Chaulssin

The City of Arcane Weavings, Chaulssin is located a few dozen miles beneath the Cave of Eblana, near the central floors of the Tower of Bab-Il. It is a large, cosmopolitan city, much unlike any of the other Seven Cities. It is the only Dark Elven city that is not a theocracy of some sort. Due to a string of unusual circumstances in the city's infancy, including low female birthrates among other things, religion in Chaulssin took a decidedly back seat to magic, and wizards are the ones in charge. It is also a trade mecca. Even moreso than Undermarket and Lith My'athar, two of the other great trading cities of the Upper Underground, it is widely held that anything is obtainable in Chaulssin--particularly items of a magical nature. In antiquity, regular raids of the Tower of Bab-Il led to a great many Lunarian artifacts finding their way into obsidian-tinged hands, many of which were reversed engineered by the brilliant magical minds of the city. Magic users from all over Crystal regularly descend on Chaulssin for unusual magical trinkets, especially forbidden magical contraband, and because of this, non-Dark Elves can walk its streets relatively freely, though it is ultimately as xenophobic as the rest of the Seven Cities.

Perhaps due to the weakness of Sindrai'el's priestesses in the city, Chaulssin is also the only city where all the other Drow deities are openly worshipped--even Eilistraee. None of the temples have any real power, because they are kept on a tight least by the city's mages. While there are still proud noble houses in Chaulssin, the kind of internecine politicking and warfare seen in other Drow cities is largely reserved for the city's nine magical academies. Each is devoted to a particular arcane discipline, and each headmaster sits on the Council of the Arcane, which rules the city. The greatest point of political contention concerns the status of Arcane Elementalist wizards in the city. Their relatively small number as compared to other schools demanded that they band together for expediency's sake, and traditionally those low numbers meant that they were the weakest of the schools. However, a series of masterful power plays by the wily Shadow Mages--the most numerous of the Elementalists--has resulted in Sabal Zaurana, their Overmistress, taking the title of Supreme Archmage and she now rules the city. This has left the Council with the disheartening prospect of the five Elementalist schools (now much greater in size) each having their own seat on the council, irrevocably shifting the balance of power.