Somme

Capital of Hartham and the northern most capital city on the Magnamian continent. It is recognized as the first national capital as Hartham was the first nation established in Mithilian history.

The city of Somme is unlike any other of its size as it was constructed to be able to weather against the cold northern climate. Arriving in the north early in human history, the Sommish people were quick to realize that the north remained cold with little sunlight through most of the year and their small wooden huts would not suffice to keep them warm in this new place. Being pushed further and further north by The Torso war tribes, the sommish traveled farther north to escape them and took on the chilling climate in exchange for their safety.

Before the construction of the town, the people lived in clusters of huts bunched together, surrounding them with palisade walls; not for defense but to block the cold winds that blew inland from the Tigany Sea. After the first couple of winters, they realized that these thin walls were hardly enough to help with the cold and instead began to burrow their houses into the ground and also dug a large pit in the middle of the village where they would keep a large fire going constantly, which served as a sort of furnace that was connected to the surrounding homes through vents.

The community was quick to grow, and the clusters of homes soon turned into a large village. But after many years of living here, the cold still remained a nuisance for everyday life during the colder months of the year as people could not stay outside for very long when the wind was present. So like before they began to dig, not only the inside of their homes into the ground but the entire village itself. Using the dirt and rock they dug out they were able to create a mound surrounding the now large village and atop it, add their palisade that would now serve more as a defensive structure while the mound and having their village below ground level protected them from the winds. It was from this design that the city of Somme would develop and become known as "The Sunken City."

The fault with this design though was that it became increasingly difficult to expand the city as the mound and wall would have to be deconstructed each time buildings were added. So instead of doing this, the village began to create whole area's or districts by digging a large area outside the original wall and then surround that new area with a new mound and wall. Each district would be connected through gates or in later cases, some through tunnels. Eventually this would make it possible for them to tear down the walls between districts if they desired to expand the district or create more room which was necessary later on.