Directional

Alabaster was a city of the stars. A brass telescope on every balcony, every rooftop, constantly pointed to the sky. The city slept easy during the day, but breathed new life at night and the smell of of chocolatl and spice wafted from several of the vendors. 

In the middle of the city, a compass rose was lain into the plaza, a great marble thing with thirty-two points. The cardinal directions were lain in gold-flecked black marble and the ordinals in solid white. The rest alternated between a dark emeral green and a soft red with veins of rust. The people lived their lives in accordance with the whims of the directions and stars.

Those with a predominately Eastern streak for example, tended to be farmers, sensible, practical, and early risers. They rarely ventured out after dark long. Their Western counterparts rose as the sun began to say it's goodbyes in the early afternoon. They were idealists, even among a city of dreamers. To the North, a wild streak, impulsivity, and dificult to rein back in. The Northern people were adventurers and explorers. Southern-dominated people were cultured and orderly, practitioners of the fine arts, fine food, fine living. Traditional and easy-going, they enjoyed life to the fullest extent. Those are simply the cardinals of course, the rarest personalities. Most were some combination thereof - Southeast or NorthNorthwest, varied and nuanced.

I have come to the conclusion that this preoccupation with directions springs from the city's history as a mapmaking town; in centuries past Alabaster was the finest purveyor of maps, atlases, and globes. Even today beautifully designed pieces of parchment are showcased under glass and stored away in family vaults, accurate to the tinest cove. A great printing press still exists near the compass rose plaza, old and rusted, but still in working order.

I took a lot of inspiration from a book called East by Edith Pattou, a wonderful book I highly reccommend. One of the characters is from a family of mapmakers - the family has a superstition that the direction a child is born facing will determine their personality. I thought the idea would be neat if expanded to an entire city.