Solis Alunaris
Solis Alunaris, the Sylvan City, is the greatest wild elven city remaining in the Lost Lands. The folk of the great city, though not necessarily as wild as they once were, take pride in their naturalistic heritage and have grown the city from the seeds left by their ancestors, cultivating and nurturing its trunks and boughs into the spectacle that it is today.
To an uninformed observer, little would be seen of the great city from the ground. Comprising 20 square miles of 3,500-year-old trees that reach more than 500 feet into the air, the city is nestled among intertwining living boughs that have been shaped to the needs of its denizens. Hollows within trunks form entire apartments for elven families, and reclaimed wood of the forest has been built into thoroughfares and platforms that support the various shrines, temples, and lodges of the Elder Council of the Green Realm.
The forest city towers over other surrounding trees that stretch for hundreds of miles in every direction. The primeval woodland within view of the city is well guarded by awakened trees, treants, and patrols of wild elves who race among the broad tree limbs as easily as one would stroll across a green carpet of rolling turf or sail the winds on the backs of giant eagles.
Lodges of the Tribes of the Wild
Each of the Tribes of the Wild are represented with their own great lodge within the city. These lodges are built onto platforms high in the boughs of the most sacred and ancient trees of the primeval forest. Each lodge is kept by a druid initiated in the deep arts of nature. Warriors of each tribe born to the line of chieftains and chieftesses serve an honorarium of several decades within the lodges. Here, they are often engaged in challenges and games against other tribes to keep their skills sharp while learning diplomacy and respect for the other tribes of the Green Realm.
Lord General Yerrian Giath, the supreme war chieftain of the Kingdom of the Green Realm and member of the Elder Council, oversees their training. Yerrian Giath is taller than most of his kin, and like Riar Harwood, shows obvious descendance from the old lines of Suomen Gron in his violet eyes and silvery hair that is striking in his rich chestnut face.
It is Yerrian’s job to ensure that the young nobles of the lodges comport themselves as noble warriors, heroes, and guardians of the Green Realm against all threats.
High Tower of Solus Atraliis
Arcane instruction is sought by those who are born with the touch of the ancient fey magic at the High Tower of Solus Atraliis. Grown from a massive redwood, the tower of Atraliis is kept by Lord Sorceress Milathiu Velhei, a nearly 300-year-old wild elf and a seeker of mysteries and keeper of arcane secrets. She and her initiates train those young elves born to the mark of the sorcerer to wield their power in protection of the forest and the unified tribes.
Religion
Within the city of Solis Alunaris stand great temples to Arialee and Darach-Albith. Arialee’s temple is formed among boughs of an enormous white khooma tree. A statue of the goddess shaped from the living wood of the tree and crowned with hair of leaves of pure gold stands within a natural archway formed by entwined branches. The temple is kept by Caraeith Helias, priestess of the goddess and hierophant of the Sylvan City. Her circle is charged with the life and health of the eternal trees of the Sylvan City. She instructs the princes and princesses of the tribes in the care of the forest beyond the city, in listening to the life that it shares, and in the physical and metaphysical stewardship of the forest.
Directly across from this holy place is the open-air temple of Darach-Albith tended by Illieha Star-treader. Illieha is one of the last of his kind, a cleric of the old faith descended directly from the priests of the creator-god in the First Exodus. Faith in the ancient religion of Darach-Albith has dwindled greatly among most of the elves in the ages since the migration, but homage is paid as is its due. Illieha seems almost an albino to the young wild elves, save those who have had the honor of being allowed to visit the halls of Suomen Gron, who recognize in Illieha a likeness to the first born of the Elders.
Illieha tends to few acolytes, and to those few who arrive every few decades in search of religious knowledge. Illieha serves on the Council of Elders, though he is prone to travel the astral plane battling on behalf of his god, and like others, ever searching for the lost goddess.
Many of the nobles dwelling within the city also keep a shrine to Rialae-Aibaru, the lost goddess who forever searches in anguish for her missing child.
Loyalties and Diplomacy
The various tribes of the Green Warden Nations keep embassies in the Sylvan City, for despite their differences of opinion, King Riar is committed to reconciliation with the northern nations. He knows that if Castorhage rises to prominence again, and the rumblings in the Cinderhame Mountains prove true, that it may require a unified kingdom to ensure the survival of both forest and elf alike.
Government
Despite being the seat of power for the Green Realms, the Sylvan City itself is administered by Mayor Varenth Illuene and is divided into administrative districts that ensure the care and protection of the trees and the folk who dwell among them. As has long been the tradition, the king appoints the mayor of the city from among the commoners of the tribes who gains the rank of noble upon completion of their century long term of service. Varenth has served for nearly 50 years and is popular among the lesser magistrates of the city’s districts and the common folk. He is more frequently the face of the city than the king himself, though this has much to do with Riar’s slow transition from elf to forest spirit. Due to the importance of his work, though not a noble, Varenth serves on the Council of Elders.
The mayor and district magistrates who still bear the honorific title of chieftain from the purely tribal days of the past manage the homes and shops of the common folk. Within the trunks are districts filled with artisans and crafters who prepare food, tool leather, and weave fine linen fabric. Others carve great works of art from the fallen wood of the forest. There are also bowyers, fletchers, vintners, perfumers, and confectioners among the ones who live in the various districts that line the trunks of the great trees.
Military
Beyond the civilian districts that fill the trunks and line the branches are the more military districts, such as the Root District on the forest floor where the Knights of the Burled Crown keep watch along with the treants and other sylvan beings who are allied with the Throne of the Green Realm. Higher in the branches are the nests of giant eagles and hippogriffs in the Bough District. These beasts are ridden by elite Knights of the Wind who serve as scouts and bodyguards of the king.
Major Threats
There are currently few immediate threats to the city of Solis Alunaris due to its location deep within the forest and the layers of protection that the forest and the various elven fortresses provide. It therefore serves as a solid training ground and center for culture and debate among the various of the Unified Tribes.
Settlement
Solis Alunaris, Sylvan City of
Type
City
Owning Organization
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