Halgar

The centre of the Empire and its capital, Halgar is a crowded, high walled city whose appearance is very much of old, somewhat outdated grandeur. Over the centuries successive Princes, Primarchs, Magiarchs and Emperors have sought to build on and improve the city such that by more current times the skyline is one of oddly shaped towers and whose rooftops are disjointed among the many levels of streets that are, in some cases, actually built upon earlier rows such that there are areas of the city where different levels are joined by bridges both wide and narrow.

A jumbled city, Halgar has seen great change, most notably relatively recently when most of the wealth of what is now the Empire was concentrated here during the Glorianave Magiocracy. It was then that the great rows of many floored buildings were thrown up along the wide avenues that are now mostly divided into the small tenements in which live a noteworthy proportion of the city’s population.

Only in recent years have the hundreds of statues and stone troughs been cleared and restored and what were once little more than repositories for bird waste now once more stand proudly amongst the dense, often squalid, streets and angled squares. Vines crawl about most of the buildings and for much of the year the city is spotted with the blooms of many flowers whilst old, twisted but leaf heavy, trees sit sturdily everywhere a visitor cares to look.

Possibly the most famous part of the city is the Inner City. Walled and lying slightly off centre to the rest of Halgar, the Inner City is the centre of the Empire and the fortress set to defend the Nagrech. Like some exaggerated reflection of the city proper, the Inner City is yet more crowded, built up on at least a score of occasions from more than a dozen architectural styles.

Halgarians
Although more than fifty-thousand people make their homes within the tenements and jumbled, refuse clogged side-streets more than twice that number dwell in the hundreds of villages and dotted towns that stretch into the Heartlands all about, but primarily to the west, of the settlement.

Urban Halgarians have a reputation for cynicism and will almost never admit to being surprised or impressed with anything. Outspoken and boastful, they tend to see themselves as above the ‘dirty, ignorant’ northern citizens or the ‘ignorant, dull minded’ denizens of the southern cities. Generally ambitious, Halgarians love to be part of something greater than themselves; Guilds for the most part but service to a Noble or Merchant House carries status with it only slightly less than joining the Imperial service.

Rural Halgarians on the other hand tend to avoid the city whenever they can. They would, in fact, never refer to themselves as Halgarians at all, preferring to be known as Heartlanders if anything. Insular to their villages they very rarely leave unless it is to go to the nearest Hiring or Bridal fair, which near enough amounts to leaving their village forever in any case. The Heartlands is rife with local superstition, local faiths and strange customs and if the rural folk share anything with their more civic cousins it is an ability to accept the strangest things without visibly being impressed by anything new, wondrous or even dangerous.

Despite the differences between the rural and city folk their clothing tends to be similar, with the latter often only varying in quality and gaudiness amongst the more well-to-do. Like all the Empire, baggy shirts and britches are common, with low, heavy workman’s boots popular. Hats are worn often and the fashion is, and has been for more than a century, for bi or even tri-corn styles. If there are two things that would mark out a Halgarian amongst other people it is their preference for colour. It is not uncommon for a traveller going through even the meanest village to be startled by the variety of coloured cloth, often layered or worn in stripes.

The Heartlands
Of all the peoples of the Empire, the Heartlanders are perhaps the most typical of what would be considered the rural idyll. Despite the ferocious winters that beset the whole Empire, the myth of the Heartlands would have it that most of the year is composed of hot days and balmy nights, country ale and endless harvests. It is true that the Heartlands provides by far the majority of agriculture to the Empire and come the last days of summer then the view from the criss-crossing roads and lanes does seem to be comprised of nothing but a hundred strip fields in all directions.

But the Heartlands are not all farmland. The paths and roads naturally lead to the villages and the fields that surround them. But go further inwards, beyond the horizon, and soon the Heartlands becomes wilder. Woodlands that have not seen the footfall of man for decades, the ruins of towns that don’t appear on the maps and the craggy entrances to the caverns that litter the continent can be found everywhere. The more one finds in the Heartlands the more questions seem to arise that have no answer.

The villages are hotbeds of local tales and mysteries. Stories of ghostly warriors cursed never to find their home village, of wheaten faeries and vengeful spirits abound and, in most cases, are often found to be true!