Solareth
The largest trading city in Aeryndor. Located in the south of the continent.
Travellers who come to Solareth for the first time raise their eyes and ask whether it always looks like this. The locals shrug. They know no other sky.
Above Solareth hangs a permanent red glow — created by the Ignis Stone, which fell into the crater beneath the city nearly a thousand years ago and has never stopped burning since. The city was built around that crater, upon it, over it. To live in Solareth is to live on a Solar Stone.
The city is wealthy, loud and dangerous. Its wealth comes from the fire-tempered steel forged in the proximity of the Ignis Stone — harder and lighter than any other metal on the continent. Merchants from every region come to Solareth, and the city has built from that an empire of money and influence. The architecture shows it: massive towers of dark volcanic stone, fortress walls encircling the city, broad streets for trade caravans. Solareth was not built for beauty. It was built for survival.
Solar storms break over the city at regular intervals. Days when the sky burns lower, the heat becomes unbearable and metal grows hot in the hand. The Sun Guard — the city's military watch — has developed warning systems. People die in every severe storm regardless.
On a hill above the city stands the Academy of Solareth, the oldest scholarly institution on the continent. It preserves knowledge of the Breaking — and suppresses it in equal measure. In its lower levels lie archives that have been sealed for decades. Some questions are best not asked too loudly in Solareth.
And deep beneath the Sun Guard fortress, in the heart of the crater, lies the Ignis Stone. Urgent. Restless. Burning for a thousand years.
