Chrysalis City is not old by the standards of Terra’s civilisations. Two and a half centuries ago, the site was little more than a fortified trading post—a way station for merchants moving between the coast and the volcanic interior. The original structure, the old Elvish ward that survives in Northward’s bones, was defensive by necessity: goliath tribes in the highlands, unpredictable volcanic activity to the east, and periodic incursions from things that lived beneath Terra’s surface all made survival precarious.
Over time, the defensive outpost grew into a town. Craftspeople followed merchants. Scholars followed craftspeople, drawn by the relative safety and the library collections donated by wealthy families. A temple was built to accommodate the growing population’s diverse faiths—the first version of what would eventually become the Grand Pantheon. The city’s Victorian architecture dates from this period: a cultural flowering financed by river trade, timber exports, and the prosperity that comes from being far enough from Titania’s slopes to be safe, but close enough to benefit from volcanic soil fertility.
Chrysalis was respectable, prosperous, and unremarkable.