#avalir

[smilelikeawolf]

Gau Drashari made the Tree of Names for Avalir

The Tree of Names wrote a spell of protection on Exandria to protect it from the realms

Evandrin volunteered for Laerryn’s experiments with leylines, becoming anchored to another plane

The Tree of Names prevented Evandrin from returning to Exandria

Laerryn cast Blight on the Tree of Names to protect her friends

Evandrin’s face appeared in the tree at the moment of its destruction

Not much information of the Tree of Names survived the Calamity

Evontra’vir is known as the Great Tree of Atrophy

Its roots reach between the realms of life and death

Evontra’vir --- Evandrin Alterra of Avalir?

[meigsbrainrot]

Laerryn Cormar Seelie, the Architect Arcane

-

Second fanart ever had to go to my favorite wizard. @quiddie i hope i did you proud i was so scared to draw her because she’s perfect :,)

[mruschdraws]

Critical Role - "32"

Remember Cerrit, the Eyes of Avalir.

And, is it Thursday yet?

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

motherfucker will not quit, will he?

[blorbologist]

Feeding a Flying City

[Aeor, by Pretty Useful Co.]

This started as a little exercise in my worldbuilding thoughts for some off-hand stuff mentioned in my current fic, but I uh. Got Into It. So enjoy, if you're into two thousand words of nerding out about fantasy economics and agriculture and spells. For the sake of context, this is specifically looking at Exandria's flying cities in the Age of Arcanum, working off D&D 5E's rules as written (so I'm avoiding inventing spells).

When tackling the Age of Arcanum in my fanfic, I knew going in that I wanted to use this space to stretch my worldbuilding muscles and fill in some of the space left by Matthew Mercer and Brennan Lee Mulligan with reasonably plausible meat and bones.

One thing I was excited to squint at was the issue of how the hell flying cites feed their populations. 

The ‘lonely city’ is a common fantasy trope, especially in visual media. Your towering bastion of civilization (or spire of evil) on the open plains, or beside a river, or deep in the mountains certainly makes for a great symbol. A flying city is really the ultimate version of this, completely disconnected from the petty ground below… and the farmland that usually would surround any metropolis. 

See, in medieval times, you only had so much time to transport good until they spoiled. Some could be more forgiving than others - however, given a city often aggregates political and financial elite, there is an expectation that they can get their fresh fruits, and decadent game. Even beyond freshness, if you have a lot of people in one place who are not actively growing their own crops, a lot of more-or-less processed food needs to get into the city daily. And though you could station your acres of farmland just over the hill so they don’t ruin the ~scenic approach~, that will cost more to transport. The fact is, having a lot of people - poor and rich - in one place requires a lot of food, every day, to feed them. And it has to come from somewhere.

(Off-topic note, medieval castles (not necessarily cities) were also there to, y’know, defend the populace. So they had to be both near enough to their peasants to respond to aggression, and near enough for the people to get to the castle for shelter when needed. Which is not relevant to this point.)

Magic, like refrigeration, greenhouses and GMO crops, allows a society to sidestep some of these issues. Which is great! But how the flying cities could use the resources they have to feed their population is half the fun in theorizing. 

To quickly recap what we know to be common to flying cities of the time:

Limited to the city only, usually a location with ground dense with brumestone (i.e., no farmland). 

Their limited ‘undergrounds’ are often fairly dense with more structures (Aeor’s many levels; the labyrinth and tons of administrative locations inside Avalir).

They are nomadic and engage in trade (both with eachother and grounded cities, like Vasselheim).

… but they all likely came from landed roots, and potentially were once perfectly normal cities. 

So. How do you feed your people while flying a path that might take years to travel (ex: Avalir’s 7-year trek), especially between trade stops?

The last surviving flying city is Draconia, which is really fragments of a larger nomadic city that decided to remain fairly sedentary compared to its predecessors. Its answer was probably pretty simple: given that Draconia hovered within Dreemoth Ravine, the tailed dragonborn could just… collect a tithe of crops from the enslaved ravenites. It’s already canon that they were put to work in the mines, so working the land also unfortunately makes sense. It’s unclear how the food then got up to the city (skyships, given they have ready brumestone access?), but given Draconia seems to be an exception to the rules I can (mostly) confidently rule out ‘the Age of Arcanum was built on abusing the grounded cities and towns, potentially requiring an age of magically-enhanced farming to provide for the people above and/or risking the farmers going hungry in favor of the mageocracies’. 

Here’s where magic offers numerous solutions, and just as many weird problems! 

First of all, the stupidly isolated nature of flying cities means that any method of bringing food in has to be extremely structured. Mom and pop can’t just bring the donkey to the farmer’s market to sell their goods in Avalir; to get there you need to fly (more scheduled) or teleport (requires a mage, and limited quantities of goods). So from the getgo a lot of financial control is likely in the cities’ hands. Which… is not all too dissimilar from history, but the lack of flexibility is probably more striking here. Shit, I was hoping to get away from Draconia’s grim worldbuilding.

It also places flying cities in a role very similar to an advancing army, requiring food as they march to be drawn from the surrounding lands. While soldiers can break off and loot towns they pass through, a flying city probably can’t just dock in the middle of farmland, grab all the corn and bolt. So the need for a more organized food transport likely helps protect towns from that exploitation. (Though, with the military posturing of Avalir and Aeor, I could see flying cities strong-arming support from grounded ones in exchange for promised protection/aid if they needed it.)

Of course, when docked at another city (Avalir stayed at Vasselheim for ten days in the weeks before the Calamity), they can fairly easily trade with the surrounding towns there… who are also providing for the existing city. Hosting a flying city must be a huge logistics nightmare, but economically worth the headache. 

(Vasselheim likely has a leg up in that it has both a sitting population of mages, such as Vespin pre-fuckup, and the likes of Clerics, who I’ll get to soonish.)

In EXU: Calamity, skyships (and an offhand mention of something called an ornithopter) already exist, which could facilitate the bulk transport of goods. Based on the speed of the Silver Sun in Campaign 3 (4-5 days to cover ~700 miles translates to a speed of ~5-6.5 knots; for context that seems to be about the middling range for a medieval tradeship), this seems like an excellent way of transporting goods that do not spoil easily. Or use arcane equivalents to the canon Bag of Colding to help keep things fresh longer. However, as noted above, this would require a lot of community organization to get crops together when the skyship shows up for harvest.

The tricky thing is that Avalir, at least, follows leylines as it travels. So if there was intent to line up its passes over farmland with their harvest season - to minimize transport distance - it might be difficult to coordinate. Moreover, with an implied many flying cities, and no clear territorial delimitations between their routes (especially if they’re all following leylines; but Avalir at least made stops in Issylra, Gwessar/Tal’Dorei, and Dorumas/the Shattered Teeth at least), I wonder if there would be economic conflict over which cities could be highest bidder for the freshest crops. Which could be Interesting. 

(I wonder if sky piracy, or sky privateering, was a thing in the Age of Arcanum. Nydas is said to have been a pirate on the actual seas, so aquatic trade is still going strong, but given the flying cities are so reliant on limited methods to get food… you could put a lot of pressure on a rival city by capturing a few key skyships full of the last harvests before winter.)

Another option is teleportation. Avalir, after all, has an entire guild devoted to teleporting people around, so critical to its functioning that part of the Betrayers’ plan was to leave them without leadership when they struck. However, teleportation is very much a creature-oriented form of transportation; perhaps you could bring up a herd of cattle for slaughter, but that’s a pretty damn high spell slot for beef.

Avalir is in a fortuitous situation, in that it has a longstanding relationship with the Gau Drashari; druids, well-known masters of plant and animal life. In theory, this could mean Plant Growth casts to increase harvests… but at this time the Gau Drashari specifically only live in Caithmoira, guarding this holy site. So hopping from one druid-boosted farmland to another is unlikely. 

Well, if transporting food to the cities is such an issue, why not produce food in the cities?

While magical greenhouses must account for some luxury fresh goods for sure, I really don’t think the cities as illustrated have enough real estate to actually support their whole populations like this. Like I noted above, of the two cities we know really well, their insides are already full of labs and labyrinths and all sorts of things probably best kept away from your food supply. 

D&D 5E spells offer another answer, and another piece of potentially complicated worldbuilding: Create Food and Water. Per the spell description, it creates enough food to feed 15 people for 24 hours, which seems to neatly solve all our problems! Until you realize the food is explicitly bland (bet you the mages turn up their noses at it), vanishes if not consumed after 24 hours (so that’s a daily 3rd level spell slot from some poor schmuck), and is mostly limited to Paladins and Clerics. You know, godly people, who are so fondly looked upon by the mageocracies. Artificers, at least, are more in line with the Age of Arcanum attitude - but we don’t see any in Calamity, so it’s unclear if the class ‘exists’ per say in the time period. Reducing powerful Paladins and Clerics to food dispensaries - and not even good food, probably for the lower class - would fit in neatly with how the powers of the divine are seen as lesser. Goodberry falls into a similar role: useful, but probably something mages would avoid.

Speaking of spells, let’s get a little fucked up, hm? Who is to say a mage couldn’t just. Summon some pigs to be served up as bacon tomorrow? Well. Conjure Animals specifically says the animals are actually fey, and vanish when their HP reaches 0. Summon Beasts? Same thing. Find Steed? You guessed it. So magic can help us grow food, and transport it, and preserve it, but not actually make it out of nothing. (If there’s a spell I’m missing that completely solves this, please let me know, but I can’t really find one.)

My final little thought came watching geese migrate some time ago. The passenger pigeon has been extinct for… a hundred and ten years, now. But in its hayday, flocks of the birds would literally cloud the sky. Exandria is home to far more stunning beasts than pigeons, and hunting flying game is likely a lot easier when you yourself are flying too. 

Sure, you can apply this to actual fishing when the cities are over the seas, but! Imagine fishing boats but for birds and all manner of winged beasts in great flocks, netting and catching them to haul in. Maybe the magical equivalent of those helicopter boar hunts to deal with invasive populations, but landing at all introduces a whole lot more hassle. Big net and flying device = fresh meat, with an arcane twist.

So: how do you feed a flying city? Especially one with a lavish lifestyle as seen in Avalir, or a hard research focus as in Aeor?

Have an extremely regimented relationship with the towns on your path (likely in competition with other flying cities using these leylines when you are) or that otherwise have food you need. Make sure skyships arrive in time for the harvests. Miss that and things get dicey. 

Supplement this with trade, both with other flying cities and grounded ones when docked. However, docked time has to be limited to not risk starving out the countryside surrounding the city hosting you.

Small deliveries, especially of fresh livestock, can be accomplished through Porter’s Guild or equivalent.

Magically preserve food thus obtained to survive until your schedule and harvests of X Y z goods next align. 

City-based organizations can ‘fish’ for birds as the city flies (or potentially even actually fish as they fly over the ocean) for fresh meat.

Hope to gods (but without hoping to the gods because they’re schmucks) that you time your pick-ups right, that there are no famines, or early frosts, that no one steals your fucking skyships our outbids you on a key agricultural contract, or casts Dispel Magic and makes your food all spoil.

When the carefully-scheduled management of the city’s resources fails, turn to your diviners or healers and have them feed the masses with bland crackers while the Somnovem or Ring of Gold continue eating honeyed lamb and figs. 

If you read this far, I'm super flattered you shifted through my rambles! I'll gladly discuss any glaring mistakes or things I've overlooked; this is only what I considered in worldbuilding for a fic, and I don't pretend to be an expert on medieval agriculture or economic practices.

This was still very fun to (over)think about <3

(Water, of course, would be a similar limiting factor, but is easy enough to magically purify, and would not be too bland when made by Create Food and Water, so I didn’t bring it up.)

[beedreamscape]

In Avalir's ceremonies, given its complementary name, The City of Crowns, it's common to wear a headpiece as a symbol of your station and they go as such:

Septarion

A Kokoshnik-style crown in pure gold bearing seven gemstones. In high elvish is enscripted the very cliche "Knowledge is Power".

Eldamir, being "head of state", bears an extra stone, a big ass diamond.

Apprentices, Ring of Gold

Diadem or Circlet, usually simple in style, of fewer karats than those above, bearing a central gem that represents their Septarion mentor.

Octothurge

A two-centimeters-thick silver circlet, the base for the emblems of each of the schools of wizardry placed in the center of a eight-petal flower.

Ring of Silver

A thin circlet in parallel filigrees with discreet leaves ornamenting it.

Along with that, a symbol of her family, Patia wears a delicate crystals and pearls snood.

Magisterium

A chain of gold with a curtain of thinner chains over the eyes like a mask (justice is blind shtick).

Court of Owls

Laurel-like circlet of gold feathers.

The head of court wears a crown in the shape of an owl spreading out its wings

Court of Working

Simple straight laurel wreath of palladium metal.

Laerryn, as Architect Arcane, wears an elaborate laurel diadem of Mithral metal with flowers, minuscule pearls and a down-facing point, reminiscent of elven crowns.

First Knight

Usually worn over a light chainmail hood, it's of simpler metal and inscribed with the vows the Knight swears when nominated.

Loquatius

None of his titles actually bears a crown, but having earned the respect and love of those in the upper echelons, Quay earned himself a crown as the city's Herald and Scribe

Thranduil-style crown (yes, he went full-on fey prince) coming to points on his cheekbones, the backpiece resembles flames. Also made of Mithral to match Laerryn's.

[magicwithered]

I could go on and talk about how Laerryn is not, in the end, motivated by hubris. Though The Age of Arcane is the age of Wizards who believe themselves bigger than gods. Or, or, I could talk about how Laerryn Coramar-Seelie was pushed by grief so deep it doesn’t just come in waves, it never fucking leaves.

How “It’s stupid to try and become a god” because she asked for the gods to save her friend. Pleaded with them to bring them back. That it was hubris that got her friend killed, and Laerryn is not the smartest person in Avalir for nothing. That she crushed it under her heel, but if her best friend, the greatest person she’s ever known had to die for her ambitions than it better well be fucking worth it.

That it is love, and love lost, that motivates her to do the things she does. And the fear of losing love again and again that motivates her to cast blight, despite her having paused for a second to listen.

Pride was her fatal flaw when Evandrian died. But it was not when she helped cause the calamity. It was love and love alone. Because pride is for people who don’t get shit done, pride is for the undeserving. She built a cathedral with her own two hands between working and researching. Between grief and mourning. Of course Laerryn is proud of herself, of course she believes in herself. She’s the goddamn Architect Arcane, she keeps this city afloat, makes discoveries for people to eventually use. She is the heart of the city. But she does not still her hand in pride, but fear, but love.

Love is what causes the Calamity. Love for Loquatious, love for Patia, love for her people. And also deep unsettling grief. Grief for what was lost to her, grief that the gods did not grant Evandrian reprieve. Grief for all the things that she could not save. Why would she waste her time trying to become a god, when she can show the gods that even them, even the mundane, even the mortals that they’ve created can do wonderful things and perform miracles. That they do not need them to grant them wishes, that they can do it themselves instead of waiting for the whims and whimsies of the Primordials to pay them any attention.

Why would the gods give her this power, this intelligence that she’s honed like a finally tuned instrument if not so that she can show them all that Avalir can be? And in the end, how could she learn? Why would she change everything? Change anything. In the end, her point was proven, the things she lost were no longer for naught. How could she ever regret what happened if in the end it was for love?

[eldritchadept]

Less than 15 minutes in and already hooked

[mary-claire-art]

Calamity Glam

[fjorests-of-wildemount]

Just thinking about how we've now seen the moment of destruction for two of the Age of Arcanum's greatest cities.

In Avalir, they managed to have enough warning and a small group with enough influence to save some lives before the end.

Was Aeor lucky enough?

Were there any groups who saw what was coming and managed to save a handful of children from the wrath of the gods? Was that what FRIDA was missing? Did they help save some of Aeor's legacy before the command to defend?

Exandrian history is the story of survivors on a large scale and small. Where will our survivors be when this solstice is finally done?

[ludinusdaleth]

im aware the theory about ira wendagoth and ira somnovem being the same entity is long buried, but that doesnt mean im not always thinking about it, or rather, similar ideas.

both an ira of the feywild and an ira of aeor. athion of the feywild, and athodan, of aeor, both with the prefix ath-. morrigan creating postcards of aeor for fearne. fae like loquatius managing to find their way into exandria pre-calamity, and even integrating into mortal cities like avalir. the general.... everything about ludinus, and theories about him relating to aeor & athodan, and the near-canon confirmation of him being somewhat fae in origin whilst canonically being raised pre-calamity.

at first a few details like this just tickled me as a fae & arcanum enjoyer, but all this adds up more & more. the idea that arcanum cities & the fae realm could culturally exchange enough that that impact is still felt a thousand years later feels deeply significant, and it's one of my favorite mysteries in the cr universe to think about - along with the fallout of elmenore's call for seelie to return home. because after all - why are aeorian hunters specifically designed to kill divine entities and fae?

[smilelikeawolf]

Keyleth: "If the destruction of the Hishari was at the hand of making you, then they must have had something with them. Something of power. Your best bet may be at Evontra’vir, the Great Tree of Atrophy, if there is truth to the tale. Evontra’vir, the Great Tree of Atrophy, is on the island of Kalutha in the mists of the Shattered Teeth. A powerful ancient tree spirit whose roots supposedly winds between the realms of life and death to watch over the cycle of renewal."

[lithiumrox]

Wait. Shit. TREE of Atrophy in the Shattered Teeth? Like maybe an ancient powerful tree that maybe someone once cast BLIGHT on at some point??

[forgotn1]

Laerryn, the Slayer of Titans

[mara-phelion]

the paladin of redemption and first knight of avalir, blinded by his own confidence that all is worth the benefit of compassion and trust, became servant to the one he sought and failed to save

the direct descendant of the one responsible for bringing avalir on par with the sky, one of the greatest and most prominent minds of avalir, realized knowledge was nothing if it died with her

the great dragon of avalir, named after a creature known to only care for its hoard of wealth, ordered for a selfless act to be done to save the people of the city

the wizard blinded with hubris, a visionary for her legacy and wanted to be perceived with glory for her greatest work of granting avalir a ticket to unlimited greatness, became the one to give the world a fighting chance at the expense of being perceived at all

the broadcaster born with a malleable face, one who built his image around an exaggerated version of himself, was the person who told the raw truth for the benefit of the masses

the senior sightwarden of the eyes of avalir, a man who built his career by watching the city with such focus that he forgot to see the family of his own, became the lone survivor of the ring of brass in order keep a promise to his wife and children

all of their greatest actions to protect avalir may seem contradictory to who they were known to be not just by their city but by us, and yet:

zerxus ilerez; the paladin of redemption and first knight of avalir chose to stay alive because he believed that even he, the man who was minutes away from becoming something terrible, could be redeemed

patia por'co; the direct descendant of the one responsible for bringing avalir on par with the sky chose to send her knowledge to someone who she knew had potential to handle and preserve it even past her own death

nydas okiro; the great dragon of avalir chose to save those children because he always believed in the importance of a dream, and who else could do so even in the midst of a war other than those youthful minds

laerynn coromar-seelie; the wizard blinded with hubris chose to use her life's work for something that held the same weight of importance of what she had always wanted to become, knowing that her efforts would not just be for vain for it is no longer just for avalir but exandria itself

loquatious seelie; the broadcaster born with a malleable face chose to tell the truth on his last day, not without the theatrics of a man who had the ability to change the hearts of those who listened to him in the same way he had the ability to change his appearance at will

cerrit agrupnin; the senior sightwarden of the eyes of avalir chose to be with his family in the end only after he used the skill and instinct he honed over the years, protecting the world he knew by specializing in taking down mages who pushed past the limits they were granted

their intentions may have changed, but these people did not lose who they truly were. none of their actions were contradictory for they were all capable of such acts

the people that we saw at the end of this story were still the same people we met at the beginning of it all

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

WAIT WAIT WAIT

COULD ASHTON, ORYM AND LAUDNA BE IN THE SHATTERED TEETH????

AVALIR???????