Salamis

Salamis, or as it is more recently known Caer Elvendon, is the capital city of Tentandia and the seat of the Empyrean Hold. Located on the shores of Lake Salamis (also known as the Crown Lake), Salamis is the largest and most metropolitan city in Tentandia. A major trade hub for the realm and center of knowledge, politics, and religion, the city has ever been at the forefront of Tentandian society.
Salamis has been the heart and soul of Tentandia since before recorded history, and has been the seat of power of every major ruling body in recorded history. According to legend, the city of Salamis is built over a series of caves within which salamanders lived in nests of fire. Long ago, the salamanders offered refuge to the founders of the city, shielding and protecting them from marauding enemies. The city's sigil sports a crowned salamander wreathed in flame as reference to this origin legend.
Before the First Empire, Salamis was treated as a meeting location, where leaders from across the land would gather at grand moots and discuss issues and problems plaguing individual kingdoms and tribes. During the period of the First Empire, Salamis was the cultural and political hub of Tentandia, and saw the first major growth and construction period of the city. Significantly, the central moot space of Salamis was rebuilt during this period, changing from a ritualistic and religious offering site to the Torfel tower still standing today. After the First Empire fell, Salamis again returned to a de facto capital of Tentandia, with most of the population that had sprung up there during the reign of the First Empire migrating away or having died. Retaining its central status as a meeting hub, Salamis continued to serve as the heart of Tentandia during the period of unrest which followed. When the Tin Shield Alliance came to power from the chaos following the First Empire, Salamis once again became the physical capital of Tentandia with all manner of folk returning to and rebuilding the port city. When the Empyrean Hold defeated the Tin Shield Alliance, they retained Salamis as their seat of power, but renamed the city to Caer Elvendon, a nod to the elven kingdoms which once held sway over the region. This renaming was likely part of a ploy to secure peace with the elven realms, as the Empyrean Hold never fully subdued them in outright combat, but the new name has not found much purchase with the citizenry. Caer Elvendon is now one of many names for the storied city, others including the Salamander's Den, Salmoot, the Crown City, and simply "the City".
In the present day, Salamis is the most metropolitan and historically steeped city in Tentandia. It is an international hub and port for politics, trade, and culture, and is the jewel of the region. Uniquely, under the reign of the Empyrean Hold no single leader controls Salamis. Instead, the city is guarded over by the Grand Council, a group of notable nobles and lords from across Tentandia whose history is near as older than the city itself. This usage of the city blends the traditional role of Salamis as a semi-divine meeting space with the more modern role of the city as a political capital. While Salamis is nominally under the authority of the Grand Council, the Empyrean Hold still retains suzerainty over the city, and uses it as a meeting space for the private meetings of the Hold's Council.

The Seven and Salamis

The Seven have only been to Salamis once as of yet, following their theft of Lord Winescale's Oathstone from Wyndfleot. Following their fighting retreat from Wyndfleot to Jian Ortheiad, the party again escaped from certain defeat at Jian Ortheiad from a combined force of Lords Winescale and Nyptos using the last of the known Leylines of the First Empire. The Seven arrived in Salamis with a stream of refugees from the now fallen city of the Lightning Lords, and was met by Nesterin, Mage-Scholar of Lord Graendrek, who showed them around the city. The Seven were then directed to the Torfel, ancestral meeting location of the Grand Council, and met with delegates of a number of factions, including the Cult of the Fey, the Freehold's Alliance, the Merchant's Guild of the Vastness, and Lord Graendrek himself. After their time in Salamis, the Seven decided to head south towards the lands of Lord Sunderwall and the Barony of Erdokben on the invitation of the Cult of the Fey.

Type

Capital