Esterlin

The ruined city of Esterlin, once the capital of the Esterland region, was a large settlement residing on the banks of the Esterlin River.
Founded during the Helleynan expansion into the continent, Esterlin once served as the staging point for Helleynan forces to press into the northern territories. Situated on the southern shores of Lake Esterlin, it allowed colonial troops to muster in relative safety as they sent sorties against the Orcs of the local Skull-Taker Tribe. The spoils of these conflicts allowed Esterlin to become a prosperous economic & political power.
That all changed with the Esterlin Cataclysm. For reasons unknown, the vast majority of the city of Esterlin was destroyed in an sudden, unexplained magical disaster. Descriptions of the event are conflicting, some credit a pillar of sinister arcane fire, others a comet of pure delirium, others still that a celestial being descended on the town and passed retributive judgement.
What is known without question, though, is that nearly all of the residents of Esterlin were caught in the destruction, and with the city's sudden loss, so to did Helleyna's influence in Esterland wither away overnight. Despite their efforts to rebuild, the Helleynan Empire of old would never again be able to reestablish it's colonial influence in the region before their own demise during the War of the Khan.
To this day, centuries later, the city is a shell of it's former self. The inner city ruins are a dangerous miasma of unpredictable magical effects, prowled by sentient magics and strange abominations unable to exist outside the city's foul aura. It was quickly abandoned by the surviving nobility, who would name Robinsburg as the new regional capital. Over the centuries, wizards and engineers from all over the world have made attempts to draft resettlement plans, but city repairs have consistently proven to be unfeasible, both in the needed financial cost and arcane knowledge.
The surviving community, proud but feeble, still maintain a small trading town in what few areas outside of the city's magical effect remain habitable. Residents & visitors to Esterlin are usually a foolhardy lot, either traders traveling over land through the treacherous Grimwood to get between Castelle and the Crownlands, or scavengers who think they will succeed in surviving the perils of the inner city where so many others have failed.