Eastern Quadrant

The Eastern Quadrant is the seat the of the nation's government and, arguably, the heart of Tolkeen. It is basically the downtown, cultural and retail center of the entire kingdom, let alone the city. On the map, triangles represent magic power depots, control and containment systems or TW Transit Stations. Small circles are dome-shaped houses often home to dragons and other large nonhumans; large circles are Bio-Domes, auditoriums and grand halls. A circle in a square is a tower. Around the area shown on the map are numerous private businesses, offices, light industry, hotels, apartment towers, and residences.

1. The Grand Mall & Retail District

The Grand Mall is a magnificent avenue lined with towering buildings, archways, domes, giant statuary, etched walls and every type of business imaginable. It is what most people picture when they think of Tolkeen. The Grand Mall is also one of the largest and most impressive retail markets hi North America. One can find almost every type of store, shop or service imaginable: Adventuring and woodsmen's goods, hovercylces, motorcycles, boats, aircraft, hover craft and vehicles of all kinds, riding animals, pets, electronics, computers, department and clothing stores, tailors, fur traders, hat makers, makers and repairers of body armor, bionic chop-shops, M.O.M. conversions, Juicer augmentation, alchemist shops, Techno-Wizard weapons and equipment, conventional S.D.C. weapons, M.D. weapons,

fortune tellers, psychics, healers, churches, pawn shops, restaurants, hotels (all over), bars, gambling casinos, dance clubs, nightclubs, music halls, theaters for the performing arts, movie theaters, art galleries, museums, libraries and bookstores galore. The latter two are significant, because like Lazlo, the City of Tolkeen promotes education, (true) history (not the propaganda the CS pushes), creativity, expression, freethinking, and truth - or at least it did at its height before the war.

Designer's Note: I had originally planned to present this area in excruciating and delightful detail. Describing each and every store, shop and business, but quickly realized I could fill up half a book like that, and I was quickly running out of space in this one. Suffice it to say, that pretty much whatever one could find anywhere in North America, one of Tolkeen's businesses is likely to sell it. If rare it may have a high price tag (2-5 times higher than list price), but one can probably find it. The Grand Mall certainly has (or had) anything offered by the Colorado Baronies, Wilk's, Titan Industries, Northern Gun, Manistique Imperium, Bandito Arms and the Black Market; including stolen CS weapons, forged identity papers, bionic and Juicer conversions and other underworld services out in the open. It even offered a limited smattering of weapons, armor and vehicles from Triax, and the odd item or two from South America, England, Europe, Africa, Atlantis and sometimes, from other dimensions - all uncommon to very rare in this part of the world, often stolen and usually for 2-3 tunes the going rate for man-made items and 4-10 times for rare or exotic magic items like a Splugorth Bio-Wizard weapon or symbiote.

2. The Great Arch - Gateway to the City

The Great Arch is both a grand promenade and a defensive wall with built in bunkers and defensive positions. It towers some 300 feet (91.5 m) tall and 100 feet (30.5 m) thick. It is also a major hub, a port of authority, for public and private transportation, including taxi cabs, bicycles, hover vehicles for rent, TW transit lines and Teleportation Stations (the latter remains working to some degree till the very end; except with most other T-Stations destroyed, it had few places to teleport people to).

3. Business District

Banks, office buildings and light industry; definitely not much here for tourists. Most of it is leveled when the city is taken.

4. The Tolkeen Center

A truly humongous center for the performing arts where concerts, circuses, and spectacles are performed and conventions and political addresses are made. It is surrounded by a park.

5. Massive Parking Structure

It is turned into a fortified military position during the siege.

6. Tolkeen Opera House

Another grand place of artistic expression turned into a makeshift military compound. Siege Note: It is leveled to the ground.

7. Hotel District

This zone is filled with hotels and boarding houses for tourists, visiting adventurers, mercenaries, mages, and traveling merchants. Taverns, restaurants, hair salons, and small shops are either built inside the hotel or next door to it. Siege Notes: This area is leveled during the siege.

8. Residential and Retail District

Houses, estates and apartment towers with grocery stores and numerous secondary retail businesses sprinkled throughout (most are small time compared to those in the Grand Mall).

9. Tower

10. Communications Network Tower

This is Tolkeen's central communications network where electronic, radio, television and magical transmissions for public broadcasting are all made. It is a huge facility covering a city

block and is 50 stories tall.

11. Tech-Center Tower

Combination office building, research and development house and service center. The first six floors are stores and facilities that sell Techno-Wizard gear, TW bionics and armor, communications and surveillance equipment, cameras and recording equipment, and other electronics (translators, computers, etc.). Also, bionics and cybernetic bio-systems and Cyber-Doc services that will perform partial and full bionic conversions, upgrades and repairs are found on the fourth and fifth floors, Juicer and M.O.M. (Crazy) augmentation on the sixth. The rest is offices, research, think-tanks and laboratories. Siege Note: This 36 story tower becomes a military bunker during the Final Siege and is part of the defense of the King's Tower and the heart of the city. It is razed to the ground.

12. Gold Sky Towers

City services and administration building; 25 stories tall.

13. King's Tower

The King's tower is often considered the heart of the city, and is deemed to be invulnerable. Unique experimental magicks, never able to be duplicated again, actually enable the structure of the building (walls, floors, etc.) to magically "heal" and reform when damaged. Parts can be blown or cut off, but holes, cracks and such repair themselves in a matter of minutes. The King's Tower covers two city blocks and is the tallest building in the city at 1100 feet (33S.3 m). It represents many things to many people. The top three stories is a communications tower for the King's Tower facility and emergency back up system for the city as a whole. The five upper levels below it (floors 94-90) are (or were) the King's Palace; include the throne room (for formal meetings and parties), an Olympic-sized swimming pool, gymnasium, tennis and racquetball courts, game room, indoor garden, ball room, dining hall, library, and much more. The four floors below it are the King's administration offices and the living quarters for his personal staff, elite guards and live-in servants. The two floors below them are the living quarters for the kingdom's Warlords. The 10 floors below them are the chambers of government and justice, followed by 20 floors of other government offices, summoning chambers, magic workshops, laboratories, and meeting rooms (including foreign affairs and military defense). The middle section (10 floors) holds several floors for entertainment, auditoriums, ballrooms and chambers for festivals, grand dinners and celebrations, as well as quarters for visiting dignitaries and diplomats. The next 20 floors in the middle toward the bottom are the Halls of Magic and Learning, each floor occupied by the largest and most influential of the magical brotherhoods of Tolkeen. It is here that the Circle of Twelve live and work, away from the seat of government, but close enough to have constant and easy access (and influence). Toward the base is the University of Learning and Wisdom, the second largest and oldest of Tolkeen's many places of higher education and instruction about the world, the universe and, for those so inclined, magic. Tolkeen is still a great place of knowledge and learning, even if its trademark open mindedness and tolerance for all has been replaced with hatred and loathing for the Coalition States.

The lower levels hold various businesses and retail shops, a movie multiplex, and a sprawling three floor museum with art and relics from this world and others. The second floor is a great ballroom for public addresses and festivals, while the ground floor is filled with shops, restaurants, cinemas, and small public offices.

14. The King's Park

A once beautiful and well-kept city park with walking paths, a pond, fountains and gardens ground into mud when it was turned into a field camp for Tolkeen's defenders at the King's

Tower complex.

15. The Museum of Natural History

A big, blocky building with floor after floor dedicated to wildlife and nature, past and present.