Pvarm

Overview
Pvarm is one of Spauria's wealthiest cities, standing tall and proud within the deep forests that border the Slagrim Mountains. The city has been made rich by the area's abundant natural resources, including fine wood, rich silver mines, and most notably, a seemingly unending supply of diamonds and gemstones. For this reason, Pvarm has become the capital of trade for magical components and equipm0ent. Wizards and arcanists actively seek Pvarm's fine paper, rich magical inks, sturdy staffs and wands, and wealthy supply of diamonds, emeralds, and other gemstones used for powering certain spells.

However, with Pvarm's great wealth comes great danger. The Slagrim Mountains are crawling with gnoll warbands and a plethora of other dangerous beasts, which constantly keep explorers and rangers on their toes. However, with the powerful aid of the Druidic Circle of the Moon, humanity has been able to keep the Slagrim's many threats largely at bay.

History
The city of Pvarm was originally founded in FA 233 by a human adventurer and prospector named Jok Pvar, who had uncovered the rich mining opportunities in the area, and had brought back a band of explorers and monster hunters to aid him in his hunt for silver. When the camp realized that the entire region was rich with gemstones and precious diamonds, their base of operations soon turned into a small settlement. The decades that followed were known as the Emerald Era, and saw Pvarm grow from a small town into a prosperous city. Pvarm quickly became the leading export of jewels, silver, fine paper, and other pristine resources, which drew the particular interest of the Spaurian Mages Association, and would lead to the erection of the Callixtus Academy of Arcana in FA 272. This significant development swelled Pvarm's growth once again, and gave an intellectual quality to the city and it's population. After the construction of Callixtus, several libraries and publishing companies sprang up within the walls, as well as pristine breweries, restaurants and art museums.

In modern IIA, hundreds of years later, citizens of Pvarm are still finding jewels hidden in the earth, and streams sprinkled with silver. The city remains one of the largest exporters of jewelry, precious metals, spell components, paper, spices and wine.

Valley of One Thousand Wolves
A significant event in Pvarm's history was the battle remembered as the Valley of One Thousand Wolves in IA 240, in which gnoll warbands from the Slagrims uncharacteristically joined forces in an attempt to swarm Pvarm and besiege it. Though their military tactics were clumsy and unorganized, the gnolls were brutally savage and completely without fear, making them more than formidable.

With the limited number of available Rangers unable to halt their brute force descent from the Slagrims, the Spaurians gathered their forces and met the enemy head on in the pine forests north of Pvarm for a surprise attack. The battle that followed was one of the bloodiest in Spaurian history, with heavy casualties on Spauria's side and total annihilation for the gnolls. It was this conflict that saved Pvarm, and gave reputation to great warriors such as Kalluin Eyarude "the Silver Snake," and Bucky the Great.

Callixtus Academy
The magic academy specializing in abjuration, divination and illusion is Pvarm's epicenter of arcana. Those who run the academy, as well as those who graduate from it, are handled with a certain degree of caution by those around them. On one hand, Callixtus produces some of the most cunning and skilled mages in Spauria, but on the other, these spellcasters are experts of masterful illusion, mind-altering charms, and precise divination. Rightfully has Callixtus earned nicknames such as "the School of Tricksters."

Classes for aspiring spellcasters begin in mid-autumn, and do not conclude (besides rare and brief holiday breaks) for at least four years afterwards. By the end of this time, students should have an adequate understanding of the mechanics of arcana, and will have chosen to specialize in either enchantment, illusion or divination. Most mages never stop studying and perfecting their spellwork, however, and many end up specializing in multiple schools of magic.

The Spaurian education system conducts semi-annual tests designed to illuminate children with mental expertise and problem-solving abilities, in order to sift out young individuals with potential for a career in arcana. Thus, semi-annually, Callixtus and the other schools of magic accept letters from individuals young and old who wish to enroll in the academy, sifting through several hundred or even thousand, and reducing the number to a dozen or less. To be accepted into an academy of arcana is a high honor, and requires an elite academic understanding, and usually prior skill with magic for one to even dream of entering.

Component Trade
Pvarm is Spauria's source and center of the arcane component trade in Spauria. Everything from focuses to spellbooks to gems, orbs, scrolls, ink and everything in between. Even down to mundane material components such as gnoll fur, bat guano and molasses, Pvarm exports them all. Many businesses and private merchants residing within the city make a fortune off the buying and selling of mundane spellcasting components, especially consumable ones, but the most profitable trade in the arcane market is that of fine paper. Wizards of all schools and levels of expertise will pay enormous amounts of coin for pristine paper, suitable for use in spellbooks and scrolls.

Galathar's
Originally known as Galathar's Wines, the brewery

Trivia

 * Bucky the Great was a human warrior of some renown in the north, and one of the first to settle modern day Pvarm alongside Jok Pvar. He valiantly survived the Valley of One Thousand Wolves, and hunted down several of Pvarm-area's more problematic monsters before being accidentally disintegrated by a hired wizard and eaten by an ochre jelly in IA 244. Bucky's closest friends remarked that he had always hoped he'd perish in some spectacular accident.
 * Every year, just before the beginning of a semester, the students of Callixtus gather for mass fencing tournaments, for those who are familiar with blades. Bards sing to inspire, young men test their skills, and the quick-witted put their illusion spells to good use.