Riverdale

Riverdale also commonly known as "The City of Water" and "The Trade Jewel of the East" is located at the center of the Great Plains of Aenor; the city was born when many travelling merchants became aware that a central settlement from where they could travel along the different and important trade routes would benefit them immensely, the merchants gathered and choose a unhabited island on the middle of a lake upon the center of the plains as the location to bring forth this reality.

Originally the city was nothing more than a small settlement were the caravans would stop and could easily choose which trade route to follow on their next voyage, eventually more and more people came in and began to construct more and more homes, schools and temples. As the land atop the island became scarce the architects of Riverdale had to become creative in order to further increase the size of the city.

By the time the land had nearly run out on the island the architects found their solution, with great care they carried out their plan and began to expand upon the surface of the lake itself; streets would give away into canals and buildings would have to be built from the bottom of the lake until they poked out of the waters and high into the air, over the years this expansion continued giving more room for the city to grow.

Over time and out of necesity great bridges were built to connect to the growing city from the shores of the lake, once this happened the people stopped building in the lake and instead began to build upon its shores, although since the proyect to construct many new buildings that lead towards one shore had already started they were carried out to completition, instead of being linked by a bridge like the other shores of the lake this one had been linked with the buildings raising from the lake.

The City Districts
As time passed the and the settlements on the shores grew the merchant rulers of the city figured that dividing the city in districts would be a easier way to administer it, and thus they shuffled things around so similary minded people ended close together.

The northwestern shore became the Temple District, housing temples and religious schools of nearly every god that one could think of, of course the darker gods had their shrines well hidden in the district.

The northeaster shore became the Slum Disctirct, the barbarians of the highlands would often attack this district and thus it made order hard to keep, eventually it became a place for thieves, poor people and the like to live at.

The southwestern shore became the Merchant District as it was closer to the river leading towards the sea and the port city of Hazanil, this district also became a sizable port for the ships capable of going up and downstream easily.

The southeastern shore the only one not linked by the massive bridges became the Residential District, were most of the common folk lived and worked at.

At the center the old parts of the city became the Central District, were the goverment, merchant guilds, magi schools, knight orders and the like can be found.

Travelling in the City of Water
Thanks to its odd construction more than half of the travel in the city has to be made on different canals that work as streets, although each has a sidewalk travelling over them is usually slowler and it takes far longer to get around the city; after many years of having rowmen and gondolas leading people around the city, the nomadic shamans of the plains taught the inhabitants of the city a way that they could ease the burden of travelling.

Using a mystical process the shamans and magi of Riverdale bound willing air elementals to sails and then attached these to small boats, with the aid of the elementals these sails would always be full of wind and while they moved fast they could also be easily maneuvered in the canals of the city, this great invention soon revolutionized travel in the City of Water and further increased its importance as they are the only ones in the world capable of making such sails, the trade fleets of the merchant guilds soon became legendary due to the so called "Ventis Sails".