Brassberg

Caverns are carved like amphitheaters with tiered ledges and bead-chain curtains of brass that sing when a breeze slips through. Emberstone ribs tuck amber halos into the ceiling while mirrored plates scatter playful “moons” across promenade tunnels painted in trompe-l’oeil doorways and impossible stairs. Some of those doors are jokes, some are passages, and some become real only at the punchline.   It should be emphasized that Nidavelir's dangers still lurk: black-damp pockets can sap breath, stone-song drops warn of pending collapses, and quicksilver spills numb fingers and slow the fleet. Yet the realm fights for its audience. Standing ovations stabilize treacherous ledges, pun wards divert falling scree into showers of harmless glitter, and glowmoss brightens to guide the lost when a chorus holds a chord. Cynicism finds poor footing; kindness travels farther than a shout.  

Notable Locations

The Open Book

Hlal’s palace-library, shaped like a tome the size of a district. Each page unfolds into a venue, cabaret, opera pit, lecture dome, or classroom and complete with living marginalia that delivers snark and stage directions.  

Quicksilver Walk

A crescent of mirror-floor where dancers skim as if on water. Their steps leave luminous script that hardens into sheet music if the routine succeeds.  

The Brass Arcade

A winding market lined with stalls offering collapsible lutes, capes that fail only at the funniest moments, and thunder-eggs that crack open into bursts of applause.  

Jester’s Bridge

A span of woven light over a chasm. It admits the kind-hearted without incident, but those with cruel intent are gracefully diverted into a pie wagon.  

The Quiet Box

A velvet-lined salon for necessary mercy, where hecklers and petty censors are served tea until they remember how to smile.  

Access and Travel

Brassberg is stitched to the wider layer by sound and craft. Bell-keys on ward-plates open hidden doors for those who strike the three right notes, and melody-arches answer to a hummed motif. Aurora Quenches link stages to Muspelheim when two forges keep the same rhythm—quench a blade in both realms within the hour and an ember-bridge opens between them for one crossing. Root-Ascents spiral toward Asgard; caravans ride the Root-Roads to Gildvault Market to etch contracts on copper and quench them in public troughs. From Nidavelir’s Ember-Wells, stage crews ride smoke-lifts with damp canvas and counterweights, exchanging cast and craft with the Bellfoundry of Nine.  

Inhabitants

Azatas are paramount here; As well as brass, copper, mercury, steel, and faerie dragons wander in genteel disguise, teaching, busking, and baiting bullies with immaculate timing. Spellscales, bards, and dragon-blooded playwrights keep archives of jokes and premiere rites, while petitioners who died for a line or a last brave jest sweep stages, tune house instruments, and coach stagefright into stagecraft. Friends from the Seldarine, gnomish prank-wrights, lillendi road-minstrels and even dour dwarves from Nidavelir’s hearth-clans soften here, trading bell-metal for punchline glyphs.

Brassberg shares Nidavelir’s subterranean warmth and close-press acoustics, but bends them toward art: sound carries cleanly along tuned stone, glowmoss brightens to melody, and illusions prefer wit to menace and lawful geases inked in the foundry-markets of neighboring dwarven holds behave more kindly when sworn in laughter rather than fear.   Performances leave a residue of grace: after a show truly sings, a performer can, once before dawn, redeem a failure tied to that same craft or scene. Doors sealed with puns open to clever rejoinders, while brute force triggers confetti coughs and squeaking boots. Collective applause stiffens crumbling ledges, clears smoke, and chases off stage-fright as surely as a blessing. Pranks bearing Hlal’s sigil never maim; when harm would land, it converts into embarrassment, a learned lesson, and a free ticket to the next performance.