History & Cultures · Important Locations

Rikjosom

Nation

Nashriam, of which it is the capital

Position

The mouth of the Storjot River, on a very large natural harbour

Built Of

Yellow stone, by a decree of the Great Houses that is still enforced

At Its Heart

The Vellidan, the continent's centre of healing

Also Here

The University of Rikjosom, and one of the continent's great bazaars

Rival

Moijavera, the trade city, which is catching up

Population

About 400,000

Rikjosom is the capital of Nashriam and the city that nation is proudest of. It stands at the mouth of the Storjot River on a natural harbour of enormous size, and the wealth of the fertile valley behind it flows down the river and into the city.

The yellow city

The first thing anyone notices is the colour. By a decree passed long ago and still enforced by the Great Houses, any structure larger than a small home must be built of yellow stone. Anything smaller may be built of what its owner likes, so long as most of it is painted or stained yellow.

The stone is typically quarried in the mountains to the west. Some of it is a slightly darker, richer yellow, and is rumoured to have come originally from the mountains of the Blighted Lands.

The Vellidan

At the core of the city is the Vellidan, the great centre of healing and the reason a good many people come to Rikjosom at all. The complex is old, built of dark yellow stone, and holds the greatest concentration of healers in the world. Every Great House is a patron of it collectively.

No one is turned away. No injury is too grievous and no illness too horrifying, and research into both — congruence and mundane — runs alongside the treatment.

Learning

The University of Rikjosom trains Alchemists, with a focus on building: architects and engineers come out of it, and it is the school most responsible for the fact that Nashriam's buildings stand up. It is one of several schools in a nation that has more of them than anywhere else. The Vellidan takes its own students, who come from across the country to study under its master Alchemists.

Schools here are headed by great academics and admission is by petition. Most school bodies number only a few score, so the competition is fierce, and star pupils are invited onto research expeditions.

Trade

The harbour is excellent and the piers see a steady run of Alvanian ships, which carry most of what Nashriam moves over water. But the bulk of the nation's trade goes up and down the Storjot and overland, and Rikjosom's bazaar is sought out by merchants from across the continent.

That primacy is no longer unchallenged. The trade city of Moijavera lacks Rikjosom's prestige and is winning on volume, which is a source of some discomfort to the people here.