Morqhād was the largest and most heavily fortified city in Morlan. It lay on the Morlan Plains, at the eastern tip of Auriin's mainland and at the end of the great Trade Road. Morqhād was the centre of trade for the region, and was home to rich merchant chiefs, slavers, and sell-swords offering their services in guarding caravans departing for the trade road.
Morqhād was not well connected to other settlements land or sea. At the time of its founding in the early fifth era, the nearest notable settlement was Xharsholm, around a week's horseback ride away, and there weren't yet viable ocean ports nearby. Nonetheless, the city was able to sustain itself thanks to the resourcefulness of its people, and what lay below it. Morqhād was built around a large freshwater spring, fed by an aquifer thought to have run all the way from the Auzgarne Mountains. Not only did this aquifer supply the city with a renewable source of drinking water, but it had also carved cavernous halls into the sanstone below, revealing rich veins of gold, and Adamantium as it went.
Over centuries of merchants and smiths travelling from all over Auriin to benefit from Morqhād's mineral wealth, the great Trade Road was trodden. It made the city truly accessible, opening it up to improved relationships trade with the other cities of the continent.