Bysaes Tyl
The rustic elven city of Bysaes Tyl is tucked away in the northern region of the Pearlbow Wilderness. Built synergistically within the tangled boreal forests, this hidden settlement of tall wooden arches and warm hearths sits below a massive network of treehouses and bridges that form the canopy and upper levels of the city. The streets are made of smooth stones set in packed earth, gently enchanted to warm the pathways and melt the frequent snow. Large, bowed tutoring halls hold lectures for the masses, while cleared patches of forest facilitate the training of warriors in the defense of both the city and the empire.
Bysaes Tyl was founded by elves who fled the destruction of Molaesmyr in the Savalirwood and quietly began to build a new home away from the eyes of the expanding empire. The elves of Bysaes Tyl struggled through the harsh winters for many years as they constructed their homestead, leaving the past behind to look to the future of their society. Adversity bred a hard, guarded, and tight-knit people.
When the Crown discovered that an independent city-state had formed within imperial territory, an imperial envoy was dispatched to present the elves with an ultimatum: accept Dwendalian rule or prepare for the empire to claim sovereignty over Bysaes Tyl by force. The Ring of Three, the elven elders, convened and agreed not to fight. Many of their kind would die in a senseless war — and perhaps the elves would outlive their imperial rulers many years hence. They agreed to submit and follow imperial laws and pay imperial taxes, under the condition that they could maintain some level of cultural autonomy within their city.
The elves guard the secrets of their culture as best they can, maintaining a tenuous relationship with the Crown that holds to this day.
The elves of the city rarely engage in criminal activity, but escalating theft and brutality from non-elven imperial citizens living within—or passing through—Bysaes Tyl is a problem that the starosta largely ignores. Agents of the scattered Myriad have offered to help the Ring of Three manipulate the starosta and his council. The Ring of Three are weighing the benefits of letting an unlawful organization into their midst to help their oppressed people against the long-term consequences of working with such untrustworthy allies.
The city exists partially on the forest floor and partially within and around the trees, giving the settlement an air of rustic nostalgia that tempers its elven mystique. The walled surface streets are known as the Rough, or Talan, where structures weave between rocks and wide-trunked trees, giving a slanted octagonal shape to the tall, wooden exterior walls of the city. Nearly all structures here are built from pine and other taiga trees, favoring designs that resemble a bowed arch rising to an apex. Spiraling staircases known as the Shrouds, or Halya, twist around and within trees, climbing up to the elevated walkways and buildings amid the forest canopy.
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