The Whistful City

The Whistful City is the only large city in the northern mountains, and it has scarcely a thousand residents. It lies on the western bank of the River of Whispers (the central river, flowing from the Peak of Hope) and seems to deal predominantly in mysticism. Poets, seers and madmen are the biggest exports of the Whistful City, and also its biggest imports, since it is mostly those of a… shall we say… impractical bent that take the journey upriver to visit the City. It is by all accounts a marvellous place if you are interested in such things. Low timber buildings painted with murals of dream and nightmare line streets filled with quiet citizens and, by the River, a noticeable whisper in the air.

• The waking of the Mother of All Serpents sent tremors throughout the north, causing massive destruction to the ramshackle buildings of the Whistful City. Currently there is next to no organization of recovery efforts, and the city's future is in danger (Fire Under the Hill, 13/2/2010).
• A group of merchants named the Rice Consortium for the Development Of The North bankrolled the colonisation of the formerly blighted lands between the Palace at Three Rivers and the Whistful City. They are now home to a number of hamlets which operate outside the legal jurisdiction of the White City. Many of them derive their incomes almost entirely from this fact. (In The Shadow Of The Mountains, The Mirror And The Moon)