Plomo

The city of Plomo is located in the west of Cadenza, situated upon the shores of the Adelantean Sea. Although it possesses Cadenza's best harborage on the Adelantean proper, it is known as a mining town as much as a port. The surrounding mountains furnish large quantities of tin, lead, and iron ore, the latter being forged into a good quality steel used locally in weapons manufacture.

About

Plomo is a relatively new city, for although it has existed as a town since at least the days of the Ruveran Empire, its development as a port and the vast majority of its growth have come about only since the Great Dark. In former days the harbor of Salinas was Cadenza's chief port on the Adelantean and Plomo was simply a small mining town located some ways inland. But Salinas was drowned following the eruption of Mount Elemnis, and the sea instead was brought right to little Plomo's doorstep. Where the small town used to sit at the lip of a narrow valley, a mid-sized city now faces onto the mouth of the sea, welcoming ship traffic from across the Adelantean.

As a consequence of having once been a valley, Plomo's west-facing harbor is deep but narrow, and the entry and exit of the many ships that stop here is a carefully choreographed dance led by the local navigators of the town. The view from the water is dominated by the hulking stone fortress that occupies the one high spot of ground on the north side of the harbor. It was this structure that defended Plomo well against assaults from the sea in the days of the Majirid Caliphate, using first flaming arrows and later rudimentary artillery to harass enemy ships that drew too close. The narrow mouth of the harbor, while a detriment to shipping, has proved an additional blessing for the city's defense, with chains being deployed across it to further deter hostile vessels.

Plomo itself occupies a broad plain that surrounds the harbor, this level ground having once been a plateau sandwiched between the long valley and the Sangre del Cielo Mountains that almost entirely enclose it. Lacking much in the way of relief and having been given ample room to spread out before reaching the foothills, Plomo is a sprawling and rather graceless town whose stone and brick buildings are more solidly functional than decorative. Having largely been developed in the years of the Sirdabi conquest and the subsequent Majirid Caliphate, when the city was an isolated bastion of fierce resistance against the invaders, Plomo features construction from almost exclusively local materials -- no great hardship considering the plentiful mines and quarries surrounding it, but resulting in a noticeable lack of luxury even in the great buildings from the period. As if to make up for lost opportunities, new structures such as the great San Bartolo Cathedral are laden down with a profusion of fanciful ornamentation, producing a style that is perhaps cluttered but which nevertheless offers endless interest for the eye.

Notes

Plomo continues to be a locus of innovation in the new art of gunnery, which promises to transform warfare if the technology can be sufficiently improved. Such experimental engineering receives little support from the empire, however, which distrusts its destabilizing influence despite the potential advantages.

The name Plomo, meaning "lead" in Cadenze, is generally assumed to have come from the many mines in the area, but poets confidently assert that the name was bestowed instead from the unique look of the sea here, which gleams with a dull soft lustre like molten lead.