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Aloria possesses many major population centers as it has a diverse spread of Races, some living together while others live apart. Each of these Cities is unique, with its own small touches that make them all their own whether it be the Pearl Cities of the Songaskian Masaya, the Elven cities built anew or used as the basis for other cities, or walled Ailor settlements defended by castles and gray walls. Below is a list of the Major Cities of Aloria.
Corontium Major Cities
- The City of Regalia: The grand capital of the Regalian Empire, the City of Regalia is an ancient place. Located on the Crown Isle and only the latest construction atop a series of other civilization’s settlements in the same location, the city was formerly the capital of the Regalian Kingdom. The Five Family Rebellion toppled this state and thus helped birth the Regalian Empire. Featuring many Races and Cultures within its walls, while also being a major center of the Narim beneath the city’s surface, Regalia is an extensive urban sprawl separated from the active countryside of the Crown Isle by walls ancient and built anew. Its harbor is perhaps the greatest mix of people imaginable and is an epicenter of travel across Corontium and the wider world.
- Axenfoord: A settlement perhaps as old as, if not older than, the City of Regalia, Axenfoord sits at the heartland of Anglian territory and serves as a seat of prestige for House Kade. It straddles both sides of the Axen River and is crossed by grand bridges built by Kades, protected by large walls and gatehouses built by Kades, and dotted with monuments and centers of faith and society built by Kades. While formerly Anglian alone, the grand city has become an epicenter of Regal Culture which seeks to spread this influence out to the vast rural terrain beyond the city’s walls.
- The City of Calemberg: A similarly old city to the prior two entries, but of an entirely different origin, the eastern Corontium City of Calemberg was once a minor settlement and fortress of the Wirtemcaller Kingdom. Over decades and centuries, it expanded and was one of the first cities to join the Regalian Empire when the Wirtemcaller Kingdom fell. It remains a beacon of militarism, its leaders coming from or having close association with House Typhonus, though it is more a site of culture and faith than direct military power as it was in the old days. The walls are surrounded by dense forests, with the well-traveled roads cut harsh swathes through this arboreal greenery.
- Alberte: A truly modern city built from the profits of the Ithanian Gem Boom, Alberte sits in central-south Corontium and is a firmly Ithanian construction. Beautiful pale stonework is used to create many of the buildings, and the expansive harbor gives room to just as many merchant ships as it does Ithanian riviera yachts. Further inside the city, expensive shops, eateries, and the like dot wide avenues, with multiple fountains and statues in the Ithanian style, while just outside the wall-less expanse, the fields of plantation agriculture are loomed over by distant picturesque mountains. It is a city built for beauty and relaxation, which many find in its shimmering streets.
- Vieux-Provence: Found in the heartland of Leutz-Vixe cultural lands, Vieux-Provence is a more recent construction that spawned out of a fishing village with the arrival of House Ravenstad to the area around 230 AC. They helped fundamentally transform the village to the point its original name and settlement footprint are now lost, and today, the great towering structures of gray stone–be it the city walls or the homes behind them–withstand the rains that commonly wash through the area. This rainwater is then directed through ingenious methods out into the nearby sea.
The North’s Major Cities
- Kongehaug: The capital of the Kingdom of Nordskag, Kongehaug is a more recent city built up and developed as the nation has risen to prominence across the northern realms. The city lies in the shadow of the great castle of the royal family and a defensive fortress. From these strong points, built atop natural rock formations on either side of the city, the coastal land between them has been densely populated, a rarity for the Alorian north. Marked by stark wilds around its urban sprawl, transport in and out by boat is preferable to any overland routes.
- Fortsattfjord: Fortsattfjord stands in slight opposition to Kongehaug, as the capital city of the cousin-realm of Middeskag, but also strangely in a mirrored construction. Positioned at the end of a fjord, with the mouth guarded by a string of fortifications that can also pull up a harbor chain, it is a quaint and quiet place, well-sheltered from the wider world. It is also a center of pro-Regalian sentiment, with a Unionist presence that has only grown recently as Nordskag and Regalia seek to increase their relational influence.
- Alta Hold: The most accessible of the great bastions of Sihndar civilization, Alta Hold hugs the sea and is home to the largest port in Drowda. Surrounded by quiet plains that carry the whispers of the Spirit Sovereign Altai, the city’s walls no longer serve as a border on urban expansion, as the chances of a direct attack have wilted over the decades. The city is home to the greatest diversity of Races in the region, as well as the political elite of Sihndar society.
- Koselvik: As one of the oldest settlements of the Velheim Ailor, Koselvik dates back centuries. It was initially a fishing village and later a war harbor for the old Hedrylli Empire. However, following the century after the Cataclysm that saw the great nation reduced and ultimately protected, Koselvik was deemed the new capital. Frequently bathed in snows, and sitting atop a mountain of old documents, stories, and burial sites, Koselvik is a beacon of Velheim Culture in hostile surroundings.
- Anduin: Anduin survived the fall of the Dwarven Empire centuries ago and is now the epicenter of the northern Dwarf population. Located at the very tip of the south-western coastline of Ellador, its vast industry and well-defended sprawl are populated with many Ailor alongside the Dwarven population. This other Race helps to shore up Dwarven resources and skill sets with their own, which is sorely needed as Anduin serves as a logical hub shipping needed supplies to the other surviving Holds.
The West’s Major Cities
- The City of Daenshore: This city is the great epicenter of the Daen Governate, and is also emblematic of Daendroque Culture. A mix of Elven cellars and ruins reformed with Ailor masonry, and with a sprawling network of tight alleyways and uneven roads stretching out in a natural way, the city has suffered several periods of civil unrest in recent years. This has caused damage to the old buildings, and portions of the city’s populace to drop, but new faces always replace the old, and the great docks of Daenshore are always full of raw goods being shipped abroad in the name of the Regalian Empire.
- Luxxakhor: A great and luxurious capital for the Asha of the Ashal Islands, Luxxakhor straddles a fork in a regional river while gleaming with gold in the frequent sunlight. Risen from the sands by Living Metal, this grand capital features stunning pyramids, broad walkways, stunning aqueducts, and marvelous water features, as well as one of the highest standards of living in the world. Here, poverty, as the Ailor understand it, does not exist, as all instead exist in the realm of politics, festivities, and relaxation.
- La Portée du Paradis: Havenreach, as it is also known, abuts the central sea of Ithania, and serves as a nexus for travel across the kingdom, but also for outsiders visiting or seeking to do business. Emblematic of an Ithanian city, its grand waterfall, accentuated by engineering projects, sits next to a glittering urban show of marble and stonework, the Allorn-era designs unkempt but modified by Ithanian additions. Its harbors are just as busy as any other, but visitors may note the huge amount of goods going in and little going out - a result of Ithanian hunger for exotic goods from afar, like Silk.
- Ivaëlle: The great and ancient capital of the Allorn Empire is firmly out of reach for many modern Regalians and non-Allorn Elves, but it has returned to its status as capital since the return of the Allorn in 309 AC. Devastated in the Wildering, the grand city was slowly rebuilt and its ruins salvaged by the regional Elves into a fine, but tarnished site of urban development. Many believe the city has likely been rebuilt or at least heavily reconstructed since the return of the Allorn Empire, but this is impossible to be sure. To learn more about Ivaëlle, click HERE.
- Parthalaar: The most recent capital of the Dread Empire or Rokhaval–as the Kathar know the nation as–is strange as an urban development. Its vast size was not originally part of its design, but the loss of two proper capitals to Suvial Firescars decades ago drove the leaders of the Kathar further south to occupy a once fairly minor city. As a result, its urban expanse now sprawls out from the centers of wealth and prestige, vast miniature slum cities clinging to these gilded rocks. It is said that there are only three ways out of Parthanaar: through the military, by running away like a coward, or in a coffin.
The South’s Major Cities
- Vask: Vask serves as the capital of Keldswyn, a notable nation in Southwynd. Low in population, the nation’s homes are best known for existing two-thirds underground, and the capital is no exception. Clustered at the base of a great mountain, Vask’s semi-subterranean city is pocketed with sinkholes that let the light down onto a thriving cave ecosystem that the regional Ailor live in and around.
- Barakota: The former capital of a now-defunct Chrysant Kingdom in eastern Hadar, Barakota holds the honor of one of the few Allar cities not successfully bombarded by the Regalian Empire and is thus heavily populated. Originally a mining settlement, it is now one of the few places to retain the beauty and style of the Essa Empire’s era in Aloria. Alchemy chimneys emerging from the elegant Allar houses will occasionally puff all types of colored smoke as well, giving the space a beautiful, etheric quality.
- Sassrakkand: The ancient city of Sassrakkand is the holiest place in Aloria to the Slizzar and has long been their only bastion. Built millennia ago and made of three huge, concentric ringed walls (one breached following an Allorn attack centuries ago, leaving the two deepest city sections safe), the site is also heavily connected with the Dragons and is full of their strange technology, as well as a vast structure known as the Mirror Pyramid. Outsiders are not welcome into the city, save the family of Slizzar, but if they break the rules, they will be ostracized and banned from re-entry.
- Mohneer Llaatohn: The great capital of Tohsmaaq Venheer, Mohneer Llaatohn was once a mere hovel for the earliest emerging Maraya to peek out at the wider world. It has since greatly expanded, bolstered by Vault populations and natural expansion, into a thriving city isolated from the world. Built in simple mimicry of the past some ways inland, sleek spires built in mimicry of the past give it an alien appearance while advanced devices blanket the city. They tend to greenery, carry messages, and fly through the air in frequent patrols to protect the inhabitants.
- Rumah: Rumah is the mysterious capital of the Sendrassian Allar, a place spoken of with uncertainty among the Hadarian Allar, but one the Sendrassians know well. It is an ancient place set beside a river, but it is rugged and wild, liable to be attacked by hostile animals yet also defended by many powerful warriors. It is a political and religious center, thus being the site for much bloody worship of dark gods. Its name is also a codename, keeping its actual designation hidden from the Hadarian Allar who might have records that would point to its location.
The East’s Major Cities
- The City of Dexai: Once a small agriculture-focused island on the periphery of the Sihai world, the rising of the Jade Wall in connection with this landmass saw the region drastically transform. Now a powerful city-state serving as the literal gatekeepers of Jadeheart, the city-state is flooded with outsiders, each group confined to a particular borough across the city that now covers nearly half the island. It is also a center of commerce and politics and was once also a key area to defend as part of the Jade Wall, prior to 311 AC.
- Korbamakora: The Golden Pearl of Farahdeen, this grand capital of the Songaskia people has been in the process of construction for decades now. Unique as a construction built in emulation of the coastal Pearl Cities yet using little Sariyd ruins as its base, the structure is taking shape to one day be self-sustaining once the vast dome overtop of it is finished. However, progress has slowed in recent years as external and internal conflicts reduce the resources able to be funneled to construction.
- Hulhaug: As the capital of Torse, Hulhaug is a peculiar site known for being initially built out of what many believe was a storage facility for the local populace. With time, and Velheim influence, the caverns at the foot of a small mountain turned into a sprawling defensive fortress, and the caverns expanded into with the help of Dwarves to provide the city with fresh water. While it suffered greatly in the Bone Horror Crisis, the city is steadily being repopulated.
- Timberland: In the rugged wilderness of Eastwynd, beyond the borders of civilized Aloria, lay lands filled with chaos and conflict. Factions war with each other in surroundings reminiscent of times now long past, or only found in remote regions of Aloria’s north. Among these groups though, are towns and cities where the factions dwell, with Timberland standing out as one of the most notable.
- The Bralona City: A plainspoken name, The Bralona City was where most of the Bralona lived while trapped on Basalon–also called Justinia–for many long centuries. The location was somewhat developed in that time, with homes built in the same Draconic style as the other local structures, sitting nestled in a large central flat plain surrounded by mountains. The city has been almost entirely abandoned in the modern day, leaving its mysteries unanswered.
Trivia
- The City of Regalia’s undercity is extraordinary to explore and might provide great knowledge to the realm of scholarship, if it was not so perilous, filled with criminals, mutants, and far worse deep into its fathomless depths.
- While truly hidden cities remain rare in Aloria, the vast array of magical methods of detection, and centuries of time granted to those endeavoring to peek through veils and even, vales, there remain tales of hidden settlements, most often of Elves, even in lands as thoroughly charted as Corontium.
- The only Race to perhaps truly and entirely lack cities are the Urlan. While they can and do live in urban surroundings, their native lands are full of migrating groups, and much smaller settlements. What few centralized efforts do exist are in the Cain Free Jarls.
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