Thallor Castle

Originally constructed as a hardened redoubt and administrative hub by Thallor Loradel following the Draconic Mandate, the castle served both as a survival center and a unifying command for disparate Icelandic clans. Today, it continues to function as the Kingdom of Loradel’s capital, housing the monarch, legislative advisors, military command elements, and critical infrastructure nodes. It also serves as the kingdom’s last-resort sanctuary during extreme blizzards or realm-wide threats.

Over the millennia, Thallor Castle has undergone extensive functional upgrades while retaining its original structure. Notable alterations include:   Geothermal Expansion (circa 2120 BFE): Integration of hydrothermal canals and subterranean chambers for internal heating and agriculture.   Frostglass Reinforcement (early AFE): Outer walls reinforced with frostglass alloy to endure microfracturing during long freeze cycles.   Data Core Additions (3 AFE): Installation of a hybrid archival and broadcast facility for stonecode integration with UNIS relay systems.

Thallor Castle exhibits high-functional cold-environment architecture. Its structures are hewn from native basalt and mineral-enriched stone, designed to retain heat and minimize external exposure. Hallways are narrow and layered for insulation, with polyglass domes for snowlight diffusion. Rooflines are angular and sloped, allowing for snow dispersal and wind shear. Interiors are austere, often undecorated except for etched memorial walls and heritage stones.   Common adornments include:   Stonecode Inscriptions: Carved historical records in frost-tempered slabs.   Ironfire Braziers: Open-frame heating arrays found in most communal chambers.   Thermal Canals: Subsurface water-heated channels running beneath inhabited corridors.

Triple-thick outer curtain walls with frost-hardened alloy cores.   Blast-shielded subterranean barracks for civil and military refuge.   Therma-triggered spike gates to prevent siege engine advances.   Sensor cloaks and permafrost masking systems, designed to confuse thermal scans and magical detection from above.   Endurance Corps station nodes, embedded into strategic watchpoints throughout the upper terraces.

Constructed by Thallor Loradel during the foundation of the Kingdom of Loradel, the castle was built not as a monument to power, but to survivability. Its original structure consisted of five interlinked stone keeps, designed to hold against month-long blizzards and third party raiding groups.   Over centuries, it became the administrative core for northern Alagor and a symbolic stronghold of cultural tenacity.   It remained unconquered throughout centuries of regional strife and natural disaster, earning a reputation as the most unyielding fortress in the Realm of Alagor.   However, during the rise of the Emerald Queen, Thallor Castle became the final holdout among the seven royal bastions to resist her consolidation of Alagor. Despite prolonged resistance led by Queen Elena Loradel and the Endurance Corps, the castle's walls were ultimately breached by the Emerald Queen’s White Knights. The fall of the castle culminated in the death of Elena’s husband, Verek Loradel, within the inner sanctum, breaking Loradel’s final line of sovereign resistance.   Following its subjugation, the castle was repurposed under Emerald integration while retaining its local administrative autonomy until her fall in 18 BFE. It remains the spiritual and cultural seat of Loradel, its legacy now one of both proud defiance and solemn loss.

Thallor Castle receives limited, tightly regulated tourism due to its climate and strategic function. Visitors typically include:   Scholars and archivists, studying preserved stonecode tablets and ancient clan records.   Architectural historians, examining high-latitude adaptive construction.   Endurance pilgrims, partaking in the Winter Rite of Silence—a cultural endurance event commemorating the survival of the First Freeze.   Visitors are housed in The Frostwell Quarter, a sectioned residential wing modified for diplomatic guests and researchers. Tours are guided and restricted by sector; access to command or hydrothermal systems is prohibited without royal clearance.