Hloamar

Helemar is the regional capital and largest city of Nir Province in the Aurlûnor Velande. Once known as Sokalis, Helemar was a part of the former Takumakken Empire prior to it's collapse. It was founded by the Crow people as a trade outpost in hopes of finding trade partners in the Gulf of Heaven, though it was transfered to the Aurlûnor Velande in the Treaty of Smaugonik. It would eventually be attacked by barbarians, razed, and rebuilt; following the reconstruction, the city became the primary shipyard and semi-official home base of the Aurlûnoren Velandic Navy.

Sokalis Era
Full article: Nir Province

Though the area had been previously occupied by Celestial Elves and the Yi'yen culture, the city of Helemar/Sokalis itself was founded by the Takumakken Empire. Its then-mayor, Link0Pasta, would oversee municipal administration.

The Takumakken years would see the construction of a few houses, a Nether portal, wheat field (though agriculture was not very conducive to the brackish coastal swamp) and livestock pens, as well as a bizarre series of tunnels used for mining and quarrying. Much of the quarried rock was used to build the old Sokalis Cathedral.

Transfer Crisis & Great Fire
In the final days of the Takumakken Empire, the town was put into a kind of condominium state with the Treaty of Smaugonik, but was not formally annexed fully into the Aurlûnor Velande until Takumakken's collapse. This was met by hostility from the new emperor of Takumakken, which demanded that Aurlûnor to relinquish the claims. War almost broke out yet again, but a compromise was signed. With that, the settlement was formally annexed and renamed to Helemar, which became Aurlûnor's important military outpost along the bay, keeping watch in the east.

Much of former Sokalis would be left to ruin, and it would be a shanty town by the time the Aurlûnoren obtained it. The Great Fire of Helemar would occur following a week after it's capture when barbarians came to raid and pillage it. The fire would destroy most of the buildings in the town.

Helemar Era
New settlers from Lhûmar begun to populate the town, with one of the citizens, Zax, tearing down the then-charred cathedral that was present there as it was a "heretic building", and Mao Meili, a Celestialkin who had lived in Helemar since it was under Takumakken rule, making efforts into rebuilding the town in the same architectural style as the rest of the country, marking Celestialkin domination of the former Crow People outpost. The Great Fire was used as an opportunity by Helemar's surviving residents to rebuild the city. The old Crow buildings are nearly completely demolished or modified beyond recognition, and the new Celestialkin immigrants have taken to fishing the swamps around the city and the coral reef off its coast, bolstering the local identity as a partially-seafaring people of the marshes. After demonstrating her talent and dedication in the rebuilding, the Velereth (Coffeecubus) appointed Ms. Mao as imperial governor of Nir province, granting the town functional autonomy from Lhûmar (the territory was under its de facto control with the lands plugin).

The new Twin Dragon temple, the Temple of the Four Sages, was built atop the foundation of the old cathedral. The city's eastern side was established as a middle-class suburb, adjacent to the shipyard and port facilities owned by the Aurlûnoren Velandic Navy. The original neighborhood and docks in the western part of the city, a district known as Old Town, would be retained as a historic district, and the eastern "New Town" continues to be built up.

In May of 2021, the city would finally be connected by a real bridge to the mainland for the first time in its entire history, making it no longer necessary to access by boat only. The following month, the only modern building other than the Temple, a Femboy Hooters franchise, was built on the last remaining open plot of land in Old Town.