Cadence!Verse setting Everfree City · 3:41pm Jan 12th, 2013
Everfree City
Founding & History
Everfree City was originally founded as one of many small garrisons charged with observing the border between what was left of Equestria and the Everfree Forest and protecting the land against monsters. The garrisons needed food and so farmers in the hopes of protection moved to the surprisingly fertile land. After decade of observation it became clear the monster of Everfree rarely left the forest and security became laxer and the garrison became more of a town, being renamed Ponyguard and then Ponyville. But as time passed the small town grew and changed its name again to Everfree City. The other garrisons were either abandoned or have been turned into small barely staffed watch towers on the border of Everfree.
Ever since the invention of large scale rigid airships fifty years earlier Everfree City has transformed from a large town to a small air trade and tourism hub. The reason for this was that for many decades/centuries Everfree City the only city near the southern border, sans Canterlot, which refused foreign merchants. This quickly led to the small city becoming a booming trade hub became a popular stopping point for air merchants from the south of the continent; visiting merchant sell everything from, materials, tools, and food, novelty & luxury items. This leads to a number of inns, merchandising kiosks, taverns and a fluctuating population with a constant sea of new faces such as foreign merchant and travellers.
The other staple of the Everfree economy is tourism. Adventurers thrill seekers, intellectuals and many other types of tourist and travellers come to Everfree City for the chance to experience the legendary Everfree forest, complete with some of the rarest and most interesting/dangerous plants, animals and monsters in the world. (It's a bit like swimming with sharks, climbing Mount Everest or Jurassic park, except the monsters aren't penned up.) “Naturally there are things like shirts, souvenirs and figurines available at your nearest retailer.”
Everfree Tourism
Everfree City has a large staff of trained tour guides/guards who lead groups on small scale sightseeing tours around the forest border or into the woods themselves. Within the forest there are specific “safe” paths/zones, for the tour group who wish to go deeper, where they are more likely to see the many creatures of Everfree. The tour groups are led by guides who can number up to six or eight, the number of guards increases depending on how deep the tourist wish to go, the Everfree tourism borough take their clientele’s safety very seriously. Most of Everfree is still unsafe for tour groups and so the guards will not leave the designated “safe/tour zones” and anypony who wishes to continue must sign a waiver, search parties will still be sent out if said ponies do not return. There are also sky tours where ponies can charter small airships/magic-carpets, to observe the forest form the sky.
Within the forest there are a number of magically grown watch tower trees, the reason for this is excluding the princess’s castle, Everfree can “sense” foreign entities, such as buildings of crafted steel and stone and will lash out at them, corroding their structure to nothing within days. The trees are native to Everfree, and are simply altered with magic; they are large and tall, and able to accommodate a large number of guests and guards. The guards themselves sleep out there for a few day’s at a time before returning to the city for rest.
As for the castle of the princess’s it has been restored and turned into another tourist trap, namely a museum containing numerous relics from the Alicorn princess’s rule, including the Elements of Harmony (Cadence, could not use them and believes that without Celestia and Luna they are useless, they produce no magic and lack the 6th so she has them on display.) To get to the castle a pony must fly, as the beasts surrounding the castle are particularly vicious and territorial, but refuse to go close to the castle proper, instead choosing to surround it on all sides. There is also a gift shop, something Celestia and Luna do not care for.
General City Layout
Being near Everfree Forest, the city has a highly skilled security & defence force (troopers as they are might be called), which are well trained and experienced. One isn’t considered a full trooper until they’ve camped in Everfree forest for a night. Despite becoming more relaxed, attacks occasionally happen and the ponies of Everfree City have not forgotten their roots or the dangers of Everfree and make it a point to be equipped to deal with the worst the forest could conceivably throw at them. Everfree citizens are a friendly but hardy type who expect everypony to chip in and are no strangers to monster chaotic weather and general hardships, this attitude helps keep the merchants on their best behavior during their stays.
The city itself is surrounded on all sides by extremely thick and sturdy walls, almost two stories in height, complete with four gates on all sides, wide enough for numerous carts and ponies to pass through. The city has a number of observation points along the city wall, there to keep an eye on Everfree forest. Everfree has a small farming population, the mostly own restaurants within the city proper, though the large influx of trade goods leads to a certain amount of competition between the farmers and merchants. There may be a porter’s guild within the city.
Everfree City sits on a slight angle and is curved in its layout combined with the surrounding walls it forms a somewhat misshaped oval. Everfree is a dense city, with cobblestone streets and wide blocky apartment buildings and numerous confounding alleyways, as the cities growth was unexpected it is not the most well planned city. Everfree City resembles a cross between old English cities, Old Italian cities and ancient Greek/Roman cities in terms of architecture.
Near the town centre sit’s a large tower, designed to airship docking, up 6 large and 4 small airships can be docked at once, at the towers base is a large office with a registry for all airships, crews and cargo as well as equipment to help unload the cargo, for a small fee.
Council Chambers
The city council chambers is the widest and second tallest building within the city, the chamber is based on old garrison/temple designs. The council chamber is surrounded at its entrance by a large rectangular Stoa, making a central courtyard in front of the chambers stair cases. This area is usually reserved for the largest public gathering, or festivals. The main lobby is reach through a series of interconnecting stair cases that lead to the main entrance.
White stone blocks and marble pillars accompany the deep lavender roof. The chambers are filled with art, mosaics, obelisks, statues and colourful drapes with inscriptions and Stucco’s cover the walls. The council chambers split off into numerous different levels and offices. The council chambers serve as the central bureaucracy for the entire city, as well as holding offices for the weather team, the fire brigade and a secondary base for the city troopers.
The main chamber is used as a place for city meetings and there are smaller meeting halls that can be rented out for public or private use. The councillors sit at a slightly curved table facing outward into the central plaza, this table is used for fielding public questions, open debates and discourse as well as for ceremonies, councillors can often be seen sitting at this table working and will generally speak with or meet ponies there, as opposed to in their private offices. (There are cultural reasons for this) Councillors are expected to make themselves accessible to the public but they can delegate various duties. Councillors and politicians are expected to be honest and going into one’s office especially for a meeting carries “unfortunate Implications” and makes a councillor less accessible leaders are expected to be active within the public sphere as much as they are involved in governing.
The council is elected and made up of five ponies, the fifth and most senior councillor acts as a speaker/Consul who passes out and announces decisions or requests made by the council itself as well as mediating internal debates or representing the city's interests. A single new councillor is elected each year as the eldest Speakers steps down and is replaced by the second most senior member of the council, a seat opens up and must be filled, anypony can run for elections so long as they are registered citizens, they will hold their position for five years before being retired. Councillors can run for re-election 1 year after they have had to step down, though special circumstances can arise were a councillor’s position can be extended or cut short.
Ever since the defeat of the princess's, the council have been trying to use the C!6 to draw more tourism, partially because of damages and partially because more money and tourism is good for the city.
Appearance
Princess Cadence has worked to unite the many fracture fiefdoms, city city states and fledgling kingdoms back into a single whole Equestria, over time many of these lands developed their own views and cultures vastly diverse form even their own “neighbors." Because of these differences and historical bad blood Princess Cadences and her government work to create a sense of shared identity while encompassing diverse peoples within the new Equestrian nation. Public monuments relating to the local communities are a common site within Equestria as are governmentally created communal spaces and entertainment facilities. Such as, government gardens, statues mosaics and art pieces fill the city streets along with public spa’s, fountains, amphitheatres and saunas, event halls, gyms, race tracks and a jousting arena can be found scattered throughout the most Equestrian cities and towns. Everfree City is no exception, these constructions work to foster a sense of Equestriennes amongst the populace, while not taking anything away from the traditional community.
Pictures that give an impression of Everfree City:
City view: The-City-of-Telipar
Alley way: Alley Way
City view: Anarion-s-City
Close up city: Amber
Street: City Street
Nice Hotel: Apartment
Buildings: Fantasy City
Not being destroyed or near the ocean: Buildings
Notes:
Sorry I couldn't find many good pony cities that gave the impression of what i wanted, imagine a sort of mix of all of these, The Council Chambers resemble the two temples fused together, if that makes sense.
I considered adding aqueducts, but wasn't sure how to make it work.
Everfree City is fairly multi-cultural as a result of being a trading hub. There is a decent population of Zebras, griffons and other species. Many in the Zebra community have formed a small street/mini town, within the city proper, complete with building and grown tree homes that closely resemble their homelands architecture, the zebra community and pony community fuse seamlessly. One flowing right into the other, so while it is something of a separate community, it's not closed off or separated and is very much a part of the "normal" city and community.
There is also a large fashion boutique owned by Rarity and her assistant and sometimes model Carrot Top, Rarity is a fairly famous designer and modelling agent. Naturally the city has school, high schools and a small university/Tafe, a library a guild hall maybe and those sort of things.
Well I'd like to thank anyone who managed to read to the end of that. Feedback & criticisms or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Nice and detailed info here, all coming together to make an interesting AU take of the location.
The idea that the nature of Everfree is openly hostile against artificial constructs, thus necessitating the use of tree forts within the forest's borders is an interesting notion. Personally, however, I'm a bit off put by the the description of them being grown by 'magical' means as that seems to go against the typical idea of the Everfree as place beyond the controlling influences of normal pegasi and earth pony magic.
Yikes, this is a lot of information! So much glorious flavor...
I'll give you this, when you decide to create a setting, you are not one to half-ass it.
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Thanks I'm really glad you like it, also the idea at the bottom about Cadence adding stuff to cities was taken right form the Romans, even the "Eqauestrianness" descriptive word, heh sorry, been having fun with history.
Also I'm glad you find the "hostile corrosive" everfree idea interesting, it's partially a head canon explanation for why there is no wall in front of the forest, or any attempts at logging, that and I felt it suited such a location.
Valid point about the magical tree forts/towers, I was basing their design of, of Zecora's hut which doesn't seem natural, so I assumed it was grown with either magic of some form or chemicals maybe, fair point, I will think more on that.
TY for the comments!
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heh, sorry if it's a bit much, "i hope it's at least a tasty flavor" world building is incredibly enjoyable for me and I tend to run away with ideas.
Now if only I could apply this kind of work ethic to the rest of my life!
But really, thank you, that means a lot
Your design for Roam actually helped inspire some of this.
Going back and re-reading all these (instead of just skimming curiously) because I really liked the Elements.
I like this sort of city for a fantasy setting, mainly because I can't think of any reason why intelligent civilizations with access to a higher form of reality manipulation than just simple physics (i.e. some form of magic) would remain at a European dark ages huts'n'castles level of living standards. And while I liked RDD's description of an aqueduct for Roam, I don't see the point of building, or even conceiving of the need for one, when you can just control where it rains; would be much easier and cheaper to just dump a whole lot of rain in a local reservoir. The town council building and the forums sound very
RoamanRoman, and I'm guessing that's where you got the idea of very little to no concept of privacy as well? Roman houses were built so people walking down the street could see into your living room as a way to show off your family wealth/shrine, but I guess that'd be harder to do for apartments...I take it that the tourism is going to play a part in the story? I was going to point out that it's more a modern phenomenon with the increasing ease of travel (though there were pilgrimages to esp holy sites/relics etc in older Europe, so I guess similar), but then I realized that you had airships so yeah, ease of travel right there.
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Awesome! I'm glad the elements got you more interested, I'll actually be going back and altering one or two of my first posts as I made them when C!verse was mroe or less just a random coalition of ideas with no strict plans, mostly just the Changelings and making a final call on the princess's characterization.
Thanks, I've always been frustrated by the same thing in fantasy, they have all this magic and golem and stuff but then do nothing with it, so I'm trying to play around with what can be done with magic and sort of blend different time periods cultures with more modern ones. Yeah I figured there wouldn't be much point to an aqueduct and there is only so much logic I am willing to sacrifice for rule of cool, with Roam I figured there was a different reason for it, just not one that's applicable to Everfree or Canterlot. Yep I have been rather inspired by roman and Greek culture for this world design, so i'm glad that came though, though there will be shades of British works as well, the forums was taken right out of Roman history, as Cadence is a uniter she wants to spread a sense of shared culture and benefit to her subjects without altering their own culture, plus forums and stuff are useful. The lack of privacy is mostly for politicians and those in positions of power so they can't do back room deals (there was a fair bit of corruption in the old day's) though I actually really like that idea for the wealthy doing it to show off, I may have to use that if you don't mind, even if it is hard for apartments.
Tourism is certainly going to play a part in the story and setting. Airships, airships everywhere!
Thanks for the fantastic comment I really appreciate it!
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Unnecessary question
Feel free to use (or more often, not use) any points or watnot I bring up. The aspect of Roman culture that most fascinates me and that I've been trying to apply to fantasy is their slavery system and views on education, and how that would apply to mages or watnot in their culture, and even that I wouldn't care if you took some inspiration from because 1) I'm sure we'd come up with a completely different spin on it even if we started with the same basis/prompt, and 2) History is public use. I've got a BA in History and took a few Roman/Greek history classes, so if you have any questions or watnot feel free to ask, and if I don't know them I could look them up.
Are you basing Cadence off of any particular historic figure? The practice of spreading a united culture, yet keeping native ones intact sounds either Roman (with their municipia) or Persian satrapies.
As for the apartments thing, one trap of enjoying world-building is feeling compelled to put all the little details that you've thought up into the story at the expense of adding stuff that isn't needed and dragging down the plot. Having a long list of background/setting information is good to use as a reference for "Oh, I need a scene inside a noble's house, how would that be like?" rather than a checklist of "well, now I need to figure out a way to show how noble's live." Possible solution, though: why not have most ponies live in apartments, while the rich/politicians have an open house/guided tour thing of their mansions?
Also, I can't think of a single period or civilization in history that didn't have some sort of backroom deals as part of their political structure. They're actually pretty important in coming to a compromise in negotiations, as anything open to the public forces a politician to play to their base supporters, and this actually becomes even WORSE with elected governments, believe it or not. But maybe I'm just too cynical, cause Augustus comes close, but he also came to power after 90% of the ruling class died between the two civil wars...
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Thank you, I shall feel free to use such ideas and suggestions from now on then, good point chances are we would go off on entirely different tangents.
That does sound like a very interesting subject to try and address, hmm it woudl likely depend on the origin of the magic itself and Romans had "iffy" feeling for foreign magics that they didn't know much about, best of luck with the subject! If I have any questions I can't find the answer to I will ask you, Thank you.
I'm not really basing Cadence herself off any specific historical figure, most of my inspiration is coming either from L!verse, canon & more or less any place that writes Cadence well and then me just playing with her history and the world and seeing how she develops. As for the culture spreading, but keeping the local culture, that comes straight from the Romans.
I know that world building trap well, it's been one of my greatest hurdles with writing I want to somehow work in ever bit of magical and societal building I designed. That's a good suggestion, I especially like the tour idea, it certainly works well with the idea of showing off wealth and accomplishments and ties back into the roman theme quite well, though there would only be so many mansion in Everfee City, hmm Canterlot works quite well for that two. Yeah I think most of the cast live in apartments, or their places of business, while nobles and celebrities get mansions.
Oh there are still private discussion and deals and the like, it's more the day to day side of things that is expected to be more open, often doing their paper work in public "offices" politicians are expected to be approachable and an example in the eye's of the public as well dynamic & energetic public figures. But the problems that would come from that style of more open and likely slower government will likely be addressed or discussed. Thanks for the point I will need to reflect more on that not that you mention it.
I don't think you are to cynical at all, but I'm something of a glass is half empty and filled with poison type of person.
Thanks for the response! :)