Sohl'Aran

Summary: Sohl'aran

Magic: Irian Healing & Externalist

Titan: Xeno'tor the Dawnchild

Capital: Ukargo, the City of Gold

Location: Northern coast of the Wasting Plain

Exports: Medicine, Healing Agents, Herbalism

The plane of Irian is a wellspring of life and creation. The city-state of Sohl’aran sought to harness this power to become a shining beacon amidst the growing nations of Xen’drik. Pacts with the plane’s immortals led to the city’s rapid growth, which spilled out across the savannah. Their chirurgeons harnessed the positive energies of Irian to cure diseases and extend lives. Priests of Ouralon created libraries of art and history. Botanists trained in The Garden of Irian grew plants from across Eberron in lush hanging gardens, experimenting in alchemy and medicine.

Soon, the Golden City was famed across Xen’drik as a place of light and learning. Sohl’aran’s rise was led by the titan known as the Dawnchild. The immortal king led his people to make use of Irian’s magic, and formed a pact of immortality with the plane’s Dawn Empress. As long as he upheld his sacred duty of growing civilization, his life would stretch to see it happen. The Dawnchild was a figure of divinity. Suffused with sunlight and flawless in form, the Titan guarded the west from the Cul’sir and Sul’at League alike. Eventually, the cost of his immortality became clear.

Unable to deal with watching his friends and family die again and again, the Dawnchild turned to desperate measures. On his orders, blood magic and life transference became the focus of Sohl’aran’s learning, with the aim of making its people immortal. The Shattering obliterated the capital of Ukargo, smashing it into a ruin irradiated with overflowing positive energy. Yet, the creation inherent to Irian magic has restored many buildings to their former glory. Its famed gardens have overgrown at rapid speed, turning the city into a floral jungle.

Warped trolls war over the ruins, their flesh endlessly regenerating due to Irian’s surging properties. The City of Gold is utterly tarnished. Despite this, the medical knowledge within is among the most advanced in Eberron. Powerful regenerative, restoration and resurrection spells lie in the Solar Conservatory, while Rowa’s Path contains plants found nowhere else. The city’s greatest secret is a foreboding one. Its titan was still immortal during the Shattering, and the dragons were unable to kill him for good. Instead, they chained the Dawnchild in Khyber, where he remains to this day - and woe betide any to dare to free him.

Capital: Ukargo, City of Gold

The shining city of Ukargo lies on a headland in the northern Wasting Plains, its golden roofs glimmering like a beacon of promise. The districts of the city rise up in tiers to the highest point of the peninsula, where the city is crowned by its grand botanic gardens and the Palace of the Sun - home to the immortal Dawnchild. The Irian magic suffusing the city has caused parts to physically regenerate since the Shattering; as a result, Ukargo is a vision of the Age of Giants, but its appearance is no longer so perfect.

The plants of the hanging garden of Rowa’s Path have overtaken their bounds, shrouding the city in verdant life. The size of the plants is a result of the massive amounts of positive energy suffusing the city. Its damaged ties to Irian cause constant growth in anything living within the region. As a result, massive vines and spreading trees have cracked open and collapsed many of the buildings beyond repair. Now, Ukargo resembles a hoard of gold wrapped in a green blanket, which hides its many dangers from prying eyes.

Golden Bastion.

The architecture of the city is unutterably grand. The giants of Sohl’aran were inspired by the Amaranthine City of Irian, which represents the universal concept of progress and civilization. As a result, Ukargo is a flawed mirror, its gold-shingled buildings made from white marble and stained glass. Vast promenades rise from the sunken port around the headland to the city’s crown. Each is large enough to accommodate parades of giants. As one climbs, the structures grow grander, the views of the glittering ocean a reminder of what this ruin once stood for.

The paving slabs glow with golden light when stood on, as the dense growth that has overtaken the city presses in. The pinnacle of Ukargo is where the greatest treasures lie, but the choking vegetation is a sign of the risks; it is there that the saturating positive energy is the strongest, and there that the most dangerous beasts make their lairs. Beyond the city, the Wasting Plains stretch for miles, golden fronds blowing in the sea breeze. Effectively an overgrown series of farms, the sprawling savannah is formed from ancient crops once grown by Sohl'aran to feed the Group of Eleven.

Irian manifest zones and machinery were once harnessed for their growth. Now, they simply infuse the region with light and positive energy. Staying too long in the Wasting Plain can cause unnatural growth and sickness in living beings, leading to its name. Despite this, some predators - and people - have resistance to the conditions, notably the reclusive Irsvern kobolds.