Ætaine is, by any reasonable measure, the greatest of the world’s cities: over one million souls clustered along the vast Ætaine River that cleaves the continent in two. Though styled a city-state, its direct control extends far beyond its walls: northward into the strangely-named Bangwallop Valley where almost every known mineral and gemstone may be found and south to the Sea of Ætaine. For centuries it served as a primary hub of the western slave trade… a stain only recently scrubbed away in law, if not entirely in memory. Since the ascension of my friend Queen Mazræl the First, however, the city has begun to change. Ordinary citizens now possess a meaningful voice in governance, selecting many of their own officials rather than receiving them as gifts (more likely burdens) from the throne. I watch this experiment with great interest, for if it endures in Ætaine, it may yet reshape the whole of the continent.
— from the research notes of Zyr’Magi Tes’Lothen, “Magi the Blade”, high-aelv scholar, mage, and swordsman
