykes took over three centuries to complete, are reinforced using hardened Yurite Steel, and are consistently patrolled in case of attack. Many of them are still being repaired from damage sustained in the All's Rule War.

Buildings

Most of the tallest buildings in Yurette, those over 10 meters tall, are reinforced with Yurite Steel, allowing for heights of up to 100 meters. The tallest building in Yurette is known simply as "The Commons," a 100-meter tall tower housing 8 of the 12 elected leaders of Yurette at a time. On four sides of the hexagonal tower, there are steam-powered crossbows with range just large enough to strike outside of the city. Called "The Batteries," these four colossal apparatuses have been essential for warding off unwelcome ships in the bay or invaders on land. Atop The Commons is a meeting place for the leaders of every city in the Zazriel Res Publica.

Other notable structures include the "Stadia," a series of large structures used for public debate, events, and elections. The largest of which, called "Stadium Primum," can hold over 10,000 people and is the site of numerous speeches, events, games, and even public executions. Accompanying the Stadia are large market-places where goods are distributed and luxury items are traded.

One of the most important buildings in Yurette is the Institute of Magical Research which, despite the name, is also used for the studying of science. The scientific method, while scorned in many places on the continent, was accepted in Yurette relatively early on, allowing this institution to be one of the first of its kind on Zazriel. From this building came most of Yurette's recent advancements in science, magic, and especially alchemy, in which the institute specializes. The building, the largest by volume in all of the Res Publica, is also the site of the first large-scale factory, which was specialized in steal production. Numerous other factories have since popped up, collectively owned and modeled like all other forms of production in the city.