Lore - Hunnihome

Hunnihome is the largest city and the capital of the Echora province, home to the Great House Appledale and the Duke of Echora. It has a population of roughly 50,000 people and is essentially one of the happiest places in all of Karnalle. Surrounded on each side by countless farms, Hunnihome stores most of the realm’s food thanks to the many farms circling its borders and thanks to all the farms in Echora as a whole.

The big theme of this city is 'hospitality'. Everywhere you go, there's a friendly face, everything looks warm and welcoming, and there's tons of entertainment to be had no matter what you're looking for. All of Hunnihome is naturalistic looking. There are small gardens everywhere you look, flowers grow on every building, berry bushes line the roads, and so on. The city smells distinctly of honey, freshly baked bread, and apples. Everything is nicely spaced apart. There are no big alleyways like you'd find in big cities. Typically, most of Karnalle's buildings are built of stone, but Hunnihome is one of the major exceptions. Almost all its buildings are made with a unique wood harvested from House Appledale's famous truapple orchard.

'Truapples' are the specialty of House Appledale and are essentially just apples if they grew to be the size of watermelons. Naturally, their trees are way more giant than standard apple trees to make up for this. Truapple wood is a bright reddish-brown, is stronger than stone, and when coated with a secret, special lacquer, it's incredibly resistant not only to fire but also to magic. As for why this wood isn't used elsewhere in Karnalle, truapple trees take hundreds of years to grow, and only House Appledale knows both the secrets to growing the trees and the recipe for the special lacquer. In a Realm where mad Kings and Queens are a dime a dozen, any secret a Duke can keep to improve their defenses is worth more than any amount of gold. Various Kings and even Mages have made attempts throughout the centuries to discover the method of growing truapples, but only cheap knockoff trees have ever been produced.

The city is protected by large truapple walls around its border, although they are far from the militaristic and threatening-looking walls of Imperalis. The great barricade is covered in flowery ivy, and from each tower hangs colorful, friendly banners proudly displaying House Appledale's coat of arms- a brown horse head on a field of green and red.

The Ducal Palace is a humble fortress made of truapple wood known as Heartwood Keep. Like the city itself, it's surrounded by mighty truapple walls as well as a moat. The drawbridge opens up into a massive courtyard- the largest of any Ducal palace. This courtyard is big enough to hold thousands of peasants and nobles alike, and it's used for all of the city's many festivities. The courtyard leads directly into a welcoming area known as Honey Hall, where the Duke takes all of his meals and receives guests at his table. When there is no important company, down on their luck peasants are often brought to Honey Hall, where they are given food, and a friendly ear determined to help their problems. Past Honey Hall is the keep itself, which, while bigger than most ordinary fortresses, is the smallest castle in Karnalle. Behind Heartwood Keep lies the truapple orchard, which is heavily guarded at all times.

Inside its grand market known as Nectarine Square, food, mead, wine, and specialty treats are sold en masse and shipped to every province by merchants and noblemen. Cargo Mages are a common sight, too, as they are paid heavily to buy all of Hunnihome's famous sweets and deliver them to wealthy clients as fast as they can using the latest models of brooms. In times of famine, notable Cargo Mages who can carry tremendous loads by utilizing shrinking spells are called on. For an exorbitant price, they transport food stored in gigantic specialized warehouses and granaries, which slow down the aging of food placed within them.

These storehouses were created with the help of the Council of Archsages over two thousand years ago, who agreed in exchange for significantly lower food prices, practically non-existent taxes on food export, and for several farms to be established devoted to producing rare alchemical plants for the Mages.

When Karnalle was constantly going through endless bloody wars, the storehouses were frequently emptied during relief efforts and were often a tempting target for raiding. That being said, Hunnihome is remarkably hard to siege, and it's only happened a few times. Thankfully, the Realm has been mostly quiet for the last few hundred years besides the reign of King Lucadeus and the Young Lion Rebellion that sparked from it.

As a result, the warehouses are about as full as they've ever been during the current era.

Five giant windmills sit near the granaries, where they constantly grind down harvested wheat to create the flower that goes into all of Hunnihome's famous honey bread, cakes, candies, and cookies.

Leading up to Nectarine Square is a famous alley called Sweet Road. It's a long straight stretch filled with street vendors, cafes, bakeries, taverns, and restaurants. People who visit it often claim that Sweet Road is the most intoxicating smell in all of Karnalle, and one could spend days drifting from one shop to the next while somehow never running out of new tastes to experience.

The city sits next to a large freshwater river, the Fairspring, where even the fish are succulent, hearty, and delicious. Notable species include the Greater and Lesser Lysofs, Stone Bricklebacks, Common Alornfish, and the magnificent Crown Lond. The Fairspring flows northward and hits several hamlets, villages, and towns on its way to meeting up with the ocean at the port city of Fairshore. All of these settlements are on the west side of the river. If they were on the right, they’d be too close to one of Echora’s permanent dungeons.

One of its biggest attractions is a beautiful, expansive park in the city’s center named after the first Duchess of Echora, Clementine Appledale. Clementine Park is huge, covered in exotic flowers, berry bushes, and fruit trees that anyone is allowed to eat from. It was her wish that no one should have to go hungry in her city, a tenet that her descendants follow as best they can to this day. Guards do watch the park, though, only to dissuade hoarders who seek to take too much.

Hunnihome has the largest population of Halflings in all of Karnalle. Albeit Echora is far, far more dangerous than their Homerealm of Merryburrow, it's close enough. There's a full-on 'Little Merryburrow' district with plenty of hills where Halflings live lives of substantial comfort in their burrows. Even more Halflings live outside the city, too, either running or working on many farms.

Crime is very low in Hunnihome. The plight of the peasants is always heard by the kindly Duke or Duchess of House Appledale, there's never a shortage of jobs working on nearby farms, and food is aplenty. The only major problem the city has to deal with these days are Halflings who smuggle or illegally grow and sell pipeweed without the proper permits. There's also a minor homeless population of bums who get by from all the free food there is to be found in the city, but they're tolerated and don't cause many problems.

The redlight district of Hunnihome is just as open and friendly as the rest of the city. Hunnihome girls are famous for being charming, well-fed, and with a bit of meat on their bones. They have great personalities, and if that's not your thing, the brothels are also filled with lithe little Halflings ready to work their stuff to earn themselves a decent third breakfast and some afternoon tea.

For ordinary entertainment, many theatres and packs of troubadours can be found on just about any street. The biggest theatre is the Mercury Assembly Hall, home to some of the most outstanding performers in the province. There's also the famous Burminell Bard College, where many of Karnalle's greatest Bards learn to pluck their first lute and sing their spellsong.

The local Association of Adventurer's Guild has an excellent reputation. Just like everything else in the city, it's friendly and open. The Guild Master is an older woman who is as famous for her beautiful looks as she is for her kindness. This Guild caters to mid to high-level adventurers because of its proximity to Echora's two significant dungeons.

To the north is the Breeding Burrows, a collection of underground caves that stretch into infinity where all sorts of bizarre monsters breed and must be routinely purged to keep Echora safe. To the northeast is the Spiraling Hive, a bunch of gigantic beehives where giant bees and other insectoid monsters can be found. Within the hives, the honey that makes most of Hunnihome's specialty sweets is gathered. Because of all of Echora's myriad dangers, new adventurers might get certified in Hunnihome and then be sent to somewhere safer that is better suited to newbies, like Perlshaw. For reference, this is what happened to Meri.

Hunnihome has many famous alcoholic beverages. Their most common one is Hunnimead, the sweetest mead known not only in Karnalle but also in all the Realms thus far. It's not for the faint of heart, and it gives the drinker a massive sugar rush if drank straight from the bottle. It's common practice to dilute Hunnimead significantly. The specialty drink is of the city Truapple Cider, a rare alcohol made from House Appledale's titular famous crop. This cider is always in high demand because of how little of it is made. Both sweet and crisp, it goes down warm and stays with you for hours, especially if it's the even rarer spiced variant.