Tongselt (Tongue-Selt)

The city located in Northern Ustaria

Overview

Description

Tonselt is a town that at one point had around 230,000 citizens. Though this number has since dwindled due to the mass abandonment as a result of the coal mines going cold, the city still has plenty of historical buildings standing from the 19th century of Ustaria. Many of the structures are made from stone and brick with some wood used as support. The homes and buildings are meant to keep everyone cool in the harsh summers and warm during the deadly winters.

There are little to no open stores in the city nowadays besides a few general stores and a liquor store. While there are some casinos and museums, all of these things are abandoned and forgotten to the people of Tongselt who have left. There is little to no road left in the city as it is mostly broken up and destroyed, making travel by vehicle impossible in most areas. Horseback riding is the only option besides foot. The only way into the town is via train, which comes through the town at the end of every winter period. Though, the tickets are extremely expensive due to the low demand of people going in and out and the cost of fuel for the transportation. Good luck getting in or out.

History

Recorded history of Tongselt is very vague and convoluted. Most history books in Ustaria teach it as an economic fault on the party of Ustaria responsible for expansion and land cultivation. Many will tell the tales of when Tongselt held a large amount of coal deposits underneath the city. Originally, the city was built to take advantage of these resources due to the high profit value during periods of which Ustaria needed to develop more underdeveloped parts of the country. Due to the nature of this city and its founding, most people viewed it as an opportunity to raise a family and have a wealthy lineage after the parents have done their work.

From 1845, its founding year until circa 1860, everything was seemingly normal within Tongselt until there began to be a mysterious increase in missing persons cases. It started as a handful going missing every year to dozens going missing every month. Many people did not associate this with why the town began to go abandoned in the first place. A lot of the abandonment was attributed to the lack of profit made from the mines as a result of the coal resource going cold. It had seemed to be expunged and there was nothing left for settlers and miners to gather from the ground, resulting in mass-abandonment. However, the history books in Ustaria do not tell of the strange disappearances mostly because they are seen as a “coincidence” and not a correlation to the people leaving in mass. Some are skeptical about whether or not the missing persons had anything to do with the abandonment, and some even believe that the city never had people leave, rather they all went missing and only survivors lived to tell the tale of the Accursed City in Ustaria.

In 1927 when the war against Bamshu began, Tongselt was repopulated in an attempt to recover any resources, tools, or people that would be willing to work back in the mines in order to get resources necessary to fight against the enemy island. There were plenty of volunteers ranging in the thousands and the expedition was dubbed: “The Tongselt Reignition Project.” However, details of the event have not yet been released to the public and the volunteers that went to Tongselt were never seen again and seemingly fell off the face of Mundus. Currently, in 1943, the town’s missing persons cases have significantly dropped, but that does not mean that they will never spike again.

RUINED SETTLEMENT
1866 AP (286 A.Fc.)

Founding Date

1845 AP (265 A.Fc.)

Alternative Name(s)

Accursed City

Type

City

Population

3,400~

Characters in Location

• Anathema