Disclaimer: The following was not written by, authorised by, nor verified by any member of the Thief development team, Looking Glass Studios, or Eidos.

The City can be compared to an organism. It is self-supporting, healing itself when damaged, and using and discarding materials it requires for growth and the sustainment of life. Like an organism there is a brain, organs responsible for its well-being, and other types of materials from which the organism is composed. It is this complexity that makes the City so hard, and fascinating to study.

The main point that surprises many who visit the City is the fact that it possesses no name. Whatever name the village it grew from had is long lost, and to friends and enemies alike the City has no other name.

The structure of government in the City is that of a feudal monarchy, absolute power being concentrated in the hands of a hereditary monarch with the title of the Baron. As far is known, the family of the current Baron has ruled the City since its inception back in the mists of time. There have been both good and bad Barons throughout history - the current holder of the title has done nothing to advance himself out of the latter category during his reign. He is currently unmarried, causing uncertainty over the succession and conflict between the nobles to have their daughters marry him. The Baron is also a greedy and avaricious man; taxes levied to pay for his war against Blackbrook have been subverted and used for his own personal gratification, to the anger of the oppressed populace he draws them from. His strategy of gaining adulation from defeating Blackbrook has been defeated by spirited resistance, but because the war gives him an excuse to draw the taxes he continues with the conflict.

Acting as an advisory body to the Baron is the City Council, which also has a limited say in the affairs of the City. The Council is composed of members chosen by the Baron from amongst the nobility, and its members are councillors for life. Because the members are chosen by the Baron the Council is usually nothing more than a body that rubber-stamps his decisions, and has long lost any credibility it has ever had with the populace. Regardless, appointment to the Council is regarded as an honour, and often used as a means to reward loyal or sycophantic courtiers.

Many of the peerages within the City are hereditary, but a long-standing tactic of the monarchy is to ennoble potential malcontents in order to bribe them into silence. Such ennoblements are usually life peerages, although exceptions are sometimes made. There are several tiers of nobility, with a knightship being the lowest rank, and a lordship the most common. The definition of a lord is one who controls or administers a district - an area of land. Because of this strict definition there has been a policy of subdividing and trimming districts to create small ones for the newly ennobled. Other tiers include the Dukedom and Archdukedom, but promotion to these tiers is infrequent. In the times of good Barons trusted advisors were so promoted - in the times of bad Barons sycophantic friends have been promoted.

The ability of the Baron to ennoble commoners has helped maintain the status quo for many years, but under the current Baron it has been abused greatly. The rich can buy peerages in return for favours, and the swamping of the old and established nobility by these newcomers does little to please them. Established noble dynasties are recognisable by the honorific "de" suffix before their names: families such as the de Navans, de Perrins and de Ravencourts have long and established histories dating back to the foundation of the City. All lords act as magistrates of their district, judging criminal cases brought before them by the City Guard. Lords on the City Council act as judges, trying cases deemed severe enough to demand their presence in the city courts. The low moral standards of the lords mean that the City Guard is often frustrated in its work, a situation not known in the so-called "Golden Age" when representatives of the law were seen as having high standards.

As the absolute ruler of the City, the Baron also has complete control over the various departments responsible for the administration and running of the City. Each department is administered by a commissioner appointed from amongst the nobility; under the current Baron loyalty and generosity have proved more important than competence as prerequisites for appointment. The most prestigious department is that of the Department of War, which - unsurprisingly - controls both the City Army and Navy. Competition for the post in intense, due to the power and status it confers upon the holder. No less desirable, but seen as less honourable, is the Department of Taxes. The Commissioner of Taxes, at the moment Commissioner Julian Friehalt, effectively has control of the Baron's revenues and expenditure, and thus indirect control of the Baron. The post also carries with it the opportunity for substantial financial gain, as well as the means of cowing opponents through taxation.

Rather less desirable departments are those of the City Guard, Public Works, and the Census Bureau. The Department of the City Guard is responsible for the policing of the City, that of Public Works its upkeep. The Census Bureau is tasked with collecting and administering data to aid all of the other departments in their work, as well as preparing maps, records and other important documents. All buildings containing more than five rooms must have their plans submitted to the Hall of Records and Licenses for approval and storage - the numerous clerks and registrars of the Bureau are notoriously underpaid and make a great deal of money selling maps to the criminal fraternity. As well as approving and licensing building work, the Bureau also records the details of ships registered to the City, and monitors the installation of public infrastructure.

The Department of Public Works, overseen by a commissioner, is not a post often requested or yearned for. It is not one rich in rewards or glamour, and the nature of its brief - the upkeep of sewers, drains and power infrastructure - attracts few. There is also little power inherent in the job, and the department has come to be known as a place of deposition for those who are not welcome elsewhere. The department has the responsibility of operating, repairing and building the sewers, drains and power conduits that are the arteries of the City, but since the misguided decision of the Baron's grandfather these tasks have passed to the Hammerites. Although lay folk still operate the machinery, the Hammers occupy the upper echelons of the system and few potential commissioners are willing to risk angering them by acting against the Order. Decades of poor funding have rendered the department ineffectual in any case; its workmen are poorly trained, and incapable of repairing infrastructure the Hammers have not the labour to. As a result, many of the ancient sewers and conduits under the City are in an appalling state of repair, adding further ignominy to the Department.

The Department of the City Guard should, in theory, be a highly desirable post, considering the preponderance of crime in the City. However, it is this same preponderance of crime that makes it so undesirable. Any assault on crime will pit the commissioner against the City Wardens - the cabal of powerful crime bosses that have a monopoly on the criminal activities in the City. Few are prepared to risk falling foul of the Wardens, and those who are appointed find it far more profitable and far less fatal to take the payments the Wardens offer.

The current Commissioner of the City Guard, de Navan, is in the pay of several Wardens, and the corruption at such a high level has tarred the Department with the same brush. Corruption is rampant within the Department, with almost all from the Sheriffs to the constables accepting bribes from one section or another of the criminal fraternity. This sleaze naturally angers the populace, subjected to constant crime, and so the Department is held in very low regard by a great majority of the population. In addition, the fact that the Hammers also send out patrols of night watchmen naturally brings the City Guard into acrimonious contact with them - a situation few nobles desire.

As has been mentioned, the Department of Taxes is one of the most powerful departments in the City's government. Its responsibility is the collection of taxes levied upon both goods and income. Certain commodities exported from the City, such as mechanical systems, coal or iron ore have customs duties levied upon them to prevent too great a dispersal, while goods being imported often have tariffs to protect domestic industry. The Department is responsible for collecting these taxes, whose level is set by the Baron. In recent years the Baron has raised tariffs greatly, including on such basic commodities as greens and meat - goods essential to the City.

The Department is also responsible for taxes on income. Lords administer their district, and collect taxgelt from it. Quotas are set by the Baron for the amount of taxgelt to be collected, based on the size and prosperity of the district. The Department is tasked with ensuring that the quotas are fulfilled, and that the lords do not embezzle any of the money. In recent years their brief has been extended - the Baron's new policy of taxing the nobles themselves means that the Department must also assess the value of the individual lords' estates, and ensure that they pay adequate taxgelt. Opposition to this policy was, at first, total, but when Lord Brynveran was caught, stripped of his title and exiled, resistance quietened.

The division of the City into many separate districts is a purely arbitrary measure, used to as a convenience for the newly ennobled. The new districts created for ennoblement can sometimes be only tens of feet long, and named for a particular feature in them. These small districts are trimmed off of larger ones that are old and established, and distinguishable by their age. Great districts such as Hightowne or Dayport as distinguishable from others such as the Old Quarter or the New Quarter by the individual architecture in each. Control of these larger, venerable districts is a prize worth great struggle, and they are often administered by the most powerful of the Baron' s nobles.

The history of the individual districts and their evolution is too long and complicated a tale to relate here - suffice to say that development has been piecemeal and gradual, with the result that there has been a great variety in architectural design and implementation. Building design is a valued means of analysing the relative importance of the Order of the Hammer in the City at various times: when they were at their height all buildings were constructed in their traditional style. During their falls lay architecture houses such as Tol Camrick & Sons and Lionel Karthman introduced their own styles to the buildings constructed.

All of the taxgelt districts of the City, both great and small, function in an almost identical manner. Taxes are levied on them by the lord to enable him to fulfil a quota set by the Baron and the Department of Taxes. The lord is also the magistrate of the district, hearing cases brought before him by citizens or the City Guard. Because of the demands of the 'Greater Districts' - the large, original ones - additional magistrates from the lord 's family can be appointed by the Baron.

However, besides size there is one vital difference between Greater and Lesser Districts - Greater Districts have their own police force. The City Guard is divided into contingents that operate in set districts i.e. the Old Quarter has its own contingent. That contingent is responsible for upholding law and order within the district, and bringing any suspects before the magistrates for trial and punishment. The contingents are based in a station within the district, although in the biggest district of the Old Quarter there are several, and all operations are conducted from here. In addition, there are various Guard Huts where small groups of the City Guard can rest between patrols, or maintain order in a particular section of the district.

Lesser districts have no such police force, being too small to justify the existence of a separate contingent. As a result, the lords must request the nobility controlling the Greater district of which they are a part to provide constables for their district. Due to enmity between lords and the Baron's policy of trimming nobles' districts to create others, these requests are rarely granted, and the Lesser districts suffer increased crime and civil unrest. A few lords levy additional taxes to provide private police forces, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

The fragmentation of the City's districts makes the task of the Department of Public Works even harder. The Department is responsible for the city-wide maintenance of the infrastructure, and problems are often not conveniently restricted to a single district.

The infrastructure of the City is complicated and torturous, the legacy of generations of building, rebuilding, repair and renovation. Beneath the cobbles and paving of the streets lie a complicated network of pipes, sewers, drains and conduits that bring power to the rich and transport sewage away. The first sewer in the City was the river that runs through it - in the settlement's early days sewage was dumped into the river itself, or the tributary streams that fed it. Water for drinking and cleaning was also taken from the river - predictably, disease was rampant, and plague a constant threat. Eventually, purpose-built channels were dug through streets for sewage to stream along and thence into the river. These channels eventually became walled and roofed, discharging their contents into an increasingly dirty river.

Fortunately, this situation coincided with the rise into prominence of the Order of the Hammer. Their technologies were put to use for the good of the City, as a network of sewers and drains was dug that collected sewerage from an area and passed it though a chain of sewers into the river. As the City expanded - aided by the Hammerite pumps that moved 'fresh' water from the river to the new districts - the sewers grew in size and complexity, eventually requiring pumps and other machinery to transport the waste to the river.

The use of the river as a dumping ground for the waste of the populace eventually resulted in it actually silting over, and the shipping that was then the City's lifeblood could no longer dock. Emergency measures were taken to divert the flow of sewage further down the river, and eventually into the open sea. This resulted in shoddy, quickly built sewers daily transporting tons of waste, and the finely constructed sewers and tunnels to the river being abandoned. Some remained in use, the flow never being shut off, but others were walled up, abandoned, and eventually forgotten.

The continued expansion of the City necessitated further sewers and drains, which were now built by the Department of Public Works - the Hammers had suffered the persecution at the hands of the Baron and retreated into an introspective policy that resulted in them abandoning the infrastructure they had built and operated. Technicians were trained with increasingly competence, and the new Department was able to repair the damage that had occurred, and also keep pace with the urban expansion. The volume of sewage became so large that a great network of basins, drains, sewers, pools and tunnels developed. Much of it was never mapped, the engineers often building the underground complexes, installing the equipment, and moving on immediately - the areas were only revisited when problems occurred.

Sewer construction boomed with the programme of urban expansion that the Baron embarked on, the Department of Public Works even extending sewers and power conduits into undeveloped countryside in anticipation of development. The network is still in existence, providing an easy entry point to the City for many who do not wish to pass through the City Gates, but is unknown to many. A fire in one section of the Census Bureau destroyed most of the maps of the sewers, and years of disrepair have ensured that by now most of the network is impassable due to rock falls and earth movements.

With the moratorium on urban expansion, and then its eventual prohibition, the Department changed its emphasis to the renovation and repair of the sewers already in existence. Many, especially those hastily constructed, were in a bad state of repair. The subsequent development has resulted in the sewer network of today; with a chain of well-built sewer tunnels and drains, controlled by metal sluices to direct flow. However, it has also resulted in several isolated chains of sewers unconnected to the main network and not known to even the Department of Public Works or the Census Bureau. These have become 'colonised' by criminals, who find them convenient means to move about the City, and also admirable living quarters.

The development of the power conduits in the City followed much the same pattern. Powered lights in the City are actinic, producing phosphorescence from the combination of several chemicals and their catalyst. The phosphorescence can be converted into energy through magnetism, and channelled along magnetised conduits where it can be converted back into light by the removal of the magnetic influence. The chemicals are mined and purified from sources outside of the City, and combined in power generating stations in various locations around the City. The power is then distributed along a network of underground conduits in a citywide grid that can be tapped into for light and power. The grid is controlled locally by a maintenance station - in the older sections of the City such as the Old Quarter there are many of these because of the unreliability of the early technology that the Hammers installed.

The power conduits do not require the immense underground network that has developed for the sewer system, but is instead a grid of corridors with occasional access points and control rooms. As with the sewers, much of the network is unmapped and thus a mystery to the City as a whole. Access tunnels and maintenance points are marked on the City maps, but there remain abandoned living quarters, control rooms and storage rooms beneath the surface of the City that few know about. Just like the sewers, these abandoned complexes are sometimes occupied by the criminal elements of the City.

Access to power is, theoretically, free - anyone may tap the power grid for power. However, the Baron levies taxes on those who take power from the grid, as well as taxing the apparatus used to access the grid and the machinery the power is used for. As a result, only the rich can afford the bright, even glare that the powered lamps give off - and even then the machinery is so expensive that their use is restricted to important rooms and corridors. For everywhere else, the flickering torch is still supreme.

Street lighting in the City does not, surprisingly, run primarily from the power grid. There are several varieties of street lighting in existence, of which the most common uses nothing from the power grid at all. Eight feet tall, this pattern of streetlight sprays the phosphorescent chemicals themselves onto a catalyst mounted on the centre of the pole. Both older and newer varieties of street lighting take their power directly from the power grid, acting like ordinary powered lamps. Both the older, waist high variety, and the newer eight foot tall model, are more expensive than the other model, but produce a brighter light that is not as prone to being blown out by rain or strong winds.

Above these systems is another web vital to the City - the roads. The street pattern is confused and torturous, a legacy of the absence of town planning and disregard for convenience. Trunk roads run through the centre of most of the districts, connecting them to each other and allowing easy access for horse and burrick-drawn carts and wagons bringing in goods. These are often the original roads that were present before the construction of the buildings. These important roads are mostly well maintained, paved with cobles or flat stones that are relatively durable and cost efficient. Branching off from these central arterial roads are smaller, tributary roads that weave their way through the buildings. Often only big enough for two carts to pass abreast, they are nonetheless major routes of travel that are often packed so full that it is impossible to move. They are paved with cobbles that wear out quickly due to the volume of traffic. Traffic flow is not helped by the street vendors who often set up stalls and carts to sell their wares from.

By far the majority of the streets are tiny, narrow alleys that branch off from these tributary roads. Often these alleys were unplanned and simply evolved as the buildings around them grew, and were thus neither paved nor cobbled. Most are mud and rubble, while some have rough paving that defies the mud. The alleys are narrow and dirty, only big enough for a few people to pass or for a burrick to move along. Doors and vending windows open directly onto the streets, while those who have defective drains, or none at all, throw their filth into them. They twist and turn to follow the buildings, changing in gradient and direction and confusing the unwary who journey among them. Few are lit in any meaningful way, by torches or very rarely powered lights.

In richer areas the streets are broader and better maintained, free of 'street scum' and paved well for the carriages of the rich. Manor walls or gardens often border the roads, with gates, portcullises or gatehouses to keep out those the owners would prefer to stay on the streets.

Also found at street level are small quays and pools, and brick-lined streams that surface at intervals. Several streams fed the river, and were converted into sewers at early points in the City's history - they surface in several areas, a reminder of the ancient geography of the area. There also exist on the surface pools and basins that act as sewers or are remnants of sewer systems exposed during renovation. Since these sometimes appear under streets, wooden flooring over the basins is not unusual.

Architecture in the City is a confusion of styles, with each generation having left its own mark during the urban development and redevelopment that occurs continuously. Styles changed as fashions and requirements altered, and also dependent on the prominence of the Order of the Hammer in the City. In older, central districts, where land is expensive and desirable, achievements in the field of architecture, steel fashioning and building construction have led to extremely tall buildings often tens of hundreds of feet high. The development of the steel girder, and the technology of the elevator, permits these vast constructions that turn the streets below them into narrow canyons.

These huge buildings were often built as great apartments for the rich and powerful, covering several floors. Changing characters of districts have frequently led to the subdivision of these apartments into many smaller ones, as homes for the rather less wealthy. Renovation and repair has made these apartments into crowded and confusing buildings, with sections sometimes accidentally walled off or even abandoned due to the lack of services. It is not unknown for entire floors to be walled off and abandoned rather than undergo the expense of renovating them. With the population growing and urban expansion limited, the trend towards apartment blocks seems set to continue.

Because of the increased population, land is becoming ever more expensive and valued. Only the rich can afford even a small amount of land, and large gardens are a sign of conspicuous, even arrogant, consumption. The rich live in large manor houses or mansions with as much garden as they can afford - a convenient solution is often to plant a garden on the roof of the building or sometimes in a terrarium. The houses are enclosed by walls to keep out thieves, and the gates protected by heavy doors and portcullises. Only nobles are allowed to maintain guard contingents - a remnant of their feudal obligation to provide troops for the Baron - but the law is to widely flouted as to be almost non-existent. Although arrests are occasionally made, this is only the case when the Baron feels threatened by the existence of what are effectively private armies.

The middle classes live in relatively expensive terraced houses a few stories high, and often protected by a private force of guards paid for by the entire terrace. The guards patrol outside the houses, but not within them except in occasional circumstances. The middle classes have few, if any, gardens except for rooftop terraces and greenhouses that look over the other houses in the district.

However, not all of the buildings in the City are houses. Many public buildings exist, distributed amongst the others within the City walls. Maintenance buildings and cells for access to power conduits and sewers dot the City, containing access tunnels, machinery, storage rooms and sometimes living quarters. Other public buildings are City Guard district stations, which are the administrative centres of the district contingents, and small watch stations.

Other public buildings are the administrative buildings from which the City is run. The Baron's palace in the heart of the Old Quarter is the site of the court, and also the chamber where the City Council meets. Other buildings house the Department of War, the Department of Public Works, and the Department of Taxes. The Census Bureau possesses numerous offices and buildings distributed around much of the Old Quarter, including the large construction that is the Hall of Records and Licenses. Because the City Guard is so fragmented, the overall administration of the institution is conducted within the Baron's palace.

It is not only administrative buildings that neighbour the houses. Hammerite temples are spread throughout the City, the largest and most venerated being the Hammerite Temple in the Old Quarter. The Hammer temples are large and imposing, constructed of large blocks of dressed stone. Their walls are crenulated, and the entrances are often protected by metal portcullises, moats and heavy doors. Within the temple are facilities for prayer, but also for studying, living and for resisting attack. Many temples look more like fortresses than houses of prayer.

Other buildings other than houses are the shops, workshops and warehouses that deal with the trade and industry that is the City's lifeblood. Workshops are scattered throughout the City, but are most strongly concentrated in the industrial districts. These are the districts close to the port, where goods can be shipped out, and also near to the City gates where iron ore and coal is brought in from the mining camps in the Ranges. Formerly they were owned by secular industrialists, but recent changes in the attitudes of the Barons have given the Hammers control over the production of machinery in the City - there are still lay workers, but they are controlled by the Order. The workshops turn out the machinery that is the lifeblood of the City and its main exports. Pumping apparatus, power generation machinery, elevator apparatus, control consoles, steel girders, pipes, lamps, swords and tools - the City makes everything from the greatest machines to the smallest tools. No other city known produces so much industrial apparatus and machined articles, and the City has a virtual monopoly on many of the most expensive items.

The City also produces other items for use within the City and for export. The ready supply of rough, machined wood from the forests around it mean that cheap, poor-quality furniture is a widely produced item. The City possesses a small textile industry using imported and domestic wool, as well as a modest shipbuilding industry that has a low rate of production. Most of the ships used to transport the City's goods are foreign ships: a situation that is not totally beneficial, but which the Baron is disinclined to alter.

Other goods produced are rather more intricate and expensive, and consequently are not exported to the same degree that others are. The City has achieved modest fame for its fine statuary and extensive production of wall hangings and tapestries. It is also home to an expanding gem industry, producing intricate and desirable jewellery that often finds its way to other cities.

Shops to sell all these products to the population are spread throughout the City. The Old Quarter possesses the finest shops of the entire region, selling expensive and rare items such as antiques, fine wines, exquisite clothes, fine furniture and many other items. Because of the absence of domestic agriculture there are many food shops throughout the City, selling everything from rare delicacies to cheap meats for every section of society. Bakeries, breweries and grocers sit cheek-by-jowl with blacksmiths, potters and armourers in poorer quarters of the City, while those with slightly more money buy food from the great markets of Undermarket, Stonemarket and Shalebridge, where most of the fresh food is to be found.

Great tracts of land in the Port Districts are devoted to warehouses that store imports and exports until they are sold on to proprietors within the City, or purchasers outside of it. The warehouses are made of brick or stone with steel framing, like most of the buildings in the City, and often have large steel doors to allow the transfer of bulky produce. Warehouses are privately owned, often by shipping consortiums or traders who move or produce the goods that they store. The warehouses in the City have access to the City docks, and transport cargo to them on reinforced, burrick-drawn wagons. The new warehouses beginning to emerge on the bank of the River and further along the coast have their own private docks maintained at the owners' expense. As well as exporting the machinery and other minor items, the City exports a reasonable amount of coal and iron ore to friendly cities. The risk that they might develop their own heavy industry is very real, but the raw materials are present in such abundance that it is good economic sense to allow them to be exported.

However, the City must also import almost as much as it exports. Food comprises by far the greatest volume of imports, as would be expected of such a great urban area. Meats and greens are the main imports, brought from friendly cities such as Cyric and Bohn, that the City often has a controlling interest in so as to ensure their continued flow. Other foodstuffs include fruits, poultry, spices and condiments, and wheat for bread. The great shipping consortiums that import these foodstuffs sell them on through agents to proprietors and tradesmen, who in turn sell them on to the populace. In recent years food imports have fallen, due to the war between Cyric and Bohn and the abandonment of farms and ranches in the battle zone.

Other imports are high-quality wood such as weirwood or silver birchwood, and high-quality building stone. The cost of importing these items is considerable, and so only the rich can afford the furniture and houses made from them. The City also imports gemstones and precious metals, as well as artwork and jewellery from other cities. The most significant of these minor imports, however, is the import of elemental crystals. Although occurring naturally in small quantities, they are in such demand that they are a valuable import that is taxed heavily due to their quasi-magical nature and a favourite of smugglers. The crystals have many use; water ones act to purify and clean the vile water of the City for drinking, while fire crystals are used to light fires. Earth crystals aid plant growth, especially in artificial environments, while the fabulously rare air crystals can freshen the air and potentially act to prevent disease.

Whether the air crystals do prevent disease is debateable - plague is prevalent in the City and often strikes the rich as often as it does the poor. Abysmal living conditions in poorer districts such as Wayside mean the disease often spreads rapidly, killing many. Plagues occur periodically, especially in the summer during times of drought and famine. There exists no hospital in the City; only plague wards where the afflicted are sometimes taken and quarantined. Medical treatment is rudimentary and basic - healing potions cure most physical ailments but are expensive, and herbal remedies are prevalent but ineffective. The doctors that exist in the City specialise in treating diseases, which healing potions are ineffectual against, but few ever meet with any success.

Plague is not the only disaster that ever strikes the City. Fire is a constant threat, although almost all the buildings are made from stone. Due to the many torches and open fires used for heating and cooking, fires are frequent but rarely severe. No institution exists to deal with blazes - the householders are responsible for dealing with any outbreaks of fire, while in extreme circumstances the City Guard has the authority to force people to help and to tear down buildings to form a firebreak. When the fire is put out a new building usually rises almost immediately over the ashes of the old one - sometimes even before the fire is put out. The lay architecture houses such as Tol Camrick & Sons and Lionel Karthman are desperate for business, for the Hammers construct many of the buildings and look on the lay architecture businesses as an abomination.

Other notable buildings in the City are the great institutions of culture. The City Opera is a grand building located in Hightowne, and the haunt of most of the City's upper crust. Owned by Lady Valerius, the recent appointment of Ian Cribbs as its musical director is controversial, but seems unlikely to threaten its popularity. The theatres present in the Old Quarter and Hightowne also attract the rich and famous of the City, while the playhouses in Wayside appeal to an alternative clientele. The City possesses no museums or public libraries - the only libraries in existence are those of nobles, or the ones belonging to the Census Bureau, to the Order of the Hammer, to the City University, and, of course, to us.

The paucity of available books in the City hinders education. Schooling is expensive, and limited to the upper and middle classes. Most people in the City are illiterate anyway, and have either learned their trade in an apprenticeship or make their way as best they can. The middle classes are schooled in private schools and academies that charge fees for the instruction they give. Because the children will become merchants, lawyers, accountants, clerks and doctors, the education is strictly practical. Reading, writing and arithmetic are learnt, as well as a limited amount of scientific knowledge and history. Students learn in large classes with few teachers, with a minimum of equipment. Often the schooling is supplemented by work in the family business or instruction by family members - the great merchant banks such as First City Bank and Trust are family businesses.

Noble children receive a much better and broader education. They are educated at home by private tutors and governesses, who teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, as well as subjects such as history, astronomy, politics, economics and literature. Subjects such as engineering and science are seen as being for the lower orders or the Hammers, and so are rarely taught.

When a student is judged to be ready, he may enter the City University - one of the greatest centres of learning in the land. Distributed in various buildings around the City, the University is justly renowned for its academic prowess and extensive library. Students stay until they feel that they have learnt enough, where upon they go their own way. The University is famous for its literary commentaries, and often attracts intellectuals and learned scholars from other cities who come to study in this great institution.

The Hammers also operate a form of education, but one that is reserved for adherents of the order. Children join the Order at a young age, and are tutored in theology, astronomy, mathematics and engineering from an early age. Upon adulthood they become novices, and then Elevated Acolytes if it is felt they are worthy of joining the Order - converts who join the order in adulthood can only be Acolytes. The young novices are indoctrinated with Hammerite theology, and usually advance far in the Order - it is very rare for a convert in adulthood to become a Master Forger, and none of them have ever become a High Priest.

The Hammers occupy an interesting position perhaps unique to the City. Although the Hammers have tried to export their teachings to other cities, too many have seen it as an attempted invasion by the City, and so the Order remains confined to this one place. They have been intrinsically involved in the life and fortunes of the City almost since its foundation, and contributed much to its greatness. They have also been a great negative influence on the City, often as reactionary as they were radical.

Due to the Baron's grandfather's influence, the Hammers enjoy free reign in the City. They send out night watchmen to patrol its crime-infested streets, and arrest and incarcerate those they feel have sinned. Although in former times they brought the suspects to be tried before a secular magistrate, they now act independently of the City judiciary and have been known to arrest acquitted suspects. Despite a gradual decline in numbers they still operate their famous gaol at Cragscleft, incarcerating and punishing those who break their strict, merciless laws.

The piety and dedication of the Hammerites is unquestionable, and they believe unquestionably in the dogma their clergy preach to them. Drawing strength from their belief in the Master Builder, they are fearsome opponents to any who fight them. Armed with their infamous sledgehammer, they do not fear streets that are so dangerous even the City Guard is afraid to venture down them.

The Order reveres the straight lines of buildings and the scientific simplicity found in machinery above all else, and is thus is constant conflict with those who adhere to the teachings of the Order of the Vine. Because of their beliefs, they are fanatic architects and construction workers, and pioneered many of the building techniques used today. They also initially developed and constructed the machinery and mechanical apparatus that the City owes so much of its prosperity too.

However, this has not made them as popular with the inhabitants of the City as they prefer to believe. Although many appreciate the night watchmen that keep streets safe, they are feared and hated for their rigid and merciless approach to those suspected of heresy or wrongdoing. There is no trial for the guilty - they are tortured, incarcerated and subjected to violent punishments. Few ever return from Cragscleft. In addition, much of the recent decline of the City is attributable to the fact that they have once again taken over the construction of machinery for export. Insisting that each machine must be painstakingly assembled and tested, and imposing their dogma on the lay workers, they have contributed to a major fall in production quantities, and a recession that has led to increased crime and thus harsher and stricter measures from them to combat it.

In addition, the Hammers are not the united Order they insist on appearing to the City. The aging High Priest Markander is old and feeble, and unable to prevent the formation of factions that are splitting the Order apart. Some believe the Order must adapt so as to attract more converts, while others insist on maintaining their ancient traditions. Splinter groups are starting to form, and if the recession in the City lasts any longer it is likely that any strain imposed on the Order by a sudden event will cause it to rupture and fragment.

This Thesis has only scratched the surface of the fascinating organism that is the City, and the many other Treatises that exist deal with certain aspects in far more detail than has been presented here. Among the essential companions to this Treatise are those texts concerned with crime, the armed forces and the Hammers.

Keeper Perdetre

Treatise, 'The State of the City'. Keeper Library; City, State of - 4948

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