For Arcana Evolved. Originally published at DiamondThrone.com

1. The Docks
The docks spread at the very bottom of Utos? cliffs. Familiar to smugglers and mercenaries, this place is the perpetual black market for goods and services not allowed by the city?s administration. Mud, piles of decaying trash thrown out of the windows, wooden, wet houses with near-collapsing roof tops within dark, narrow alley-ways make this district one of the least hospitable of the city.

2. The Market District
The docks are filthy, dark, where the Market District is cosmopolitan and clean. The Watch frequently walks down the streets, where most of the travelers to Utos head, sooner or later. There, you can find some of the rarest goods across the continent. Peoples sell and buy. From shops, from tents, from stall, even from horseback, people mingle in a frenzy of trade and exchange.

3. The North Hive
This is the district of tanners, leather-workers, carpenters, potters and other low-ranking craftsmen. Streets are clean but bare, without any ornaments or decorations. This is a district dedicated to these crafts without which Utos would not survive. But so many, so plenty are these crafts that the entire area is filled with people whose sole purpose in life is to fulfill their role in Utos? society. These people have no hope, no freedom other than to work for the glory of the philosopher-priests.
All houses look the same. Functional, practical but without identity? much like its inhabitants. The walls are made of mortar for the first floors, while the next levels are usually built of timber. This gives a clean but lifeless outlook to the whole district.

4. The South Hive
The South Hive is a district mainly populated by high ranking craftsmen: painters, carvers, sculptors, tailors, most musicians of the Courtyards live between its boundaries. Its streets are as colorful as its inhabitants, or so the saying goes. This holds some truth, given the ?artistic? inclinations of its inhabitants. An untold struggle opposes the people of the South Hive. Not only are they competing in the quality of their work, but also on its appearance. In fact, everything here is about the appearance. Fashion, architecture, artworks have to impress rather than serve.

5. The Gardens of Alabaster
This is the entertainment district. Many rich merchants, bourgeois, nobles live on this terrace. Select taverns and inns, houses of nobles open to negotiations can all be found here. The gardens gained their name from the unusual white cement used to build its residences.

6. The Courtyards
These form the secluded district of the philosopher-priests. They could care less about visitors braving the Ford of Echoes or the Thousand Steps of Enlightenment: all that matters is the argument, not the one who utters it. The philosophers are living amidst temples of ivory and towers of bloodstone. No riches of the people are spared for the sake of their all-knowing meditations.

Some particular locations:

A. The Open Air Market
This is the place where most of the traders, caravans, itinerant sellers and buyers meet to exchange goods and services. Occasionally, when the philosopher-priests deem necessary to share information with the people of Utos, they use this market place as a gigantic forum.

B. The Thousand Steps of Enlightenment
When visitors to Utos want to access The Courtyards of the philosopher-priests, they have to go through one of two tests: the ford of echoes, or the thousand steps of enlightenment. These steps are carved into the face of the cliff above the Market District. There, visitors are endlessly whipped and questioned by acolytes of the philosopher-priest about their whereabouts, their identity, their purpose in life, their faith. If, after hours of climbing, the visitors didn?t give up under the psychological torture of the acolytes, they are allowed within the priests? Courtyards.

C. The Ford of Echoes
This huge bridge leads directly from the city?s outskirts to the Courtyards of the priests. There, as the pilgrim climbs the bridge?s stairway, a particular enchantment brings back all good and bad memories to his or her memory. It is like a self-inflicted judgment where nothing could be left forgotten. One has to overcome his or her own legacy to access the Courtyards through this path.