High Elven Bathhouse

High Elven Bathhouses are structures intended serve as means of public bathing.

As their name suggests, they feature bathing pools, and their intended purpose is to provide easy access to bathing water for one to use to clean themselves with a sponge and soap. Nevertheless, such buildings also serve as places of recreation and gossip. While bathhouses themselves have been around since before the Kingdom of Froturn was even founded - existing even in the Ancient Lizardman Empire - it was the High Elves of Froturn who perfected their design, and it was their design, their idea that ultimately spread to foreign countries like Etrand, Etrancoast, Artaburro, Gabyr and Charnek.

Typical layout


Bathing houses are typically built in a way, that immediately as someone enters, they are met with a hall dotted with doorways leading to private bathing rooms (small rooms with a small pool and a couple of chairs), as well as a doorless way to the main chamber that features the main bathing pool. Assuming that the entrance to the building is in the South, on the eastern and western wings of the main chamber lies doors leading to the two restrooms. Under the aforementioned assumption, most bathhouses also contain a northern wing, which is just a hall with doors leading to private bathing rooms. The empty area in this hall is usually filled up by either a small bar that sells beverages (unless the bathhouse is in opposition to a tavern, pub or inn, which is customary in most cities) or by vendors who sell soap and sponges. Alternatively, the northern wing could be instead filled with sauna rooms, or just completely absent.

Froturn
Public baths have been around in Froturn ever since it was part of the Ancient Lizardman Empire. It was probably Lizardman ruins that inspired the High Elves to build their own bathhouses in the first place. First, it was an urban phenomenon, but after the Kingdom of Froturn was stabilized, it quickly spread to rural areas too, along with the acqueducts. To this day, the majority of Froturnish settlements contain a bathing house, albeit not necessarily a fully featured one that deserves to be compared to the big bathhouses of their cities.

Etrand
One would think that after their act of adopting the High Elven religion and the High Elven alphabet, one of the first things the Etrandish would borrow from their High Elven brothers in faith would be their bathhouses - however, when the kingdom was founded, it had an intense divide between the nobiltiy and the peasantry (the nobility having their own private bathrooms in their castles, while the peasants bathed in buckets, if at all), and lacked a strong class of urban bourgeoise which could have afforded to maintain a Froturnish-style bathhouse.

The first bathhouses were built by and for High Elven immigrants in cities like Grandfolk, where they formed their own racial enclaves. It wasn't until much later - perhaps the 7th century AEKE - that the High Elven tradition of public bathing spread to the Humans too.

Nevertheless, High Elven-style bathhouses are only present in cities within Etrand - unlike in Froturn, they are completely absent from rural areas.

Etrancoast
Froturnish-style bathhouses were introduced to the Kingdom of Hulra during the Golden Age of Maritime Trade, and they flourished until the Etrandish annexation of Hulra, during which most bathhouses were destroyed. They were reintroduced to Etrancoast during the 7th century.