Mandallu

Know as The Ice Gate it is the last stop for any human going from the Main Continent to the North Pole by land. That's a very hard travel, and few choose to make it. Those who do are usually going to Urshawa, The City of Mages. The City of Mages is a matter of legends for other castes, Mage Castes know it exists, is a military power, and little more than that. Not the "capital" of Mage's Brotherhood, because the global organization of mages has no need for a capital, but Urshawa is the one place in the planet where mages must go when they reach the apex of their development and what to reach the next and last step of magic progress. The Third Test, the door to became archmage, happens at North Pole. So almost all archmages formed during this Age visited Mandallu at least twice, once in their way to Urshawa and the next coming back from there. Mandallu Artist Caste like to register those passages, and kindly point to the travelers the huge difference between the number of statues of mages going and the number of statues of archmages coming back. The ice lands take many lives, even the mighty power of mages isn't protection enough against the challenge many times, but the Third Test itself trims the Global mage caste considerably. Mandallu stands on a narrow corridor between mountains impossibly high. The only bridge connecting the North Continent to the North Pole stands on the middle of the city, a abyss of cutting anti-magic winds ending in a frozen forest hundreds of kilometres bellow separates the two sides of Mandallu. This ice bridge of three kilometres has no railings, looking at it you get the comfortable feeling that it is more than large enough but that is before you realize how strong the wind is most the time, and how slippery the ground feels under your feet. Both sides of this bridge are protected by gates, or maybe we should say decorated. What is certainly not decorative is the wall surrounding North-Side of Mandallu, to keep the monsters from wild lands out. That is a huge imposing structure, made more impressive for the contrast with the small and otherwise modest State City it serves. There is a secret way to pass the scary bridge, a path craved bellow and mostly inside the bridge, but that is a local secret. Outsiders must go trough the exciting experience of walk on the bridge under unforgiving sky, resisting the winds that try to push them to their deaths while the amazing spells they are used to rely on fade into irrelevance. Best you can do is pay the local guides for tips about which is the best_ or less dangerous_ hour of day to traves the bridge during this particular time of year. There is no Mage University here, but aside from Urshawa that maybe the one place in the planet on this Age where you are likely to find a fair number of mages from different parts of the world. For one reason or another some mages never conclude their travel to Urshawa, and choose not to go back home either. Those honorable guests are regular patrons in local pubs and some now and them even became Mage Caste citizens. Is not too unlikely in any given time to find a handful of archmages visiting the Ice Gate just for nostalgic reasons as well. The Ice Gate is more than just a step in the journey of overachiever mage castes, despite being that identity essential to obtain the resources necessary for human existence in such a harsh clime. It is a sovereign state, home for many people who achieved a unique balance between human and non human cultures. Human city. But one where a large number of citizens belong to other races hard to find anywhere else. The most influential and numerous of them being the uacata (plural uacatai), a centauroid race.

Alternative Name(s)

Ice Bridge

Inhabiting Species