Tarkenmyst
Tarkenmyst is a small settlement of some three hundred inhabitants on a busy skytrain route between the Solustine Kingdom and the Rathic Principalities. Despite the animosity between the Rathic Princes and the Solustine Kingdom, trade continues largely unaffected and the skytrain riders and traders use Tarkenmyst and its nearest neighbours, Hordalharbour and Trosintaron as useful rest points. The Tarkeners (as residents of this small Losivaa are known) rely on the skytrains for food and supplies, having few natural resources of their own to survive on. Hostelries, taverns, bakeries, a small tannery, leatherworking and metal workshops are all crowded close together on the steep sides of the Losivaa, connected by a step path of steps that climbs from a roost for four raptors and a Heffon tether at the ‘sky end’ of the Losivaa (sky end is a Solustine term for the bottom of a Losivaa, and sky top refers to the top end).
Tarkenmyst was settled three hundred years ago, shortly after the Sundering rocked the Celestial Realm and the Phalanx Graces seized the opportunity to attack the Solustine Kingdom. During the chaos, fire and terror of those days a small group of refugees fled from the kingdom, believing that it would be destroyed by the Graces. At the time, Tarkenmyst was virtually deserted, it was inhabited by a handful of monastic recluses, half mad with isolation, who inhabited the caves deep inside the rock. They survived on the food they were supplied with by the abbey at Yvestri and rainwater, and they were not expecting visitors. The monks of Tarkenmyst had greeted the Sundering with no small amount of rejoicing, believing that the entirety of reality was close to collapse and the misery of conscious existence would soon be at an end.
The refugees, led by Jon Broadshand, a blacksmith and master swordmaker arrived by Raptor at Tarkenmsyt, much to the anger and indignation of the monks who reluctantly accepted that their solitude was over, but the end of the world was some way off. Slowly, as it emerged that Y’Luran had chosen not to lay waste to Hordalis and instead had withdrawn his forces, the inhabitants of Tarkenmyst emerged from the caves and began to prepare for a new life on the rock. Broadshand established a metal working smithy from any scrap of material he could lay his hands on and slowly, over the years, was able to serve the skytrains that began to fly again. Once word spread that Tarkenmyst was inhabited by more than just angry hermits, skytrains used it as a rest point on new routes between the Solustine and Rathic Losivaa. Over the generations, building materials were brought to the losivaa and Solustine kings were happy to allow its development, even offering grants of wood, stone and mortar, knowing that it served a strategic role for trade and if necessary for war.
Tarkenmyst folk are relatively insular, preferring not to become involved in the disputes of the great powers in the Celestial Realm. The community by its very nature is tight knit and several extended families make up much of the population, which is mainly human, with a handful of Gnomi, Suraians, Lagaar and just one Atrushki, Bozarik, who runs the raptor perch.
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