The Major Cities of Silvarion Sul
Whilst not all life was metropolitan in nature, the people of Silvarion Sul could be roughly grouped under the banner of one of nine major city states, though many more minor ones existed and even in the major states sub-groups could be clearly picked out. These cities and their divergences could be roughly tracked onto the II themselves, with many astartes bringing the specialisation of their home with them to the legion, forming unofficial brotherhoods, brotherhoods used by the canny commander to better maximise the effectiveness of the legion.
Arghest Sul: the Sunken City - nestled between the sea and twin mountain ranges, Arghest Sul is a complex and convoluted tangle of artificial aqueducts and canals interlaced with dwellings and expansive docks and harbours. From the air it is a struggle to tell where the land ends and the water begins, such is the extent to which the city has sprawled out onto the sea; indeed the city not only occupies the surface of the ocean but also its depths: great glass and bronze habitats sunk deep beneath the waves, arteries filled with light and life coursing through rock and water, the people within travelling freely from the highest peak to the coldest depths.
The Astartes of Arghest Sul are known for their capability in void craft, their ships braving the atmosphere for the longest, or flying the fastest, and when not dispatched on combat duties they lie in dry dock as their crew meticulously works on the next batch of changes
Ealin Sul: The Child of the Mountain - Ealin Sul lies in the heart of the largest continent, the valleys slowly dwindling on your approach as the mountains converge to the highest point. From snow capped and wind swept slopes, great arcs of copper and silvered steel emerge, on some landing platforms, on others sheltered and shielded hot houses of breathtaking artistry; as you climb further, the cragged mountain is pierced by gently fluted towers and organic blisters of glass. What was once Lah Ealin, the highest peak on the planet, is now replaced and subsumed by glittering observatories and starlit dwellings. The roots of Lah Ealin are equally plundered, halls and corridors of epic scale reaching for hundreds of miles in every direction, light fed to them from the surface through great wells and mirrors.
The Astartes of Ealin Sul are known for their fascination with armour, smooth expanses of ceramite giving way to intricate and interlocking scales and panels, until joints seem to disappear and all but the creator can understand the ins and outs of their suit.
Zuktor Sul: The North Wind - Based in the northernmost reaches of the planet, where valley and mountain have given away to flat and never ending tundra, Zuktor Sul is an ever growing network of circular pits dug and linked with causeways: these pits, sometimes home to millions of inhabitants, provide shelter in a land where none naturally exists, and the growth of the city is always first marked by the excavation of a new one. Where travel through the causeways is impossible, great sailed skimmers are used instead, some mounted on delicate skids or spindly wheeled legs, others hovering on grav plates or held aloft by the intricate webs of sails and rigging.
The Astartes of Zuktor Sul are most enraptured by speed, many permanent fixtures in jetbike or outrider squadrons; and oft requested for search and destroy missions.
Donrar Sul: The Hidden People - Donrar Sul sprawls in the subtlest of ways at first glance: the glint of glass or copper alloy through the canopy, the discernable patterns marked and fuzzy in the placement of trees and clearings. In fact what appears to be a great expanse of forest and rolling hills along the equator of the planet are the bio cities of Donrar Sul: the forest invited to grow over and in the city itself; dappled light falling through canopies into artificial crevasse and hidden window. Whether the people of Donrar Sul started life this way as an act of camouflage or out of consideration for that natural world in which they live is unknown; but the people of the city distinguish themselves from their cousins in other states: calm and cautious where others are boisterous and industrious; fascinated with the natural rather than the artificial.
The Astartes of Donrar Sul are the least likely to modify their natural state unless injured to the point of it becoming a necessity; they find joy in that which observes, and that combined with their propensity for peaceful contemplation sees them fill the legion's recon companies.
Ilhalin Sul: The Cloud Dwellers - the greatest of Silvarion Sul’s living cities, Ilhalin Sul charts a gentle course across the planet, rarely crossing directly over other states though passing close enough that the air is filled for days with Sky-Cutters and other trade craft. The people of Ilhalin Sul are a spontaneous bunch, given to a wanderlust and whimsy that helps the leviathan control its population. Despite all this, the tecno-evolution that governs much of Silvarion Sul is at its most advanced on Ilhalin Sul, the City a marvel of human engineering, every inch bedecked in technological wonders, and the works of its people intricate and specialised to a tortuous degree.
The Astartes of Ilhalin Sul are the most dispersed amongst the legion: some taking to the air like their place of origin, others invested in the wonders of the legion’s armoury, whilst others volunteer for duty in the most minor and speculative explorator fleets, travelling with rogue traders and xenoarcheologists in search of an intangible challenge.
Unarith Sul: The Star Shepherds - growing around a space elevator of ancient origin, Unarith Sul did not give birth to a Living City like so many of its peers; instead the city gradually spread out and reached up, districts rising along the length of the great pillar until at both ends and betwixt the people of Unarith Sul led their lives. One of the few places on Silvarion Sul that built void craft of any notoriety before the coming of the Emperor, Unarith Sul would become one of the preeminent hubs on the planet by the closing of the 30th millennium: its orbital presence growing to accommodate the fleet berths of the Legion alongside barracks and supply yards for the regiments arriving and departing.
The Astartes of Unarith Sul are fascinated by the bending of light, whether in the monstrous form of an orbital lance battery or the delicate machinery of a digital laser. It is from Unarith Sul many of the legion’s heavy support squads or tanks hunters come; the las weapons they deploy tuned to the finest degree and wielded with expert precision.
Fylal Sul: The Brazen Blooded - Another equatorial city, Fylal Sul lies on one of the planet's tectonic convergence points, the city powered exclusively by geothermal rods buried deep in the crust. The people of Fylal Sul are hardy and taciturn, used to earthquakes and the potential for volcanic eruption, they instead build strong and true, the city awash with devices designed to both preserve and channel the tumultuous energy beneath them, the heat directed instead to great forges where hammer handed golem toil endlessly.
The Astartes of Fylal Sul are entranced by the transfer and discharge of energy, whether it's the smooth running of their power armour’s fusion pack or the tectonic discharge of a thunder hammer.
Isvenor Sul: The Antlered Watchers - A Living City whose path is short and circuitous, the people of Isvenor Sul never having wished to journey across the planet like many of their fellow Living Cities, preferring the company of their Golems. As a result they've always been the most isolated of Silvarion Sul’s city states, even after Imperial Unification the city’s path did not alter. Instead they now orbit one of Craw’s development facilities, the vast installation manned and guarded by Isvenor Sul and the location’s relative isolation perfect for many of the Half Born’s experiments.
The Astartes of Isvenor Sul are fewer in number, but their expertise in human-type golems sees them play a disproportionate role in the Sminos, and the trust given to the City by Craw leads them to a fanatical loyalty well suited to the Sifyria.
Vordamon Sul: The Void Borne - A city that stretches back and forth across a series of canyons and chasms carved into the planet’s southern continent. Each district a gossamer web stretched over the void, buildings rising and falling from its surface. The people of Vordamon Sul are strange and expansive, the holdings of the city stretching across the entirety of the southern continent, and the city itself ranging for hundreds of miles; and the technology they delved into bizarre and esoteric. It is Vordamon Sul that the Imperial Truth has most struggled to take root, something in the nature of their dwelling pushing against the rise to logic and reason, and the redundancy of the old spirits. As a result the city plays host to many of the greatest of the Weaver Covens, the artificiers of the city seeming to eschew all the solid and tageable forms of crafting present in other areas of Silvarion Sul.
The Astartes of Vordamon Sul are as strange as the city they come from, though many are drawn from the outlying settlements, and they form a large bulk of the legion. Whilst they have no clear area of expertise, they are renowned as second opinions, often opening up paths not previously considered. It is in Vordamon Sul that Craw built her Liminal Forge, and it is where she retreated when the Great Crusade soured.