Hasra was founded forty years before the Fall. It was built at the height of Elentian power, and that power gave birth to something truly wonderous in it’s first western province. The site Hasra is built upon contained two very powerful catalysts in close proximity.
The first was an immense cavern filled with white hot flame that local tribes called the Cavern of White Death. The Elentians realized the vast potential of such a catalyst, and sent their most learned sages to study it. Even with potent magical protection they could only penetrate the very edges of the cavern. They could come close enough to catalize, but not close enough to see the heart of the cavern through the intense flame.
The sages found two very important facts. First, the intense heat was endless. Second, the edges of the cavern were coated in fire rubies, which regrew as the magical energies of the cavern washed over them. This discovery made the catalyst of paramount important to the Elentians.
Not only could they harvest the fire rubies for profit, but they could also harness the power in the cavern to provide heat for a new city. A massive brass reactor was built to channel the cavern’s heat into thousands of tubes that ran throughout the newly created city.
These tubes were filled with water, which was superheated by the reactor. This allowed the Elentians to harness the power of steam to create all manner of wonders in Hasra. Wonders not available even in the capital of their empire, simply because of how unique The Reactor was.
As powerful as the Reactor was it was only one half of the bounty offered by the new city of Hasra. Deep within the caves underneath the city lay The Well of the Void, a passage through the walls of the mortal realm into The Void.
On the other side lay the severed arm of what could only be an elder god. It was nearly a mile long and several hundred paces high. At it’s base lay an inky pool of viscious black blood, where those who dared could catalize by drinking.
This provided Hasra with both Fire and Void, the two components necessary to creating Imperial Battlemages. It also gave Hasra immense wealth, which meant that those noble houses willing to relocate became rich beyond their wildest dreams.
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The Modern City
Hasra has carefully safeguarded their way of life since the fall of the Elentian Empire. The city has been kept in the same pristine condition it maintained four centuries ago. The brass pipes still pump hot water to the huge open air baths. Fire rubies still blaze from the wrought iron cages that light the streets of the noble quarter.
The streets are paved with marble quaried from neighboring mountains (need name). The city walls are cut from sixty feet slabs of granite from the same towering peaks. Even the rough hewn stone buildings have hardly changed in the four centuries since their construction.
If anything the city has only grown more beautiful from the constant stream of wealth that has flowed into it from every corner of the Imperium. The walls of every major house are decorated with colorful tapestries, while pennants bearing their sigil flutter above tall spires.
The streets are cluttered with throngs of people, policed by scarlet cloaked legionaires with golden helms and black tunics. These red cloaks bear the same attire as the fabled Elentian military, and they are held in the same high regard as their forebears.
Between the throngs of people well muscled chaman slaves carry palanquins for nobles too wealthy to be troubled with walking. They glide through markets where anything from fire rubies to slaves may be purchased.
The din can be defeaning, particularly when the grand Hasran Arena is in use. It seats a hundred thousand spectators, and when the crowd stamps their feet the entire city shakes.
The most visually striking building in the city is arguably the Imperator’s Palace. It is a towering cylinder nearly five hundred paces high, and it is surrounded by a hundred foot pit that makes it appear even taller.
This odd design is no accident, because the palace is built to cover the Well of the Void. The Well is a portal to the void, and the Elentians wisely positioned the place to prevent demons from escaping into our world.
Yet even as majestic as the palace is, it still battles with two other structures for the title of the most majestic within Hasra.
The first is The Reactor, an enormous brass dome covering nearly a quarter of the city. It is covered in a snakes nest of tubes that split off to destinations all over the city. The brass is warm to the touch, and it is not uncommon for the homeless to seek shelter next to it during the winter. These unfortunates are quickly rounded up by the red cloaks of course.
The other building vying with The Reactor and the Palace is the Imperial Temple of Celeste. The Temple is the largest in the west, and is also the most frequent home to the Stewardess Celeste. It’s fluted marble towers stab higher into the sky than any other structure, even the palace.
It has the single largest library in the West, and quite conceivably the world. This repository of knowledge contains every spell, every historical tome and a copy of every book, scroll or clay tablet known to exist. Sages and scholars travel to the Temple from all over the West.
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