Hallowmere

Hallowmere

The city on nine hills, a sprawling city of single or two story houses, made of local white stone mined from Evenstone or from the quarry to the west. Hallowmere is the religious center of the empire. Each of the nine goddesses are represented here, and this is the only place where open worship of all nine goddesses is allowed. Each goddess has a temple with dedicated priests attending it, and each one is colored in the way of its goddess, adorned with flowers that match. In the center of town is a large temple that is home to the Invictus oracle, a place where only those chosen and deemed as worthy may enter. It is here that the empress may receive guidance from the oracle, and it is here that those who wish to fight for the right to become empress are judged worthy. Those who are rejected are slain, those who are accepted fight for the throne. The other nine temples are spread evenly around the outside of the city, have their own oracles that give messages from each goddess to those who are deemed worthy of receiving them. Usually those with money, or rank, tho sometimes they allow an average citizen to seek guidance, especially if they have performed some act of greatness.

They city itself revolves around the temples, commerce is aimed at the pilgrims who come here seeking blessings of the goddesses, their priests, or the legendarily magical springs, or gather foodstuffs or supplies or medicines that have been grown in fields blessed by the priests.

As you enter the town itself, you see that there are places along the major rods with slums and shanty towns, the road is lined with beggars who are holding out their hands I hopes of getting enough gold to pay for a a cure to whatever ails them or their families. The further in you go, the fewer beggars you see and the more inns, restaurants, shops, and markets. Local farmers sell exquisite examples f wares and grown goods, fine wool, perfect honey, beautiful wheat, rice, olives, apples.

Everywhere you look, priests and priestesses of the goddesses can be seen mingling. Most are simply among the crowd,  The purple clad servants of Thalia circulate to sell their own pleasure services, while the blue clad servants of themis maintain the law. Servants of the evil goddesses are not seen, but their presence is felt in the darker corners.

Inn-

The Sage and Chalice The Murder Pit