Zarkhaz’Vuun, the Vault Eternal
Deep within the crushing heart of the Elemental Plane of Earth lies Zarkhaz’Vuun, the Vault Eternal—a sprawling, subterranean metropolis hewn from veins of black diamond and molten glass, where the weight of coin and contract holds more power than kings or gods. It is not a city built in stone—it is stone, polished and shaped by uncountable hands, carved across millennia into a glittering monument to greed, artistry, and eternal bondage.
Ruled by the inscrutable and indulgent Dao, Zarkhaz’Vuun is both bazaar and prison, a place where master artisans are shackled to forges of gold and glass, where bound spirits chisel priceless murals into walls that shift and breathe, and where every breath, every step, every question has a price. Outsiders are tolerated—but never welcomed. Trade flows freely here, as long as it remains profitable, and every visitor walks a fine line between honored guest and indentured servant.
Yet despite the danger, the allure is undeniable. Weapons of perfect balance, runes lost to mortal time, and secrets trapped in crystal await those willing to descend into its depths. But all who enter Zarkhaz’Vuun must remember one rule above all: nothing is given freely, and the Vault always takes more than it returns.
Ruled by the inscrutable and indulgent Dao, Zarkhaz’Vuun is both bazaar and prison, a place where master artisans are shackled to forges of gold and glass, where bound spirits chisel priceless murals into walls that shift and breathe, and where every breath, every step, every question has a price. Outsiders are tolerated—but never welcomed. Trade flows freely here, as long as it remains profitable, and every visitor walks a fine line between honored guest and indentured servant.
Yet despite the danger, the allure is undeniable. Weapons of perfect balance, runes lost to mortal time, and secrets trapped in crystal await those willing to descend into its depths. But all who enter Zarkhaz’Vuun must remember one rule above all: nothing is given freely, and the Vault always takes more than it returns.
Demographics
The population of Zarkhaz’Vuun is overwhelmingly composed of elemental-bound laborers—spirits of stone, dust, crystal, and magma who have been twisted into semi-sentient forms, their wills tethered to contracts inked in obsidian and sealed by Dao pacts. These beings toil endlessly, sculpting new vaults, maintaining the magma-glass infrastructure, or crafting masterpieces for their masters. Interspersed among them are enslaved mortals, drawn from across the planes—dwarves, gnomes, tieflings, and even the occasional unfortunate elf or genasi—each chosen for their specific talents in craftsmanship, metallurgy, or magical shaping. Most have long forgotten freedom, their surnames stripped and identities reduced to guild numbers and collar marks.
Among these laborers walk the free caste, composed almost entirely of Dao nobility, their personal guards—often xorn, galeb duhr, or mercenary ogres—and a small population of tolerated outsiders. These outsiders include extraplanar traders, contracted scholars, ambitious adventurers, and brokered planar diplomats, all of whom reside in strictly monitored quarters and are watched with great interest (and occasional amusement) by the Dao. The balance is delicate; while Zarkhaz’Vuun thrives on trade and fresh ideas, its rulers never forget that every foreigner is a potential resource waiting to be claimed.
Among these laborers walk the free caste, composed almost entirely of Dao nobility, their personal guards—often xorn, galeb duhr, or mercenary ogres—and a small population of tolerated outsiders. These outsiders include extraplanar traders, contracted scholars, ambitious adventurers, and brokered planar diplomats, all of whom reside in strictly monitored quarters and are watched with great interest (and occasional amusement) by the Dao. The balance is delicate; while Zarkhaz’Vuun thrives on trade and fresh ideas, its rulers never forget that every foreigner is a potential resource waiting to be claimed.
Government
Zarkhaz’Vuun is governed by an insular and absolutist caste of Dao oligarchs, each controlling vast sections of the vault through rigidly enforced contracts and inheritance-bound titles of ownership. Governance in the Vault Eternal is not performed through law in the traditional sense, but through the letter of binding agreements, meticulously scribed in elemental tongues and enforced by arcane clauses that often defy mortal understanding. Decisions of policy, territory, and trade are made not by public debate, but through ritualized negotiation duels, where influence is measured in wealth, leverage, and the precise phrasing of ancient agreements.
There is no unified council, nor a throne to challenge; each Dao noble operates within their own dominion of influence, answerable only to older and wealthier entities above them, whose power often stems from ancestral contracts stretching back to the city's founding. Outsiders find the system bewildering at best, as even the most trivial offense—stepping on the wrong sigil-marked floor or speaking without a contracted translator—can be deemed a breach of a binding agreement and punished accordingly. In Zarkhaz’Vuun, power is not held—it is owned, traded, and enforced.
There is no unified council, nor a throne to challenge; each Dao noble operates within their own dominion of influence, answerable only to older and wealthier entities above them, whose power often stems from ancestral contracts stretching back to the city's founding. Outsiders find the system bewildering at best, as even the most trivial offense—stepping on the wrong sigil-marked floor or speaking without a contracted translator—can be deemed a breach of a binding agreement and punished accordingly. In Zarkhaz’Vuun, power is not held—it is owned, traded, and enforced.
Architecture
Zarkhaz’Vuun is not built in the traditional sense; it is excavated, polished, and grown from the surrounding rock strata like a glittering cancer of opulence and oppression. Its structures are inset into the walls of a gargantuan, geode-wrapped cavern—buildings clinging like barnacles to a crystalline void, connected by spiraling bridges of polished obsidian and root-like veins of molten glass that serve as both pathways and illumination. There are no open skies here, only vaults and domes, some miles high, carved from stone so polished it reflects torchlight into infinity.
The city is layered in rings of descending wealth and ascending control: the outer sectors are jagged, raw-hewn from sedimentary rock and filled with slave barracks and forge-smoke; the inner sanctums are mirror-smooth corridors of black diamond, with impossible architecture—walls that refract, floors that ripple underfoot, and thrones grown from amethyst veins with no toolmark to betray their shaping.
Structures here aren’t shaped with hammer and chisel but with geomantic manipulation: Dao and their servitors bend bedrock and precious crystal with precision, crafting entire towers from a single unbroken column of sapphire or growing spires from basalt stalagmites infused with iron and magma glass. Vaults open like blooming petals, and entire neighborhoods rotate or seal based on contract-bound schedules or planar alignments. Artisans work directly into the walls, etching glyphs and geometric murals that shimmer when seen from certain angles. Doors might not open unless you weigh the right amount. Bridges appear only to those who owe nothing. It is an architecture of ego, artistry, and entrapment—beautiful, yes, but also claustrophobic, inverted, and utterly hostile to the idea of nature or chaos.
The city is layered in rings of descending wealth and ascending control: the outer sectors are jagged, raw-hewn from sedimentary rock and filled with slave barracks and forge-smoke; the inner sanctums are mirror-smooth corridors of black diamond, with impossible architecture—walls that refract, floors that ripple underfoot, and thrones grown from amethyst veins with no toolmark to betray their shaping.
Structures here aren’t shaped with hammer and chisel but with geomantic manipulation: Dao and their servitors bend bedrock and precious crystal with precision, crafting entire towers from a single unbroken column of sapphire or growing spires from basalt stalagmites infused with iron and magma glass. Vaults open like blooming petals, and entire neighborhoods rotate or seal based on contract-bound schedules or planar alignments. Artisans work directly into the walls, etching glyphs and geometric murals that shimmer when seen from certain angles. Doors might not open unless you weigh the right amount. Bridges appear only to those who owe nothing. It is an architecture of ego, artistry, and entrapment—beautiful, yes, but also claustrophobic, inverted, and utterly hostile to the idea of nature or chaos.
Climate
Though the Elemental Plane of Earth lacks traditional weather systems, Zarkhaz’Vuun maintains an intense and carefully curated subterranean climate, crafted through the manipulation of magma flows, mineral vents, and bound elemental currents. The air is thick, warm with dry, metallic heat, and carries the subtle tang of molten glass, iron dust, and scorched stone. Humidity is near zero in most districts, save for the Crystal Cloisters, where steam is vented deliberately for delicate arcane processes.
There is no true wind, but airflow is directed through engineered shafts, creating low, constant drafts that circulate slowly, guided by geodesic convection and rune-scripted stone fans. These drafts prevent stagnation and help direct the ever-present volcanic haze toward vent shafts in the city’s upper reaches, leaving most lower levels in a dim haze of reddish emberlight.
Temperature fluctuates sharply by district, with forgeworks and magma channels raising ambient heat well above comfortable mortal norms in places like the Ember Hollow, while noble courts enjoy magically-cooled obsidian floors and flowing mineral fountains of calcified mist. Surface-dwellers find the conditions stifling and disorienting, as their sense of time and temperature begins to warp without the touch of sun or sky. This is a city that doesn’t breathe in the natural sense—it smolders. And within its perfectly controlled atmosphere, comfort is a privilege bought or bartered, not a right.
There is no true wind, but airflow is directed through engineered shafts, creating low, constant drafts that circulate slowly, guided by geodesic convection and rune-scripted stone fans. These drafts prevent stagnation and help direct the ever-present volcanic haze toward vent shafts in the city’s upper reaches, leaving most lower levels in a dim haze of reddish emberlight.
Temperature fluctuates sharply by district, with forgeworks and magma channels raising ambient heat well above comfortable mortal norms in places like the Ember Hollow, while noble courts enjoy magically-cooled obsidian floors and flowing mineral fountains of calcified mist. Surface-dwellers find the conditions stifling and disorienting, as their sense of time and temperature begins to warp without the touch of sun or sky. This is a city that doesn’t breathe in the natural sense—it smolders. And within its perfectly controlled atmosphere, comfort is a privilege bought or bartered, not a right.
"Of all the vault-cities whispered about in arcane libraries, Zarkhaz’Vuun chills me more than any demon-haunt or fae-court. It is a place where greed is refined to an art, where beauty itself is shackled and sold, and every stone in the wall has a price—often paid in memories, hope, or freedom. I have not walked its black-glass halls, and perhaps it is for the best; some wonders, I suspect, are best left behind locked doors." - Victoria Pendrake
Type
Underground / Vault
Population
Estimated two hundred thousand souls, the vast majority being enslaved or indentured.
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