Piltover

This Article is in accordance with the version 0.94 of Runarcana RPG

“Piltover is a thriving, progressive city whose power and influence is on the rise. It is Valoran’s cultural center, where art, craftsmanship, trade, and innovation walk hand in hand. Its power comes not through military might but the engines of commerce and forward-thinking. Situated on the cliffs above the district of Zaun and overlooking the ocean, fleets of ships pass through its titanic sea-gates, bringing goods from all over the world. The wealth this generates has given rise to an unprecedented boom in the city’s growth. Piltover has - and still is - reinventing itself as a city where fortunes can be made, and dreams can be lived. Burgeoning merchant clans fund development in the most incredible endeavors: grand artistic follies, esoteric hextech research, and architectural monuments to their power. With ever more inventors delving into the emergent lore of hextech, Piltover has become a lodestone for the most skilled craftsmen the world over.”

The ancient city of Zaun was a shurimane commercial outpost to the north, but the creation of the sea gates of piltover, over three thousand years late that brought even more prosperity.

Trading is Piltover's primary source of income, and his access to the main trading routes from the East to the West made their vaults fill with gold. A consequence of this is the rapid expansion of the Noxian empire, whose army and supplies can travel through quickly the Valoran extension. This also allowed Bilgewater to prosper as a paradise for bandits that raid ships that enter and exit Piltover.

The cosmopolitan nature of Piltover allows for its inhabitants to be as varied as the city itself, but still, they share a particular persona. A resident of Piltover is usually self-sufficient, doesn’t ask for anything for free, and always tries to make his best. They oppose outside influences and see the open market as something essential for the city to prosper. Styles come and go in the halls of piltover, while most people’s tastes can be seen as formal or functional, some individuals exceed the limit of common sense and reason with their demonstrations of wealth.

Characters

When creating a character from this region, you gain the following traits:

Languages. Zaunite Piltovian and choose one between: Demacian, Ionian, Noxian, Bilgewatrian, Shurimane, Zaunite

Skill. Choose any skill

Activity. Choose two proficiencies from the following options: Light crossbow, short sword, longsword, glaive, warhammer, gauntlet, rapier, hand crossbow, heavy crossbow, net, a firearm or a craft

The City of Progress

The quaysides of Piltover are always busy, and anyone with a strong back and the will to work can easily find employment. A hundred accents are heard on the wharfside streets at any given time, and scores of ships from every port pass through the Sun Gates every day.

The mercantile clans of Piltover each have their own unique sigil to identify their homes, workshops, shipments, warehouses, inventions, brands, and business places. Each sigil bears many meanings and interpretations; some obvious, some less so.

The streets of Piltover are rumored to be paved with gold, but to the disappointment of many a hopeful traveler, that is simply a metaphor. However, the city's most wondrous structures and streetscapes are funded by the merchant clans, who flaunt their wealth as much as possible.

The interior of Piltover's buildings does not receive any less attention than the outside and are usually wonders of ingenuity by themselves.

Piltover's newer structures are graceful mixtures of polished marble, latticework bronze, and shimmering glass that sit alongside older buildings of hewn stone and weathered timber. Fluted towers inlaid with gold and silver reach clear skies, as arching bridges span the chasms between the clifftops.

The entrances to mercantile buildings are oftenly incredibly elaborate. Even those dwellings that predate hextech have since been ornamented with ornate details to reinforce the impression that Piltover is a city drowning in gold.

Piltovan Wonders

The Sun Gates: The construction of these sea-gates made Piltover a hub of mercantile trade between Valoran and Shurima, bringing unimaginable wealth to the city's rulers.

The workshops: Workshops of hextech inventors are the prime example of what a wealthy patron can do for an inventor.

Lost Wonders: The lifetime's work of Valentina Zindelo, the Incognium Runeterra is a device she claimed could locate any individual in the world. Since Zindelo's mysterious death, many believe her alchemical formulae have been stolen.

Law and Order

The Wardens are the men and women tasked with maintaining the rule of law in Piltover. The organization is funded by trade taxes and 'voluntary' contributions from the mercantile clans, outfitting the Wardens with uniforms and equipment. Many of these donations take the form of unique hextech, such as weaponry or other specialized devices.

The current master of Clan Medarda, Jago, commands immense respect and power throughout Piltover. With the revenue generated by his father's piston patents, Jago is funding research into using hextech to speed the opening and closing of the Sun Gates.

Hextech

Hextech is the newly emergent fusion of magic and technology used to create exquisite artifacts that can be wielded by anyone, not just those few with a natural aptitude for the arcane. It harnesses the magical power contained within scarce crystals, and its power is limited only by the imagination of its users. It is capable of incredible feats, from powering machinery to creating beams of light capable of cutting the strongest steel. The process of crafting hextech is a closely guarded secret, and no two artificers work to the same methodology. As such, each item of hextech is a unique artifact of rare beauty, a bespoke creation that will likely have taken years to craft.

The first attempt to capture crystalline power in portable form was the Hexahedral Configuration, with shards cut from the Odyn Valley, an extraordinary object, as the others hextech improvements they era extremely rare and powerful, raising the strength and dexterity of its user considerably. Continous use of some end up damaging its user, causing damage to the bones, but it doesn't lower the demand for them.

Some items by themselves are scary and wonderful, like Vishlaa's Hexlyene Caliver, initially manufactured for the Piltover Wardens, the designs for this hex-powered weapon have since been locked away as being too dangerous.