Sschindylryn

Sschindylryn was situated miles below the King’s Forest of Cormyr. This drow city was a strong trading power in the Underdark but a minor military one, at best.

History
Around 1136 DR, Sschindylryn was infiltrated by the Jaezred Chaulssin. They took control over a minor noble house and installed a fosterage. The leader of this fosterage in 1372 DR was Patron Father Ilphtrin Imphraezl.

The city was very war-like, using their portals to raid other underdark settlements and cities. At some point in its history, Sschindylryn lost a war against Menzoberranzan. The defeat caused an almost complete demilitarization of the city. What followed was a time of rebuilding the city as a mercantile power. Toward that end, the city's spellcasters specialized in magic of divination and such that allowed easier travel.

Sschindylryn enjoyed, for a Lolth-ruled city, rare political and social stability that resulted from the ruling priestesses' inaction in regards of following Lolth's philosophy of strife, as well as economic stability and power which the male-dominated merchant class has built through surprisingly peaceful means.

But Lolth was a goddess who enforced and enjoyed internal strife. Prior to the Silence of Lolth, the ruling priestesses started to fear that their city's stability would cost them Lolth's favor. Their solution to avert her disfavor was to start killing each other. The priestesses' inability to gather people outside of their church to fight for them resulted in a series of murder which were more less enacted personally, thus preventing the casualties to spill outside of the priesthood. Due to the priesthood's near-self-destruction, the male dominated merchants took matters in their hands, resulting in a city, by the time of the Silence of Lolth, that was mostly controlled by male drow. After losing, if not nominally at least in the practical sense, their power over the city, some priestesses accelerated the conflict by converting to Kiaransalee and reviving dead priestesses in the hopes of realizing vengeance on other priestesses. The ruling males did not love Kiaransalee's clergy but unlike the time when Lolth's clergy ruled Sschindylryn, they tolerated the new faith, though it wasn't clear whether the tolerance came out of genuine religious tolerance, hopes that the priesthood killed itself into extinction or simple disinterest.

Location
There doesn't appear to be any recent information about Sschindylryn, other than its appearance on a map in FR:U 124. The map places the city in a location that doesn't match other sources, which place Sschindylryn under the King's Forest. The FR:U map places the city under the eastern farm lands. Assuming the location is wrong, the Plungepool discussion found at Volo's Guide to Cormyr mentioning Lake Daerbraun is the lake beside Sschindylryn.

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3rd edition states that the city is located on the shore of Lake Thalmiir. Notes about the Plungepool describe how a river within the King's Forest falls into the Underdark. The falls eventually lead to an underground lake known to the drow as Daerbraun.

Description
The layout in Annihilation (5th book in the War of the Spider Queen series) says that Sschindylryn is contained in a pyramid shaped cavern having three sides each two miles long with the tip two miles high. In the outer edges of the cavern great trenches or moats have been dug around the city with several expanses of stone at various intervals around the city centre crossing between the two areas. Slave quarters exist on the other side of these bridges away from the city itself.

The entire city scales up toward the city's center which is a giant ziggurat (a mountain of buildings and other structures). Many of the buildings are constructed from stone and brick (unusual for a drow city) and are fairly close together. They rest on stepped tiers, starting at the bottom of the cavern and climbing towards the ziggurat and continuing up. Sschindylryn's center (the ziggurat) is split into 9 levels and rises to a height of perhaps 2200 feet or a mile and a half.

Levels 1-3 are the Gate Houses. Accounting for approximately a third of the ziggurat's height, these levels house most of Sschindylryn's thousands of gates. And other than the city's many gates, there is no discernible way in or out of the great cavern.

Levels 4-6 are the Trade Levels which is the site of most, if not all, of the city's trade.

Levels 7-9 are home to the city's High Houses, or nobles.

At the pinnacle of the ziggurat sits the temple of Lolth.

The city is built on a kuo-toan ruin, both above and below the water, and even the new architecture retains a piscine style.

Appearances
Sschindylryn is featured in Turbine's game Dungeons and Dragons Online as an intrinsic part of the expansion Menace of The Underdark in which Lolth seeks to gain the power of Mystra by locating the Thread of the Weave.

Features
Sschindylryn's Gate in Menzoberranzan (source - WotC web site): Sschindylryn's Gate is a portal to Oerth that was discovered by scouts from the city of Sschindylryn. Sschindylryn is a drow city under Cormyr known for its use of portals to explore and conquer other parts of the Underdark. During a battle with Menzoberranzan, the portal was damaged, and none from the western city know how to operate it or to where it leads.