First appearance: Skypiercer Part 1
Cor’thun is a city of white stone, columns and fountains under a sky that never stops setting. It lies in a realm outside The Void entirely, which makes it the only place the show has ever left the Void to visit. The young Elusia was sent there in exile and lived there for centuries. It is where she fought beside Atalantos and Kaja, and where the story of Skypiercer begins with the city under siege. Long after she left, its name kept turning up in the arena as a battle cry, a brand and a sword.
Description
Cor’thun spreads across sloping hills several miles wide. It is built of white stone and lined with columns, aqueducts, ornate fountains and statues. Above it hangs a black-hole singularity that dominates the sky. Light streaks endlessly into it, which gives the city an eternal sunset. The streets climb and fall with the hills, served by both stairs and ramps. As the narration put it while describing the place: “It’s an accessible city, there’s both.”
The city is divided into districts. There is a market square and a business district. A lower district sits near the gates. The southern district is poorer and working class, and it draws its water from a common aqueduct; the nearest other fountain is about a mile and a half away. Two great gates guard the walls. The Eastern Gate is the city’s vital entrance, with a drawbridge. The Western Gate is where the soldier Lucien kept his post.
Above it all stands the palace, inlaid with gold. Inside is a long throne room where Emperor Thornos presides, and where the city held its feast. Cor’thun also has a library, mines outside its walls, and its own symbol.
The city holds itself to lofty ideals. It is reportedly so honorable that the library has no librarian. Those ideals have limits, though: murder in Cor’thun is not uncommon.
History
Elusia’s Exile
Elusia came to Cor’thun on the Night of the Long Shadow, the night her uncle Agdrel seized power and killed her father. Crossing out of the Void is extremely difficult, and the Knights of Chaos gave their lives in a blood rite to send her away. Emperor Thornos later recalled that she arrived “some 300 years ago … in the time of my ancestors,” when his forebear Empress Juntikar ruled. Juntikar was the first to teach her the sword. Elusia was quick to add: “And the bow.” Juntikar died long before the events of Skypiercer, and Elusia outlived her.
Long afterward, the Grandmaster saw something of herself in Elianna, who reminded her of the time “when she had just arrived at Cor’thun and was lost in the world after the death of her father.”
The Siege (Skypiercer)
In Skypiercer Part 1, the story opened with Cor’thun under siege. Explosions rocked the city, trebuchets hurled fireballs and gates fell. Horns sounded to warn that the Eastern Gate was under attack. Atalantos led his soldiers through the streets, Kaja raised skeletons in the market square, and Elusia flew over the city. The lower district near the gates was destroyed, and there was a cave-in at the mines outside the walls.
It was in Cor’thun that Vythorn finally found her. Reaching the city from the Void had taken him decades of study and three days of recharging, all so he could bring her home.
Before the party left, Kaja tied up her loose ends. Most of her associates were dead, so she noted that those loose ends tied themselves. She said goodbye to the Cor’thun library and lifted two books with flawless sleight of hand: a steamy romance and a book on the arcane arts. The party’s last mission in the city took them to the aqueduct, to go after Plintos himself, the “head of the snake.” Plintos’s house, House Plintos, is also the family of Thea Plintos.
Cor’thun went with them when they left. In the finale, the party fought The Dragon Knights, the masked dragonborn who served The Shadow King. During that fight, Atalantos seared the symbol of Cor’thun into one of them.
Shadows Reign
Centuries later, the Shadow King returned and pitted Atalantos against Kaja in S4E1 — Shadows Reign — Atalantos v Kaja. Atalantos fought as though Cor’thun stood behind him. Seeing the corpses lying about, he challenged her: “Bring upon your minions and let the army fight against the spear of Cor’thun.”
He trapped her in ice and branded her with the symbol of Cor’thun. She was immune to the heat, but her mind filled with the screams of Cor’thun’s battlefields. Then he addressed The Acolytes directly:
“Tonight, we fight for Cor’thun, and Cor’thun wishes their demise.”
When his spear failed him, he slammed his shield into her skull and knocked her into an ankle-deep pool of thick, mucusy blood. Later he declared that “the spear of Cor’thun will turn into the blade of Cor’thun” and drew a massive greatsword. He killed the skeleton that had struck him, the blade locking in its skull as it froze over, scolded her for focusing on “quantity rather than quality,” and then turned the dead skeleton against her.
Cor’thun’s last word in that fight went to Kaja. She seized the flames devouring Atalantos, spun them like threads, and formed them into the shape of the Sword of Cor’thun. With the will of everyone behind her, she launched it at the Shadow King. It pierced his chest. He looked down (“Excellent showing”), turned incorporeal, formed himself around the blade and stepped out in front of it as the magic faded.
Atalantos promised to try again “with two spears rather than one,” which set off a round of strategic brilliance at the table (“Why didn’t Cor’thun think of this earlier?”). The Grandmaster suggested putting spears on the bottoms of feet and on arms. Afterward, the players noted that the Sword of Cor’thun was now loose in the Void: one of the Acolytes had it stuck through their chest, and was thought to still be alive.
A Sore Subject
The city still comes up when the Grandmaster and the Arbiter bicker. During the episode where Akumu fought Jinx, the Arbiter grumbled, “I should have left you in Cor’thun. I should have just left you there. I should have just never come.” The Grandmaster was unbothered: “I’ve saved your life more than once. You’re as good as Doug,” meaning Doug the Pug.
Notable Figures
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: raised in Cor’thun in exile after the Night of the Long Shadow.
- Emperor Thornos: ruler of Cor’thun during Skypiercer, who presides in the palace throne room.
- Empress Juntikar: Thornos’s ancestor and Elusia’s first teacher of the sword.
- Atalantos: led Cor’thun’s soldiers in the siege and later fought in its name in the Void.
- Kaja: raised skeletons in the market square and robbed the library on her way out.
- Lucien: soldier posted at the Western Gate.
- Plintos: the “head of the snake” the party pursued at the aqueduct.
- The Arbiter: crossed out of the Void to bring Elusia home, and sometimes says he regrets it.