Khaoritan

The ancient city of Khaoritan was once the capital city of the great Sycharian Elves.  In the thousand years after the ascension and before the gloom, Khaoritan was the central city for trade among the human and elven peoples. What information is left of this likely mythical city are tales of a dark age of evil and human sacrifice during the days before the gloom.  For though it was once home of the divine gods, it was also home to the nameless ones.

The ancient story of Khaoritan. 

The city was once ruled by early servants of the primal god, Isxiltahar, called the Yuankenu. The god, Isxiltahar, ruled the city and guided its growth for an age.  As a gift for their devotion, Isxiltahar the Balance Bringer gave them the Ritual of Transformation allowing the most honored to become celestial Couatl. The people of Khaoritan sought only the protection of the natural order of the world.  The ancient leonin and tabaxi lived with the yuankenu in peace and were protected by the might of Isxiltahar even during the primal wars.  The yuankenu sometimes even joined in the war after the invasion of Evermorn by the gods of Evernigh. True to the heart of Isxiltahar, the yuankenu mediated the conflict between mortals and gods. After the destruction of Isxiltahar by the Ischarlin Shamans, the yuankenu were lost and without direction. 

After the defeat of Au Puch by Tamoachil,  a trio of demon-lords from Evernigh called Usukun, Uyitzin, and Yantho entered the city from the Maelstrom Deep, the portal to Evernigh, and seduced many of the elites of the Yuankenu, the people of the city, that they could become gods.  The demons claimed to be children of Isxiltahar.  Many of the people rejected the call of demon-lords and were cursed.    Those that followed the Yantho Trio were called the yuan-ti. Many of the yuankenu escaped this horrible time and sought for ways to return Isxiltahar to life, but they wasted a thousand years on this folly. 

Eventually, the yuan-ti grew into a powerful army, shedding their good natures in exchange for great power from the demon-lords.  They built three mighty temples to the demon lords and the mighty Temple of Tamoachan, named for the greatest of the yuankenu champions.  They renamed the city Xitalan, or home of gods, and their empire scourged the north for 200 years. 

The demon lords perverted the Legend of the Twelve. They transformed the 9 shrines of virtue into horrifying rituals of death and sacrifice. As the Xitalian Empire grew in power, the yuan-ti competed for the honor of demonic rituals to transform them into even darker corruptions. Those who failed in the shrines were sacrificed to the demon lords. 

After the end of the Xitalian Empire, the city was renamed Khaoritan after the Khaori Alliance.  The architecture of the inner city remained in memory of the yuankenu, but the elves and dwarves built a beautiful metropolis of canals around the dormant caldera. During the Age of Empires, the Khaori Empire commanded most of the continent except the far west, the dwarven empire of Ghimlinor in the south, and the Jarl Clans in the shadows of the Kelgud Mountains.

The city was completely destroyed by the Cataclysm leaving nothing but a crater of ruins on Mount Nuangi. 

In its place now is a Realm of Dread born of the dreams of Tamoachil. It resembles ancient Xitilan.