Chantry
Chantry is a city of memories and echoes of memories, of reminders of past greatness, all now mere shadows of what once was the seat of mighty kings.
Before the founding of Courghais, Chantry was the capital of Foere, as it had been the seat of the petty kings of the tribes of the Foere for dozens of generations. Here, in fact, is the birthplace of Macobert the Great, where he first claimed descent from the Sea-God Quell. In 2744 I.R., Macobert was crowned the first overking of Foere in this city, which remained the capital of the kingdom for his entire life. Even after the court moved to the Heartstone farther north on the coast of the Star Sea during the reign of Macobert’s son Magnusson, Chantry remained a place of importance. Macobert founded a cathedral to his patron god within Chantry, the first of the Foerdewaith cathedral cities. After his death, it was renamed the Chancel of Macobert the Great, and for four generations, his descendants came here to receive the blessing of the Sea King.
Then in 2802 I.R., the god Mitra appeared to Overking Osbert II, Macobert’s great-great-grandson, and promised the Foerdewaith victory over the Heldring in what became known as the Battle of Oescreheit Downs. Osbert took Mitra as his new patron, and the worship of Quell began a slow but inevitable decline in the lands of Foere. And with the decline of the Sea King, so declined his city of Chantry.
The city’s walls of stone blocks remain strong, though most of the towers are unoccupied as Chantry has too few soldiers to man them. Much of the land within the walls is now a field for grazing sheep and cows, and long-unoccupied buildings have been razed, their stones harvested for other purposes. As a result, from the outside, Chantry appears to be a great city, but from within, it seems largely empty and provincial.
The archbishop ensures that enough funds are made available to Chantry to maintain the chancel in a condition befitting its history. Built in an archaic style quite distinct from the typical neo-Hyperborean temples, the cathedral is longer along its east-west axis. It is lower in the middle and rises in a series of stepped levels on each of its eastern and western ends, each of which is topped by a graceful tower clad in blue-white marble.
Archdeacon Salashara Ofor comes from a family with ancient roots in the region; her ancestors were Foere nobility from times even before the rise of Macobert. She is quite devoted to Quell and is an excellent cleric, though her disdain of politics doesn’t help her city in the intrigues that roil the court in Courghais. Dunastan Reev, her mayor of the palace, is highly competent and does his best with the limited resources available to him. Some still make the pilgrimage to Chantry to visit the Chancel of Macobert the Great and to see the supposed birthplace of the first overking. Some travel from as far as Oceanus, though such visitors take great care to avoid attention given the current perilous relations between Courghais and Pontus Tinigal.
A circle of ruined marble columns can be found in a field about 10 miles east of Chantry. These columns surround a stone disk set in the ground that is inscribed with elegant elvish script that forms an inward-leading spiral to the center. Now ruined, this location once permitted transportation to and from a similar disk found at Elfingate in the Kingdom of Suilley.
Settlement
Chantry, Cathedral City of
Type
City
Owning Organization
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