Avalir

Avalir, the City of Crowns, was a flying city-state during the Age of Arcanum. It was a mageocracy, ruled by a council of mages called the Septarion.

Description
Avalir was a flying city-state that was created out the top of Mount Ygora on the continent Domunas. It was circularly shaped, about three miles in diameter, and as tall as it was wide.

Districts

 * Cloudstone, apparently located near Excelsior Plaza. It possibly partially wraps around Excelsior Plaza given that Cerrit passes through the Plaza to travel between the Hall of Eyes and his house, two locations in Cloudstone.
 * Dawnsledge, a neighborhood on the easternmost side of the city.
 * Evenloft
 * Excelsior Plaza
 * Gallamor, located at the top of the city, below the Archsept.
 * Okún, an older neighborhood that has a number of temples, including the Lost Cathedral. It is less protected than other neigborhoods in the city.

Points of interest

 * Cerrit Agrupnin's home, in Cloudstone
 * Archsept, located at the top-most portion of the city above Gallamor.
 * Crystal Columns, set throughout the city.
 * Hall of Eyes, headquarters of the Eyes of Avalir located in Cloudstone. It is a very large marble building and is described as lacking a hum of magic found at many other buildings in the city.
 * Hall of Prophecy
 * Hall of Symbols, associated with the Abjuration Guild and possibly the other magical guilds
 * Headquarters of Herald's Tome, located in Excelsior Plaza. It contains a room with a raised 10-foot diameter platform made of solid ruby and carved with glyphs and runs that allows Loquatius to broadcast to the Crystal Columns and Por'co Falls.
 * Helm of Avalir, headquarters of the Navigator's Guild located in Dawnsledge
 * Laerryn Coramar-Seelie's home, located in Gallamor. It is connected to the Meridian Labyrinth through a gate that responds only to Laerryn's official emblem of the Architect Arcane.
 * Librarium Incantatum, located in Gallamor
 * Librarium Magisterium, from which the Magisterium works
 * The Lost Cathedral, in Okún
 * Market of Wonders
 * Meridian Labyrinth, a subterranean network of passages and magical machinery kept lit by the spell engines keeping Avalir afloat and working. It houses or is otherwise connected to dozens of spell engines. All major spell engines are equidistant from the Levitational Corona. Spell engines include: the Heart of Avalir, the Great Registry, the Codex of Keys, the Helm (also the headquarters of the Navigator's Guild), the Ley-Rudder, the Arboreal Calix, and the Astral Leywright.
 * Palazza Por'co, ancestral home of the Por'co family located in Gallamor
 * Por'co Falls, located at the top of the city. This massive waterfall stands 100 feet high and dominates the center of the city. The Herald's Tome morning broadcast is projected onto them.
 * Tower of the First Knight, located in Cloudstone
 * Vault of the Golden Scythe, located in Excelsior Plaza

Organizations and factions

 * Abjuration Guild
 * Academy Arcane
 * Circle of the Crescent Moon
 * Court of Owls
 * Court of Workings, responsible for the magical engineering that keeps the city working and civic construction
 * Golden Scythe, merchant guild led by Nydas Okiro
 * Herald's Tome
 * Librarium Incantatum The organization particularly concerns themselves with the use of potentially dangerous magic. Their library also contains considerable historical information regarding the founding of Avalir.
 * Magisterium, oversees magical law and contracts relating to the city, such as the tithe of Pact of Crown and Throne
 * Eyes of Avalir, organization of detectives working under the Magisterium. Their investigators are called Sightwardens.
 * Navigator's Guild, responsible for steering and directing the city and led by Guildmaster Akami Rowe
 * Octothurge, part of the magical academic structure.
 * Porter's Guild, transports people and items throughout and in and out of the city using teleportation. They also apparently run the Great Registry documenting magical items in Avalir. Their members are identified by bellhop-style uniforms. They are led by an appointed Guildmaster, whose position was vacated just before the Calamity and election was postponed indefinitely.
 * Ring of Brass, group of six friends who hold leadership positions throughout the city
 * Ring of Silver, identified by silver necklaces
 * The Sailor-Marines of the Harvest Moon, a guild of former pirates
 * Septarion, seven archmages in the highest level of government
 * Ring of Gold, the fourteen apprentices to the Septarion
 * The Sorcerer's University, founded by Nydas to teach sorcerous children
 * Stormbringers, a mercenary company

Demographics
A range of peoples live in the city, including humans, elves, eisfuura, changelings, and half-orcs.

Background
Avalir was formerly part of a city called Toramunda, founded by the druidic Gau Drashari during the Age of Arcanum on Mount Ygora on the continent Domunas after Pelor and Melora sealed two Primordials, the Emperor Rau'shan of Fire and Empress Ka'Mort of Earth, beneath the mountain during the Schism. 292 years before the Calamity, a group of seven mages enchanted brumestone to lift the top of the mountain, splitting Toramunda into the flying city Avalir and its earthbound sister city Cathmoíra. The spell was completed by Imyr Por'co, who became a hero the people of the city.

Pact of Crown and Throne
As a condition of the wizards of Avalir lifting the mountain, the druids required an agreement, known as the Drashari Pact or the Pact of Crown and Throne, under which Avalir would return to Cathmoíra every seven years, giving 25% portion of the raw magic the city collects back to the druids and the continent of Domunas. The druids also required that the Tree of Names be tended to in Avalir, but declined to explain its purpose, believing the wizards would take advantage of the tree. As of the events of Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, the agreement had last been updated 119 years ago, shortly after the Raven Queen's ascension.

As a result of this pact, Avalir traveled around Exandria in a seven-year circuit on the world's leylines. During its journey, it traded with other cities, both flying and terrestrial, including Aeor and Vasselheim. At the end of this circuit, to honor this agreement with the Gau Drashari, Avalir returned to Cathmoíra and performed a ceremony called the Replenishment. The city stayed with Cathmoíra for a month before embarking on another seven-year journey.

Avalir's unique ability to extract ether, the raw magical potential of objects, and store it in the Etheric Net for later release, is implied to be related to this pact.

Although tithe of ether for the Drashari people was set at 25% and the other 75% were supposed to be put into the ground for the Replenishment, that hadn't been happening for the last two or three Replenishments (for 14-21 years prior to the Calamity). Just less than 5% of the city's ether was actually going to go into the ground of Domunus for the last Replenishment, and the rest was redistributed to the Astral Leywright or funneled out to archmages in the city to unnaturally extend their lives.

On the eve of a Replenishment, Cerrit Agrupnin began an investigation into the disappearance of Vespin Chloras, an archmage of Vasselheim who was believed trying to mimic the Raven Queen and perform a Ritual of Seeding. Authorities in Vasselheim, the last city visited before the return to Cathmoíra, reported him missing to the Sightwardens while the city was hovering over Vasselheim out of concern that he was stowing away in Avalir. The Sightwardens previously declared him killed by his failed ascension and closed the case. It was reopened in suspicion. Patia Por'co requested that his personal effects be saved for educational research instead of destroyed.

Patia held a party in the evening at her family's Palazzo Por'co to celebrate the Replenishment.

Legacy
The city's failure at the outset of The Calamity caused its name to become the basis of the Elvish word "savalir" (guilt) by 585 PD. A notable usage of in the name of the Savalirwood (formerly the Veluthil Forest) in the Greying Wildlands. Avalir itself was remembered as a pre-Divergence city in 843 PD: Imahara Joe, a tinkerer with an interest in Age of Arcanum automata, and Orym, who does not have background in academia but "vaguely" knew of it.