Darkhall

The once great city of Lisburg, now known only as Darkhall, was one of the major cities of Tsergarde, rivaling even Martiné in terms of opulence. Built upon the ruins of an ancient elven city that stretched for miles below ground, the city 's bounds included much of the peninsula it lies on, providing a strategic holding ground against land invasion while the bay was a safe harbor for any ships. Lisburg had been where the disparate southern lords came together to decide their leader, where disputes had been settled for lords and commoners alike, and where the earliest colonial expeditions for Tarasath would leave from. The only notable port along the southern coast, more trade came through Lisburg than Tsergarde for a significant part of the post-Collapse period. All of that wealth allowed the city to grow immensely and extravagantly, with cut marble causeways, a great archive which contained knowledge across generations, and a grand palace where the Tarasathian nobility could meet and discuss matters at hand. Marketplaces selling everything one could ever want, with even rare magical items seemingly simple to come by, and fairs regularly occurring in the various squares to celebrate for sometimes little reason. Lisburg became seem by many as the true sanctuary from all manner of things that hid in the Saliswald and reaching the city meant that everything would be alright.   But that's not how the story really goes. Not forever anyway. The city prospered for decades after The Collapse. Then suddenly, on a seemingly normal day one winter, a great explosion erupted from deep beneath the city with the magical force strong enough to create a massive pit the engulfed most of the city center and ruptured the great dwarven-built walls around the northern periphery. Thousands died quickly, either from the blast itself or from the quakes that followed in the explosions wake or even from the panic that ensued afterwards. And that by itself would have been a tragedy, but not an insurmountable one and the city seemed to be stable. Then the monsters came. A horde of hundreds of beasts of all kinds, wyverns, manitcores, fae things, and creatures people had never even seen before charged through the breaks in the walls as if being guided by a unifying drive to push into the city and slaughter all in their path. Even worse, some of the survivors nearest to the magical explosion became warped by the suffusion of raw energy, many losing their minds and joining the rampaging monsters. On that grim day, almost 90% of the city would perish, with survivors mostly escaping by boats or sneaking away into the Saliswald, which now seemed so much safer than Lisburg. Most tried to save something from the city as it fell, with the scholars of the archive managing to save some of their written knowledge and some ancient relics kept at the palace would be spared as well by the nobles. Yet it seemed fate had not yet been cruel enough to these people. What amounted to a grave-curse afflicted all who managed to escape the city, with even long-lived peoples dying within a year of Lisburg's conversion into Darkhall. But the story of what happened would spread across the region even as the curse followed. Many families, great or not, grieved at their losses from this catastrophe, and would lead to a massive population shift as people tried to get away from the now cursed placed. In honor of that dark day, Tarasath would decree Convergence Day, the rough name that had been given to the tragedy, as a day of remembrance and to make known the dangers that the Saliswald holds. Even the other kingdoms acknowledge Convergence Day, and it is often a day of armistice during times of war.   To this day, Darkhall remains a haven for monsters, its ruined streets a constant battleground between the different beasts making their homes there. The Great Maw that was made from magical explosion still dominates the city, separates the districts from one another with an impossibly large expanse, while being seemingly bottomless. The palace remains mostly intact, an ever present sight that only appears to be safe. Many of the warped populace that remained after the carnage wander the great halls, lost to their old habits if not disturbed. The same phenomena is present in the streets, with hollow-eyed, barely humanoid aberrations aimlessly moving to an fro, attacking anything that is not another one of them. Some scattered attempts at retaking the city by various forces, especially Tarasath, have always fallen apart from the sheer numbers of beasts that inhabit the place, and few have any desire to live in a place that most consider cursed beyond salvation.