The City of Flickering Lights

Surviving scrolls from the Bountiful Khanate that record the extensive trading routes they maintained tell that the City was incredibly well-defended, with ‘Soaring walls, that appear like mountains, with four great Spires that eternally glow. The great Storm-birds fly about the City during times of distress, and their calls can summon rain-clouds and fog. There are three gates one must pass through to enter the City, be it on land or through the harbor.’

As told by the hired scouts, merpeople and balenthropes alike, the City was divided into two rings, each divided into multiple sections, three in the inner ring, and four in the outer. 

The Harbor District is where the docks are, as well as the great, spiny, moonbrass gates that would have controlled the ships who wanted to enter or leave. It also seemed to contain many inns and taverns, which would have catered to the sailors of the triangle-sailed ships that the City was famous for.

The Market District is adjacent to the Harbor, and is observed to have many buildings with open fronts, from which food, supplies, and oddities would have been sold.

The Barracks District is also adjacent to the Harbor, where the small city garrison would live, sleep, and train. 

The Artisan’s District is opposite the Harbor, and is where the few land traders would enter the city and sell their wares directly to the specialty workers. From the design of the buildings, it is believed that most of said artisans were carpenters, weavers, and low-level Magic workers. 

The inner ring contains the three Residential Districts. They are referred to as the Worker’s, Common’s, and the Administrator’s Districts. The City’s workers live in the Worker’s Residential District, commuting from their homes to their workplaces during the day. The Common’s Residential District is for the families of sailors and other workers who don’t stay in the City. The Administrator’s Residential District is where the civil servants of the City live and work, with the larger public buildings distinguishing the District. It is believed that no outsiders were let into the inner ring.

The City of Flickering Lights was founded around year -5000 During the Darkness, by the last of the Unaltered First Dragons. Immortalized only as Greatest Founder of the City of the Sky’s Light, we can interpret that the Founder later Altered into a Thunderbird, as contemporary accounts from the Empire of the Butterfly’s Wingbeat declare that, ‘The greatest of Eldic-slinging birds have always flown off to the Islands of Eternal Life, beyond the Sea of the Beasts. These stormbringers’ calls are heard from beyond the horizon whenever a great tempest, hurricane or lashing storm is to come. It is there that their forefather nests, in a city that is always lit with Bright-Fire-Light’ The City was only rediscovered because the Spires, four great towers that point in the cardinal directions, still blaze with the Bright-fire of Thunderbirds.

It is believed that the City, and the island it sat upon, were sunk by the vengeful Elemental Spirit of Water, possibly because the inhabitants had misused the ability to call on the Aspect of Eldic directly, courtesy of the Founder.