Zird'Lyrind
To approach Zird'Lyrind by sea is to witness a city that has rejected the earth. From the southern harbor, the only break in its vast hexagonal plan, the capital of the elven nation rises in waves of white stone. Ancient towers cluster inward, growing taller as they near the center, their shapes a medley of circles, squares, and hexagons. Ringing the five landward sides stands a sixty foot wall of seamless black stone, yet it feels like a footnote. The towers behind it soar two to five hundred feet, making the defenses look like a low fence rather than an impenetrable wall.
Near the city's heart, eighteen black hexagonal spires punch six hundred feet into the sky. Seven of them are owned by the Noble and Most Ancient Houses, each is required to maintain a residence here to vote on the High Council. The remaining black towers belong to the government or are subdivided floor by floor among lesser houses, most of whom choose to also maintain a residence in the capital. It is the political heart of the Zirdian oligarchy. At the exact center, the royal palace anchors the tallest spire of all: seven hundred and twenty feet of black stone capped with a platinum dome that glows faintly through the night.
But what truly defines Zird'Lyrind is the magic woven into its air. Every resident can fly within the city limits, no spell or wings required, just will. The wealthy flaunt griffons, hippogriffs, or enchanted harnesses for speed, but most elves simply drift from balcony to balcony. Wooden doors and landing platforms are carved at every imaginable height on the towers. Beneath them, low buildings hug the ground, largely ignored. No one walks here if they can help it. Why would they, when the whole city is a sky?
Demographics
Around two thirds of the people in Zird'Lyrind are slaves but most have a quality of life close to a lower middle class worker. Most of the free citizens are high elves, most of whom are related to a noble house somehow but don't carry the name. Roughly 2/3 of adult high elves in the capital work for a noble house in some capacity and nearly all noble houses maintain at least a floor of a tower in the capital.
Government
The city of Zird'Lyrind is ruled by the High Council of Zirdy, which is made up of the heads of all the Noble and Most Ancient Houses. Most of the High Lords appoint proxies to oversee their share of city governance. The city guard keep order but there isn't much blue collar crime. There are several courtrooms in the city that prevent lying within them so if a criminal is caught they can't lie to defend themselves and there is no law preventing self incimination for most people, though you do need a warrant to drag free people into one of these spaces agains their will. This makes it nearly impossible to use slaves in criminal activities, because they have no protections against being hauled in by the guards for truthful questioning.
Defences
The defenses of Zird'Lyrind have not been tested since the deliverance, only the histories truely know what the city is capable of. The walls are indestructable but the gates are not and it is said that a magical barrier can be deployed around the city but such a thing has not been seen in over 3000 years. Due to the wardstone of the city being such a closesly guarded secret within the palace the exact magical defenses of the city are unkown.
Infrastructure
The city is shaped like a giant hexagon with the outer walls making up 5 of the 6 sides, the last side is used for the docks. Each side has a gate and road that leads to the center of the city where the royal palace lies. The roads of Zyrd'Lyrind are complicated, when viewed from above it becomes clear that it is all some sort of geometic pattern with lines of varrying thickness. None of these roads ever seem to errode, no potholes or patches. They can be destroyed but if you put the pieces back together they seal themsleves over time.
Little is publicly known about the magcial infastructure of the city, though some theorize. Only the High Lords are allowed to know the secrets of the city's great wardstone in the palace. But by far the most well known affect is that all humanoids gain a fly speed(with hover) equal to their walking speed. This allows all humanoids to traverse the vertical city, though most elven families in the city have at least one speed enhancement item, broom, or flying mount. Generally the higher your altitude the faster you are expected to travel. Those with a fly speed of 30ft or below are expected to stay below 60 feet in the outer ring and below 200 in the inner city. In the inner city this can be seen in three tiers of altitude; below 200ft are the slaves and extreme lower class; between 200 and 400ft are the middle class who fly hippogriffs, broomsticks, or flying coaches; and above 400ft are those who can afford expensive magical items or ride griffons.
Guilds and Factions
Nearly every noble house in Zirdy maintains a floor in one of the city's towers, either owning it or renting from a more wealthy family. Each house is a faction unto themselves and has their own contracts, treatise, and feuds with other houses creating a network of conflicting agreements which is why there are so many elven lawyers. Some houses are swown vassals of others but many exist in a state of semi-independence where they rent from and have ties to one or more Noble and Most Ancient Houses but are technically independent. Therefore each Noble and Most Ancient House has a broad coalition under them.
Additionally a few of the most powerful Noble Houses have coalitions of their own or have allied with a few other houses to form voting blocks in the House of Lords. These political coalitions often develop economic ties as well.
The Archer Group. A multi-house coalition company owned by several Noble Houses with none of them having a controling interest. They are a shipping and trading company.
Points of interest
Bloodstacks.
Palace
Architecture
This city was created in the time of ancient elves when High Magic was common among elves. Behind the wall is a 6 mile ring that in ancient times was used for agriculture. Over the millenia some of that area has been taken over by smaller buildings, the land is worth too much to use as farm land, though no buildings in the outer ring can be taller than the walls. While the buildings may have been built with the help of magic they are normal buildings with normal building materials.
The inner city is what Zird'Lyrind is known for, where the towers are. Most of the towers are made of a variant of magestone found only in Zirdy, created using lost magic, nothing less than 9th tier magic can scratch it. These towers are white most of them are between 200 and 500 feet tall, ending in either rooftop balconies or painted domes, some of which are observatories. A few towers towards the center of the city are made of true magestone, all are hexagonal with 120 foot sides, black, and exactly 600 feet tall, though some have built up wooden stuctures on top for their rooftop garden or patio. Each of these black towers was created by a Zirdian High King or his court mage in the times before the fall of the Zirdian High Kingdom, it would be sacrosanct to cover up true magestone with its lesser white variant or any other stone. The tallest building is the palace which is built around a 720ft magestone tower, the largest magestone structure ever reccorded. Because of the inability to make edits to the existing stone structures of the towers, each was very bare bones when initially created in the time of the ancients. Doors windows and balconies are all built of wood stuck with magic to the stone towers because no nail or screw could ever affix them. The verticality of the city and the elven propensity for magic means that all the towers have multiple entrances, flying indoors is considered rude and so when going into a building most fly to the entrance closest to the floor they wish to visit. Very few families or organizations own entire towers in Zird'Lyrind, instead most own floors of towers or rent space from those that own the floor. Floors are always 30 feet tall in black towers and many build wooden structure inside it to seperate a tower floor into two sublevels. Most inner walls are also wood or other materials in the black towers. On the white towers it is more acceptable to attach constructions of lesser stone, though most still opt to paint it the same color white or the color of their roof. The floors of white towers are usually also 30 feet tall to conform to the black but they very depending on the building. Some have a few grand floors that have high cielings for ball rooms or opera houses.
Before the Deliverance this city was full but ever since then the elves have been living in the shells of their former greatness, they cannot fill the city. All of the floors and land in Zird'Lyrind is owned by someone but they generally have more space than they know what to do with, this means that even slave quarters aren't tiny. The elven population still hasn't bounced all the way back to where it was 3100 years ago. What is valued is sky access, the higher up a tower you are the more expensive the floor, only the extremely wealthy can afford to buy a rooftop. The architecture and interior design of the city reflect this willigness to use extra space as well as the fact that everyone in the city can fly, stairs aren't really a thing unless they're decorative.
Climate
The climate is controled by the Zirdian High Council. They allow for the 4 seasons to happen but keep it comfortable and schedule precipitation ahead of time. The weather for the next month can be found in most newspapers.
