Daily Life in Petakova
From Elan Vital Wiki
Daily life in Petakova City is not the fantastical situation many might assume. Magic is present and a real part of life while technology is not- however, the experience of life is typically fairly modern.
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Food
Grocery stores are located in many places throughout Petakova, stocked with fresh fruit and vegetables. Very large gardens in the Park District of GOldvale staffed by gardeners and talented life mages provide a vast amount of food for public consumption, and most houses have their own gardens. Fish is more common than other sorts of meat, the average citizen probably managing to eat beef once a week and chicken twice with food prices. Synthmeat is imported from Stocklin. For more details, check out Food.
Work
The unemployment rate in Petakova is staggeringly low- almost every citizen is gainfully employed in some fashion. This is due to a government that keeps nigh-obsessive tabs on its people, recording their aptitudes and directing them towards relevant careers. All workplaces are required to notify the government when a citizen leaves their employ, so that they can be directed toward another opportunity.
However, individuals can- to some extent- choose their own paths in life. Those with particularly strong aptitudes will be almost hounded toward specific careers, offered wealth and status to do what they do best. The vast majority of people tend to go along with this, both out of practicality and a desire to help keep Petakova running smoothly. The jobs that people work vary widely- everything from farming and livestock-raising to bureaucratic office work. Electronics do not exist, however, so any technical careers are unlikely to be held in Petakova. The standard office workday is 8 to 6, though many other careers run off different schedules. Individuals are given vacation days sparingly and sick days fairly generously. Income is taxed pretty heavily, but no higher recently than it has always been.
Health
Petakova provides universal health care for all citizens at no cost under any circumstance. All doctors/healers are employed directly by House Petakova, and paid quite nicely. All illnesses and poisonings are handled by Celestian healers, who can usually cleanse the body more easily than even the most advanced Stocklin scientists- but all serious injury cases are sent over to Stocklin to use the superior facilities there.
Entertainment
Petakovans with spare time mostly turn to books and physical activity, such as roaming and playing throughout the Park District. Swimming and boating on Sapphire Lake are big favorites. Music, acting and the arts also have a slightly warmer reputation in Petakova than in Stocklin due to their lack of other entertainment venues, although anyone dedicating their life to such things is still seen as frivolous at best.
Cards and board games are also popular; chess has survived through the years, as well as go, but the majority would be unfamiliar to the people of today. Various physical games are popular among children or young adults, and there are a few organized sports leagues that have appeared since the peace began fifteen years ago. These sports leagues are not professional, the players do not get paid, and the teams usually get their funding from sponsors. The money from ticket sales usually goes back to these sponsors, or sometimes to the government or to a charity.
Standards of Living
Petakova is quite sanitary, though Celestian help as much as anything else. There is working indoor plumbing for every house, linked to the aqueduct. Used water goes to a single central reservoir where it is purified by earth and water mages, before being re-added to the aqueduct's supply.
Indoor heating and air conditioning is handled by fires, open windows, and a wide variety of different-weight clothing. In summer, ice is often brought from the arcology, and public nudity is perfectly legal in Petakova to deal with the heat.
Communication between areas of Petakova is handled by messengers. Important messages are carried to stations on the wall where morse code is transmitted via mirrors; the most critical messages are carried by Wormhole-capable Celestians assigned to crucial locations of the city.
For transportation, Petakovans ride either personal kodresh, or kodresh-driven carriages that serve as scheduled public transportation.
Sexuality
Birth control is obtainable, if somewhat discouraged, and pre-marital sex doesn't have much stigma- neither does homosexuality. As long as an individual is willing to have children while relatively young and either raise them themselves or commend them to state guardianship for assignment to foster families, their sexual practices are of little concern to anyone. The exception is sex under the age of consent, which in Petakova is set at 16. If the partners are more than 4 years apart in age when one is underage, it is a crime.
Law Enforcement
Peace is enforced by regular and thorough patrolling of the Titania Militia. Guns are completely outlawed in Petakova, but knives, small clubs, small axes and other minor melee weaponry is legal- and indeed, fairly common. Swords, polearms, double-handed axes and other full-sized war weapons are reserved for Militia members. Violent offenders are usually caught early and remanded to jail, where trials with juries of nobility are quite speedily accomplished.
