Soullgraf
Perched atop the sea-carved cliffs of the southern Thillonrian Peninsula, Soullgraf is the crown jewel of the Schnai, a windswept bastion of snow-draped stone and ancient Suel pride. From this stronghold, the High King of the Schnai rules with cold wisdom and iron will, overseeing raids, rituals, and diplomacy with equal gravity.
Soullgraf is steeped in spiritual symbolism and magical wards, a testament to the Schnai’s reverence for their gods and their homeland.
- Frost runes ward city gates and homes alike, believed to repel evil and foreign trickery.
- The Temple of the Ice-Eye, dedicated to Wee Jas, houses oracles who speak truths in riddles while staring into frozen scrying mirrors.
- The Sea Wall, an enchanted breakwater built of stone slabs and bound water elementals, dulls even the harshest storm surges.
- Watchfires of blue flame—lit by clerics of Kord—burn from spires across the city, guiding ships home and warding against supernatural threats.
Demographics
Soullgraf is as much a center of Schnai culture as it is of rule:
- The Lorevault: A subterranean library of carved crystal walls where rune-masters and sages keep chronicles etched in ice and stone. Many are written in ancient Suel and accessible only to those deemed worthy.
- The Iceharp Hall: A massive longhouse of music, tale, and challenge, where skalds sing of battles and heroes, often drawing prophecy from performance. The hall’s namesake, a harp made of mammoth ivory and woven froststeel, plays itself when the winds are right.
- The Stormbreaker Docks: Located far below the main city, carved into natural sea caves reinforced with stone, these docks hold longships of war and trade. A ritual salt blessing is given to every vessel before it sets out.
Government
As capital, Soullgraf is a nexus of power, law, and tradition for the Schnai:
- The High King sits upon the Throne of Snow and Salt, a cold-carved seat said to have been chiseled from a glacier dragged inland by the ancestors.
- The Frost Assembly, composed of nobles, skalds, rune-scribes, and ship-captains, meets in the Hall of Voices to advise the monarch. Their debates are often theatrical and brutal.
- Duels are settled in the Ring of Winter’s Word, a circular arena built into a frozen amphitheater overlooking the sea.
- While bloodlines are honored, merit and renown carry weight—southern emissaries have found themselves debating skalds, warrior-priestesses, or even fishermen elevated to power through deed alone.
Tourism
To the rest of the Flanaess, Soullgraf is a city of:
- Unyielding tradition
- Surprising diplomacy
- Cold beauty and colder judgment
Merchants, spies, and emissaries travel here with equal parts hope and dread. The city's rulership may host banquets to honor a treaty one day, and launch longships the next to punish a perceived slight.
Soullgraf endures, not by isolation, but by standing proud and ready at the edge of the world, facing down southern intrigue, rival barbarians, and the unforgiving sea alike.
Architecture
Soullgraf is a city hewn from white granite and ice, built into the bluff where the Icydeep Sea hammers the peninsula with storms and spray. Its structures gleam like frozen bone, standing resolute against sleet and time.
- The city terraces downward, its tiers cut into the cliffs, connected by narrow, sloping roads and frost-covered stairways carved into the rock.
- At the summit stands the Frosthold, the royal fortress-palace. Its outer walls are fortified with rime-enchanted stone, and its towers are crowned with blue-glass domes that shimmer in sunlight and moonlight alike.
- Temples to Kord, Lendor, and Wee Jas rise like crystalline spires in the city center, their walls of magically hardened ice illuminated from within by everburning torches and sacred runes.
- Public spaces are open-air, despite the cold—Soullgraf is a city that endures, and only those who can do the same are considered worthy of its streets.
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