Cities and Settlements (GM-Facing Only)

Mandala Cities Overview

Settlement	Type	Primary Role
Kalorand	Capital City	Authority, ritual legitimacy, administration
Bhadra	Food City	Agricultural production, storage, caloric stability
Trushandar	City of Towers	Knowledge, magic, vertical infrastructure

Frontier and Rural Settlements

Type	Name	Authority	Placement	Description
Frontier Fort	Fort Stonejaw	Core	Kalorand Range	Mountain stronghold controlling passes and mine traffic
Frontier Fort	Túros Tem	Core	Viaspin Forest	Maintains and patrols the Northern Road
Frontier Fort	Threshold	Core	Blackpeak Mountains	Watches the Blackpeak approaches and high passes

Central Settlements

Type	Name	Authority	Placement	Description
Elven Stronghold	Shadgrove	Elven	Viaspin Valley	Elven hold enforcing eastern forest borders
River Settlement	Woodbridge	Mixed	Dymrak Reach	Island settlement guarding river crossings
Hill Town	Lungra	Velkari	Lungra Valley	Horse cavalry culture, valley patrols
Port Town	Varosha Haven	None	Southern coast	Abandoned port settlement

Northern Settlements

Type	Name	Authority	Placement	Description
Mandala City	Bhadra	Core	Northern plains	Food city sustaining regional supply
Mountain Village	Drakmö	Velkari	High mountains	Isolated Velkari settlement
Dwarven Stronghold	Bharak-Kûn	Dwarven	Northern mountains	Major dwarven fortress and hold

Dead Mandala Cities

Type	Name	Authority	Placement	Description
Dead Mandala City	Sakkara	None	Southern forest	Failed mandala city and sealed ruin
Dead Mandala City	Sarn Veloth	None	Northern marches	Frozen and abandoned
Dead Mandala City	Ormath	None	Eastern wastes	Lost to collapse and exposure
Dead Mandala City	Bhūtaka	None	Northern frontier	Mandala failure and political fracture
Dead Mandala City	Nadir	None	Skyborne	Former flying city, eighth mandala and ill omen

Campaign Notes

Category	Note
Authority	Core indicates Mandala Monarchy or Church aligned control
Dead Cities	Treated as hazardous zones rather than settlements
Northern Band	Reduced density reflects mandala attrition
Nadir	Excluded from normal census due to non terrestrial nature

In-World Understanding

What people believe, broadly:

“Mandalas fail when people fail.”
This is comforting and mostly false.
“Some cities are better left buried.”
This is true more often than anyone admits.
“If the Church won’t go there, you shouldn’t either.”
This is practical advice.

Rivers and Major Watercourses

Type	Name	Authority	Placement	Description	Notes
River	Rasal Flow	Core	Bottom to middle	Major southern river marking the frontier near Fort Stonejaw and the Drazhal Hill.	Structural boundary
River	Lungra River	Core	Middle to upper middle	Cold northern river associated with abandoned shrines and dangerous crossings.	GM-facing

Implicit World Logic (for Cartography and Play)

From the above, the map should communicate:

South to north climate collapse
Regions give way to landmarks, then to absence
Rivers and roads terminate before safety does
Singular features dominate the far north visually
The land itself signals danger before encounters do

Dead Cities of Reisa

Across the kingdom lie cities where the mandala failed and warmth vanished. These places are known collectively as the Dead Cities. Their names survive in monastery records, road-songs, and warnings passed from caravan to caravan.

Ormath
Sarn Veloth
Sakkara
Bhūtaka
Nadir (special)

Most travelers detour widely around these places. The Sangha discourages inquiry without formally forbidding it.

SITE HISTORY

The Hall of the Blue Measure was built as mandala-adjacent infrastructure during the late expansion period of the Old Way, when administrators were constructing ley-line sites in anticipation of relic cores that were becoming increasingly scarce. The location was sound — a strong Blue ley node, good terrain, a natural transit corridor north. The complex was completed: the hall, the sanctuary, the archive, the deep chambers, the portal infrastructure. The relic core that would have animated it as a functioning mandala city never arrived.

Whether it was allocated to a higher-priority site, destroyed in transit, or simply never existed in sufficient supply is not recorded. Five of the eight mandala cities failed. Several sites like this one were built on the assumption that the relic program would continue to expand. It did not. The Blue Measure was used for what it could do without a relic — transit logistics, doctrinal instruction, ley line management, administrative functions that required infrastructure and a strong node but not a divine animating center. It became a permanently incomplete site, functional but one tier below what it was built to be.

The infrastructure components staged in Area 15 — keystone blocks, conduit pipes, a plinth cap — were probably intended for the relic installation that never came. Someone was building the physical apparatus to receive a core. The work stopped. The components stayed.

The relic absence explains the clean ley concentration in the deep chambers. Nothing was ever installed to absorb and redirect the Blue line's flow. It runs unmodified through Areas 14 and 15, which is why the portal there still functions and why a Magic-User in those rooms feels something closer to pressure than stillness. The site is not broken. It is unfinished. The difference matters — a relic core installed here today would activate a complete mandala site. The infrastructure would receive it. Whether anyone living knows this is another question.

Cities and Settlements of Reisa