Ioma

Ioma is an island city-state located far out into the Agate Sea. It was founded in 487 EP after a number of people who disagreed with Renarum's campaign against the elves to reclaim Crucible decided to form their own community away from all the needless violence and bloodshed.
For several years, there were rumors of a great island far to the west of the Ardlands whose hills ran deep with gold and precious gems. As these pilgrims soon learned, these stories were, if anything, under-sold. The city quickly grew, dominating the southern portion of the island within a century, becoming an entirely self-sufficient kingdom with plenty of offshoot towns and villages and a vibrant fishing industry keeping the people fed and healthy while they mined the mountains.
The wealth of Ioma, quickly nicknamed the City of Gold, became world-renowned, and several would-be invaders came from both Horizon and the Verge to lay claim to it. However, while Ioma had limited resources to build any kind of armada, they did have a strong relationship with the merfolk and tritons that lived nearby and with whom they traded freely. With their aid, they were able to repel every invader, including an attempt by the famed Blue Armada of Azure.
It is generally believed that Antecea once occupied the area as well, evidenced by a number of submerged ruins beneath the shallow sea that surrounds Ioma. Miners have noted that particular on the northern face of the mountain, the ore veins follow bizarre, unnatural paths, leading many to believe that Antecean sages may have once experimented with the very mountain.
The City. Architecturally, the city makes use of the abundance of sturdy granite from the mountain for the buildings foundations and great mineral wealth for embellishment and decoration. Many nobles' homes are gilded with gold and embellished with extravagant frescos. The gold that Ioma is built upon has also lent it to being a hub for fine arts: sculptures and painters flock from all parts of the region to use the gleaming city as a backdrop or craft a fine golden statue to decorate its streets.
Prominent establishments • The Living Museum ○ An eclectic collection curated by a mysterious man known only as the Curator. • The College of Magi Spire ○ Despite its proximity, the Lunar Forum has no presence in Ioma, largely because of the College of Magi, an institute that has handled all arcane matters for the city since its foundation. ○ They do not commodify magic like the Forum, and instead dedicate their crown funding towards the study of magical history and application. • Shark's Run ○ THE tavern for dockhands and mine workers. It's loud, gritty, and serves fish fillet sandwiches that are just to die for. • Wave Surfer's league ○ Not a building, but the premiere sport of Ioma. Hundreds of people compete all year 'round on the bay. ○ The league's facilities are located on the cape just south of the city and offer lessons and rentals for a fair price. • St. Partition's Cathedral ○ The main church of the Attuned in Ioma. Superficially resembles your average mainland church, but the practices here are notably different: ○ Most distinctly, Fos and Dorcha are worshipped as two distinct individuals rather than as a symbiotic whole. Dorcha specifically is not revered so much as "appeased" in the way they worship him. • The Ruby ○ The renowned, upscale pub of Ioma located just across from Jade Park. It boasts fancy, gold plated silverware and lackluster entrees. The Mead is top-shelf though. • The Silver Eye Casino ○ The premiere gambling institute of Ioma offering a wide variety of gambling and leisure games. • The Gold Keep ○ The impressive castle that houses the government of Ioma
A Dark Underbelly Ioma on the surface seems quite idyllic; gold and jewels flow like water and the arts are thriving. Everyone seems to enjoy life at a leisurely pace in the city. However, such gilded livelihoods can only be maintained by the sacrifice of others. Slavery is alive and well in Ioma. Though, most of the city's denizens would be loathe to call it that. It's indentured servitude at best. And of course the "servants" are treated amenably; they actually quite enjoy their work. They get to live in aristocratic houses and receive three warm meals a day. What is there to complain about? Unless of course you've been put to work in the mines, which these days are worked almost exclusively by "servants" who never see even an ounce of the ore they mine return to them.
It was not always like this. When Ioma was founded, her people took pride in pulling their wealth from the ground. But then they inevitably got wealthy, and wealth begets more wealth. With their gold, the first nobles of Ioma no longer needed to mine for themselves, so they hired others to do it for them. With the gold rush that followed, the nobility had an interesting revelation: people were practically begging to come to Ioma to seek their fortune in such high volumes that the mine owners could name their price in terms of wages. And so the people who were willing to work for less were the ones who got the jobs. This continued to compound over time, with the wages offered decreasing little by little until finally, they disappeared entirely. Eventually, this turned into full-blown slavery, with generations of workers toiling away within the mines (and later the city) with no real hope of escaping or even really a perspective on any other way it could be.
Now, the mines are worked by a combination of generational workers and criminals serving out sentences. Almost any crime is met with the punishment of mining or casting labor, and while there has been some dissent over the years, nothing real has been done to change this, as the people with the power to change the system are the ones who benefit from it the most. That is, until the gold dragon Yuvahlok caught wind of what was going on here.

The Golden Dragon of Ioma. Ioma also finds itself as the home of a particular golden dragon named Yuvahlok. Yuvahlok has lived in the mountains north of the city for centuries now, having essentially "refurbished" the lair of a copper dragon that had lived on the island centuries prior. Yuvahlok was hatched hundreds of miles to the south in the Eordwall Mountains of southern Kentro but heard of the great mineral wealth of Ioma and came to see it for himself.
Day to day, Yuvahlok takes the form of a human pearl diver and frequently interacts with the triton who inhabit the shallows around the island. His human form "Yu" is well renowned for his remarkable ability to hold his breath. Yuvahlok enjoys snacking on the pearls he finds, though he brings the more valuable looking ones back to his lair high in the mountains.
In his lair, Yuvahlok plays host to a number of followers comprised of a variety of indigenous races who were once followers of the copper dragon that elected to remain in the lair even after their master passed as well as treasure seekers and explorers who Yuvahlok has deemed worthy. Most recently, Yuvahlok has begun taking in escaped slaves from the city and the mines. Their tales have disquieted him greatly. His followers revere him with an almost deity-like reverence; mining the old tunnels for gifts for the dragon and scavenging the surrounding area for lost trinkets. Yuvahlok in exchange offers protection and guidance for his followers, with whom he communes with when he is not intermingling with the city dwellers. Unfortunately, despite his efforts to guide them to safer areas, his followers occasionally clash with the city folk. Yuvahlok always intervenes, but never does so directly; fearing revealing himself would further endanger both his lair and his followers within. However, there have been a few times where he has been careless with his transformations, leading to swirling rumors that Ioma is home to a golden dragon of legend.