Ixaocan

Ixaocan is the capital of Ixtal, a city-state hidden deep in the jungle and the seat of the Yun Tal, Ixtal's ruling caste of elemental masters. Its polished, angular arcologies rise above the treeline, and the cardinal arcology at the city's heart anchors a wider network of settlements scattered through the Ixtali wilds. Within the northern gates, stone roads teem with peddlers, scryers, and craftspeople, and every crowd gives absolute deference to the blacks and purples of Yun Tal weave. The city's mages wield elemental magic with refined precision, trained in the axiomata, the discipline that powers and defends the capital. Ixtali culture belongs to the great westward diaspora that also gave rise to the Buhru, Helia, and the ascetics of Targon, and Ixtal was among the first independent nations to join the Shuriman empire. The brackern Skarner, honored across Ixtal as its ancient protector, used his command of earth to help raise the cardinal arcology where the planet's lines of power connect, and he became a founding member of the Yun Tal. When the Shuriman alliance ended in ruin and the Rune Wars scoured the lands beyond, Skarner convinced the Yun Tal to withdraw from the world, shielding Ixtal with magic and lies. For thousands of years since, Ixaocan has remained mostly free of outside influence, hidden behind grand rituals that shroud it from outsiders. Ixtali tradition remembers that seclusion as salvation, teaching that the first of the Yun turned the axiomata of Ixaocan into a weapon that quelled every foe and sealed the borders. Skarner never left. Deep beneath the cardinal arcology he built a chamber that amplifies the vibrational threads of the continent, where he listens for threats and confers with the Yun Tal who travel underground to seek his counsel. To the people above he has faded from memory into myth, painted in reliefs and honored in the annals of Ixtal's history. As new generations of elemental masters debate rejoining the world, the whispers reach his chamber and feed his festering paranoia. He is not the only buried secret: Luné, imprisoned beneath the city, bides her time. The ruling family governs from the high seat of the Yun Tal, and its youngest child, Qiyana, has made Ixaocan the stage for her ambition. She crippled her eldest sister Inessa in ritual combat before the whole city, slaughtered the Piltovan miners cutting into the jungle's borders, and left the hidden path to the village of Tikras exposed so that outlanders would raze it and hand her its prefecture. She means to climb the ladder of succession by any means and rule as empress of all Ixtal. Meanwhile hopefuls still stream toward the capital, among them Milio, the boy with the soothing flames, who crossed the breadth of Ixtal to train for the trial of the Vidalion and earn a place among the Yun Tal.