D&D Nerdery: Winterthur

The city of Winterthur is the last sign of civilization in the north.  Sure there are some villages further north that house and serve those that live out even closer to the wilderness, but none are very large nor visited by much beyond farmers, soldiers and tax collectors.

The fact that civilization is slowly crumbling is very evident on the roads surrounding Winterthur.  To the more civilized south the roads are evidently still heavily used, but not the strong straight concrete that it once was.  To the north the road is even more heavily ruined, but it still makes it to the villages in what could be generously described as 'one-piece.'  To the east, into the mountains where once trade was handled with the industrious Dwarves, the roads are long neglected and extend not much further than the final village.  And to the west the roads disappear into the ravenous forest, which is encroaching further and further upon lands claimed by the settlement every year.

Soldier patrols are stronger every year to combat the wildness and desperation taking hold.  Of course with increased patrols comes increased taxes, which adds to the desperation.  Bandits along the southern road, wild goblins and orcs hounding the eastern parts of the settlement, raiders pillaging the north and creatures that reek of magic haunting the western.

Inside the high and thick walls that surround the city (Ignoring for the moment the densely-populated Vorstadt which are surrounded by smaller walls and house the trades) things are less desperate, at least they are on the surface.  The Markets are often packed, and the guildhalls are well maintained.  The houses of the noble families form an inner ring that surrounds the center of the city where the hall of government sits.

Leadership

The ruler of the city is Margrave Zanne of the family Kyburg.  She is a young woman who has been the ceremonial ruler since she was six years old, and actual ruler for the past 4 years.  She is advised by the heads of the guilds, the noble families and occasionally the mayors of the nearby villages.  

The official religion of Winterthur, as in many former imperial cities, is Erathis.  The head of the church is the ruler of the city.  Given Zanne was Margrave at the age of 6 she was given the charge of running the church at that young age.  This has led her to be more pious than many past rulers.

Economy

Given the cost of the Linked Portal ritual, only magical items travel via portals, though occasionally higher end artistic craftsmanship will as well.  The trade goods all travel the old fashioned way, either by boat or road, and thus are prey to the bandits to the south and north.

The guildhalls inside the city are a strong part of the city politics, and thus can be truly said to no longer represent their guilds interests properly.  As the power of the Empire waned and finally collapsed, the families of the city saw the guilds as a way to increase their own money.  So most of these guilds are now ran by various noble families and the Guildmaster has become a hereditary one.

The mages guild is the major exception to this rule.  The Mages guild, due to their teleportation circles, is in constant contact with the other Mage guilds throughout the old lands of the empire.  There is a clear structure that runs through the various guilds.

Vorstadt

The Vorstadt mostly lies along the southern and western walls, sandwiched between the city and the river.  It is a densely populated area where most of the city’s trades are done, and so the smell is..unpleasant to say the least.  The people of the Vorstadt are of a variety of races (Unlike the mostly human interior of the city).  

The population of the Vorstadt is rapidly increasing.  As raids increase on the farms and villages surrounding Winterthur, not to mention the forest claiming an ever increasing amount of land, people flee to the city of their liege for help.  Most of those people end up in the Vorstadt, some joining an honest trade.  Many others resorting to begging, or worse.

The guildhalls in the interior of the city claim to control their respective trades that are done out in the Vorstadt, but they hold little true control.  All the smiths still pay their ever-increasing dues, they have to of course by city fiat, but many of them have a closer influence they must answer to.  

Crime has always been an issue in the Vorstadt, but it’s gotten increasingly worse as more bodies press inside.  The old Vorstadt ‘Guild’, a mockery on the other guilds, that kept overt crime at a low to prevent the soldiers from intervening has splintered into competing factions.  Now to too many tradesman one does not pay protection money to just one organized guild, but to many different gangs.  And woe to the smith who decides to gamble and only pay to select gangs.  Too often they choose poorly.

Other Lands / Races

Southern Lands

Things up in the north sound dire, but they are no better in the south.  As the empire withdrew into its core lands, petty kings began to pop up in their old lands.  And once the empire finally collapsed, the various cities in its core all declared themselves strong states of their own.  And as is often in a place of many kingdoms and city-states, war is common.

Elves

The elves have always been more aloof and distant to the old empire, but they often had ambassadors and traders interacting.  Since the fall they’ve turned more inward and are rather rare to come across.  Though some do live in human lands.

Dwarves

The Dwarves turned inward before the empire collapsed, about the same time as Orcs began to threaten the boundaries.  Traders are rarely seen, though some cities have dwarven enclaves.

Newslinks: November 30th, 2012

Well it's been a slow news day in the past 24 hours.  Some major announcements, yes, but not too much in the way of quantity.

Newslinks: November 29th, 2012

"The conspiracy therefore was not to mislead the American public but to mislead America's enemies. If Rice had gone beyond her unclassified talking points and said that Ansar al-Sharia was suspected to be behind the Benghazi attacks, no doubt she would now be being hounded for the unauthorized disclosure of classified information."

Peter Bergen, CNN

Newslinks: November 28th, 2012

“A genuine odyssey is not about piling up experiences. It is a deeply felt, risky, unpredictable tour of the soul.” 

Thomas Moore

Newslinks: November 27th, 2012

My son is wanting to be awake more in mid-day.  Thus newslinks will be posted at 10 am everyday. (Yes it's slowly getting earlier. Eventually they'll be posted in the past before the news happens.)

Newslinks: November 26th, 2012

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration"

Abraham Lincoln, 1861

Responding to my Responders: 'The Corporations Are People, My Friends' Edition.

I would normally not do this but sometimes a reply to a reply gets too long and unwieldy.

Krellen stated:

"Y'know, the Supreme Court actually never ruled that Corporations are people. They ruled that Corporations should be treated as people FOR TAX PURPOSES. Some clerk translated that to "Corporations are people", and the fallacy has stuck with us."

It is sadly a bit more complicated than that.  In 1886 the case 'Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad Company' was brought to the Supreme Court's attention.  In the case, Santa Clara County was trying to levy a property tax against the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.  Because, like most corporations, the SPRC did not wish to pay said tax they argued about it.  One of their arguments was based on the 14th amendments 'Equal Protection' law.  The railroad was simply being held to a different standard than human taxpayers.

This is, of course, ridiculous.  First graders would laugh this out of their classroom.  But law is far more ridiculous than anything else, including quantum mechanics.

The Supreme Court Chief Justice, Morrison Waite, said preceding the proceedings: 

"The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."

In their published opinion, however, they did not include that.  Ducking the question, as it were.  So technically that should not have established a precedent.  

Enter the court reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis.  A court reporter is much more esteemed than a simple clerk.  They digest the dense rulings and summarize key findings in published headnotes.  Well, Mr. Davis sent a letter to Mr. Waite asking if he could include the preface in the headnote.  Waite gave an ambivalent response that Davis took as a yes.  And thus was a precedent formed.  Now why would this man push for this?  Well it would not be fair of me to speculate.

But this is a blog, and thus I have no journalistic standing or integrity expected upon me.  While Mr. Davis had a very long and varied career in the public service, he also at one point was the president of the board of directors of Newburgh & New York Railroad Company.  Now when he did this he was not in that position any longer, but one can speculate that he was very obviously a standard 19th century (21st century?  Are we entering a new gilded age?) businessman and wanted to pave the way for businesses to have less government hassle.

This is what I meant in my previous post when I said "Unethical" because it was.  Due to this the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment, designed to help former slaves, was used to strike down regulations placed upon corporations countless times until the New Deal.  In fact, it was used to protect corporations from regulations more often than it was used to protect former slaves. 

And, of course, corporations still love to use the First Amendment to argue certain things.  Like that they can lie freely.  Or that they can give unlimited campaign contributions.  The Supreme Court had a chance to update this ruling and fix things but alas, they decided to be pro business.  And they're so smug in thinking they're right about it.  Yes I'm bitter.