Citadel of Ice and Steel
Ervenian Era, 1051 AB
The Citadel of Ice and Steel is a fortress-city adfrift in the endless sky. The citadel glitters like a crown caught in dawnlight. Frosted domes and needle-spires of blue-white rime grow from lattices of sky-steel; storm-chains as thick as towers bite into passing cloudbergs to anchor the whole, then release them again with a bell-chime and a sigh. Wind moves through every street by design, guided in smooth laminar lanes, caught in singing vents, and braided into updraft stairs that lift citizens from tier to tier without a flutter of wing.
Customs
Open Palm, Open Breath
All parley begins with a shared breath facing the Flue; to poison the air with deceit is a bannable crime.Chime Offering
Incense and chime-strings are hung in approach winds; a chime that sings overlong is a sign your petition has been heard.Trial of Gale
Disputes may be settled in Zephyr lists, nonlethal banner-duels judged on control and style rather than harm.Still-Wing Vigil
Pilgrims hold posture in a hush pocket by the Boreal Crown at dawn; one whispered name to the wind seals an oath.Sirocco Etiquette
Cloaks free, steel sheathed, banners furled in courts; raising heat (literal fire) without writ is a grave insult.Geography
The Citadel is a vertical helical city wrapped around a hollow axis called the Boreal Flue, a clear, cold updraft that hums like a vast organ pipe. Rings of floe-terraces, paved with pressure-hardened ice and ribbed with sky-steel, spiral upward, each ring hosting markets, courts, gardens of frost-fern, and hangars for kite-ships and wind-sails. Radiating buttresses of tempered rime form glacier-arches that catch shear and turn it into gentle drift; between them, blueglass canopies focus light yet shed heat in glittering veils. Beneath the lowest terraces hangs the Waterspout Mooring, a leashed silver column that can be sung down to kiss the Elemental Plane of Water; above the highest domes, a halo of anvil platforms watches the jet streams like harbor pilots watch tides.
Notable Locations
The Boreal Crown
Akadi’s high embassy and the Djinn Padishah’s audience dome; vows spoken here ride the Flue and are heard across the Citadel.Zephyr Bazaar
A ring-market of bottled winds, feathersteel spars, cloud-glass optics, skyfruits, and perfumed incenses offered to the breeze before sale.Gale Foundries
Cold forges where azer guests and djinn smiths temper sky-steel with pressure, song, and frostfire; fire is caged as blue light.Sirocco Courts
Arbitration terraces open to the wind; cases argued by bell-phrase and banner semaphore as much as by words.The Thawless Gardens
Beds of frost-fern, blue moss, and ice-orchids tended by marid botanists; dew condenses into sweet, drinkable pearls.Aerie 77
Hangars for wind-sails, kite-rigs, and thistledown skiffs; instructors teach still-wing and cross-shear slips.The Chime Archive
Cylinders of blueglass that store testimony and song as standing waves; librarians “play” records with breath and reed.Waterspout Mooring
The leash-cradle for the spout gate; cargo and envoys transfer under mist and bell.The Anvil Watches
High patrol platforms that read jet streams, fire warning pennants, and dispatch invisible-stalker guides.Travel and Access
Most arrive on Jet Roads that thread the plane and terminate at wind-lit beacons; pilots exchange a bell-code to enter approach lanes. The Waterspout Mooring offers scheduled passage to the Elemental Plane of Water (and back) when the spout is called with triad song. Ethereal travelers slip in by the Blue Curtain galleries, while heavy craft dock to storm-chains that bite and hold like living anchors. Visitors receive a Scarf-Visa, a thin ribbon that stabilizes their gravity vector and doubles as wayfinder, warming when near permitted zones.Law and Security
The Tempest Guard
Djinn warders with banner-pikes and bell-code, patrol terraces, aided by invisible stalkers (ushers and trackers) and ice-mephit beadlines that mark contraband with rime. Offenses against breath (toxic smoke, forced silence, uncontrolled flame) draw swift censure; most penalties are banishment by headwind—the Citadel’s currents themselves push you out and will not admit you for a year and a day.Commerce and Diplomacy
Feathersteel, cloud-glass, wind-charts, flight-runes, and bottled weather are chief exports; in return come rare aromatics, written law from Sirocco clients, and water-pearls via the Mooring. Efreeti trade under strict fire-cordons through neutral brokers; marids negotiate water rights and garden patents; azer lease foundry benches under Akadian truce.Inhabitants
Djinn households and their jann retainers form the citizen core, with air elementals, invisible stalkers, sylphs, and raptorfolk as warders, guides, and couriers. Azer smiths hold honored guest-rights within the Foundries; marid envoys garden and trade at the Mooring; cloud giants keep rotating embassies along the anvil edge. Mephits (air, ice, and dust) serve as runners and mischief in equal measure. Visitors range from sky-sailors and spelljammers to sages collecting bottled winds.Localized Phenomena
Laminar Lifts
Glass-smooth updraft columns (marked by pennants) triple ascent speed; a sharp noise can ripple them into turbulence.Singing Rime
The ice skin hums at touch; wrong-tone footfalls alert warders, right-tone steps silence your passage.Mirage Corridors
Heat-sheen in blueglass galleries bends sight; waymarks appear only when viewed along the lane vector.Frostlight
Cold aurora panels amplify light without heat; radiant spells become pale, non-igniting beams within their wash.Convection Bells
Bronze bells in the Flue ring when pressure fields shift; navigators read weather minutes before it arrives.Hush Pockets
Small bubbles of windless calm, which is ideal for vows and assassins alike; guards lace them with drifting chime-dust.Trait Type |
Description |
|---|---|
| Gravity | Anchored subjective—floors and terraces define “down,” but personal vector can be reoriented by will in open air. |
| Time | Normal. |
| Shape & Size | Finite structure within an infinite sky; the city itself is vast but bounded. |
| Morphic Traits | Architect-morphic: djinn engineers, air-shapers, and the ruling court can re-tune flows, thicken or thin the ice, and move moorings by ritual./i] |
| Elemental Energy | Air Dominant. |
| Alignment | Neutral. |
| Magic | Air, weather, flight, sonic, divination-by-sound, and movement magic are enhanced. Fire and earth-shaping are impeded (steam and dust effects tend to disperse), and silence is unstable within laminar lanes. |
Type
Dimensional plane
Location under
Comments