The Ivories, a district whose exact founding date is unknown, was established shortly after the construction of The Mandible Maw in 104 CR. Designed to be the crown jewel of Hasaldon, it served as a testament to those who had not only survived the city's brutal meritocracy but had triumphed within it. Perched on the highest plateau, it overlooked the calcified walls and the grim industrial sprawl below.
Constructed from the bleached, polished ribs of dragons slain during the Shadow War and the Dragon's Fury, The Ivories stood for over a millennium as a pristine monument. It housed the Marrow Lords, the bureaucratic aristocracy who meticulously managed the city's tithes, known as the Marrow Tolls, and the grim economy of bone and ash.
However, a shift began in 1248 CR. Following widespread chaos across Coia, marked by the destruction of the Herthe Gateway and unsettling rumors of Velsharoon's cults infiltrating the lower classes, a profound paranoia gripped The Ivories. The once-proud meritocracy curdled into rampant nepotism, and the intricate bureaucracy transformed into a weapon of exclusion.
The Marrow Lords grew increasingly fearful that the Osteons, the bone-armored commoners, had been compromised by the same dark forces plaguing the rest of the continent. In early 1249 CR, driven by this growing fear and acting against the express wishes of the Triad of the Spine, the Marrow Lords made a drastic decision. They sealed The Ivories off from the rest of Hasaldon, barricading the filigreed bridges and effectively creating a city within a city.
By July 1249 CR, The Ivories had become a gilded prison of its own making. The lower districts, now starving due to the severe trade chokehold and incited by agitators loyal to Krog The Cleaver, began flinging firebombs and refuse over the separation walls. Inside, the aristocrats maintained a delusional semblance of order.
They held masquerades in smoke-filled ballrooms, with quartets playing loudly enough to drown out the screams from outside. The administration meticulously issued complex zoning ordinances to combat the fires devouring their opulent estates, steadfastly refusing to break the barricades to let common firefighters in, lest the "unclean" enter. The district now exists as a beautiful, dying beast, consuming itself while its bureaucrats tirelessly document their own demise in triplicate.
While the Triad of the Spine struggles to govern the chaos below, the Marrow Lords rule only the ashes above. Unaware that their desperate isolation has tragically made them the perfect incubation ground for the very corruption they had sought to escape, The Ivories is socially collapsing, physically burning, and tragically deluded.
