Voidus Posted December 8, 2022 Posted December 8, 2022 Greetings denizens! Our old guide to the Alleyverse thread has fallen a little out of date so I'm adding this to give some additional information on the various districts and locations that have been established around the city. We do have a collaborative Google Doc which is where this is sourced from and will probably be kept a little more up to date, PM myself or one of our other lovely mods if you'd like a link. We also have a thread on our Discord for people to discuss worldbuilding so if you'd like to help build the details of the city or the wider Alleyverse pop by there. This is a work in progress but hopefully people can use some details from here to help flesh out both their scenes and their backstories. City Districts Nalthian District Name: New Hallandren Spoiler Tech level: Predominantly Warbreaker-era Nalthian, though are adopting new technology more easily than some regions of the city (Inspiration of the Scholars) Description: A level of garish brightness bordering on an eyesore, New Hallandren is an assault to the senses of any non-Nalthians passing through. The scent of heavily spiced foods floats on the air, brightly coloured silks are seen everywhere both on the people and the places. Contains: A disproportionate number of the city’s tailors. Scadrian Districts Name: Mistkeep Spoiler Description: An upper class district for the most part, Mistkeep was built predominantly by the Nobles from Scadrial after the Seven Day war when their previous district was the centre of the explosions that rocked the city. Mac: Mistkeep has a distinctly Second Empire Style with the majority of its public and community buildings hearkening back to the late 1800 france. Individual Noble’s may have diverted from the style, choosing to incorporate more foreign styles from other planets upon realising that they existed. Name: Smokestack Spoiler Description: The rebuilt Scadrian district, formed in, over and around the crater of the devastating attack on the city. Name: Mistwarrens Spoiler Description: Less a district in its own right and more descriptor for the sections of slums that wend through both of the other Scadrian districts. (Sorana) The Mistwarrens are one of the poorest areas of the city. The buildings need repair, the inhabitants live in small rooms. Running water and electricity exist but don't work everywhere all the time. Especially in the evenings you can find many of the inhabitants outside, where they gather around fires and share stories about their original home worlds. The crime rate is high and everybody keeps an eye on their possessions. The inhabitants eye those not belonging in their district with suspicion and most of them only leave it in order to beg in the richer parts of Alleycity. Rosharan District Name: The Sphere Spoiler Description: (Sorana) Especially the older buildings in this district show some signs of Rosharan architecture. Thick walls and no windows towards the direction where the storms are to be expected on Roshar. Public buildings were built in a way, so that they could serve as storm shelters, should the need arise. That changed over the course of years and the buildings started to look more symmetrical, although some of the bulky shapes were kept, the storm shelters now serving more as bunkers against some of the destruction regularly occurring in the city. Located near the scholars court the Sphere is home to a fair number of scholars who study the different kinds of investiture and how they can interact with each other. Taldain District Name:Drydock Spoiler Description: Built over the crater outside the city, the ‘lake’ that had been formed by Voidus during the attack on Plasmacore. The now dry crater proved a convenient location for the keeping of Sand. Selish District Name: The Dominion Spoiler Description: (Mac) This area of the city was designed early on by a number of Elantrians, and the ones that are still around don’t allow changes to be made easily. Because of this, its one the oldest parts of the city. Furthermore, everything was supernaturally strengthened to allow for impossibly tall stone towers and keeps. Many of its structures look impossibly tall and ornate, due to normal stone not being able to support construction that size. Because of its age, it’s not designed with car traffic in mind. Most find it easier to park on the outside of the district, and traverse it on foot. The large number of Tia teleporters makes it easier to do that than in other parts of the city. While the maze-like paths leading throughout the district are technically able to fit a horse and wagon, many don’t risk it. Notably, the rest of the city is only recently starting to catch up to the height of the towers and keeps that were built in the Dominion, and the district itself exists in three dimensions. The upper levels are populated with gardens and squares, while in the lower levels the only illumination that exists is soft white blue glow that permeates the district. Other Districts Name: The Bindpoint Spoiler Description: The centermost district of the city, the Bindpoint surrounds the Worldspike itself. At the center of the Bindpoint is a large lake surrounded by a huge park which combines flora and partially fauna from many different planets. The park is cultivated by a whole army of gardeners who try to create different scenes and landscapes, partially in growing houses, partially with the support of Aons, Forgery or other forms of technology or technical devices. The result is a beautiful piece of art that serves a place to go to recover or to take a walk, but also serves as a place where you can study the different types of ecosystems. Name: The Corridor Description: The corridor is a long, thin district that separates the two Scadrian districts from each other. Spoiler Just as the corridor is in between the two scadrian districts, its inhabitants are a wild mixture of all the different cultures. Artists of all kinds have settled here and turned the former rather ugly streets into something beautiful. Most walls are covered by paintings or stickers, the street art regularly turning rubbish into something beautiful and unique. Most that live here are poor, but not desperate. People smile at each other and most know their neighbours well. They are welcoming towards 'Outsiders' easily integrating those that move here, or visit the streets. Small stands sell food during day and some of the most renowned artists of Alleycity live in larger buildings near the center of this quarter. For reference pictures please look up 'Gänge Viertel Hamburg'. Name: The Cauldron Spoiler Description: A melting pot of different cultures. (Sorana) The Cauldron is home to many of the Alleycity craftsmen and their families. They share the knowledge of their respective cultures in guild-like structures, craftsmen of the same kind coming together to work and learn despite their different origins. Most of these organisations own a larger public building for their members to meet, spend their free time or solve conflicts. They have many connections to the other districts and use the fact that they have access to knowledge about the different cultural backgrounds to their advantage. The district is usually a calm and peaceful one, the cobblestone streets lit at night by various types of lanterns and in good shape. Most of the buildings have a yard hidden behind large doors to allow for carriages or vehicles to pass through. Often families live above their workshops or stores. You can buy more or less everything here and if you know where to go, you can also find goods for the more shadowy professions here, too. Be it an apothecary who offers poisons under the hand, or a smith who sells spring blades, with the right contacts you can obtain whatever you need. Name: Charred Heights Spoiler Description: A rebuilt district, built over the swathe of the city destroyed by the Phoenix during the Seven Day War. Despite their name the Charred Heights is a clean and well ordered place. As it was rebuilt after the Seven Day War its streets were planned out and are therefore rectangular. The whole district is so new, that it incorporates lots of technical devices by those who came from the cytoverse and therefore it has an overall scifi feeling to it. Name: Scholar’s Court Spoiler Description: District holding the Alleycity University Scholar's Court is, apart from the University, famous for it's bars and taverns. From a classy place to have a tea in the afternoon, over a wine bar with carefully selected interior, to a typical tavern with wooden tables and chairs - whatever place you look for to go and have a drink can be found there. Some of the streets are said to sleep during the day and only wake up after dark has fallen to entertain their visitors with drinks, food and the occasional music that can be heard even outside of a disco. Some other places offer shelves to exchange read books in combination with large tables for groups of students who like to learn together in a nice cafè. Apart from that, there are more bookstores in this district than anywhere else in the city, as well as large buildings housing cheap, small flats for the students. Locations Alleycity University Name: Alleycity university Spoiler Location: Description: Einladung Hospital Spoiler Name: Einladung Hospital Location: The Cauldron, next to a large square Description: Originally founded by Syen who belonged to the Ghostbloods, the hospital is now independent of all guilds, although it still keeps tight connections to the Mirrorshades. The hospital treats everybody regardless of their origin and they use all and every method available be it technical or investiture based. Those working there are therefore taught in many different ways to deal with wounds and trauma, not only treating wounds of the body, but also the mind. The hospital itself is a neutral place, where conflicts between guilds have no place and so far it has been treated that way. In its cellars is a separate area that houses an old Ghostblood hideout, which was mostly used as a base during attacks on the city/ wars within the city, in order to coordinate efforts and provide guild members with a place to restock and regroup. Nowadays these rooms are being used for storage, like to others around them. The Boarding House Spoiler Name: The Boarding House Location: No12, Donovan Road Description: Alleyharbor Spoiler Name: Alleyharbor Location: (Mac): The participants of the worldbuilding thread on discord decided to make it so the location of the harbour was never canonised. We officially have no idea where it is. Description: (Mac): While the Harbor is expansive, it doesn’t have the industrial moving capacity of many real world harbours. There aren’t any significant cities outside of the Alleycity on the planet, those that do exist don’t require full on shipping lines to be sending supplies their way. The Forge Spoiler Name: The Forge Location: near the Mistwarrens Description: Hall of Legends Spoiler Name: Hall of Legends Location: Description: The hall of Legends is a collection of heros of the Alleyverse. Their statues look over visitors, each one with a text in front of them explaining who they were. It's a place to remember them and their accomplishments. Below the hall is the Tomb of the Forgotten. There the corpses of these heros are kept in large, decorated coffins. The Beers of Edgli Spoiler Name: The Beers of Edgli Location: New Hallandren Description: A spectacularly colourful bar. West and Carson’s Spoiler Name: West and Carson’s Location: Mistkeep Description: A fine tailor’s that caters to high quality Scadrian noblewear. The Grand Hotel Spoiler Name: The Grand Location: The Bindpoint Description: An upper scale hotel near the city center catering to some of Alleycity's wealthiest citizens. Ivenspark (Ivens-park, not iven-spark) Cemetery Spoiler Location: Description: A couple hundred acres, the ancient cemetery is incredibly overgrown, similar in feel to Abney Park Cemetery in London, UK. It’s surrounded on all sides by tall stone walls or ornate wrought iron fencing that barely seem to contain the hundreds of years old trees and vines. Originally a park belonging to, presumably, Iven, it was appropriated by the city and turned into a cemetery following one of the many cataclysms the city deals with on a regular basis. It was used normally for several hundred years, filling up nicely, when another cataclysm hit, this time involving shades. The resulting shade population was too much to exterminate, so the Homeless decided to bait all the old shades into the cemetery, and bind them there with aonic spells. The spells don’t lock any gates or anything, they simply make it so the shades can’t detect violations of the simple rules outside the cemetery, and they never drift beyond the walls. Since then the plants have had nothing to do but grow. In the last couple of decades, several brave volunteers have worked on cleaning up the unused portions of the cemetery near the eastern edge, making it usable, but the bulk of it is still claimed by a forest, and shades. 4
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