Myrrdin
Type: City-State
Role: Scholastic Polis, Arcane Bastion, Seat of Athena
Location: Northern Hellenara, on terraced cliffs above a bay; crystal caverns below, sky-isles tethered above
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Overview
Myrrdin is a city of marble terraces and bronze-chained sky-isles, crowned by observatories and academies. By day, scholars trace constellations and war-tables; by night, the caverns below bloom with steady blue light from their crystal veins. Here Athena is honored as Polias (guardian of the city) and Strategos (patron of warcraft). Victory is measured not by body count but by plan: the quiet hour taken to solve a siege; the well-timed parley that saves a thousand lives. Myrrdin calls Arekthon’s ways “waste.” Arekthon calls Myrrdin’s ways “cowardice.” Neither is entirely wrong.
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Founding & History
When the first mapmakers of Hellenara charted the northern cliffs, they found caverns lined with naturally glowing prisms. An oracle declared the site “fit for the Aegis”—a place where reason could shield the world. A circle of philosopher-generals raised the Strategion (war-college) and the Aegis Spire (Athena’s temple), tethered the first sky-isles with Hephaestian bronze, and swore the city’s charter by the Styx: “We will raise cunning above cruelty.”
Myrrdin’s long war with Arekthon began when the arena-state demanded the caverns’ crystals to fuel siege engines. Myrrdin refused. The War of Broken Wards has smoldered ever since: raids on sky-isle chains; sabotage in the prism tunnels; truce-days that hold, then fracture.
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Core Philosophy
Reason before rage.
The best battle is the one a map avoids.
A promise by the Styx is a plan with a deadline.
Craft is holy. Waste is sin.
Myrrdin teaches every citizen letters, figures, and spear drill. Officers graduate from the Strategion; mages earn civic ranks by public works before battlefield spellwork. A general is shamed for a glorious massacre they could have prevented.
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Notable Locations
The Strategion (War-College): Academy of generals, logicians, and cartographers; war-rooms ringed with reliefs of past campaigns.
Aegis Spire (Temple of Athena): City’s heart. Trials of strategy are held here; Styx oaths for treaties are witnessed at a bronze basin fed by running water.
Prism Archive (Crystal Caverns): Vaulted galleries where the glowing prisms are studied for optics, signaling, and healing—strictly licensed; no soul-stuff, no “memory trade.”
Sky-Lyceum (Upper Isles): Ring of floating gardens and lecture halls, tethered by bronze chains; ballistae guard the chains; wind-bridges can be winched in a siege.
The Quiet Forge: Hephaestian-style workshop quarter; Cyclopes journeymen sometimes contract here under Athena’s writ—rare, prized.
The Tactician’s Square: Public debate forum; generals defend plans in front of citizens; bad plans die before soldiers do.
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Government & Orders
A Council of Nine (strategoi, archons, high priestess of Athena) governs; emergency power passes to a War-Strategos confirmed by a Styx oath with a strict deadline and remit.
Orders include the Aegides (shield-oath guardians), Lamplighters (scholar-engineers), and Silent Scribes (counters to enemy espionage; evidence-driven, temple-supervised).
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Economy & Trade
Coins and contracts. Exports: mapping, engineering, medicine, and siegecraft consultancy; lawful prism-glass for lenses and beacons. Imports: grain, timber, and select ores. No exotic currency; pearls are offerings, not money.
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Military & Defenses
Disciplined hoplites, peltasts, and a modest cavalry. Mages deploy shields, signals, sappers, and scouts before firepower. Sky-isle chains, mirror beacons, and cliff engines make frontal assaults costly. Assassination and arson are prosecuted as hubris against the city’s patron.
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Relations & Conflict (Arekthon)
Casus belli: crystal rights; border forts; captured engineers; arena provocations.
Truces: “Spear & Aegis” festival—sacred ceasefire for offerings at both temples (oath witnessed by the Styx, strictly time-boxed).
Current stance: Great catches on both points. Here’s a clean fix that keeps everything intuitive and myth-consistent.
Myrrdin — City of Arcane SovereigntyA trifold metropolis where innovation, arcana, and celestial politics intertwine. Myrrdin’s splendor is not in its might, but in its mastery of the mystical — manifest in three converging planes of existence:
🧭 GROUND LEVEL — The Spiral City
A walled city of concentric rings and radiant plazas, each tier of Myrrdin’s terrestrial domain reflects growing mastery: from artisan enclaves to arcane universities. Grand aqueducts, elemental gardens, and crystalline obelisks line the streets.
POIs:
The Grand Spiral Forum — A public amphitheater for scholarly debate, spell demonstrations, and civic challenges. Victors gain audience with the Council of Thaumaturges.
The Archivault — A hexagonal bastion near the upper ring, housing ancient scrolls, sealed tomes, and temporal records. Forbidden knowledge is stored behind a living ward of glyphs.
The Font of Forms — A sacred spring said to reflect your true potential. Apprentices bathe here before magical rites.
The Prism Market — A riot of color and enchantment, where everything from floating fruits to bottled starfire can be bartered.
The Thaumaturgic Ward — Governmental stronghold for the arcane elite. Defensive rituals bloom here during times of war.
🕳️ UNDERGROUND — Starlit Hollow
Beneath the marble towers, a cavernous realm of bio-luminescence and experimental heresy unfurls — known only to a few as Starlit Hollow. Here, rogue mages, warforged tinkerers, and exiled scholars thrive.
POIs (Based on the visual map):
Heart of Aegis — A crystalline fortress pulsing with raw aether. Believed to be the original anchor of Myrrdin’s leyline convergence.
The Hollowed Crucible — A forge-academy where magical constructs are made — and sometimes rebel.
The Cinder Pit — Volcanic gulch turned dueling arena for exiled mages and elementalists. Duels are trial by fire… literally.
The Luminous Wilds — A glowing forest of sentient fungi and fae-lich trees. The air here whispers in forgotten dialects.
The Sunken Veins — Flooded ruins of ancient Myrrdin; now home to merfolk philosophers and rogue hydromancers.
Kharzag-Kul — The dwarven enclave and autonomous forge-citadel. Secretive, proud, and always armed.
The Veiled Sanctum — A reclusive monastery that trains spell-dancers and void-scribes.
☁️ SKY ISLES — The Avalonic Ascendancy
Floating bastions and sky-gardens dot the horizon above Myrrdin. This layer represents the highest castes of arcane society — those who’ve “ascended” via magical merit or divine favor.
POIs (from the image):
The Celestial Arena — A domed amphitheater where aerial duels, summoned beast contests, and mythic trials are held. Floating bleachers surround the arena.
The Chrono-Acropolis — A time-warped zone where future and past realities are studied in parallel. Clock towers tick backward.
The Tower of Eleven Songs — A bardic-mage haven where spell-music shapes reality. Each hour, a new reality is harmonized into being.
The Herbarium of Echoing Winds — A massive open-air garden of skyborn flora tended by wind-callers and cloud druids.
The College of Convergence — The highest magical university, only accessible via spell-key or astral invocation. Teaches interplanar theory, soul-magic, and reality-weaving.
The Arbiters’ Keep — Home to the city’s divine-mandated judges, who oversee crimes of magic and soulcraft.
The Hall of Horizon Vows — Where pacts with planar beings are sworn in solemn twilight rituals.