A Tourist's Guide to Shirekeep

Maps Shireroth's land and interacts with the worldwide Micronational Cartography Society.

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Scott of Hyperborea
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A Tourist's Guide to Shirekeep

Post by Scott of Hyperborea »

In response to the nifty maps of Nafticon, Lindstrom City, and Matbaa City, among others, I've drawn a map of Shirekeep. It's a little different, partly because I thought a different emphasis would be more interesting and partly because I just don't have the graphics skill to do what they did. See explanations below:

Image

LANDMARKS:

1) The Lukedu Center for the Exploding Arts lies in the basin of the giant crater formed by the spectacular destruction of the previous Lukedu Center for the Exploding Arts. It hosts Shireroth's weapons laboratory, armory, and, once a year on the last day in Agnifiero, its most popular fireworks show. Excited citizens start grabbing seats on the crater rim up to a week in advance, and the Kaiser himself traditionally watches. Since the unfortunate incident cutting short the reign of Kaiser Leto II, he has watched by video link from his palace; since the unfortunate incident cutting short the reign of Kaiser Santiago II, from his winter palace in Brookshire. Visitors are invited explore the Center between 10 and 5 weekdays; guided tours are free, but renting a hazardous material protection suit, highly recommended, is twelve erb extra.

2) The St. Zor Railway Station is the portal to and from Shirekeep, linking the Elwynnese Railway to the Shirelands Line. It also is the hub of the bus system, receiving all buses from out of city and connecting their passengers to the intra-city bus lines. The station opened a hundred twenty-seven years ago, and has never had a bus be more than a hundred twenty-seven years late.

3) The Mattlore Devious International Airport / Hospital / Stadium / Aquarium / Zoo / Mini-Golf Course / Cemetery / Ashram / Fire Station / Racetrack / Copper Mine is the first glimpse most international visitors see of the capital and, thanks to draconian zoning laws starting in the time of Kaiser Meskan I, home to 64% of Shireroth's public services at last count. The Mattlore Devious Shuttle System conveys visitors from the parking lot (the third largest on Micras) to the various substructures in the complex.

4) The Triple Towers stand within the Ancient City, the part of Shirekeep within Kaiser Raynor I's old city walls. The first houses the Imperial Advisory Council, where the Kaiser meets his most trusted friends. The second is the barrack of the Kampeions, the Kaiser's private bodyguards. The third is the home of the Imperial Arbiter, who dispenses justice on the realm's most sinister criminals.

5) Also within the Ancient City is the Temple of Mors, possibly the oldest building in Shirekeep after Raynor's Keep itself. The Temple houses the remains of all the dead Kaisers of the past, and living Kaisers enter it only once, on their coronation day. The Temple is the most isolated building in the Ancient City, it being considered horribly bad luck to be close to a Temple of Mors for too long.

6/7) The Museum of the Fine Arts houses Shireroth's best paintings and sculptures. Its sister structure, the Museum of the Mediocre Arts, houses all the paintings and sculptures not good enough to be showcased in its neighbor, and is one of the least visited museums in the city.

8) Raynor's Keep is the oldest and largest building in Shirekeep and occupies the center of the city. Built by Kaiser Raynor I as his capital and fortress, it now serves as the Kaiser's palace, administrative center, and reception hall. It connects to the Triple Towers by a series of battlements, which are currently used as government offices and storerooms.

9) The Landsraad stands near but outside the Old City, in the center of a district called Ministry Row for the seven Government Ministry Buildings located side by side there. Before it is the famous equestrian statue of Praetor Nicholas Raglan, and its legendary cast-iron Front Gate both keeps out commoners and serves as a meeting-point where they can protest the body's actions. The Landsraad also has a much less conspicuous Back Gate, built by Nicholas Raglan as a secret escape route during a period of tensions between the Kaiser and the nobility. The period ended amicably when Kaiser Trantor III signed the famous Mango Carta. Tourists are welcome unless there is a meeting going on; while adults view the majestic meeting hall, children can try their hands at the fun Landsraad Water Bottle Toss game outside.

10) Raynor Village is a portion of the Ancient City restored to how it might have looked when Kaiser Raynor I ruled the Keep. It contains the Shirekeep Visitors' Center. Watch as women in authentic Raynorian dress demonstrate how the first Shirerithians used to mix gunpowder (please, no smoking in Raynor Village)

11) The Cedrist Temple, also called the BOOMist Temple, is along with the Temple of Mors the holiest spot in the BOOMist faith. Built by Raynor I to honor his gods, it holds service every Vivantiaday, Semisaday, and Hasanday, as well as on special occasions. All BOOMists are welcome to attend freely, although be warned that the temple fills quickly, especially on Vivantiaday.

12) SARTRE, the Shirekeep Area Rapid Transit Railway Enterprise, is the best way to travel Shirekeep quickly for tourists and citizens alike. Travelling alternately above and below ground its four lines (the Station line to the north, the Brookshire Line to the west, the Landsraad Line to the east, and the Malarbor Line to the south) include stations only minutes away from all of Shirekeep's major attractions. Every third car is kept empty, to symbolize the crushing emptiness of modern life.

13) John Metzler III University, or JM3U as it's known by the locals, is Shireroth's most prestigious institute of higher education, available only to students who have done phenomenally well on their Shireroth Test Of Order and Development, or STOOD tests. Come watch a game by JM3U's sports team, the Fighting Meese, or hear a lecture by some of their world-renowned professors.

14. The Temple of the Quintessences, designed as a smaller copy of its original parent temple in Menelmacar, is the largest surviving Soloralist temple and a center of the faith in Shireroth. It is located by the Hyperborean Temple and the Multi-Temple on a street that has now become known to locals as Heretics' Way.

15. A short walk from the Temple of the Quintessences are the Hyperborean Temples of Truth and Beauty. While these pale in comparison to their parent temples in Thule, the former provides a voluminous library open to the public (albeit mostly in Hyperborean), while the latter holds the Benacian most prestigious collection of Hyperborean art off the island itself.

16. The Multi-Temple was built by Kaiser Matthew "the Mad", who hoped to lure all the heretics in Shirekeep to one place and then light it on fire. Before it was completed, Matthew was replaced by his nephew, Kaiser Edwin "the Seems Sane Enough, At Least For A Kaiser" who allowed it to be used for actual worship. Visitors can attend simultaneous ceremonies by, among others, the Priests of Eru, the Aralanic faith, the Zoroastrians, the Christians, the Ultimate Comment, and the Path of Yellow. Those sensitive to loud noises should be warned that the Multi-Temple can provide quite a cacophony, as each priest does his best to outyell the others.

17. At the very point where the Elwynn splits in two stands the pride of Shirekeep, the Statue of Malarborty. This ninety-four foot bronze image of Shireroth's most recognizable god is located on the very spot where, according to legend, Kaiser Francis I fought the evil Malarbor and made him swear to serve as Shireroth's protector. The statue is the first sight visible to boats sailing up the Elwynn, and was built partly to awe any emissaries viewing Shirekeep for the first time. In this goal it is certainly aided by the primitive but effective sound system installed by Kaiser Nicholas III, which at intervals shouts at passing boats "TRADE WITH SHIREKEEP! MALARBOR DEMANDS IT!"

...more information on Shirekeep sites later.

[Edited to link to new image file location]

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Post by Conglacio »

absolutly brill! love it!
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Post by Braden Indianensis »

NIFTINESS! Absolutely. Some of your best work yet!
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Post by Bill3000 »

14. The Temple of the Quintessences, designed as a smaller copy of its original parent temple in Menelmacar, is the largest surviving Soloralist temple and a center of the faith in Shireroth. It is located by the Hyperborean Temple and the Multi-Temple on a street that has now become known to locals as Heretics' Way.
Well, there is the fact that there is a new city being planned to be considered a "Holy City" in the area of Automi, near the banks of the Antya River... As well,why would it be the largest surviving Soloralist Temple? That's not the center of Soloralism in Shireroth - Antya, and in particular, Southern Automatica AKA New Jasonia, is.

Yeah, I'm just nitpicking, but eh.
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Post by Kaiser Alejian II »

Goodness Bill, he remembered you, be gratefull.



BESIDES the fact I wasn't consulted; brilliant work there Scott.

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Post by Bill3000 »

Yes, I agree, good point. I apologize for that nitpicking, and thank Scott for doing it.
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Post by Conglacio »

perhaps the "oldest surviving" status is retro active...
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Post by Harvey the Blue »

Fantastic! This sort of thing is just begging for a FIoJ Tour-esque image map sort of thing.

I look forward to seeing you fill in the rest of the quarters.

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Post by Braden Indianensis »

Ooooh, I feel like a kid at Christmas, and Scott is a much-thinner, younger, city-planning Santa. Oh, tellmetellmetellme have you named any of the streets yet? Because I'd like to name one in the Foreign Quarter if it's not too much of an imposition. :)

Also, thank you for your mention of the Priests of Eru in the Multi-Temple section.
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Post by Bill3000 »

Speaking of Priests of Eru, you do know that not even the elves on Micras worship Eru? :fish
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Post by stevenAntica »

Very cool. Not Maggern-level-cool, but cool still. :D

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Post by Braden Indianensis »

Maggern's designs herald a new era of niftiness. But these are cool as well.
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Post by Shyriath »

*Wonders if maybe some of the history hinted at in the tourist guide could be expanded upon for fictional history purposes?
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Post by Kaiser Alejian II »

Yes. Make it so Shyriath!

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Post by Braden Indianensis »

But, by God, don't ask me to write any of it...we all know what happens when I write things... :knife
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Post by Scott of Hyperborea »

Baldwin: Go ahead and name streets. I wanted to, but my paint program can't handle writing street names at the angles of the actual streets, and they looked hideous when I tried to do them all horizontally or vertically.

Shyriath: Yeah, go ahead.

Bill: Sorry about that *smacks self*. I guess I kinda just assumed that the Soloralist temple in the capital would be the biggest for some reason. Yeah. I drew that whole thing after one o'clock at night, so that's my excuse.

Here are some descriptions of a few other things:

THE COMMERCIAL DISTRICT AND THE DOCKLANDS: The Commercial District was originally Shirekeep's main trading port, full of shipyards, docks, and the businesses that sustained them. Cheap dockworkers, usually emigrants from Babkha and Mondesia, were the lifeblood of the industry, and when these were banished from the city by Kaiser Brrapa V, the docks moved east of the river to Goldshire, where they became the Docklands. The Commercial District stayed almost uninhabited for a few decades until some of Shireroth's more enterprising businesses learned they could get land there cheap. It then became a labyrinth of glass and steel office towers, home to Shirekeep's tallest buildings.

Just to the east of the Commercial District lies Timothy's Cliff, a precipice where a small hill makes a sheer drop into the waters of the Elwynn below. Back in the days of Kaiser Timothy II, when a thief was caught he would be brought to the top of the cliff and then, with great pomp and ceremony, thrown pushed off the edge into the river beneath. As the cliff was only about ten feet tall, the thief would inevitably plop safely into the river and swim to freedom on the other side - which suited Timothy II just fine, as he was a big softy at heart.

THE FOREIGN QUARTER: One day, in a particularly xenophobic mood, Kaiser Brrapa V banned a long list of foreigners, especially Babkhans and Atterans, from Shirekeep. The banished foreigners crossed to the south bank of the Elwynn, setting up what began as a shantytown and later became its own town, outside the capital's special administrative region but linked socially and culturally to Shirekeep both by its proximity and a series of bridges. Although Brrapa's prohibition has long been lifted, most non-Apollonian foreigners choose to live in the Foreign Quarter anyway to take advantage of the communities there that bind them to their homeland. Many signs in the Quarter are bilingual, featuring both Shirerithian and the language of some foreign country, and even the most patriotic Shirerithians cross the bridges some nights for Shirekeep's most exotic cuisine.

THE AUDENTE AND SOLORALIST QUARTERS: When Shireroth was a province of Audentior, the Audente governor, his staff, and the various office he ran were placed in the far south of the city, which quickly became, in these days before the Foreign Quarter, the international hotspot. The Jasonians congregated in the westernmost part of the area. During the secession from Audentior, much of the Audente Quarter was burned in riots, and the Jasonians, Shireroth's new masters, chose to relocate their capital a few hundred meters west into the territory which officially became the Jasonian (later the Soloralist) Quarter. The Audente Quarter now has very few real Audentes, and is inhabited mainly by native Shirerithians and by increasing numbers of Anticans, who find the old Audente architecture someone similar to their own culture.

NORTHSHIRE: Although Raynor I is generally accepted as a historical personage, many of his immediate successors are known only through the wildest mythology. Such a figure was Raynor II, legendary founder of Northshire. According to the story, after a long reign, Raynor, grown mad with power, decided he deserved to become a God. Rather than stumble through the usual cycle of incarnations before reaching Transcendence, he chose a more direct route, and called the world's most skilled engineers to his capital to build a catapult that could fling him into Heaven.

Thousands of workers were hired for the project, and the stories say that famous Treesian polymath Werilos Quaz was summoned to Shirekeep to direct the construction. While once the Great Forest of Elwynn stretched all the way to the gates of the Walled City, the trees to the north of the Keep were felled in order to provide lumber for the machine, and the catapult took shape in the resulting meadows. A small town sprung up a mile or so north of the walls to house the laborers.

After five years of work, the catapult was ready. According to legend, it stretched further than the eye could see, and was taller far than the highest spire of Raynor's Keep. Rather than rope, its mechanism used the dried and salted body of the great Sea Serpent Kalhamoraes, who took half the Shirerithian fleet with him to his doom. Kaiser Raynor II entered the projectile chamber, the device was activated, and the mad monarch flew off into the sky, never to be seen or heard from again.

According to one legend, he received a fool's doom, soaring all the way to Kildare before he plummeted to his death, the impact forming the crater that would later become Lake Christoph. According to another, he slammed into Tarsica, and the impression made by his form in its soft grey soils is what we now call the Man in the Moon. But the most popular legend among the people of Shirekeep themselves is that the gods favored his undertaking, snatched him from the sky, and invited him to join them. He is now worshipped by many as Raynertoo, God Of Ideas That Sounded Good At The Time.

After the Kaiser's flight, his successor, Brrapa II, kept the Great Catapult intact in the hopes that he could use it as a superweapon in the Lesser Yardistani Wars, allowing him to strike at the island nation without ever leaving his capital. But when it was found that the catapult could not be sufficiently well controlled for this purpose, he left it to be scavenged by the peasants, who used its wood to expand the small town at its base into a larger town. Brrapa II eventually made the larger town capital of his Duchy of Northshire, seeing as it was the only area north of Shirekeep actually pacified or explored by Shirerithians. After a few centuries in this capacity, the Duchy of Northshire became the Duchy of Elwynn, and the town of Northshire became a seamless part of Shirekeep.

More later!

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Post by Conglacio »

Ok, I now have a new favorite god!
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Post by Fax Celestis »

Me too.

I think I shall be Kaiser Raynortoo I next I am on the Throne.
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Post by Bill3000 »

Why you? Me! I mean come on, it fits me. :D
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Post by Conglacio »

Why you? Me! I mean come on, it fits me. Amused
except with you, it NEVER seems like a good idea! ;)

(actually, I would support you for the next kaiseryness)
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Post by Kaiser Alejian II »

I'm not planning on stepping down anytime soon, so I have a while to think on who I want as the next kaiser.

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Post by Braden Indianensis »

*Applause for Scott's marvelous work.*

The street I want to name: from that road which crosses the bridge, turn left and go southeast, then turn onto that street that goes pretty well east, in a sort of arc; at the end of that street, turn northeast; about midway down that northeast-southwest-running street, turn northwest. That street is Trimble Street. (If I could figure out how to save the map onto my PC, I'd highlight the street I'm talking about.)
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Post by Scott of Hyperborea »

Trimble Street. After the Northern Irish politician, or something else?

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Post by Bill3000 »

Kaiser Alejian II wrote:I'm not planning on stepping down anytime soon, so I have a while to think on who I want as the next kaiser.
I don't really see how there is much of a choice, though.


...and why can't you ever do something more than "I'll think about it?" :no :knife ;)
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Post by Kaiser Alejian II »

Because you've shown qualities I like and recent qualities I dont like at all, honestly. We'll discuss this in another thread though, I dont want to pollute scott's pretty thread.

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Post by Braden Indianensis »

Trimble Street. After the Northern Irish politician, or something else?
Actually, I just liked the sound of the name, but yeah, it could be after him or the US Supreme Court Justice (or the American astronomer or one of the former governors of Ohio.) :D
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Post by Saz »

Pwurdie!

Tourist approval :worship

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Post by ID06 »

*takes photos of the sights*

:love I love this town!
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Post by Gman Russell »

Sweet! We have touristy approval!!! Thanks!

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A Tourist's Guide to Shirekeep

Post by hypatias mom »

It's always great to see and meet friendly tourists to our country. We are proud of our land and love to share it and our hospitality with friends of our nation. Please come back soon.

Baroness Carol
aka Hypatia's Mom
Proprietor, Port Nevermore Center
Countess, North Novi Dalmacjia
Baroness, Lumina's Light

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