Exalted Enclave

The Exalted Enclave is a fortified sanctum and former holy bastion built during the reign of Sultan Hakim Atis, serving as both a place of worship and martial reprieve for the elite ranks of the Janissary Order. Situated just north of Kraken's Landing, a modern airship port raised by the East Empire Company, the enclave was deliberately constructed as a strategic watchpost to monitor and, if necessary, counteract Bastilian interests in the region.

It stands at the precipice of The Serrakhan Scar, a massive, chasmic ravine that cleaves the land between the northern desert marches and the southeastern steppes—a natural boundary, and a symbol of the spiritual divide that would come to define the late Fifth Age.

History & Origins

The enclave was commissioned in the latter half of Sultan Hakim’s reign, a time marked by growing tensions between the Serrakhan Sultanate and the imperial ambitions of the Empire of Bastile. While publicly framed as a pilgrimage site and rest station for high-ranking clergy of the Holy Order of the Sun, the enclave also served a veiled military purpose: to house and provision elite Jannisary detachments along the eastern trade artery.

The construction was carried out by conscripted Sharizian artisans and stonemasons brought in under the auspices of the Sultan’s high court. Its architecture fused high desert fortification with ritual sanctity—outer bastions clad in sunburnt sandstone, inner cloisters carved with radiant reliefs and hollowed domes designed to catch and magnify daylight for use in solar rites.

Structure & Location

The Exalted Enclave rises from the ravine’s edge like a sunlit citadel. Its core is crowned by a vast sunstone apex, refracting daylight across the high walls and bathing its inner courtyards in amber hues from dawn to dusk. Pilgrims are forbidden entry. Only ranking Janissaries, sun-clerics, and former initiates of the now-fractured Holy Order were ever permitted past its outer gates.

To the south, the proximity of Kraken’s Landing provided a logistical boon, allowing supply caravans and shipments to move directly between airship and enclave. To the north and east, the broken cliffs of the Serrakhan Scar descend into unstable lands, largely impassable save for those well-versed in desert travel or climbing.

Though the Scar itself remains unexplored in full, ancient scripture once housed within the enclave hints at subterranean temples buried within the depths—ruins left behind by pre-Serrakhanian Solir civilization (see: Itela).

Cultural Role

The enclave once stood as a spiritual fortress of Malekith’s sun cult—a sanctum where high doctrine was written, dissenters were cleansed, and sermons were conducted not for the people, but for the powerful. Its great archives held apocryphal texts tracing bloodlines, prophecy, and the supposed divine right of Hakim’s lineage.

Following the death of Sultan Hakim at the hands of Talyen, and the widespread exposure of the Holy Order’s deception, the enclave was vacated by most of its clergy (see: Sultans Showdown). The Jannisary Order, fractured in the wake of the revelation, has since split—some remaining loyal to the old rites, others swearing fealty to the Avatar of the Sun.

Though the inner sanctum is now sealed, its watchtowers remain manned, and its solar braziers still burn at night.

Present Status

In the Fifth Age, the Exalted Enclave stands in political and spiritual limbo.
No longer an active monastery, nor yet repurposed by the Senate of the Sun, it is watched over by a continual garrison of trusted Jannisary and Sunsteel Legion custodians tasked with preventing looters or relic-hunters from disturbing its vaults.

There are whispers—unconfirmed—that Talyen himself walked the halls of the Enclave not long after Hakim’s death, and that a hidden cave beneath the western transept bears inscriptions from the early Mytharil Empire, long predating the rise of Malekith’s cult.