Karonia, the Ebony Harbor

Karonia is the Alderworth Kingdom’s trade capital, and the second most populated city in the kingdom, after Veldonia itself. The city is a labyrinth of leaning guildhalls, towering warehouses with gabled roofs, and bridges arched like the spines of starving beasts, its whole existence spinning around its maritime trade routes. The harbor never sleeps, its docks teeming with sailors from accursed ports, their ships laden with Alderworth grain, Tyrrosian blood-opals, and exotic spices from the Oxze Empire. Yet beneath the clatter of trade, the city thrums with a darker commerce—whispers of ghost-silk spun from hanged men’s hair, mermaid’s tears sold as poison, and contracts brokered in the Veiled Exchange, where more than coin changes hands.

The Council of Tides and the Shadow-Burgomaster
Karonia has no single ruler. Instead, power is split between the Council of Tides, a cabal of merchant princes and guildmasters, and the Shadow-Burgomaster, a figure shrouded in rumor. Officially, the Council governs trade laws and city decrees, but all know the true authority lies with the Burgomaster, a title passed down through a lineage of masked figures who never speak in daylight. Some say they are undying, their veins thick with salt-lich sorcery; others claim they are but puppets, and the real power slithers beneath the Drowning Keep, a half-submerged fortress at the harbor’s heart. The current Burgomaster, Lysander of the Veil, is rarely seen outside his black-draped palanquin, though his edicts are carried out with terrifying efficiency by the Harbor Reapers, enforcers clad in oiled leather and wielding hooked blades.

The Teeth Beneath the Water
Karonia’s wealth is guarded by more than men. The canals are said to be watched; by what, none dare say aloud. Fishermen mutter of gill-mouthed things that drag down thieves who steal from the midnight wharves, and the Tide-Weavers, a guild of water mages, claim to bargain with these entities for safe passage. The city’s greatest defense, however, is its Wailing Beacon, a lighthouse whose flame burns blue with the souls of drowned traitors. When enemy ships approach, the Beacon’s keepers perform a Drowning Ritual, and the sea itself rises to swallow the invaders whole. Most believe that the Beacon alone is responsible for not only Karonia’s safety, but that of the whole Alderworth Kingdom.

The Rivalry with Veldonia
Though Karonia bows to the Alderworth crown, its merchants mock Veldonia’s pomp and inefficiency. Despite also being a coastal city, the capital relies on land routes and ancient noble favor, while Karonia thrives on smuggler’s cunning and the hunger of the open sea. The two cities vie for control of the kingdom’s soul—Veldonia with its cathedrals and royal decrees, Karonia with its blood-contracts and tide magic. Open war is impossible (for now), but in the seedy dock taverns sailors tell of Veldonian spies vanishing into the canals, and Karonia’s most prominent assassins guild, the Gray Eels, slipping into the capital to still tongues that speak too loudly against the harbor’s rule.