Salythis

A painting attributed to the harbor of Salythis, dated c. 657 BC

**Salythis**, also called **Saláos** in the Drakonteian dialect, was a major city in the Drakonian Empire before the Dragon Wars wiped out almost all life in the region, founded around the time of the Reviscio in 7230 BC. It was known as a center of cultural prosperity and artists, and was often hailed as a sister city to Drakonia itself. Salythis was situated in the southeast of the Drakonian peninsula, and had a port arsenal equipped with a large cadre of shipped that could easily block all transit through the Embergleam Strait that separates Drakonia from the Isles of Velyreos. It was also a channel through which many trade commodities traveled; not only was it a hotspot for Drakonian exports such as Euralaya and Equinus, but it also had a thriving farming community protected within the walls that produced the herbs on site, so as to reduce transit costs and return with more money than they had left. Salythis was also a popular site to encourage the use of magic, and in fact had the highest population of magi in the world at the time. It was the favored city and territory of House Taelian, a surviving family of the era, now based in Thysia as a patrician house where they can continue their trading tradition.

Salythis was not a major site of battle in the Gladiator War -- given the city's nature as being mostly a cultural center and trading hub, slaves only passed through the city to the north, and never remained for very long. It is known that the Salythian citizens were somewhat empathetic for those held in bondage, and there was rumored to be a secret network of Drakonian abolitionists operating from the city, ensuring that escaped slaves could either find their way to their standing army -- the Slaves of Free Drakonia -- or escape with safe passage. Such a network was never discovered, and any evidence that it had existed is only in tertiary amounts as told by survivors of the War to scholars beyond Drakonia.

Come the Dragon Wars, however, Salythis was almost immediately targeted as a site of conquest. Given that the empire's commerce had all but ceased and their coffers were dry, the very structure of the Empire that had lasted for millennia was collapsing. With brother against brother, the formerly cultural Salythis was turned into a battlefield and then razed by a rebel lord in retaliation. Such an act was widely condemned, and many even called it insane, but more instances of this occurring in other settlements by rebel and loyalist lord alike were soon given a palpable reason when the dark force Faranohr was discovered meddling in the Drakonian's affairs, directly manipulating their minds to destroy their civilization from the inside.

As for Salythis, it was never rebuilt and was abandoned in 523 BC -- it is said that the magi in the city left behind their scrying mediums and staves and instead picked up swords to fight against the rebels, but none are known to have survived, and the story is a broad generalization at best. Come the War of the Shadow, almost all Drakonians had died, especially those still left on the peninsula, so it is safe to say that Salythis -- and her people -- are no more. If their descendants live, there is a chance they live in Drakonteia.