The Visitor's Guide to Nen

Welcome back, Realmers! Fresh off of our latest instalment, Malune Episode 17: On the Horizon, we thought we'd bid a proper farewell to Nen in the style of our map of Karkown! We had a good couple of episodes exploring this marvellous and magical city, so here's a few extra details sprinkled in for good measure. (And if you missed it, check out last month's flash fiction glimpse at the secrets carried by the scribes of Nen's Grand Archive!)

1: The Gates Of Nen

Nen's security comes more in the form of magical incantations and the thin barrier that envelops the city. However, Nen is not host to exclusively magically inclined individuals, and some of the further less inclined oft take on the position of guarding the entry gates. A rather tedious and boring job, seeing as how it is largely superseded by the magic that keep's Nen safe, though some of the decision-makers in Nen try to make the guards feel important.

2: Nen City Square 

Bustling and busy. The city square is the heart of commerce in Nen. Given the difficult terrain of the tears of Nobis, Nen often serves as a "last destination" for travellers and merchants alike. Further, due to the magical inclinations of the city, some of the rarest items in the land can be found here, peddled as common goods due to their abundance. For many, the sight of Nen City Square is like one from a storybook.

3. The Grand Archive

 Thick with the scent of aged wood and ink. A vast expanse of dimly lit chambers, shelves groaning under the weight of arcane tomes and ancient scrolls. The silence within is oppressive, broken only by the occasional scratch of quill on parchment and the soft murmurs of scribes. They work vigorously and move with a grim determination. The scribes cradle ancient tomes like fragile newborns, their fingers tracing the words of power as they feverishly transcribe the knowledge onto fresh parchment. They move with mechanical precision, entirely consumed and focused on the task at hand: the preservation of knowledge. The Calamity, whispered of in hushed tones, casts over their every action, an unseen guillotine poised to sever the threads of Nen's history.

The library itself seems to moan and groan, its ancient timbers bearing witness to the weight of knowledge it houses. The flickering candles cast elongated shadows that dance across the shelves like ghostly wraiths. As the scribes carry out their grim duty, a palpable sense of impending doom permeates the air, leaving an indelible mark on the Grand Archive of Nen—a mausoleum of knowledge, condemned to witness the unravelling of its own secrets so that they not be lost to time.

4. The University Gardens (formally the Bellwind Gardens or Bellwind Quad)

Named not after the university's first headmistress, but arguably the greatest. Headmistress Bellwind governed the school at the peak of the Magical Renaissance; a time when magic was becoming less confined as a hereditary, innate, and ancient art, and more viable as a scholarly pursuit. Fun fact, Headmistress Bellwind invented the Feather Float spell-- used both by the party in the Library in episode 16 and by students practicing their studies in this very garden. Every year, it is customary for a group of students to plant snapdragons in the beds lining the grass.

 5. University Housing

Though not every student or faculty member chooses to live here, everyone who lives in this district is tied to the university in some way or another. Off of school nights, this district is arguably the loudest in the city, as the scholars inside vibrate with excess energy to burn off (with none of the euphoric, quiet serenity of Alina's). As with every place of education in every realm, there's rumours of a ghost in the bathroom, but nobody can ever seem to settle on which bathroom they're in. Boo!

6. Guard Barracks, Prison, and Courthouse

This area, like all areas, has reached a new low in activity with the fleeing of the Calamity; however, at no point in the city's history was this neighbourhood ever particularly busy. Two fun facts which may contribute to Nen's reputation: they have the highest rate of non-violent crime on the continent, and the lowest rate of violent crimes. As a result, the guards and court-systems in the city tend to be seen as more bureaucratic than purely punitive.

7. The Haunted House

In a city chock full of powerful magicians like Nen, supernatural occurrences that may be ordinarily quite devastating become rather mundane. Take hauntings, for example. Nen had it's usual share of spectres and poltergeists (perhaps even more so, given its citizens predilection for exploding themselves via magical experimentation). But one canny wizard decided it would be far more efficient to simply extract all the ghosts from every haunted house, crypt, and spooky basement in Nen and jam them all into one residence built from the ground up for that express purpose: pre-cracked windows, perpetually groaning doors, and a localized thunderstorm crackling twenty-four hours a day. The ghosts love it, and it's a major tourist attraction besides.

8. The Church of Ommo

Everyone knows prolonged exposure to deep forbidden magics can have a...smoothing effect on the brain. Enter Ommo, a wizard who spent so much time locked up in his study with dangerous alchemical substances that he was convinced he had attained true enlightenment of the soul. Selling his discoveries and equipment to fund a church, this new one-man religion preached a simple doctrine: peace, fellowship, and unlimited chocolate chip pancakes at breakfast. Sadly, as is the case with such things, Ommo was run out of Nen by a mob within the year.

9. Leszerat's Playhouse

What was once a grand venue for opera and ballet found its clientele waning in recent years as tastes started to shift. When aspiring promoter Leszerat agreed to take on the theatre's debt, they transformed it into a rather vulgar showcase of farce, cabaret, and burlesque. Naturally, it was tremendously successful. Sadly, if the troupe hadn't been so split up during their time in the city (and if the Calamity hadn't emptied out half of Nen) they could have made quite the killing here!

10. The Eastern Gate

In the time before the Calamity, the Eastern Gate was Nen's least-used egress, as only small hamlets lie sparsely on the land between Nen and the icy chasm known as the Tears of Nobis. However, as our merchants (and many others) clamour for the safety of Astra, the Eastern Gate has become one of the last hives of activity in the city. It's also home to what are arguably Nen's best food stalls, including Witchymama's and Alaka-Jam!

11: The Ramshackle

This is Nen's poorest and shabbiest neighbourhood, often home to those who don't have the magical aptitude (or connections) to break into the city's upper echelons. Despite this, the Ramshackle is a vibrant place, full of celebration and song, and a good place to score deeply discounted magic services, so long as you don't ask too many questions about the ingredients of the potion you're about to drink.

12: Alina's Hookah Lounge

Near the Southern Gate travellers will find a staircase winding down to a sumptuous, smoky basement lounge. Inside, proprietress Alina is happy to offer an intoxicating array of magical vapours, granting customers anything from a mild high to true magical weightlessness. With the downturn in activity in Nen, many of Alina's serving girls and dancers have abandoned the city, forcing her to offer deep discounts on her wares - it took great restraint for Sylvie to only spend four or five hours here.

Thanks for taking this tour of Nen with us! We can't wait to see what the future holds for The Many Merchants of Malune!