Paragon

The magnificent city of Paragon is located on the southern spurs of the tower mountains, a fortified city at its feet with great bastions scaling the sheer slopes of the mountain. Paragon is second only to Carroway in wealth, and has served as the primary residence of the High King since the very advent of the realm. Paragon is known as the “city of knights” in addition to the “city of kings”, for Paragon is the birthplace of the Palatine Order, along with numerous other lesser orders, and hosts one of the major sanctums of the Order of Alphyrion. Skirted by the River Wend from ahead and looming mountains from behind, Paragon holds a strategic position at the heart of the Realm.
== Layout ==
The city of Paragon consists of a sprawling metropolis from the banks of the River Wend, where much of the city’s trade is shipped upriver from Carroway, to the lower slopes of the Tower Mountains. 
=== The Shambles ===
On the western outskirts of Paragon, directly uphill to the River Wend, the men and women of the shambles live and work. The shambles primarily serve as the abode of butchers, who sell their wares along the narrow streets whose gutters are constantly running in blood and offal. Behind their butcher shops, live animals are kept and slaughtered at need, adding to the noisome reputation. Nobody seeks to stay in the Shambles for long if they can help it…the smell of death is heavy on the air, and flies are a constant nuisance. The shambles themselves are not a large area, but a few blocks down from the last butcher shop tanners tend to their hides, and further still down the road is the knackery, separated from the main city. This is where the carcasses of the animals from the shambles are stored, often by the same men who deliver the king’s justice as executioners. 
=== The Slant Rows ===
This squalid part of town is home to the desperate and the disreputable alike, though many consider them to be one and the same. The slant rows are named for its juxtaposition in the lower city, its roads cutting at skewed angles under the eaves of whorehouses and criminal dens. Street dogs scamper at every corner along with mangy cats and numerous rats that spill from every gutter. The dingy streets are replete hagglers, whores, and beggars. The city watch seldom bothers to enforce justice in this part of town…those who live here are generally not worth saving, in the eyes of the law. When an upper-class merchant or nobleman is robbed, beaten, or left lying in the dungheap, few mourn their loss. Anyone knows that when one seeks services in the slant rows, there is no guarantee that you will return whole and with full pockets. It is a better known secret that kobolds have taken up refuge in the Slant Rows, though how or when they arrived, few are aware. When one cares to look, they can see glowing eyes in the dark alleyways, in the culverts, or long, naked tails slipping from the edge of the rooftops.
=== Highgate ===
Atop a steep slope on the foothills of the mountain, a winding stair leads to a fenced-in area replete with a topiary, rose garden, a green sward in the shade of the mountain, and a large cemetery for those of the wealthier families. Nobody lives at highgate, but for the ward and his servants who tend to the garden and watch over the cemetery. Highgate is rather a common meeting place for nobility and the gentry, where they can discuss matters of state and of trade in one of the few silent quarters of the city. The cemetery is one of the main spectacles of Paragon, with gravestones and arches of bright marble, well-tended gardens, and a mausoleum which contains the remains of many of the High Kings of the Realm. Highgate cemetery also offers ample security to ward off grave-robbers and bodysnatchers, though this was a more recent development in reaction to a necromantic ritual that occurred on the grounds. Some have murmured that the additional security is nothing more than a deflect against public outrage…for it is rumored that the warden of the grounds freely allowed the necromancer inside the gate the first time.