The City of Bone

Heard a story once. A man went walking out in the hills above the Ardenspire, out along the bluffs that overlook the city below. Story says he did it because he wanted to be closer to the stars - shade-touched, I suppose. So this fellow's walking along, kicking stones over the edge of the bluffs when he comes to a point where the path narrows. Bluffs on the left, rocky cliffs rising above him to the right, and he sees a crack in rocks. Now that's not unusual, lots of cliffs have holes in them, but this one... well our brave lad decides to stick his head in to see what he can see. Damn fool, him.
Anyways, it's blacker than a Watchers armpit in there, so he lights up a sunstone and waves it around to see. Well, it wouldn't be much of a story if he saw nothing, would it? He holds that sunstone out, and what he thought was a natural cleft in the rock turns out to be a breach in a wall! He looks one way, it's a long, dusty corridor. He looks the other, more dust, more corridor. I guess he was feeling his bravery or some such, because he climbs right in and decides to go exploring. Didn't last long though.
The story says that he come running out of that place like one of the Khybim themselves was after him. He came stumbling back down the path and dunked his head in the first ale keg he found. He drank for three days and nights before anyone could get a word out of him. When he finally came up for air, story says he opened his mouth to speak once before keeling over dead.
What did he say? Story changes, depending on who's doing the telling, but here's what I heard. The man stood up, stared the barkeep dead in the eye and said 'It's like a city without end... a city buried in the stone and full of the dead.'
Don't know if it's true. Don't care, really. It's a story, and a story's only good for telling.

Lightsman Pinket Galikos, Bonded to the Daggerspire

Assets

Any adventurer brave enough to explore the ruins will find a wealth of goods. There are pre-Dark relics by the thousands, ancient technologies and writings in almost every home. There are tools and gems and precious metals scattered here and there, and there is the city itself, protected from the elements and the Thramorri, and sitting atop massive mineral resources.

History

Before the Dark, there were people who wished to live apart from all others. Some felt the social, political, or economic structures of the day were too restrictive; others felt that a land of eternal sunshine had little challenge left. What ever their reasons, small groups of people from across the world built isolated communities where they might try to live differently. Once such group was larger and more organized than many of the others. What drew them together was a mutual love of the underground, and a shared desire to explore the many caverns and cave networks that riddled the land. While exploring such places carried with it a host of dangers, the desire to explore made such exploration inevitable and in time, many of the larger caves and galleries revealed their secrets.
Some centuries before the coming of the Dark, one particularly large group of scientists and explorers launched an ambitious experiment: they would construct a settlement below ground to prove that humanity could thrive in a place where the only light was what they could bring with them. Thousands of people from across the world took up the challenge and descended on what were then called the Agambe Caverns to construct the first ever underground city.
For decades the organization grew in number, and the community they were building grew to match. By the end of the last Dawn Age, a thriving community of more than a thousand dwelt beneath the surface. They drew their water from the swift-moving underground rivers that carved their way through the caves; they farmed fungi and cave insects in the deep galleries, and established small, intensive farms where light from the surface slipped down through cracks to illuminate patches of the caves. Unbeknownst to their Dark-dwelling descendants, these pioneers were the first to develop something akin to a sunstone, which they used to illuminate their growing village.
When the Dark came, they remained unaware for some time. Political and social changes on the surface had led many of the settlers to cut ties with their surface-dwelling kin, and to close the doors to their caverns to outsiders. When they discovered what had happened, it threw them into chaos and for a time, their way of life threatened to end.
In time however, they adapted to their new world. They encountered the Thramorri, who saw the caverns as a natural hunting ground, until they were turned back by the lights of the village sunstones. Eventually the Thramorri left the village in peace, and its people began to build a new life for themselves in the dark beneath the Dark.
But nothing is eternal. In time, disaster befell the city. A blight swept through their fungal farms, killing their crops and causing famine. Some years later, the survivors were struck down by a plague that seemed to jump from person to person by air and even touch. By the time it had subsided, the plague had killed all but a tiny handful of villagers, who climbed to the surface and made their way down towards the aching brilliance of the Ardenspire. Those ancient survivors were some of the founders of the village of Stone Hill, a small village at the foot of a cliff that formed one of the walls of the ancient, underground city.
In time, the city under the mountain became little more than a myth. Yet it is real, and it remains hidden, waiting to be rediscovered.

Architecture

The underground city is built of steel and stone. Its buildings are low, but spacious, separated by narrow alleys and wide streets. The city itself winds through several galleries, with thickly paved roads connecting the various neighbourhoods to one another. Ancient sunstones provide a pale reddish light that continues to illuminate the city, a millennia and more after the last of its people had left.

RUINED SETTLEMENT
1000 CR

Alternative Name(s)

The Hidden City, the Buried City, the Lost City of Ardenspire

Type

Underground / Vault

Population

Once, tens of thousands may have dwelt here. Now, only their bones remain.