Location from Mage Errant by John Bierce
A flying fortress-city carved into a mountain above the continent's largest Labyrinth — home to the Grand Library, a 13-member council, and the Great Power Kanderon Crux who founded it as a bulwark against empires.
Skyhold is simultaneously a city, a fortress, an academy, and a political statement. Built atop the continent's largest Labyrinth — a mana well that tears between universes — it draws power from a source that most civilizations would fear to approach. Kanderon Crux founded it as a deliberate counter to empire: a place where knowledge and magical talent matter more than bloodline or national allegiance. The fortress flies. This fact, stated plainly, captures something essential about Skyhold's philosophy: it refuses to be pinned down, claimed, or sieged by conventional means. Its 13-member council governs daily affairs, but Kanderon's presence looms behind every decision — not as a tyrant but as a founder whose power makes democracy a choice rather than a necessity. The Grand Library alone would make Skyhold a wonder — over twelve million indexed books in an extraplanar space that Kanderon maintains as her personal domain. But the Labyrinth beneath gives Skyhold something rarer: a constant source of raw mana, labyrinth stones, and the occasional incursion of labyrinthine creatures that keep the garrison sharp.
An entire city carved into and around a mountain peak, its stone corridors and carved halls extending deep into the rock while towers and battlements crown the summit. The fortress drifts above the Skyreach Mountains, casting enormous shadows across the peaks below. Bridges span chasms between carved spires, and the air thrums with residual mana bleeding up from the Labyrinth far beneath the foundations. Tens of thousands of inhabitants fill its markets, academies, and residential quarters.
Also known as: Skyhold, the Flying Fortress, the Mountain Academy