Vanador

Vanador is the newest of the great cities of the Five Duchies, built from nothing on a high, defensible plateau in the northern Wilderlands after Count Minalan was granted the Magelaw as a refuge for freed slaves, magi, and Wilderfolk displaced by the Goblin Wars. It began as a rough refugee camp below Anguin's Tower and grew rapidly as the Tudrymen arrived in winter with wains and tools, as freedmen from the three great emancipation camps filtered in, and as Karshak and Malkas Alon craftsmen turned raw plateau into streets, walls, and workshops.

Geographically Vanador enjoys extraordinary natural defences: the plateau is sheer on several sides, accessible only through fortified approaches, and ringed by watchtowers and magical defences that mark it as the most wizard-dense settlement in the kingdom. Minalan conceived of it as an "eighth tower" serving the seven towers of the Magelaw, and it hosts a bouleuterion (a magical academy and council hall), the Vanador Guards under Sandoval, a thriving market for enchanted goods, and temples including one claimed by Trygg Herself.

Vanador has already endured two major sieges — against the gurvani warlord Gaja Katar and later against Shakathet's hordes — and both were repulsed at heavy cost. The city has served as the staging ground for the Magelaw's campaigns at Olum Seheri and in defence of the Wilderlands, and has hosted royal weddings, Luin's Day pay-outs to its warriors, and some of the most important councils of the war. Old Antimei's original Inmar croft, preserved beneath the great rock at the city's centre, is one of its more unusual shrines.