Editing Whitewall

Directly north from the Blessed Isle lies Whitewall, one of the largest settlements in the Northlands. Located on rocky taiga, it lies several hundred miles north of the coast of the Inland Sea. This prosperous metropolis of more than 700,000 inhabitants is a trade hub for the region. 

==HISTORY==

While originally founded in the First Age as a center of religious study, it has become a powerful city-state in its own right. The end of the First Age left Whitewall isolated and without regular support.

Whitewall’s history began shortly after the end of
the Primordial War, with a monastery for devotees of the
Unconquered Sun. Its monks and nuns farmed to support
themselves. They made their labor a form of prayer and planted
circular fields as living mandalas to glorify Heaven’s King.
A Zenith Caste Lawgiver called Righteous Guide founded
and led the monastery.
The religious community outgrew four monasteries, the
last the size of a town. Righteous Guide proposed to make
the fifth monastery an entire city, designed as a gigantic
mandala to focus and magnify the prayers of the residents.
And so it was done.
The new city of Ondar Shambal became one of the
greatest wonders of Creation—not for its size (Creation held
many larger cities), nor for its splendor (though it was beautiful),
nor for the technology of its construction (most of the
work was actually done by hand). No, the miracle of Ondar
Shambal was that every step of its building was a prayer. The
masons who quarried white granite from nearby hills dedicated
each strike of their chisels to the Unconquered Sun. The
carvers and polishers sang hymns as they worked. Righteous
CHAPTER TWO • THE ONCE-HOLY CITY 19
Guide himself hallowed each stone as
it was laid. Graven bands of scriptures
and sutras ran along the city’s streets,
and mosaics of precious stone adorned
the walls with images of devotion. The
city’s center held a magnificent templemanse
to the Unconquered Sun. High,
strong walls bounded Ondar Shambal in
a perfect circle—not for defense, but to
complete the shining city as the image
of the sun. The labor took decades, but
gods and mortals agreed: Creation held
no holier place than Ondar Shambal.
The Unconquered Sun himself blessed
the city at its dedication.
Hundreds of thousands of acolytes
lived in Ondar Shambal, and millions of
pilgrims visited every year. Many folk—
mortals, Exalts and spirits alike—also
made pious gifts to Ondar Shambal, to be
named in the city’s prayers or just to be
part of its holiness. An earth elemental
opened a network of caverns beneath
the city as extra storage space. A goddess
of hot springs created baths for pilgrims.
The Bureau of Seasons tempered the
region’s weather, while agricultural gods
blessed the farmlands. The monasterycity
became far richer and more luxurious
than anyone expected or intended.
Righteous Guide left Ondar Shambal
to build a sacred road from the city
to the Inland Sea coast as a private
devotional labor to fill his old age and
retirement from leading the city. In his
absence, the Holy City became worldlier.
The priests, monks and nuns spent less
time praying and working, and more time
arguing theology and administering the
city’s vast wealth. Feasting replaced fasting.
The prayer wheels still turned—spun
by pilgrims who paid for the privilege.
When Righteous Guide returned 300
years later along the road built by his
hands alone, he found his monastic city
turned greedy, lazy and impious.
The old Zenith Caste spent a full
month in rage and despair, whipping
himself to the bone in penitential grief
as he prayed for guidance and forgiveness.
In the end, though, he scourged
the worst of the fallen nuns and monks
from Ondar Shambal before leaving the
city forever. To the Solar Deliberative
in Meru, he condemned Ondar Shambal
20
as apostate. Donations and pilgrims ceased at once, and the
city was almost abandoned.
Still, Ondar Shambal remained a well-constructed city
with fertile farmland, so people gradually returned. The new
settlers included a young Twilight Caste named Tenrae and
her Lunar husband Den’Rahin. They claimed Ondar Shambal
as their own, renamed it Whitewall and repopulated it as
an ordinary city. The nearby mountains turned out to hold
metal ores and several rare minerals, including blue jade, so
to farming, the inhabitants added mining and metalwork
as occupations.
Under the Exalted couple’s leadership, Whitewall
attained a comfortable prosperity. Tenrae and Den’Rahin
governed with a light but responsible hand. Whitewall folk
agreed the pair represented the very models of what a Lawgiver
and Steward should be.
The Bronze Faction found no malcontents among Whitewall’s
Dragon-Blooded, and so, the usurping Sidereals had to
murder Tenrae and Den’Rahin personally, in full knowledge
that they slew the innocent. The fighting destroyed a third of
the city and killed thousands. Afterward, the new Shogunate
brutally suppressed Whitewallers who remained loyal to their
slain rulers. People who didn’t succumb to mind-affecting
Charms or believe propaganda about “newly revealed crimes”
learned to stay silent… or they would go to the other city,
whose sole occupation was murder.
Southeast of Whitewall, the Shogunate built an immense
prison camp for the altered humans, artificial life forms and
loyalists of the Solar Deliberative. Prisoners from throughout
Creation funneled into Camp 17, where they dug mass graves
that they themselves would fill. The camp soon became a
shadowland haunted by the ghosts of its victims.
Whitewall learned to obey the Shogunate, but never to
love it—not with Camp 17 next door as proof of the regime’s
origin. The Dragon-Blooded did their utmost to hide the city’s
past, though, by burning chronicles, filling in carvings and
painting over murals and mosaics of the Unconquered Sun.
Despite the defacement, remnant holiness made Whitewall
one of the last cities to fall to the Great Contagion. When
the pestilence came, though, Whitewall suffered a death toll
as high as anywhere else. The sanctity of the city’s walls held,
too: The invading Fair Folk besieged Whitewall, but never
entered. Ironically, the city also saved its enemies, for the
Realm Defense Grid spared everything within a mile of the
city’s sacred bounds.
After the Great Contagion receded, three powerful
gods came to the derelict city. They called themselves the
Syndics and manifested as figures with flesh of clear ice over
silver bones. Behind their shared mask, however, the Syndics
were Luranume, God of Luck; Uvanavu, God of Health;
and Yo-Ping, God of Peace. (See The Compass of Celestial
Directions, Vol. III—Yu-Shan, pp. 142, 152 and 156-157,
for descriptions of these gods.)
The Syndics rallied the remnant population and invited
refugees to settle. They also negotiated peace treaties with
the angry ghosts of the long-since-decommissioned Camp
17 (now named Marama’s Fell after its late commandant,
Anjei Marama), the surviving lords of the Fair Folk and the
nascent Realm. While his empire still stood, they even paid
tribute to the sorcerer Bagrash Köl. Through the centuries
of the Second Age, Whitewall has stood as a bastion of
civilization in the North—but always afraid of the enemies
beyond the city walls.

==GEOGRAPHY==

Whitewall is the North’s largest city-state. It occupies
a broad valley between southern spurs of the Black Crag
Mountains. A patchwork of farms and orchards fills the valley,
but the surrounding foothills are dark with fir and pine.
Beyond them rise the glacier-clad mountain peaks. Winter
lasts through six months of the year, with a short autumn and
a long, cool spring. The city itself is almost 10 miles across,
while the valley in which it sits is 40 miles wide. Whitewall’s
rule extends, loosely, along the famous Traveler’s Road to the
satellite town of Wallport on the Inland Sea coast.

THE CITY

At 15 yards high and six yards thick, the walls of Whitewall are probably the tallest, strongest walls in the North. They present a sheer, shining barrier to the outside world. A single gate pierces the wall, leading to the Traveler’s Road. Inside, buildings show blank white façades to the streets, with strong shutters and doors of bronze-bound wood. Architecture varies widely: The tallest buildings date back to the Old Realm, with elaborate, layered spires. Newer construction ranges from three to five stories tall, with simpler designs but occupying older foundations. The streets no longer follow their original strict plan of radiating rectangular neighborhoods with broad plazas between them, but Whitewall remains a clean, well-constructed city.

The land surrounding Whitewall is rich and fertile, but heavy winters sweep down from the mountains. From late fall until late spring, blizzards make travel to Whitewall almost
impossible. The winter’s long nights breed fear, paranoia and suspicion. Every few years, some fool or madman lets in a fae or undead intruder, and the city guard must hunt it down in
the city’s narrow streets. On occasion, the Syndics are even forced to hire Exalted monster-hunters.


FORETOWN

Whitewallers divide their city based on proximity to the
single gate. The southern third, nearest the gate, they call
Foretown. As the sector that foreign traders first see when
they enter Whitewall, Foretown naturally holds the highest
proportion of shops and markets. Jewelers, swordsmiths
and other artisans congregate in Foretown. So do the city’s
stables, teahouses and caravansaries. The district also holds
Whitewall’s college of mining and metallurgy. Very little First
Age construction survives in Foretown, with most buildings
there less than five centuries old.
Foretown becomes Whitewall’s busiest district in summer,
when foreign and local merchants crowd the bazaars.
“Market season” exposes Whitewallers to people from
throughout Creation—and their cuisine as well, thanks to
the food kiosks scattered between the vendors’ stalls. At
the season’s height, the commercial fair spreads outside the
gate to form a town of tents and wagons. Armed guards and
innumerable torches discourage the Fair Folk and the dead
from raiding the encampment after the sun sets and the gate
shuts. Every year, though, a few furtive merchants slip into
the night. Whitewall folk prefer not to know what these
merchants offer to their uncanny partners, or what they
receive in return.


MIDTOWN

Farmers and miners live in the middle third of Whitewall,
as do brewers, carpenters and other tradesmen. Many artisans and clerks who work in Foretown prefer the cheaper lodgings
of Midtown. The district also holds the Jewelers’ College and
the College of Agriculture. Many First Age buildings still
stand in Midtown, albeit remodeled and repurposed. Butcher
shops and bakeries occupy ancient chantries, while monastic
cells have become apartments.
Whitewall’s tallest building is a Solar temple-manse in
the exact city center. Its gilded spires and friezes remain undefiled,
still proclaiming the glory of the Unconquered Sun.
The Dragon-Blooded tried to occupy the heart of Whitewall,
but the manse fought them off, its defenses adapting to each
new attack. (The Shogunate could have destroyed the manse
but realized that doing so would reduce the region’s economic
value.) The Syndics couldn’t claim the manse either. It accepts
no one but Lawgivers as residents.

==THE PEOPLE OF WHITEWALL==

==MAKING A LIVING==



==SOCIETY==
Three powerful beings of ice and silver, the Syndics, took control and hammered out a treaty of nonaggression with the local fae and the dead of the nearby shadowland. They still rule the city with a grip of frozen steel. 

==FEAR==

==DISREPUTABLE FOLK==

==LEGAL SYSTEM==

Justice in Whitewall is harsh, and penalties range from heavy fines to indentured servitude to mutilation. Individuals convicted of capital crimes (murder, treason, consorting with the fae or undead) are put outside the walls to face whatever calamity comes to them. They are given no supplies and are dressed in clothing to mark their status as convicts, so that no caravan will give them aid. In many ways, a death sentence would be kinder.

==FOREIGN RELATIONS==

While Whitewall is a nominal ally of the Realm, the city has never paid it tribute thanks to a combination of factors: the Syndics’ puissance, the city’s isolation, and its usefulness as a trade partner and jade producer.

Southwest of Whitewall, scattered along the mountain peaks, are the tiny but independent silverholds, a collection of forts, mining camps and goat-herding villages that barely survive from year to year but have done so for centuries. Some of them are said to leave sacrifices for airborne demons or to make candles that have the power to summon and control spirits.

Whitewall plays a riskier game of diplomacy than
Gethamane. While the city’s fabled walls protect it from
many threats, Whitewall cannot simply shut out the
world. It depends upon both the power of the Syndics and
the lifeline of the Traveler’s Road. Should that lifeline
be disrupted, the consequences would be disastrous. The
power of the Syndics seems unlikely to wane soon, but
they have never fought against the Realm. The Empress
knew the true identities of the Syndics and knew better
than to test their power. The Dynasts who currently
squabble over her throne remain ignorant. Some feel that
a bold strike, such as taking over a long-independent but
prosperous city, could bring them sufficient prestige to
seize the throne.

==FOREIGNERS==

A number of other city-states of varying size lie around Whitewall, spokes to its central hub. While traders can journey to them directly, Whitewall serves as a convenient staging post and base, and many caravans would rather plot their trek via Whitewall and take the extra days that such a journey requires, rather than risk the Fair Folk and the walking dead on lesser roads and across the snow. 


==[[SECRETS OF WHITEWALL]]==


By the conditions of the Syndics’ treaty, the road to Whitewall is inviolate, and no walking dead, ghost or fae may enter the city without permission from someone inside the walls. 

The road itself dates from the First Age and is built of virtually indestructible white stone. Ancient enchantments on the road keep it clear of ice and snow in all but the worst weather.

Anyone—living, dead or fae—may use the road, and none may harm any other on the road. For the living, the penalty for breaking the peace of the road is death, and stone pillars fl ank the road every 40 yards to mark it and to serve as gibbets for the bodies of those who violate the peace. By the terms of the treaty, the Syndics must set two dozen living people outside the walls each year as sacrifi ces. In the past, these have ranged from notorious criminals (such as Mideh of the Snake Fist or the Hundred-Knife Jackal) to reformers or revolutionaries (such as the Snow Peacock, whose body was never found, but whose screams were heard for 10 nights without pause). 

The city of Whitewall is a crowded place that breeds suspicion. Its buildings are constructed of heavy white stone, plain on the outside but decorated inside with bright colors, rich tapestries and vivid rugs. While the city’s inhabitants will trust and befriend a stranger once they are sure of her intentions, they will be grim and taciturn until then, watching for signs of betrayal and stratagems. Just as nobody is invited inside the city without proof of humanity, no one is ever invited into a house casually. Any such invitation is a clear sign that the host considers the guest a long-term friend and ally.
@@ Line 215: / Line 215: @@
 value.) The Syndics couldn’t claim the manse either. It accepts
 no one but Lawgivers as residents.
-AFTON
-The district farthest from the city gate holds the Syndics’
-hall and the upper crust of Whitewall society. Wealthy
-magnates, the most skilled armorers and jewelers and highranking
-officers of Whitewall’s elite military and police
-force, the Guardians, live in Afton. A variety of small gods,
-supernatural half-breeds and a few outcaste Dragon-Blooded
-join them, as do various ambassadors. The district also holds
-the Whitewall College of Architecture and the Lotus Mind
-College of Thaumaturgical Sciences.
-UNDERTON
-An orderly system of tunnels and caverns underlies
-Whitewall, forming a district whose name the locals
-pronounce “Unt’n.” Technically, it’s a slum inhabited by
-Whitewall’s poorest folk… but it’s a slum with the warm
-golden glow of an Old Realm lighting system that no longer
-functions in the rest of the city. Underton stays warm, too,
-and residents never need to worry about the weather. Yet,
-Underton really wasn’t designed as a place for people to
-live. Underton folk have jobs such as street sweeper, garbage
-hauler and day laborer (not to mention mugger, pickpocket
-and shoplifter).
-Underton also holds the city’s public baths, so the district
-sees a steady stream of foot traffic from the surface. The
-Guardians patrol frequently to preserve the peace and order
-for the bathers. Underton folk can use the baths too—at
-night, when they won’t disturb higher-class folk.
-BEYOND THE WALLS
-Large, multi-family farmhouses dot the valley around
-Whitewall, with mining and logging camps in the hills and
-mountains beyond. Most of these are seasonally occupied: The
-residents move into the city in winter and return in the spring
-to work the land and the mines. Every habitation is strongly
-fortified and carries every protection against the Fair Folk and
-the dead that Whitewall’s thaumaturges can devise.
-THE TRAVELER’S ROAD
-In the Old Realm, the road from Whitewall to the Inland
-Sea coast was called the Holy Road. Nowadays, people
-call it the Traveler’s Road or the Great Northern Road. At
-yards wide, it remains the largest road in the North. Its
-white granite pavement shows little wear despite centuries
-of use. Bridges cross a few small streams along the way. The
-blessing on the road keeps it relatively warm in the depths
-of winter, as if the sun shone on it all the time, and the road
-stays free of snow, ice and debris despite the fiercest storms
-and blizzards. Every 40 yards, the road runs between pairs
-of stone pillars topped with inward-facing crescents. These
-crescents once lit the roadway, but the enchantment stopped
-working centuries ago.
-The Traveler’s Road carries subtler and stronger enchantments
-as well. The soul of any human who dies on the road
-immediately enters Lethe. Moreover, any mortal traveler
-who attacks anyone else on the road feels an overwhelming
-compulsion thereafter to hang himself from a pillar or
-convenient tree. The dead and the raksha travel the Holy
-Road as well. Ghosts who attack other travelers are cast into
-Lethe, while Fair Folk are hurled into the Deep Wyld. No
-one knows what would happen to a god, elemental, demon or
-Exalt who broke the road’s curse of safe conduct—it’s never
-happened as far as anyone knows—but the consequences
-would surely be dire.
-Whitewallers know the road’s curse as the Thousand-
-Year Pact, negotiated at the start of the Second Age between
-the Syndics, certain fae lords and at least one Deathlord.
-(Ruvia, god of roads and chief minister of the Golden Barque
-of Heaven in the Bureau of Destiny, claims that he actually
-wove this curse into the road’s fate.) The pact has just over
-years to go before the fae and the Deathlords can demand
-a re-negotiation.
 ==THE PEOPLE OF WHITEWALL==
@@ Line 298: / Line 223: @@
 ==SOCIETY==
-Three powerful beings of ice and silver, '''[[the Syndics]]''', took control and hammered out a treaty of nonaggression with the local fae and the dead of the nearby shadowland. They still rule the city with a grip of frozen steel.
+Three powerful beings of ice and silver, the Syndics, took control and hammered out a treaty of nonaggression with the local fae and the dead of the nearby shadowland. They still rule the city with a grip of frozen steel.
 ==FEAR==