Vlad

The northern capital of Cerberus, under a hilltop castle, and the largest city in the country. It trades with Brazzant across the water and it does not answer to the same rules as anywhere else on the island.

Vlad Varanov gave the city his name, held the island against the giants, and ruled it until the great houses combined to kill him. The province stayed in the family. Alfred Varanov holds it now — a vampire like his father and his exact opposite, an intellectual and a pacifist who governs the whole north from an office lit by a stained-glass window.

The province owes neither the levies nor the constraints imposed on the other lords, and its lord spends considerable care keeping it that way. The Council of Mages writes to him about the perpetual accord and the terms of his annual contribution; Perennus Albion has audited him in the field and reported that Vlad pays too little tax.

The dwarves who build here are careful not to raise anything that would clash with the city. The Varanov library holds rare tomes and scrolls, and Varanov children attend the Academy like those of any other great house.

It is also where Émile Adelbrand lived alone in a great house full of libraries meant to impress visitors, and where the dwarf Bolin forged two plain rapiers for a baker's son.