Artera

Artera is a city located in the continent of Ilvyss.

Overview
The beautiful sun and sea-soaked climate of Artera is ideal for growing grapes. This, to the surprise of no one, led to the rise of extremely prolific wineries on the island. Ironically, the Eternal Storm to the southeast of the island kicks up enough water into the atmosphere that Artera gets very regular light rainfall, even during sunny days. There's a local legend that the constant devil's showers were being discussed near a tiefling who overheard and misunderstood the meaning. He then immigrated to Artera in the hopes of finding a home near those like him; however, when he arrived and found that wasn't quite about to happen, he set the gears in motion to make it so. At present, the city is largely a combination of tieflings and dragonborn, both rather outlandish misfits who don't much like adhering to the bonds of society anyway.

Almost as expected from a city that produces much of the hemisphere’s wine, Artera is a massive tourist destination and center of debauchery. Carnivals and masked parties are commonplace, with the elite throwing the latter nearly nightly. Lavishness and excess are the names of the game in Artera, and the beauty standards reflect this. The more elaborate the outfit, jewelry, and skin ornamentation, the more beautiful you are considered--this is in part due to the prevailing dragonborn and tiefling populations, as horns are something else to be ornamented, and they certainly add to any masked look. While there are carnivals specifically for the moneyed of Artera, they largely serve as the entertainment form for the lower and middle classes, who can't afford to throw or attend such parties. Carnivals almost always include games, rides, and shows, though qualities of each vary from carnival to carnival. Unlike many other carnivals across the world, the Arteran carnivals are fixed in location, which allows for much more intricately designed and impressive constructions. Acres and acres of the island are devoted solely to these, and the main boulevard that houses the entrances to most (even if they do have long and winding drives to more secluded locations after the gates) is colloquially referred to as Carnival Row.

Rumors about Artera are many, as few places can see so many people and not have them all return with their own stories about them. Of course, most are extremely positive: tales of incredible magic, of sights and sounds and fireworks that completely blanket the night sky every single day. However, there are always going to be darker rumors that are hard to root out the source of. Plenty of people have a friend of a cousin's sister-in-law's friend that saw something disturbing in Artera: carnivals as guises for kidnapping mills, the vain having masks sewn or melted onto their skin to achieve their perfect ideal of beauty, or even monsters being wrangled, summoned, or even created in order to guard the grounds of the more exclusive carnivals and vineyards. There never is much substance to the rumors, but enough people in disparate locations swear by them to at least raise an eyebrow.