TrithneSetting/Pandora
Back to Trithne
Pandora
- Location: About 1,600mi. East-North-East of Diamond Hearth, in a glacier.
- Population: Approx. 300,000.
- Industries: Hunting and Ice Harvesting.
- Politics: Completely neutral in both local and global politics.
- Ruler: Maran, Solar Exalt, and Karan, Lunar Exalt.
Pandora sits high in the north of Creation, now dangerously close to the Bordermarches. In the First Age, a Solar engineer built it as her ideal city, an image of beauty and wonder. An Adamant wall was constructed before an approaching glacier, which was then sped up using powerful Sorcery, split along the wall and forming a valley of ice. Under the transparent wall, the city was built upon the ice, carefully laid into it, using it to form lower walls and the base of the city. The end result is a rainbow of colour as light shines through the Adamant wall and plays on the ever-present ice, changing colour as the day progresses. At night, the moon causes everything to glow a ghostly white, illuminating every corner.
Up until four years ago, the city was under hereditary mortal rule, controlled by the families of those who survived the Contagion and the Fair Folk invasion, and others who had moved in. Typically, the city's populace are indifferently xenophobic, never turning visitors away, but never giving them unwarranted assistance either. Even in greater politics, Pandora maintains neutrality in everything possible, never taking sides, and accepting refugees from both sides, although they are subject to the same lack of help as visitors.
In the uncommon event of invasion, Pandora's defenses, dating back to the First Age, are still operable, albeit at a diminished capacity. The only way to access the city is through the glacial valley, as the top of the glacier is too hazardous to make it across to enter the city from above. Numerous Implosion Bows and Essence Shields are positioned in the valley, and no army has ever made it to the icy gates of the city. Their army is small as a result, and only moderately trained.
Four years ago, a pair of Celestial Exalted, one a Solar, the other a Lunar, entered the city. As per the usual rules, they were left to their own devices. Over a month, they established themselves as the new rulers of the city, deposing the established monarchy and taking the mantles of King and Queen of Pandora respectively. They have left the city mostly as it was, the rule of treating everything with indifference continuing under their rule. Rumours persist around the city that the couple, with their near-identical appearances, are in fact siblings. Nothing has been heard to ever prove or disprove this however.
Pandora has limited trade with the Guild, hunting beasts in the glacial valley for meat and pelts, and taking chunks of ice from the glacier and selling it to the Guild, who take it to the Blessed Isle to resell as some of the purest water in Creation. Other than that, Pandora is laregly self-sufficient, ancient irrigation systems operating closed-environment farms on the city's outlying perimeter.
