Yalmiront

**Yalmiront** is a nation in Maligon an alliance betweenprevious city states has treasured the knowledge of the elves to produce a capital of learning for all of Zahndomhan, primarily human.

Raka, Saphwurm, tears and rai’nldin

Despite not containing a single soul whose great great great grandparents would have been able to remember the elves, Yalmiront attempts to keep the legacy of the Elven ways alive and to find reasons for the confusing end of their culture. The original two human settlements now form Raka, bridging over the river Lum that provides them with fresh water fish. As opposed to a lot of its neighbours, the country is a confederacy of four sovereign townships, all with a burgomaster. This was written in the treaty of Yalmiront and has held strong, each town having an illuminated copy of the document in their town halls. The heraldry reflects the treaty, it is a tied knot of purple cloth with a blue sky above. The purple represents the will to strive for more knowledge, taken from their friendly neighbour Zuge. The pale yellow represents the farmlands that have been fed by the Lum to produce high quality wheat. The blue sky represents the limitless possibilities should the knot remain enduring. As the treaty was drawn up after the chaos of the first great human diaspora, it was probably one of the more hopeful outcomes of Arghigs march and the fall of the empire.

Raka, as mentioned, is a city on both sides of the river Lum. Originally two fledgling settlements, the formation lead to the model that would bring in nearby Saphwurm, Rai’nldin and Tears within 25 years of unification. While Rai’nldin is perhaps at the forefront of elven magic discovery in Yalmiront, Raka has always been the home of written knowledge within the west of Maligon. Dwarves have long considered that the Lum must filter through some rocks and produce minerals that humans and gnomes react to. Zhuge, Tryb and Yalmiront all use it as their primary water and all become obsessed with invention, and changing the world around them. A name beloved of its Burgomeister Franziska Knalt, Raka is sometimes called the illustrated city, because every surface of every building has some sort of diagram or drawing of import. The teachers take eager students on walking tours to point to the Eyeglasses shop that details the optic nerve, the Fishmongers displays a painted version of the hydrological cycle and the bakers explains germination and the core components of a stalk of wheat. Its used and development of baked goods, especially multilayered pastries are also a major export of the city. Despite their friendship, the people of Yalmiront and Raka especially believe they have a better, more open and democratized approach to learning than Zuge.

Some of the highlights of Raka’s quirky approach to education include ‘the scribe’s bridge’ a scriptorium built across the river to benefit from the unobscured daylight that costs a gold to cross over. Not only are their architectural decorations instructional, their pubs and corners have speakers corners throughout the city. These speakers have developed a unique, fast paced and rhythmic form of oratory that has become recognised for its performative art. Poster boards are put with space for other thinkers to refute. Some travellers have described this constant stimuli exhausting but others find them inspirational, taking the attitude home with them.

Rai’nldin is has the largest collection of in tact and working magic items from the time of the elves. Preservation has a focus on identifying and cataloguing the different cultures of the fey touched, something that Scholars argue has been lost in grouping elves in too homogenous a culture. The human settlement that was first there was known as Woodcliff, but the name Rai’nldin was discovered from buried stone tablets first discovered beneath Lumthonom. Now, this first discovering has lead to a complex digsite that spreads much of the north east of the town. The name Rai’nldin is thought to be the whole region of the south-west in the older elvish tongue. The architecture of the town ranges from popular and fashionable human styles to more outlandish imitations of elvish design. The town square has a large and striking statue of Sixir in her form of the mother of elves, in blue streaked white marble. From the square, parallel to the burgomaster’s mansion and the Yalmiront hall of justice is the ‘Museum of the fair folk’ a public collection and learning instution headed by the board of Elven scholars, who hold special position within town hiarachy. The current project that occupies many of those employed at the museum is decoding a series of tablets, first thought to be an explanation of waterways but now seemingly an allegorical warning to the generations to come. Other things of note one can either see on public display or make an appointment to witness include: The sphere of a globed world, the perpetual hummingbird, the riverbank bracelets, the helm of a highranking member of a family with a horse, a thin rock that floats for no particular reason, and a silver ship statue that is secretly a coffee pot.

Outside of the historical study of fallen cultures, Rai’nldin is somewhat unremarkable as a human settlement. It has a large church to sixir, placed a small distance from the town square to inspire quiet contemplation. The pastor of the church is a human called Farpeiros Elderseeker, who has been rejected from the ruling board of Elven scholars. The town has two taverns, an alehouse eatery called The Harp’s wisdom and the Moonlit trellis, which makes most of its trade selling bottled wine. The trellis has enviable connections, from glassblowers in Zimayik to receiving casks from vinyards in Tritches and secretative Uranagso. The Trellis’ owner, Lady Adelina Epureanu talks often of her noble birth in Grand Kalev and sophisticated tastes, but how she has built and maintained a network to gain the luxuries she sells is unknown.

As the depths of the Elven ruins have not been excavated, Burgomaster Karl Hackenholt requires anyone doing subterranean expeditions to pay for a license, sign a contract prohibiting theft or destruction of artefacts and carry with them a sending stone to report directly to the board of elven scholars. Those who make a living on this are known as Fey prospectors, and will often have work for travellers and adventurers. Despite its proximity to Lumthonom, Rai’nldin doesn't have a dwarven population, and travel by dwarves through the town is kept at a minimal. While the Elven scholars pay this no mind, people outside the academic circle have voiced concern that the elven research is putting a wedge between the races. Others have simply claimed the way the Rai’nldin scholars have stopped mining for academic study enrages the dwarves with jealousy. Whether something greater lies beneath the town, only time will tell.

Tears is one of the newest cities, named for a poem about lamentation that was rediscovered from the ancient elven script. Beyond this though, Tears has little to do with the reclaimantion and renaissance of Elven culture that Raka and Rai’nldin strive for. Instead Tears generates its income primarily by producing new works of art, primarily performance art. It has a training collage known as the Emyssae academy that offers tutelage in instruments and musical theory for a gold cost per lesson. The Emyssae certificate is considered a must for most court musicians and bards will often cite it, truthfully or not. Because of it’s location on the river and it’s proximity to several nations, it makes fine trade in its multiple theatres, music halls and ‘Grand Treaty’ Opera house that is considered the place for Opera debuts before taking the stage at Jusadal’s Conch shell theatre or in Grand Kalev’s Vadimovna. The ‘Raka Oratory’ style has also found a powerful following since the last war, along with more traditional story telling and poetry readings. A great contest is held annually for the ‘Sixir Kushinda medal of Artistic achievement’ known as the sapphire ruby, attracting competitors and audiences nation wide. It is rare that someone outside of the Tears tutelage system wins it, but not impossible.

With this focus on entertaining high society, there is an ever expanding cultural underground, Albeit one more purposeful than other towns. Given the strict levels of accreditation and testing, many have travelled across the cog to study, just to be thrown out of Emyssae or any number of smaller conservatories. These disenfranchised have congregated in the riverside area known as ‘The shallowsmarket’ in one of many pubs such as the broken quill, the jester’s hat, the gnoll’s song and other ironically disruptive or cacophonous names. Here, movements are started and independent theatre houses are set up, some little more than street performance. Daring artistic risks are being taken, from vulgarity and profanity in songs to plays concerned with Kalev’s dominance or the life of a tragic Eauipet goblin. It helps that current burgomaster Hideki Von Takumi is himself a lover of the satirical and provocative. After thirty years of these performers gaining popularity in less stratified markets, Some travel to just to find work in the shallowsmarket, bypassing the prestigious schools of tears all together.

Saphwurm is the oldest of the settlements that make up the Yalmiront, built up by the Aguembert family for generations. The Aguembert family fenced a tract of land from the Yeroifox forest and defended it violently with traps and arms, selling lumber to the rest of the valley. The current patriarch of the Aguembert family and the Burgomaster of Saphwurm is Enguerran Gaume Aguembert. In his mid Sixties, Enguerran lives in the original family mansion at the dark border of the forest that provides him with wealth to this day. The majority of the townsfolk are in his direct employ, making the town seem more like a castle keep than a place of competitive industry. Relatives of the descendants of the generations of Aguembert live in opulent palaces and townhouses throughout the upper wards town, with more buildings for their servants and groundskeepers. Beyond them are the homes, bunkhouses and sawmills of the lumber labourers. The community therefore is rigid, but very closely knit. While the strict hierarchy leads to up to Enguerran, the word of a scullery maid is worth thousands of times more than any outsider. Enguerran has shown his ability to rouse his men to defend their town, albeit as a mob than guardsmen. This is said to be like his ancestor Amphoise Aguembert, who made the difficult and unexpected decision to sign the treaty of Yalmiront.

Saphwurm has a large chapel to Etolik that hosts the entire towns populace once every four days. The priest is Enguerran’s younger brother Ascelinus Barrande Aguembert and the church itself was commissioned by their paternal great great great Grandmother Prudentia Aguembert-Bonhomme who said that in a vision she saw the lady of death spare her youngest son. The mournful toll of the great bell of the church is a familiar sound to anyone travelling the forest path of the south-west. One of the hunting lodges of some member of the Aguembert or their spouse has been turned into the towns tavern as the lumber industry grew. The lord’s signet, as it is known, will serve outsiders, they are likely to get a suspicious eye from Saphwurm locals as they make their way through the small and often haphazardly crooked and sinking rooms of this ancestral home.

Perhaps it is this attitude that causes many travellers to make their unexpected final stop in Saphwurm. Over the centuries, many who have claimed to be stopping in Saphwurm become a body on the moors or found in the lum. or never found at all. Often, if their personal effects are with the corpses, the pages of their books will have been cut out, and the bindings will be left. While the Constables of Raka and the burgomasters throughout Yalimront are concened, By the concord of the Treaty, that have no power over Saphwurm, nor can they investigate without consulting Aguembert. So, without direct intervention, there are just rumours. Rumours of a second set of robes hidden behind the vestments in the chapel. Rumours of circles of people seen within the forest behind the Burgomaster’s mansion. Rumours of the children drawing strange symbols with their chalk. And noises, noises coming from houses all across the town at once, screams and the shuffling noises of something...other. One of the recent meetings of all the Burgomasters was briefly attended by Enguerran Gaume Aguembert, who sealed the unfinished paper with his signet ring and left in a hurry. Burgomeister Franziska Knalt of Raka was heard to exclaim in frustration ‘What even is a Saphwurm anyway?’