Setreed stands at the heart of Orudara, not by chance, but by accumulation. Long before the continent fractured into rival city-states, Setreed had already become its cultural and intellectual center. Roads converged there. Scholars gathered there. Power learned to speak in measured tones behind fortified walls.
The city rises near Crystal Lake, far from the ocean yet never isolated from it. Trade routes from every direction pass through Setreed before reaching the coast. This inland position allowed the city to thrive without dependence on naval dominance. It also allowed the city to survive earlier scourges that broke lesser cities along the shore. Each survival left its mark. Walls were added, then reinforced, then layered again. It became the most fortified city-state in Orudara, not because it feared attack, but because it remembered.
Setreed’s strength lies as much in knowledge as in arms. It is home to the University, the oldest continuous institution of learning in human history. From its halls emerged the earliest systems of record keeping, trade regulation, and political theory. Alongside it grew the Information Guild, whose reach eventually extended beyond Orudara itself. Records, maps, and intelligence flowed through Setreed long before the word “guild” carried weight elsewhere.
Although Setreed lies inland, it maintains a Pirate Guild presence. This is not contradiction but calculation. The city understood early that control of information and control of movement are inseparable. Pirates brought news as often as plunder. Its leaders tolerated them, watched them, and used them when convenient. Order in the city has always been pragmatic rather than moral.
Every few centuries a scourge came. It wiped out Setreed and its people. Bu they recovered each time. Prosperity followed. With it came confidence. The city’s leaders grew accustomed to stability enforced by walls, knowledge, and precedent. Warnings from beyond the city were weighed, debated, and often deferred. Leaders dismissed threats that did not conform to existing frameworks as exaggeration or ambition. When Telimicas began to reshape the social order of Orudara, Setreed’s leaders recognized the disturbance but underestimated its momentum.
Setreed did not fall first. That is its quiet tragedy.
By the time collapse became undeniable, Setreed still stood. Its walls held. Its archives remained intact. Its institutions continued to function. Yet the systems it had perfected proved too slow to respond to a crisis born not of invasion, but of human resentment and collective failure.
In the end, Setreed ensured that what survived Orudara would remember Setreed not only as a fortress of civilization, but as a lesson in how power can outlast wisdom.