Svirlido

Category	Cities
World	Ghífthauk
Continent
Region
Owner	independent city-state
Population	200,000+
Races	Dromite 95% other 5%
Deities	Lukoon, Ptah
Founded	5 Brighstar 2415 DE

The founders of this place, then still a young race, were Githzerai in service to the Nawirrûs Covenant. During the Creation War (1486 DE - 8777 DE), the settlement grew to become a city-state, supplying the war effort on distant worlds and training those inclined to utilize their minds or physical abilities in combat. The architecture of Svirlido came to resemble an expansive monastery, complete with grand garden mazes and contemplative spaces.

Svirlido fell during the First Suellk Invasion (135 HE - 150 HE). After the Suellk, an empire led by mind flayers, seized control, the city was depopulated and transformed into a heavily fortified military outpost with a substantial Dromite garrison. The garrison guarded one of the largest treasuries of the Suellk's elder brain and operated the great platinum mines beneath the city. Their precious ore served as the critical raw material for the renowned angelic implements with their platinum heads, weapons that proved highly effective in the Demon Spawn War.

In the Incarsabec Rebellion (1531 HE - 1544 HE), Svirlido was one of the first cities cleansed of mind flayers and nearly every other sentient being, save the dromites. Folklore suggests their salvation stemmed from their hive mind, which protected them against the psychic viruses and psychic storms ravaging the lands of Ghífthauk. Even with this advantage, the dromites remained in peril. They fled into the subterranean reaches beneath the city, burrowing into the mines to establish their own civilization, beyond the watchful eye of Suellk's mind flayers.

About two centuries after the Incarsabec Rebellion, the Dromites began to explore the surface; the threat of psychic storms remained, though less frequent. Svirlido's people salvaged the dilapidated ruins of the Githyanki and Githzerai. They discovered the decaying hulks of several Suellk voidships and a functioning Silver Mirror. This teleportation device was the same one used by the githzerai and githyanki rebels to escape the Suellk Empire and the mind-consuming storms they had engineered.

In 1176, a trading expedition was dispatched through the Silver Mirror to the Asteraoth System. In territories long surveyed and charted, they established contact with the Giff League. The result of this trade agreement facilitated the BSA to pilot their inaugural skyship.