Khilaad is a coastal village on the western edge of the Denoric Gulf. It is the birthplace of Evrith.

At Khilaad, a short, steep valley in the mountains opens up into a relatively wide, flat space between two ridges projecting out into the sea. A stream carries water down to the sea, flowing into a shallow, sandy harbor whose beach is protected from the waves by rocky spurs.

The homes of the village are clustered along the stream, while boat-building and any crafts that involve unpleasant wastes are built along the beach and storehouses are on elevated ground at the edges of the valley. Between heavy tropical rains swelling the stream and seasonal currents causing the ocean to rise locally, flooding is a relatively common occurrence and most buildings are constructed on platforms supported by stilts and joined by walkways. Construction is largely in wood and bamboo analogues.

The houses are grouped into five compounds. Each compound consists of a cluster of thickly-interconnected platforms belonging to a matrilineal kinship group. Each compound is centered on a large hall, which contains a space for communal dining and other gatherings, small bedrooms for adolescent girls, and a set of quarters for the group's matriarch, who presides over the clan and acts as its priestess before the siathar. There is a separate building for adolescent boys and unmarried men who are sons of the group's women; male bands who might be visiting the village will also often stay in the mens' quarters if they are not occupying the inn, though depending on the availability of space they may need to be split among several compounds' buildings. Aside from the large hall and the mens' quarters, each married woman has a small house for herself, her husbands, and her prepubescent children, as well as small miscellaneous buildings such as storage sheds and privies.

The main occupation of the villagers is fishing, undertaken mostly by the men and older boys in shifts. Fish and other seafood accordingly makes up a large part of their diet, though some fruit vines and bushes are grown on the surrounding lower slopes and hunting is possible further up the valley. The gathering of wood (mostly from local fast-growing bamboo-like plants) is mostly the province of women, as is the construction and repair of buildings. This association with wood extends to carving; Denoric homes traditionally incorporate richly carved panels in the walls, which a newly-married woman will often begin replacing with her own work once she moves in, and local women are usually heavily involved in building and decorating fishing boats. Most other crafts are shared between the sexes.

There is relatively little to draw outsiders specifically to Khilaad. The coastal road runs above the village, and a path runs up the valley to an inn where the road crosses the stream; most trade stops there the rest without involving the village itself, though there is just about enough gold dust to be panned from the streambed that a few merchants find it worth their while to hawk their wares there. Most visitors to the village itself are male bands whose members are looking for companionship among the local women. Sea traffic is likewise rare; sometimes small loads of items are brought by boat from neighboring villages, but there are no docks for managing bulk cargo and larger vessels find it difficult to maneuver into the harbor in any case.

Evrith was born in Khilaad on 71 Cloud 30:8. In mid-to-late 72 Cloud, it became apparent that the young girl was a witch, which sparked an intense debate within the village regarding her fate. Most of the other villagers wished her put to death, but her mother Kazeth and her husbands refused to give Evrith up, and her grandmother, the matriarch of their clan, backed them in their decision. A riot ensued, in which Kazeth's house was attacked and its inhabitants killed. Most of the rest of the clan, fearful of the consequences of taking sides, failed to intervene, resulting in the matriarch having few allies when she attempted to stop the violence; she was also killed during the riot.

It was later discovered that Evrith and her brother Uruth had escaped the village before the rioters reached their house. Considerable ill-feeling remains in the social dynamics of the village, with a number of fault lines within and between clans regarding who was at fault, whether the presence of a witch had been dealt with appropriately, whether the violence and the death of a clan matriarch had been justified, and if the results had been worth the cost.