Roa
The Arcane City
the Arcane City, the blueprint for grand Nostridan with skyscrapers, automobiles, and industry. The big city is powered by energies donated by its spellcasting citizens. Roa is a city that believes in innovation, self improvement, and the exceptional. It prides itself on building a thriving community of powerful individuals between its scorer population and its encouragement of adventurers.
Battlemaps set in this location
Greyfield Park Baseball Field
Just outside of downtown Roa is the home field of the Roa Jakalopes, the first baseball team and the birthplace of the sport in the world of Crudilex. The game has grown beyond the city that created it in recent years, and many other city-states around the world have adopted it and formed their own teams. Not many have the following or arena space that Roa does, and the planar events for baseball almost all occur in Greyfield. filling the streets and stands with eager fans looking to root for their team to take the Jakalopes down, a feat that has only happened twice before.
Downtown
Brilliant towering skyscrapers erected with steel and magic dominate the skyline of Roa. Its downtown is a sight to behold, with hundred-story buildings, breezeways, balconies, and bridges connecting them, forming tunnels at the street level below.
Downtown is where the business of the magitech foundations of Roa operates. With their small armies of sorcerer employees all equipped with simple spells, these corporations can be hired to deploy en masse, using their simple magics to broad effect. What was a small but useful spell for a wandering adventurer could become a method of swift, effective construction when cast by 100 people at once.
These companies had a hand in the development of nearby Grand Nostridan and its 500-mile expansion. This launched them into huge, wealthy factions in Roa who now reinvest that money into the old city, turning it into the modern magical metropolis it is today.
High-lords Keep
Across the lake nearest to the mountains at the northern edge of the city is a star-shaped keep. Originally, it was the location of all of what was once Roa; the whole city fit within the walls of the keep and expanded outward. Today, it is something of a historical site remembering the beginnings of the city and a fallback defense if anything city-wide occurs. Dangers threatening the world are not so uncommon, and many larger cities such as Roa have contingencies like High-Lords Keep to protect their citizens in the event of some unexpected danger.
The keep itself is a series of tiered lawns leading up to a castle at the highest point. Large white battlements and heavy gates protect the underground structures, and the grass and shape of the keep help deflect and dampen explosions. Roa hasn’t had use for the keep since the Day of Dawn many years ago, but so many people died in the chaos that it remains well tended and ready for use at any time.
School of Aeronautics
As the skies of Crudilex are more occupied than ever, the rise of the aeronauts and the growing culture of those who live beyond the surface require more and more specialized skill sets. Aeronauts do much of their learning out of necessity on high, teaching those close to them, but this leaves whole groups out, unable to join them above the clouds. This was the reason for the birth of the Roa School of Aeronautics: teaching those who do not belong to the culture the skills now inherent within, as well as giving people the tools needed to venture on high themselves.
The school is a large skyscraper megatower with seven balcony platforms for all kinds of airships to moor on. Even those who are not actively studying use them, which has made the school extremely popular with travelers. The busy skyline of the arcane city would be instantly recognizable for its tallest and proudest tower filling the highest reaches and swarming with skiffs, blimps, and ironclads whizzing around it like hungry hummingbirds.
Aeroskiff Raceway
The first airship racetrack in all of Crudilex, constructed originally as a testing ground for airships during the Roa-Staian Wars. The raceway has many challenges and traps designed to put new ships through their paces. Unlike the mono-skiff races in nearby Grand Nostridan, this track is designed for full-sized, multi-mast, crewed aeroskiffs, large-scale vehicles powered by magic and capable of shocking speed.
Audiences once flocked to the stands to watch new ships attempt the trials or race each other, but as airships have become increasingly common, the novelty has worn off for most Roians. The raceway is now used infrequently outside of licensing tests and practice flights from the Aeronautics School.
Harlemnaught Museum Of Heroes
Built along the river in one of Roa’s terrace quarters is a vibrant park filled with beautiful marble buildings. Dedicated to Golgari Harlemnaught, hero of Roa who died defending it on the Day of Dawn, the Harlemnaught Museum of Heroes is a bright spot in the arcane city. It houses three different wings: one going over the history of adventuring, one for the heroes of war, and a special hall dedicated to adventurers who saved the entire world.
Roa has had some of the most famous adventurers who ever lived call it home, many of whom went on to defeat evils that would have otherwise festered and grown. This dedication to doing what is right is a cornerstone of Roa’s identity and has been encouraged by many of its highest nobility. Among them, the Harlemnaught family has dedicated much to developing the museum, remembering the deeds of heroes past and showing the world what it takes to follow in those footsteps.
Dragonskull Manor
Small by mansion standards, this quiet residence along the river is granted by the city to honorable and favored adventurers and their families to encourage them to build lives and protect the city of Roa. It has passed through many hands, and all the heroes who have lived there have left their mark. The manor has a long and distinguished history and hides many secrets, as wealthy adventurers tend to like their hidden passages and secret codes. Today, the manor is empty, just waiting for an impressive group of upstarts to make their mark on the city and be granted Dragonskull for their use. to call home, delve and explore its mysterious halls.
The Mace
A pit in the ground 30 feet deep with a strange, huge weapon fit for a god buried in the soil. The Mace of the Saint was wielded by the god of law and good during the Day of Dawn, a cataclysmic world-wide event that nearly ended all life. The city of Roa was overrun with monsters called Avarian Blanks, creatures formed of undulating black clay, taking on no singular form, shape-shifting and altering themselves as they wreaked havoc over Roa. The gods themselves descended from the heavens to aid the living, but not all of them survived. The Saint was killed here in Roa, his divine essence consumed by the horde. All that remained was the great holy weapon he dropped. Today, the weapon and its impact crater are a memorial to those who were killed that chaotic day. A marble effigy surrounds the edge of the crater, filled with their names.
Minotaur Run
A twisting, densely populated, and extremely confusing cultural neighborhood of Roa where the people who call it home are almost exclusively minotaur. With a near-supernatural adaptability to magic, the minotaur here navigate the complex web of alleyways and pass-throughs using their ability to actually see the flow of arcane energy. The power conduits in the city are fed by its magic users willingly offering their unused essence. This magical energy is directed through a complex series of waylaying anchors and fed to the Manalan University arcane reservoir, then sent all over the city.
These anchors leave a footprint all over the city, like a massive map. However, it is completely invisible to all but the minotaur, who can see the ebbs and flows as clearly as day. Using this, they easily find their way around as simply as following the right string. Those who visit the Minotaur Run have to refer to equally complicated maps or hire guides to reach their intended destinations.
Berralguts Bar
Just off the main road leading down Minotaur Run is the small, squeeze-in bar locally beloved and long-lasting, even as the city around it has changed. This classic of the city has offered its patrons fine dwarven liquor for 120 years and hasn’t so much as changed the paintings in the toilets in that time. Locals say the place is locked in time, and even the prices have not been adjusted. It is one of the only places in town that still accepts only gold coins. Barrelgut himself claims he likes it how he likes it and does not need anything more or less, so he sees no reason to fiddle with it now.
Shao Park
At the center of the city is a long, open park almost like a forest, isolated from the greater portion of the city with the exception of the few roads that pass through it. The lamp-lined walkways and stone benches have become an iconic feature of the city, along with its most dominating feature, a large central statue depicting the once-leader of the city and protector of the world, Shao Ming, hero and son of the founder of Roa, Motoyo Ming. The park is dedicated in his honor, and his statue now represents the enduring spirit of bravery and dedication to righteousness the man himself personified in life.
Manalan University
Seat of the regent master, professional wizards of their respective schools, and CEOs of the magitech companies they represent. The university offers basic required courses mandated by the state to fulfill civic arcana, basic understanding of the laws of echo and essence, and spellcraft used to power the city. All citizens of Roa are required to have some very basic spellcraft, but the public university is available for students who wish to pursue higher arcane learning or become employees of the magitech sector.
Manalan also serves as the power station for the city’s arcane infrastructure. Crystal orb nodes fill the streets of the city like streetlights, and when touched by a mage can
be filled with arcane energy. This essence flows willingly from the mage into the orb, and at the end of the day the energy shoots through the ground along the waylines, special arcane anchors underground, and into a single great mana vault below the school. From there, it is distributed across the city to power lights, illusionary signs, enchantments, and sigils that keep things running smoothly. Some believe the mana vault of Roa is the single most powerful building in the world.
Ming Estate
The large mayoral manor of the city, once home to the Ming family proper. However, it was offered back to the city after the eldest child of the government dynasty, Milo Ming, abdicated her power to found the Chains of Elxium and follow in her father’s footsteps protecting Crudilex. Today, the estate belongs to whomever the current Dictate of Roa is. Though it is seldom used, the house is well kept and fully staffed, ready for the day a leader comes who will make proper use of it.
The Arcane Inquirer Newsprint
One of the largest buildings in the city. Its outer high-rise windows are famous for the circle of magically conjured illusions teasing updates in that day’s Arcane Inquirer. The newspaper holds a lot of power in a city where reputation is such a valuable thing. People are made and destroyed by the words printed by the Inquirer's reporters and journalists. They hold a very competitive position inside and are always vying for the biggest stories.
Arcane Inquirer hires some of the city’s best private investigators as its journalists, and they are not afraid to dig deep to find a story worth telling the people of Roa.
Tezzik Ave
Shopping center and main street of the city. The road from the front entry of the city down to Shao Park is lined with luxury storefronts serving the stylish and wealthy people of Roa. Many stores here are so exclusive they operate more like private clubs than not. Clients require special permissions to be allowed to purchase from them, something the rich regularly fight over.
Outside, brilliant illusionary lights flicker hourly light shows, demonstrating wares in ghostly neon shapes floating above the street. Tourists flock down the road, broken up by motorcoaches and street performers. Bands fill every other street corner, playing jazz with magically enhanced instruments and amplified voices. Tezzik Avenue may be the front street of Roa, but it gives you every flavor of big city living right away, and like Roa itself, it is absolutely not for the faint of heart.
Deacon Assembly Line
The Deacon factory produces some of the finest automobiles in Crudilex and is one of the oldest and most respected manufacturers. The factory utilizes arcane technologies developed in Saradross to produce magically powered Deacon-line luxury motorcoaches and cars. These were originally designed for combat but have been refitted in recent times to perform as civilian vehicles.
The factory, however, is not famous for its working conditions. It employs just about everyone in the city not working for an arcanotech corporation or the government itself, and its day laborers work long ten-hour days for cents on the bill. Hard machine-line work assembles cars that will fill both this city and others beyond, as demand for cheaper automobiles rises all over the world.