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Alexshire
Alexshire breaks down into three separate parts:
In truth, Alexshire is neither quite shire nor city-state but a little of both. Originally a small village founded on the west bank of the River Cora, where food and building materials were in abundance, it had the good fortune of not only being smack in the middle of a busy trade route between the mountains and the lowlands, but also of having the only portal that connects to the other realms. As a result, it quickly became the unofficial capital of Elysia, and plays a vital role in her economy as well as regional and inter-realm politics. Geography & ClimateAlexshire covers an area of some 302 square miles of fertile floodplain and farmland straddling the River Cora. The climate immediately surrounding the portal is fairly mild, considering the shire's location on the equator, but the temperature increases towards the tropical as one travels further away from the portal's influence. This affects both the type of crops produced locally (with things like barley, rice and sugar cane both being produced by the same region), as well as the architectural styles, building materials, lifestyles and even the kinds of creatures encountered in the different parts of the shire. PoliticsAlexshire comes under the direct jurisdiction of the Alexandrian City Council. This means that any and all settlements within the bounds of the shire are overseen by Alexandria's government and lawmen. Since most of the shire's outlying villages don't have the numbers to warrant a magistrate or even a Town Guard of their own, they're instead served either by a patrolling magistrate and Guard (who may visit only a few times a year), or must request aid from the city as it's needed. As Alexandria's portal is at the heart of Elysia's portal nexus, Alexshire is a very strategic location politically as well as economically. For this reason, most other towns (especially their merchants) maintain good relations rather than potentially be cut off from vital trade options. And as if all that were not enough to increase the shire's economic standing, it is largely self-sufficient (meaning there are no expenditures on importing the essentials), and it is one of the primary exporters of goods such as wheat and sugar cane, clay, and pottery. With the revenue and tax income from the service industry (such as the many inns and stables hiring out to travellers and merchants), Alexandria, and the shire by extension, is one of the richest regions in Elysia. HistoryThere isn't actually much of a downside to life in Alexshire from a settler's point of view. It's true that predators roam freely here just as they do elsewhere, but the Alexandrian Wall was erected to protect the original villagers from such a threat. Though the Wall now only protects New Alexandria, the increasingly urban lifestyle, with all the noise and bustle that comes with an expanding population, scared off as many attackers as it might have attracted — so, even when the town burst out of the confines of the original protection, there wasn't much need for another. Over time, the town evolved into a city, and the city's influence spread across the surrounding region. The shire was born out of a need for unification of smaller settlements and protection of outlying farmsteads, leading to the evolution of the first of Elysia's city-states.
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1 Despite its location on the equator, Alexshire normally has a temperate climate. Scholars presume this is a result of the portal's influence, which drags in colder air from other climates, but the portal is not the only influence that affects the weather here. Xanthmas, in particular, brings an extreme drop in temperature as well as freak snow storms that are attributed to Xanth's playfulness. ⇑ Page last modified on June 14, 2011, at 06:25 AM |
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