Tower of Ascension

Taur'el Ilythar is a drow city suspended from the ceiling of a vast Underdark cavern, carved directly into immense stalactites and hanging stone formations. Rather than spreading across the cavern floor, the city descends from above in tiers of bridges, balconies, temple-spires, hanging gardens, and crystal-lit terraces. From below, the city appears almost like a second night sky: countless blue, violet, and silver lights shining from windows, shrine-lanterns, embedded crystals, and bioluminescent gardens.

The city is illuminated by soft bioluminescent light, moonstone lamps, and veins of pale crystal set into the stone. Even at its busiest, Taur'el Ilythar rarely feels bright by surface standards. Its beauty is dim, reflective, and lunar. Public spaces are often lit by pools of silver-blue light rather than open flame, creating the feeling of a permanent moonrise beneath the earth.

Taur'el Ilythar is centered around the worship of Brian, the good-aligned drow deity of the Moon, Portals, Travel, Lycanthropes, and the Underdark. Civic life reflects values of harmony, magical integration, hospitality, craftsmanship, and acceptance of shapeshifters and outsiders. In the often-dangerous Northern Underdark, Taur'el Ilythar is considered a rare sanctuary of peace, artistry, and lawful mercy.

Though beautiful, Taur'el Ilythar is not fragile. The city’s hanging design makes it extremely difficult to assault. Its bridges can be sealed, withdrawn, or shattered in defense. The great lift can be recalled upward. Patrols watch the cavern floor from above, and the narrow access routes are easily defended by archers, spellcasters, and the Order of the Flashing Blade.

The earliest history of Taur'el Ilythar is uncertain. Local tradition claims that the city was founded after a great schism among ancient drow houses, when several families rejected the cruelty and paranoia of older Underdark powers and sought a new divine patron beneath the gentle light of Brian.

Other, less comfortable stories suggest that the city may once have worshipped an evil spider deity. If this is true, nearly all records from that era have been deliberately destroyed, ritually sealed, or lost in one of the city’s many internal purges and reforms. The surviving priesthood teaches that whatever darkness once touched Taur'el Ilythar, the city was redeemed by moonlight, craft, and oath.

Over the centuries, the city grew from a hidden refuge into one of the most important settlements of the Northern Underdark. Its artisans became famous for delicate metalwork, gemstone cutting, magical fittings, silver-inlaid stone, and refined architectural craft. Its priests became respected mediators across the deep roads, especially among frontier communities that honor both Brian and the Church of the Flame.

The rise of Thronstadt and the expansion of Church-protected routes through the Northern Underdark brought Taur'el Ilythar into closer contact with the surface world. While the city remains proudly Brianite and culturally drow, it has become a key partner in maintaining the settled Underdark frontier beneath the Winterlands.

Taur'el Ilythar hangs from the roof of an immense open cavern. The cavern floor lies far below the inhabited city and is kept intentionally sparse. Broad, flat stone causeways, cargo yards, fungal plots, beast-pens, and lift stations occupy the lower level, but most permanent residences, temples, workshops, and civic buildings are above.

The city itself is built into clusters of enormous stalactites. These clusters are connected by graceful stone bridges, suspended roads, chain-supported walkways, enchanted platforms, and narrow defensive spans. Many neighborhoods are vertical rather than horizontal, with homes, shrines, and workshops stacked along the same hanging stone column.

The city has no formal districts in the surface sense, but locals often describe areas by function, height, and landmark.

The oldest and most prestigious parts of Taur'el Ilythar are built into the highest stalactites, closest to the cavern ceiling. These contain noble residences, ancient shrines, civic archives, observatories, and the more private halls of the priesthood.

The High Spires are quiet, dim, and heavily warded. Much of the city’s old magic is maintained here, including moonstone lenses, defensive seals, and ancient bridges that can only be crossed during certain lunar rites or with priestly permission.

The middle tiers of the city contain the greatest concentration of workshops and trade halls. Drow smiths, deep gnome gemcutters, aranea silkworkers, stonecarvers, glasswrights, and enchanters work side by side in narrow, lantern-lit streets.

The Artisan Rings are famous for producing art objects, religious icons, silvered weapon fittings, carved stonework, jewelry, portal fittings, and delicate mechanisms used in liftworks and cavern-road infrastructure.

The Lower Terraces are the most accessible parts of the hanging city. Visitors arriving by the Quicksilver Lift usually enter here first. The Lower Terraces contain markets, public inns, cargo platforms, beast stables, fungus gardens, way-shrines, and civic offices for travelers.

Though still far above the cavern floor, the Lower Terraces are wide and practical compared to the older upper city. Caravan factors, patrol officers, visiting priests, frontier settlers, and merchants from Thronstadt are most commonly found here.

The cavern floor below Taur'el Ilythar is deliberately minimal and open. Its flat stone expanse provides visibility, defensive spacing, and room for cargo staging. From the city above, guards can watch nearly every approach.

Permanent construction on the floor is limited to lift anchors, supply yards, a few fortified storehouses, fungal plots, cistern access points, and animal pens. In wartime, most of these can be abandoned or destroyed to deny attackers cover.

Taur'el Ilythar is governed by a mayor advised by priestly authorities, artisan councils, and military representatives. In theory, the mayor handles civic administration while the priesthood guides moral and religious life. In practice, the two are deeply intertwined, as most major decisions are judged according to civic need, religious duty, and the long-term safety of the Underdark frontier.

The city’s major governing bodies include:

• The Mayor’s Hall: Handles law, taxation, trade charters, public works, and relations with Thronstadt.
• The Moonlit Synod: Senior priests and priestesses of Brian who oversee temples, rites, healing, mediation, and sacred law.
• The Artisan Conclave: Guildmasters representing metalworkers, gemcutters, stonecarvers, enchanters, fungal growers, beast-handlers, and other major trades.
• The Liftwardens: Officials responsible for the Quicksilver Lift, cargo movement, visitor screening, and emergency withdrawal procedures.
• The Flashing Blade Liaison: A knightly representative who coordinates city defense, patrol routes, and Underdark security.

Religion in Taur'el Ilythar is dominated by the worship of Brian. He is honored as the moon that shines where no true moon can be seen, the guardian of hidden roads, the keeper of thresholds, and the patron of those who seek home through darkness.

Brianite symbols are everywhere: crescent moons carved into doorways, silver-blue lanterns along bridges, portal sigils beside public arches, and small shrines placed near lifts, gates, crossroads, and stairwells. Even secular buildings often include a moon-mark over the lintel, asking for safe passage and honest return.

The Church of the Flame is respected but not dominant within the city. Taur'el Ilythar sees the Church as an allied institution of law, protection, and shared good rather than as a replacement for Brianite devotion. Many locals summarize the relationship with the common Northern Underdark saying:

Small chapels of the Flame exist in the city, especially near military posts, trade halls, and traveler hostels. Likewise, Brianite shrines are common throughout the broader Northern Underdark, particularly along roads, relay stations, portal sites, and frontier settlements.

Taur'el Ilythar is unusually welcoming by Underdark standards. Good-aligned travelers, pilgrims, merchants, shifters, lycanthropes seeking discipline, and refugees may find sanctuary here if they obey city law.

This hospitality is not naivety. Visitors are watched carefully, and those who bring predatory faiths, Far Realm corruption, Triad sympathies, slave-trading, or political violence into the city are dealt with quickly.

Taur'el Ilythar’s culture prizes self-control, beauty, craft, and redemption. It is a city that believes darkness is not evil by nature. Darkness can shelter, conceal, cool, heal, and preserve. Evil comes from cruelty, domination, and the refusal to return from one’s worst impulses.

The drow of Taur'el Ilythar tend to be reserved, formal, and careful with oaths. They are not emotionless, but they place great value on measured speech and graceful restraint. Public displays of rage, humiliation, and dominance are considered signs of spiritual immaturity.

Because of Brian’s association with lycanthropy and hidden transformation, Taur'el Ilythar is one of the few major settlements where disciplined shapeshifters are openly accepted. Shifters, moon-touched bloodlines, and controlled lycanthropes may serve as scouts, beast-handlers, guards, or guides.

Uncontrolled predation is still punished severely. The city distinguishes between transformation as a sacred burden and transformation as an excuse for harm.

Taur'el Ilythar is one of the great artisan cities of the Northern Underdark. Its economy is based less on bulk production and more on refined goods, specialized labor, and magically integrated craft.

Primary industries include:

• Metalwork
• Art objects
• Magic items
• Gem cutting
• Stone carving
• Exotic mounts
• Fungal farming
• Moonstone lanterns and crystal fittings
• Portal and lift components
• Spider-silk and fine textiles
• Religious icons and ritual tools

The city trades heavily with the Winterlands through Fort Nightshade and the protected routes of the Northern Underdark. Its goods eventually flow toward Thronstadt, while surface coin, legal charters, military support, priests, engineers, and warm-climate luxuries flow back into the deep roads.

Standard coin is accepted, especially in the Lower Terraces and visitor markets. Barter remains common among old families, artisans, frontier settlers, and deep-road caravans. Finished works of high craftsmanship may be exchanged for gemstones, rare ores, beast stock, silk, spell components, or long-term service contracts.

Taur'el Ilythar relies on the agricultural systems of the Northern Underdark as well as its own hanging gardens and fungal terraces. Food production is practical, carefully managed, and heavily tied to water rights.

Common food sources include:

• Cultivated mushrooms
• Pale root crops
• Fungal breads
• Preserved mushrooms
• Blind fish and cave shrimp
• Edible algae
• Insect protein
• Deep cistern aquaculture
• Mooncap fungus
• Imported grains and luxuries from the Winterlands

Food in Taur'el Ilythar tends to be mild, earthy, and carefully prepared. Surface visitors sometimes find it strange but elegant: pale broths, mineral salts, mushroom loaves, silverleaf teas, spiced blindfish, and fermented fungal drinks served in dark ceramic cups.

Taur'el Ilythar is among the most defensible cities in the Northern Underdark. Its greatest defense is geography. An army on the cavern floor must somehow reach a city suspended far above them while under constant observation from elevated defenders.

The Quicksilver Lift can be recalled upward, sealed, or disabled. Secondary access bridges are narrow, warded, and often designed to collapse or withdraw. Many public roads are beautiful but militarily deliberate, forcing attackers into exposed approaches overlooked by windows, towers, and spellcasting platforms.

Defense is handled by a combination of civic guards, priestly wardens, artisan militias, scout companies, and the Order of the Flashing Blade.

The Order of the Flashing Blade is stationed in Taur'el Ilythar and charged with defending the city, nearby Underdark settlements, and frontier farming communities. Generally over half the knights are away on long patrols through the Underdark at any given time.

The order is led by Grandmaster Torran Stormstride, a politically cunning and strategic commander. Unlike other knightly orders, the Flashing Blade does not maintain a heavily fortified chapterhouse in the city. The city itself is considered the fortress.

The order’s duties include:

• Patrols along the deep roads
• Escorting caravans and pilgrims
• Responding to raids against farming communities
• Hunting Underdark predators near settled routes
• Watching for Far Realm corruption
• Coordinating with Church forces and local militias
• Defending lift approaches and cavern-floor anchors

The Quicksilver Lift is a vast, open-air silver disk enchanted to rise through the cavern regardless of burden. It transports people, cargo, beasts, and trade goods between the cavern floor and the hanging city above.

The platform moves in serene silence, guided by ancient lunar magic. When active, thin columns of blue-white light shimmer around the disk, and silver sigils ripple across its surface like reflections on still water. Travelers ascending for the first time often describe the experience as terrifying and beautiful in equal measure, as the cavern floor falls away into darkness and the lights of Taur'el Ilythar grow brighter overhead.

The lift can be withdrawn fully into the city during emergencies, making direct access from below extremely difficult. Liftwardens are trained not only as operators but also as customs officers, emergency engineers, and defensive officers.

The Moonspire Basilica is the sacred heart of Taur'el Ilythar. Built into one of the city’s largest central stalactites, the basilica descends in graceful tiers of silver-veined stone, blue crystal, crescent windows, and quiet prayer balconies.

The temple is dedicated to Brian and kept dimly lit. Its sanctuaries promote peace, healing, introspection, and safe transformation. Clerics are on call at all times, and worshippers of other good-aligned gods are welcomed.

The basilica is also a place of mediation. Disputes between clans, guilds, travelers, shapeshifters, and frontier communities are often brought before Brian’s clergy before they escalate into bloodshed.

The Lower Anchor is the fortified landing site on the cavern floor beneath the Quicksilver Lift. It contains cargo yards, beast pens, customs posts, cistern access, and a few heavily built storehouses. Most travelers see the Lower Anchor before they see the city itself.

The area is intentionally sparse. During times of danger, cargo can be abandoned, the lift withdrawn, and the Anchor sealed or scoured by defenders above.

The Silverfall Markets occupy the first major arrival terraces above the lift. Visitors can purchase Taur'el Ilythar’s famous metalwork, gemcraft, carved stone icons, moon-lamps, fungal delicacies, silk goods, and minor enchanted items.

The markets are calm by surface standards. Haggling is permitted, but shouting is frowned upon. Contracts are often witnessed beneath small crescent icons, and merchants who break sworn deals may find themselves quietly excluded from future trade.

The Hanging Fungal Gardens are layered terraces of cultivated mushrooms, glowing moss, pale vines, medicinal fungus, and root beds. Some are practical farms, while others are beautiful public gardens used for contemplation and ritual.

Water is carefully channeled through silver-lined gutters and stone basins, creating soft dripping music throughout the gardens.

This long, narrow bridge connects several older spires to the Moonspire Basilica. Pilgrims traditionally cross it in silence before making major vows, seeking healing, or asking Brian to guide them home from a dangerous road.

Local belief says that anyone who crosses the bridge while sincerely repenting a betrayal will hear the echo of the person they most need to make peace with.

The Crystalward Workshops are among the most respected artisan halls in the city. Deep gnome cutters, drow enchanters, and dwarven metalwrights work together here to produce delicate mechanisms, lift components, moonstone lanterns, gem settings, and magical art objects.

The workshops are closely guarded, not because they are secretive by nature, but because many of their products are valuable enough to tempt thieves, spies, and rival powers.

These specialized stables house exotic Underdark mounts used by scouts, patrols, messengers, and traders. The beasts kept here vary but may include giant lizards, riding beetles, cave spiders, sure-footed goats bred for stone, or stranger moon-touched creatures blessed by Brian’s clergy.

Taur'el Ilythar offers most services expected of a major city, though visitors may find its customs more formal than those of surface settlements.

Common services include:

• Inns and guest terraces
• Caravan registration
• Lift passage and cargo transport
• Temple healing
• Mediation by Brianite clergy
• Gem appraisal
• Fine metalwork
• Stone carving
• Magic item commissions
• Exotic mount purchase or rental
• Underdark guide services
• Patrol escort contracts
• Fungal food markets
• Portal consultation and ritual components