Yanus

Yanus - formerly known as Ehanus  - is the capital city of Froturn, and currently the third largest city in Continental Artograch after Neressa and Grandfolk. Yanus is considered a centre of learning, and is also in many ways, a centre of the Church of Titanius.

History
The city of Yanus was founded during the reign of Queen Salvia of Froturn, it was originally called Ehënos. During the classical period, the name changed to Ehanus, then in the post-classical period, the name finally reached its current version, Yanus.

The old Ehënos
Ehënos was originally a refuge castle built by the indigenous population of Artograch to defend against Proto-Elven attacks - it ultimately turned out to be useless, as the Proto-Elves won.

Nevertheless, Queen Salvia's tribe found the ruins of the old castle, and decided to reuse it. Ehënos got extended with bastions and turrets. During the next century, a small town started to grow around the castle, forcing its builders to build more walls to defend the settlement - as a result, Ehënos became an excessively large fortress for its age, although it was neither well defended, nor had the advantage of high walls.

This laid the foundations of the Old Town of Yanus or - as some of the more cynical lower-class citizens call it - the "forbidden city". At the time howeverf, it was neither old, nor forbidden - "ordinary" people lived there: warriors (and their families), cooks, blacksmiths, and all that was needed to satisfy the army. Some described it as an "oversized barracks" - Salvia's warriors received houses in the city, and people who could provide all sorts of services for these soldier-citizens also migrated to the city.

Ehënos remained a military city until Froturn was finally reunified around ~800 BEKE. Then, many of the former military leaders - and event ordinary soldiers - that served under King Lynésus the Wolf-Hearted settled down for peaceful jobs, the city suddenly lost its military characteristic. Many of these warriors became bureaucrats and merchants, laying the foundations to the city's new patrician class.

Ehanus: a divided city
During the rule of Lynésus's successors, Queen Taela the Wise and Queen Claevara the Beautiful, Ehanus grew into quite a formidable urban settlement. The old walled Ehënos that was built during Salvia's reign became the residence of the city's patrician class, pricing out the underclasses, who moved to the peripheries of the settlement, expanding outside the walled area. As the capital city - and the place of central administration, as well as the senate - the population bloated: first, it was senators and bureaucrats populating the city, then service-providers such as cooks, carpenters, restaurateurs, doctors, accountants, bathers, midwives, bodyguards and bailiff, then craftsmen, who provided the rest of the city's population with clothing, food and tools, then finally artists who provided the city's inhabitants with entertainment.

During the rule of these two queens, Ehanus grew into a city of learning and poetry, with institutions of education also making an appearence: all of the kingdom's elite would send their children to be educated in these academies within Ehanus. Many would say that this was the golden age of Yanus, but there was a darker side as well: Ehanus was a divided city. Divided between the walled "Forbidden City" - formally known as "Old Town of Ehanus" - that served as the residence of the upper-class royalty, patricians, bureaucrats, nobility-in-education and the richer artists, and the unwalled "Sea of Plebians" that served as the residence of the lower-class: the craftsmen, the service-providers, and last but not least, the starving artists who couldn't quite make it. That's right: what many describe as Froturn's "Golden Age of Artistry and Philosophy" was in fact an age of repression, where anyone not throwing the party-line found himself to be lacking in patrons, leading to them being priced out of the "artist's life".

The so-called "Forbidden City" also had a sub-section within itself: the "Academy City" (Academy of Yanus), also known as "a Forbidden City within a Forbidden City". It was walled away even from the other parts of the "Forbidden City", and almost felt like going into a separate world: a green landscape with the academy, and various buildings that catered to the students: dormitories, libraries, places of research, even a field dedicated for sports. The fact that it was separated from the rest of Ehanus - even the rest of the Old Town of Ehanus - made it look and feel like a small town just for academy students.

Yanus: city of cleanliness
Even though the walls that separate the "Old City" / "Forbidden City" and the "Sea of Plebians" physically stand to this day, the walls started to metaphorically break down during the later portions of the reign of King Naeredus the Missionary. Until 100 BEKE, two languages coexisted within Froturn, and Yanus as well: the Classical High Elven language was the language of the literate elite who resided in the "Forbidden City", the Vulgar High Elven language was the language of the plebs who resided in the "Sea of Plebians". Around 100 BEKE, the Middle High Elven language emerged, replacing both aforementioned languages, becoming language of the elite and the plebs alike. That was when the city's name changed from Ehanus to Yanus.

Corresponding to this linguistical shift was the rise of the middle class, which metaphorically broke down the wall between patricians and plebians. Coinciding with the language shift and the rise of the middle class was a drastic increase in the quality of life of the ordinary resident of Yanus. Plumbing was introduced to even the poorest of households, large parts of the "Sea of Plebians" were gentrified and made fit for living by the elite and the rising middle class alike, while some parts of the "Forbidden City" "decayed" and gave space for buildings of entertainment tailored to the needs of the plebs. At this point, the walls that separated the two parts of the city were irrelevant, and were little more than a historical monument.

During the Demonic Invasions of Artograch, large parts of the "Sea of Plebians" got destroyed by the demons. To prevent such a tragedy from ever taking palce again, the High Elves began building massive walls around the city. The old walls defended the "Forbiden City" well, but not without a cost - the walls got damaged, and would never be repaired, letting those damaged walls stand as a proof that this united city was once divided in two. The "Sea of Plebians" - which saw massive destruction - on the other hand had to be rebuilt almost from scratch: the end result was a clean and green city, full of green space between buildings and roads, as well as specific magic trees and glowing flowers that tolerate the urban environment. The new "Outer City" became much greenr and more beautiful than the "Forbidden City", attracting upper-class people to move in. Now the former "Forbidden City" has become the part of the city where it is the cheapest to settle for plebians, reversing the former situation.

Race
The total population of Yanus as of 831 AEKE is 0.

Religion
The majority of Yanus's population - % - are followers of the Church of Titanius. The next large denomination is the Cult of Nature, claiming for itself % of the city's population. After that comes the Dwarven Religion, followed by % of the population. The rest follows various other religions.