Situated on the northern shores of the Pontar, where the broad river empties into the North Sea,
lies the Free City of Novigrad. The largest city of the Northern Kingdoms and one of the great
ports of the continent, it is a center of commerce and industry perhaps unequaled in all the world.
30,000 people call this city home; among them are those who have known no other life,
joined by those who traveled by sea or road for but a hint of the wealth of Novigrad.
Though the Redanian sovereigns name Novigrad amongst their holdings, a special arrangement
has granted the city its free status. Novigrad’s highest authority is instead the Council of
Electors which vote one amongst their number to serve as Hierarch. This title, in civic terms,
can be largely ceremonial, with the Electors handling the direct administration of Novigrad,
but Hierarchs are entrusted with certain obligations.
Novigrad’s free and neutral status often makes it a dispassionate observer to the affairs of
the Northern Kingdoms and the Hierarch is often a mediator in the signing of treaties between them.
The Electors are supposed to represent the whole of Novigrad, elevating high-standing
citizens from all walks of life to a position where they can advocate for their fellows.
The council however, has become overwhelmingly composed of priests
from the Church of the Eternal Fire. The lines between the civil governance of the city
and the rule of the Church, closely linked since Novigrad’s founding, has largely faded. In modern
times, the Hierarch also serves as the head of the Church and is addressed as his holiness.
The authority of the Church extends to the military affairs of Novigrad as well. Officially,
the city-state has no standing army or navy, instead, the guards of Great Temple of the
Eternal Fire, located within Novigrad, have seen jurisdiction extend across the whole of the city.
The Church even maintains a small navy, the Temple Fleet,
which guards the movements of merchant vessels in and out of the greater harbor.
Both the Temple Guard and Fleet fall under the authority of the Novigrad Security Bureau,
but this organization too, is merely another arm of the Church. Military orders and witch
hunters aligned to the Eternal Fire are also common within Novigrad, most often
serving as yet another police force within the city, rather than their higher, public aims.
The Church has profited immensely from their hold over Novigrad,
indisputably the wealthiest city in the Northern Kingdoms.
Craftsmen and industrialists have flocked to the city, and the roofs of its buildings are now
strewn with hundreds of billowing chimneys, the clearest sign of Novigrad’s burgeoning factories.
Private corporations and family banks have also welcomed Novigrad’s lenient regulations; the
branches and headquarters of every major financial or corporate institution can be found within
its walls. Markets, casinos, inns and brothels likewise dot its landscape, but it is the Novigrad
Docks to which the city owes its current standing. It is all at once the pride of the city and a den
of depravity, a place in which great riches, and everything that riches can buy might be found.
Such wealth has also attracted a thriving criminal element, largely consolidated under
the so-called “Big Four”. No breach of the law, from minor pickpocketing, to weapons smuggling,
or murder is said to occur within the city without their knowledge
and consent. Though they vie with one another for supremacy within Novigrad,
they also represent the only real challenge to the authority of the Church itself.
Yet the role of the Eternal Fire is likely too ingrained within the city’s history
to ever be fully replaced. Many centuries before the first human set foot into the North,
the land that would one day become Novigrad was a small Elven settlement. When mankind
did eventually arrive in the region, this town had long since fallen into ruin,
but it was within these ruins that both the city and the Church were born. According to legends,
the first colonists to visit this abandoned place spied a glow emanating from one of the palaces.
Within, they found a man beside a great burning brazier. To their calls he answered “I guard
the Eternal Fire; as long as it will flame in this place, so long this city and your kin will endure”
only to vanish into the shadows. Such an event was seen as evidence of the Divine and as new
colonists and traders flocked to the reborn settlement, both the city and the cult grew.
But in its early years, the authority of the Eternal FireFlame was not yet absolute
and Novigrad was raised to a position of power under the rule of King Sambuk, whose descendants
would later found neighboring Redania. It was conquered some time later by the Temerian King,
Vestibular the Proud, who would go on to move his own capital to the city. By the reign of Radovid
III however, Redanian interest in the city had faded. After long negotiations with powerful
individuals within Novigrad, the metropolis and its surrounding lands were proclaimed a free city.
Though briefly forced under a blockade during the First Northern War, Novigrad’s neutrality,
enforced by its massive walls, has allowed the city and now the Church of the Eternal Fire
to prosper. Though the wealth of the city has come at a cost. It is not only the sacred fire
that burns within Novigrad. Pyres too light the night skies, upon which mages, herbalists,
alchemists and non-humans are bound, kicking and screaming. And while Novigrad remains a free city,
for how much longer can this arrangement last? Both the Redanians and Nilfgaard view the
wealthy port as a prize worth the bloody price of conquest and both have made inroads to curry
favor and influence within the city. Some even claim, well out of earshot of any temple guard,
that the Church and the Big Four have become one and the same, natural rivals instead united by a
love of coin. Yet while the rest of the world suffers war and famine, thousands still flock
to Novigrad, enticed by the promises of riches, fame, and a better life. Some may even succeed.