General Information on Ancient Ruins

There are so many ruins to be found in the world, and those are only the ones that survived The Great Collapse. How great must the ancient world have been.

— Arch Archivist Grau Quillblade

Overview

The reality of the The Ancient Order has faded into myth and legend, but their presence has left a lasting impression even after so many years. Surviving ruins of old world constructions can be found in nearly every corner of this material realm, and more are likely to be discovered by determined adventurers.

Ruined Cities

Vast swaths of land are occupied by cities of almost unfathomable size with buildings that seemingly tower into the sky. Many of these towers are only a mere shadow of their former selves having been reduced by the passage of time and the calamities that befell the world during The Great Collapse. Other impressive structures are the massive coliseums that must have seated thousands of people for various games. The largest of these stadiums have a long round surrounding some kind of interior village. Perhaps these were used to host some kind of racing, or to reenact battles.

Continental Roadways

Arguably the most impressive feat of engineering by the Ancients, a network of vast roadways connecting almost every city, town, and village with each other. This must have facilitated trade of such scale and efficiency beyond the comprehension of people today. These networks included canals that connected bodies of water with each other, some even rumored to travels entire islands and even continents. Much of this network remains, or at least what is left of it. Perhaps it was a far larger and more complex than we are led to believe today. Perhaps in its day it was even more impressive, a feat of construction that will remain unmatched for decades to come.
Amaya's Voyage has revealed that these networks are more common on continents outside of The Quassus Continent.

Towers of Iron

No one knows what these skeletal towers were meant to do, but their remains are a common sight across our lands. Maybe they were mile stones, or maybe they were outposts. Based on the ruble found at their base, these towers did not always appear as iron skeletons. Time has stripped them of their intended form leaving us with little but our imagination to understand.

Steel Bowls

Perhaps the strangest sort of structures to have been unearthed yet, these bowls come in a wide variety of sizes. Some are the size of dinner plates, others the size of houses. Intact specimens often have one or more arms attached to their rims. Current research has determined that these arms place an object of unknown purpose within the focal point of the bowls. Why the ancients would design such curious objects? Current theories suggest that the ancients build these bowls in order to collect some kind of material, possibly energy. Perhaps these were used to help collect or even control the arcane forces of that old world.

It is a common misconception that the Ancients are long gone- passed on from the world of the living. Many remain trapped in the ruins of their creation, and are just as faded. You know them only as ghosts, specters, or apparitions. They cannot leave until the damage to magic's fabric is healed.

— Wallis, The Wizard of the Occulus Sea

Haunted Places

Many of these ruins are known to be haunted by specters, likely the trapped souls of ancients who were unable to find their way to the afterlife. One should avoid traveling a ruined city at night as that is when the ghosts awaken. These areas are also known for their occasional undead outbreak as most of these ancient ruins are also mass graves due to the nature of The Great Collapse. This phenomena lends some evidence to the idea that the initial onset of the collapse was sudden and violent.
The ghost and undead phenomena are reasons for why new settlements are rarely built upon ancient ruins. The City of Sol is a glaring exception, although that was made possible when the first King of Helia effectively firebombed the entirety of the ruined city with Helian Fire to clear out the undead bodies. The King also employed several mages and ghost hunters to cleanse the area of arcane fields and to banish the ghosts. It is said that Sol still has to contend with unexpected outbreaks now and then, but the city's guard are well versed in containment of such events.

Magic Fields

Magic Fields tend to concentrate within ruins. As such, one must be aware of the signs of magic, or otherwise have equipment sensitive to magical energies, to safely navigate the ruins. For this reason, it is suggested that one hire or otherwise obtain the services of a mage. Well versed mages can disperse these fields or render then innocuous.

Note(s) from the Archivists:

I used to secretly play around in an old, ancient building when I was younger. It was a small coliseum. The things I saw in there and the relics I was able to bring back with me was where my fascination with learning about the world began. - Archivist Taenya Naïlo
I used to play around in a small, underground dwarven chamber when I was little. The entrance to it has since collapsed. - Archivist Enna
I accidentally destroyed the first ruin I found. I try to be more careful now. - Archivist Theta