Azuros clings to the highest peaks of northern Erpeus, a collection of stone villages surrounding the ancient Shogi Monastery. The wind here never stops. It scours the rocks, howls through the passes, and shapes everything about life on the mountain. The monks who live here have learned to work with that wind, developing air magic techniques that produce results other practitioners consider impossible.
Reaching Azuros requires climbing through Lier's Murder Hills and then ascending paths that would challenge mountain goats. Most people never try. Those who do arrive in a place that feels untouched by time, with the same stone buildings, the same rituals, the same silence that has defined the monastery for centuries.
The Path to Azuros
Reaching the monastery requires traversing Lier's Murder Hills, a journey dangerous enough that many pilgrims never arrive. The monks don't acknowledge this problem. Violence is forbidden, even in self-defense, and they won't escort travelers or clear the roads.
Some pilgrims hire guards in Hessam. Others travel in groups for safety. Many turn back. Those who make it through arrive at Azuros exhausted, robbed, sometimes wounded, and find no sympathy. The journey is considered the first test of devotion.
Air Magic Tradition
The Shogi Monastery has developed air magic techniques found nowhere else on Alaria. Students begin by learning to feel the wind as a presence, a partner, eventually an extension of themselves.
Advanced practitioners achieve remarkable abilities:
- Wind-walking: Moving across air as if it were solid ground
- Storm-speaking: Communicating with or through weather phenomena
- Lightning-calling: Drawing electrical discharge from the clouds
- Flight: True flight, sustained movement through the air rather than gliding or jumping
The greatest monks are said to become one with the wind itself, their physical forms optional. Whether this is truth or legend, no outsider has confirmed.
Relations with the World
Azuros has no relations with the world at all. The monastery trades nothing, fights no one, and participates in no politics. Lier's merchants have tried repeatedly to establish commerce; they always fail. The gnomes of Mkinti don't bother trying.
Occasionally, a trained monk leaves the monastery to serve elsewhere as a teacher, advisor, or guardian. These departures are never purchased or requested. The monk simply knows they're called to go. Their abilities make them valuable, but they serve on their own terms and leave when they choose.
The outside world views Azuros with a mixture of awe and frustration. The monks possess powers that could change the course of wars, and they refuse to use them. They hold knowledge that scholars would kill for, and they share nothing. They're admired and resented in equal measure, and they don't seem to notice either.