Avalir

Official art of Avalir, by Clara.

**Avalir** was a floating city lifted from the city of Toramunda atop Mount Ygora by the elven mage, Imyr Por'co, in the Age of Arcanum.

## **Description**

Avalir was built on top of a mountain, Mount Ygora, surrounded by Cathmoíra, a giant three-mile ring of a city in the middle of which Avalir can land. The city travels along the ley lines of Exandria for seven years at a time, exploring its lands and trading with its inhabitants, collecting Ether, before periodically returning to Cathmoíra to deposit the Ether into the continent of Domunas, an event called "The Replenishment." Families that have been apart for this span of time send their spell kites up to greet their return. To celebrate the event, the city organizes the Parade of Beasts.

The city was as wide as it was tall.

### **Points of interest**

* **Hall of Prophecy**
* **Meridian Labyrinth**, a network of passageways and arcane machineries, and the work space for Laerryn Coramar-Seelie deep within Avalir.
	+ **The Heart of Avalir**, previously called the Apparatus Arcane, the crystal engine that lifted Avalir into the sky by the command of Imyr Por'co 292 years ago.
	+ **The Arboreal Calix**, which surrounds **the Tree of Names**
* **Orison's Odd-Tack**
* **Por'co Falls**, a grand waterfall with 100 feet tall drop.
* **Sorcerer's University**
* **Vault of the Golden Scythe**, the storehouse of a merchant guild with a golden dragon as its crest

### **Cloudstone**

* **Hall of Eyes**, base for the Eyes of Avalir who were led by Cerrit Agrupnin
* **Tower of the First Knight**, where Zerxus Ilerez lives as the First Knight

### **Dawnsledge**

Dawnsledge was the easternmost side of the city near the Helm.

* **Excelsior Plaza**, location of the Parade of Beasts, outside the Herald's Tome headquarters
* **Herald's Tome**, a broadcasting station and newspaper
* **The Helm**, the headquarters of the Navigator's Guild

### **Gallamor**

A neighborhood at the top of Avalir.

* **The Archsept**, home of the Septarion, the seven highest archmages of Avalir
	+ It was protected against extraplanar beings like devils by magical wards.
	+ There was a 100-foot-tall statue of Imyr Por'co in the Grand Chamber of the Archsept.
* **Palazzo Por'co**, Patia Por'co's ancestral residence that belongs to the magocracy
* **The Librarium Incantatum**

### **Okún**

An older and less protected neighborhood, a single place where the k'nauthi managed to severely damage an eldritch battery. It has abundant temple sprawl, including the Lost Cathedral.

## **Society**

### **Demographics**

#### **Factions**

* **Navigators Guild**, led by Guildmaster Akami Rowe
* **Octothurge**
* **The Court of Owls**
* **The Golden Scythe**, a merchant guild which was patron of the Sorcerer's University, pays peacekeepers, and gives money to the Magisterium
* **Porter's Guild**, led by a Guildmaster, whose position was vacated and election was postponed just before the Calamity.
* **Septarion**, the council of seven archmages who rule the city
* **Ring of Gold**, fourteen wizards who were apprentices to the ruling Septarion
* **Ring of Silver**
* **Ring of Brass**

## **History**

### **Background**

During the Schism, two mighty Primordials called Rau'shan, the Emperor of Fire and Ka'Mort, the Empress of Earth were laid low and sealed away by the Dawnfather and the Wildmother under Mount Ygora on a continent known as Domunas.

Early in the Age of Arcanum, the druids of the Gau Drashari came and built the town of Toramunda there to tend to the holy place. Over time, other people settled in the area as well, growing the settlement into a city, and that city attracted wizards. 292 years before the Calamity, a group of mages, lead by the elf Imyr Por'co, lifted the top of the mountain into the sky, becoming the flying city of Avalir, while the city left behind on the surface became Cathmoíra. Part of the deal the wizards made with the Gau Drashari was that 25% of the magic (or ether) collected by Avalir would be apportioned to the druids, something accomplished for the 119 years before the Calamity through the Arboreal Calix. The city performed another secret function as it traveled the ley lines of Exandria: it bore the Tree of Names that wrote a spell of protection on the face of the world.

Although the Drashari tithe of ether was 25% and the other 75% supposed to be put into the ground for the Replenishment, that hadn't been happening for the past two or three Replenishments (for 14-21 years prior to the Calamity). Just less than 5% of the city's ether was actually going to go into the ground for Domunas the last Replenishment and the rest was getting caught up by the Leywright or funneled out to archmages in the city to unnaturally extend their lives.

#### **The eve of the Calamity**

*Main article: Exandria Unlimited: Calamity*
The day before the Replenishment, different members of the Ring of Brass, a group of eminent city dignitaries, began to discover different dark aspects of both the world and the city in which they lived, which, together with their different projects, set in motion the triggers for a disaster.

Cerrit Agrupnin, Senior Sightwarden of the Eyes of Avalir, started an investigation about the disappearance of Vespin Chloras, a mage who allegedly had tried to reproduce the Ritual of Seeding of the Matron of Ravens, but in fact had died releasing the Betrayer Gods from their respective prisons, and they were now just one step away of returning to Exandria; Zerxus Ilerez, the First Knight, who had been researching about deities, dreamed with a battle between Asmodeus and Pelor, developing sympathy for the former, and predicting the destruction of Avalir; Laerryn Coramar-Seelie, the Architect Arcane, was finishing her Astral Leywright, that would allow the City of Crowns to float and travel through different Planes of Existence, and the final piece for her project was given by Cerrit in a party, who had recovered it from Vespin Chloras' laboratory.

At the celebration at Patia Por'co's Palazzo Purvan Suul, champion of the goddess of death, attempted to warn the Avalir authorities of an approaching danger but was ignored, being heard, however, by Loquatius Seelie and Zerxus. As the night progressed, the Ring of Brass discovered that the Avalir government had been withholding information (such as that the oracles had "gone mad" predicting an approaching catastrophe), and that authority figures such as Lacrytia Hollow  was working with devils and interfering with the city's landing on Cathmoíra (killing Akami Rowe, a key figure in said process). Later, following an honest conversation about Laerryn's experiments and her connection to the presumed death of Evandrin Alterra (Zerxus' husband), the group decided to visit the Tree of Names to learn more, and after some discussion and a brief internal conflict between the friends, the tree was destroyed, removing the last barrier between the Betrayer Gods and the world; Zerxus, manipulated by Asmodeus, allowed him and his forces access to Avalir.

The City of Crowns was attacked by hordes of fiends and k'nauthi as it descended to meet the City of Thrones on mainland (which, according to the Lord of the Hells' plan, would release the sealed primordial titans underground to go and face the Prime Deities). The people of Avalir began to evacuate in a chaotic manner, with varying degrees of success, made better by the intervention of the Ring of Brass, which made sure to provide the necessary means and to block the government's attempts to abandon the people to their own luck. The band of heroes, after ensuring that good parts of the populations of Avalir and Cathmoíra would escape, focused on thwarting Asmodeus's plans of joining forces with the Emperor of Fire and the Empress of Earth, weaponizing Laerryn's Astral Leywright to send the two titans outside Exandria, while the rest of the group were fending off a devilish Vespin Chloras and various taxmen (automaton prototypes Nydas Okiro had in development) that had been sabotaged.

Avalir was destroyed after landing by the energy generated from the release and destruction of the two primordial titans, which also annihilated the entire continent of Domunas.

### **Legacy**

It is unknown if there are ruins of the city of Avalir in the Shattered Teeth, the archipelago that was formed after the destruction of Domunas, but the knowledge of said city was not completely lost: Cerrit Agrupnin was the only member of the Ring of Brass who survived the destruction of the city, and managed to reunite with his wife and children; to the eldest daughter, Maya, Patia had sent her magical orb, filled with all the knowledge from Avalir's library, which could potentially have been shared and passed down to later generations.

In 843 PS the existence of Avalir is known to at least some people, including Imahara Joe in Bassuras, who knew of automatons characteristic of that city. Both Imogen Temult and Orym of the Air Ashari, two adventurers, knew it in passing.

## **Trivia**

* It is not a coincidence that the word "Avalir" bears a strong resemblance to what was by 835 PD the Elvish word for guilt, *savalir*, for which the Savalirwood is named.
* One of the Magisters of the City of Crowns might have been secretly a lich, staying away of the public eye due to his undead condition.

## **References**

1. ↑ See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 1:05:55.
2. ↑ See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 1:06:48.
3. ↑ See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 1:15:09.
4. ↑ See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 1:50:25.
5. ↑ See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 47:55.
6. ↑ See "Bitterness and Dread" (E3x02) at 41:33.
7. ↑ See "Bitterness and Dread" (E3x02) at 2:51:51.
8. ↑ See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 31:40.
9. ↑ See "Blood and Shadow" (E3x03) at 06:54.
10. ↑ See "Fire and Ruin" (E3x04) at 2:53:19.
11. ↑ See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 1:49:13.
12. ↑ See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 2:26:33.
13. ↑ See "Fire and Ruin" (E3x04) at 2:56:35.  "In the neighborhood of Gallamor, there is the Palazzo Por'co and the Librarium Incantatum."
14. ↑ See "Blood and Shadow" (E3x03) at 3:03:14.
15. ↑ See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 2:33:35.
16. ↑ See "Blood and Shadow" (E3x03) at 3:54:28.
17. ↑ See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 2:22:54.  See also 3:05:10.
18. ↑ See "Bitterness and Dread" (E3x02) at 3:31:26.
19. ↑ See "Bitterness and Dread" (E3x02) at 42:03.
20. ↑ See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 1:50:35.
21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 *Twitter Post-finale Chat with the Exandria Unlimited: Calamity Cast*, Twitter Spaces Q&A session held 22 June 2022. Full transcript here.
22. ↑ See "Bitterness and Dread" (E3x02) at 1:11:01.
23. ↑ See "Blood and Shadow" (E3x03) at 5:16:33.
24. ↑ See "Hidden Truths" (3x26) at 3:43:08.
25. ↑ See "Hidden Truths" (3x26) at 3:55:24.
26. ↑  Matthew Mercer (@matthewmercer) on Twitter: ";)" (2022-05-27) — in reply to @dodecaTHEYdron: "So if the city Avalir is the beginning of the calamity and "Savalir" means "guilt" in elvish, does this mean that the ensuing calamity caused the name of the city to represent the guilt the elves feel?"
27. ↑ See "Exandria Unlimited: Calamity Wrap Up" (Sx70) at 0:20:55.

**Art:**

1. ↑ Official art of Avalir, by Clara (source). Used with permission.
2. ↑ Fan art of the students of the Sorcerer's University, by Shrugs (source). Used with permission.
3. ↑ Fan art of the destruction of Avalir, by Nosnexus (source). Used with permission.