City Image - Silver Gate

Silver Gate is built behind a natural harbor upon six and a half steep hills. Behind the city, and a few miles away across a grassy and occasionally marshy plain are the foothills and mountains of the Platan Ridges and their silver mines.

The buildings here are built long and narrow, stacked upon each other, creating a tiered effect up the steep hills here. Most of the buildings are two to three story affairs, with a three to one length to width ratio. The upper stories extend just a bit beyond the first story, creating a sheltered porched/ entry area. Residential buildings often fill these areas with potted flowers.

Most of the buildings are Para-Tudor in style. The exteriors are usually a white stucco, with some half-timbering (wooden beams embedded in the stucco, some for support others for looks. The roofs are high-pitched roofs covered in dark clay tiles with an asymmetrical configurations. There is no 'one style' for Silver Gate. So many of the houses have colored stucco or lose the half timbering and take on a Spanish Revival look. No mater what the facade, all the buildings on the hills are stacked next to each other.

To the south a small town of affluent manor homes is being created. Eventually these areas will all merge into one bigger city.

The most distinctive feature of the city is The Clamps or People Cars. Inspired by the rail system used by the mines, people and things are moved in big semi-enclosed cars up and down the hills via rails set in the streets. Under each rail is a cable system. Each People's car or 'Clamp' has a clamp that hooks the car on to the cable and pulls it along (up and down the steep hills). At the top of each hill is a Car Stable with a windmill and a set of horses (for when the wind is not blowing). Here cars are stabled and power provided for the system. The Clamps are free to natives, and a penny to non natives.

There is talk about creating a Clamp system between the mines and Silver Gate. If nothing else, there will be a Clamp track between the fine homes to the South to Silver Gate

Note, on the other side of the foothills and mountains of the Platan Ridges, are The Marches