Needle Rock
That is a place where magic was absent, on a planet where it is the most determinant force in large conflicts.
Here is a place where the Law of Exclusion was mitigated by the absence of magic, in a Age when the Mage's Brotherhood applies it strictly.
Now magic is coming back, as any well informed person knew it eventually would. Animals and plants that needs higher levels of Xar purity are seemed here now, more frequently every year. And the Brotherhood is no longer blind to the motorcycles and rifles made by blacksmiths.
Tourists who came to see the odd life of a Xar-Scar soon will came no more. At very best they will stay the night in their way to more central parts of this region where the magic essence of existence still isn't healing in a way that can be noticed.
That's a place to tell stories about a way of life which is dying, and people who must learn to cope whit that scary reality.
To me the most amazing place on Planet Sharitarn is Needle Rock.
I know, assertions like that raise a lot of passionate protests. Let me tell you two things in advance: yes, I am ready and willingly to defend my words in life or death duel any time, sword and spells if pleases you. Two, I am by no means saying that as an objective statement, it is a personal feeling.
That said, my opinion not just motivated for the fact that Needle Rock is close to the place I call home.
That counts for something of course, is hard to enjoy the aesthetic value of something when you are fighting to not be killed by some angry beast, or local community.
Sharitarn can be a dangerous place, and it is considerably less dangerous when you are somewhat near to the place where you have citizenship rights. Besides, the village of New Coimbra in a place interesting enough on it's own merits, on account of being the largest community build by involuntary immigrants from Earth here in this Universe; slavery was restricted to black human beings_ and non-humans, obviously_ up there for almost 50 years after it's foundation what is a huge curiosity on the eyes of natives.
The region by the time was in the middle of a Xar Scar, a place where Xar is so polluted that magic became impossible. Scars heal, and now New Coimbra is on the border of that region, spells are no longer impossible here; just much harder than they are on the rest of the planet; but walk a couple of miles and you reach a place here not even the most powerful archmage could light a candle using magic, and where the most powerful lich would be just another dead corpse. We are on the South, the most populated and habitable part of Sharitarn, where most human cities are. My small village takes a large portion of it's riches from tourism, which is not a thing many other places can say. And we don't bow to any other nation.
Out tourists are mostly Earthlings and other iis from planets where there is no ostensible magic. When we still where on a Xar Scar, no more than 35 years ago, there was Blacksmiths on Coimbra specialized in make fire guns and even a guy who made half dozen motorcycles. This things are all gone now, would be suicidal to violate the Exclusion Law like that, keeping technology so obviously forbidden. We still get a fair number of visitors going to the places where magic still is impossible, or coming back for their normal lives with memories of experiences they can't have in most other places.
Going back to Needle Rock, what makes it so spacial in my eyes is the fact that it is an actual living thing. Not a magical beast, but a involuntary immigrant from a place where there is a entire specie of intelligent rock formations with all shapes and sizes. Needle Rock is a talking being, except that this "talking" depends on a sort of magical capacity. It was sleeping for all five or six thousand years this place was a Xar Scar, and is just becoming conscious now. Will eventually generate humanoids, "rock people", if some of them survive long enough they will eventually change into large formations of rock like the one they came from. I will not see that happen, because the Xar must regenerate a lot here before the new generation can be formed.
Still, just the idea of a new specie of people sleeping inside this stone is enough to make this the most fascinating place on the world to me.
Type
World wonder
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