Kael’Doran

The city rises from the blackite cliffs like a fist clenched against the sky. Kael’Doran was built in the years following the Sundering, when refugees from the fallen Thal Empire carved their desperation into stone and mortar. Three centuries later, that desperation has calcified into something harder — pride, stubbornness, and a refusal to look south toward the wastes they once called home.

The lower districts hug the cliff face in terraced layers, connected by iron stairways that groan in the wind. Smoke rises perpetually from the forge quarter, carrying the sharp tang of heated metal and ambition. Above it all, the Ember Gate — the great basalt archway that marks the northern passage — glows faintly at dusk, a remnant of the warding magic that once kept the city safe.

These days, the wards are failing. The masons pretend not to notice. The governor pretends harder.