Old Town

Old Town today is the undisputed personal enclave of Ispan Sholyom Ilka ("Ilka the Faceless" to most outside the Arcanum). In the century since her return, Ilka has turned Old Town from little more than a slum to a thriving community of loyal subjects. Industry in the district is unsurprisingly geared toward magic. In addition to accomplished practitioners of every variety of wizardry, the district is home to shops and craftsmen who cater to the needs of spell casters. Old Town is also assumed to be crawling with Elteri and magical beasts and minions of every description, but the only undisputed non-human resident of the Arcanum is the living goddess Kreeshka, for whom Madame Xanthia's Pleasure Palace serves as an earthly home and house of worship.    Between rumors of strange goings on and weird magics, Old Towners' cultish devotion to their benefactor, and Ilka's actions that stop just short of inviting imperial wrath, most Khezvarans do their best to avoid the district, especially after dark. Fortunately, due to the nature of goods, services, and recreations available in the district, most people have little reason to go there.

The original walls of Old City were built over a thousand years ago to protect the small trading town that had grown up around the castle ruled by the Ispan Sholyom Vargo II (descendant and namesake of Vargo the Trollslayer. Although practicality required the Sholyom heirs to cede much of their sovereign authority over Khezvaros as the city grew, they retained the title of "Ispan" and remained important players in city leadership. The Ispan of Khezvaros was also considered the senior Hadvezor of the Khezvaran soldiery, though the extent to which they actively engaged in this role varied considerably across the generations.   Under the terms Grain Rot Pact, which brought the city of Khezvaros under imperial control, the city's nobility were stripped of all titles but allowed to retain control of ancestral lands and holdings. This was a relatively empty gesture on the empire's part given the number of nobles who were financially ruined or executed under the punishments of the Peace Tribunals. Nearly every Sholyom heir was heavily fined and many were executed, including Ispan Sholyom Bartos IV, the last to hold the title.   Although the Sholyom managed to retain ownership of Castle Vargo, it had fallen into severe disrepair by the time Ilka was born and the rest of Old Town (largely the domain of Sholyom relatives and allies) was in equally bad condition. A few years after Ilka left Khezvaros to pursue wizardry and adventure, her only brother was killed in a duel. When Ilka's parents died, a handful of dedicated servants and generations of goodwill were all that kept the castle from falling completely into ruin. Someone probably would have moved to take the castle if not for the stories of Ilka's fearsome magical powers that had by then spread to her home city.   When Ilka returned from her travels a little over 100 years ago, she began work on restoring the castle and then the surrounding district. Aside from publicly claiming the entirety of Old Town as her Arcanum* and using the stripped-away title of Ispan (and the pre-imperial naming convention of placing family name before personal name), Ilka has not openly challenged the Imperial Governor and is not known to have broken imperial law in any way.