The Wall of Tears

The mere fact they made it as far as they did is an insult. Do you her me? AN INSULT!! We will not allow them to get this close again. We will build a wall to protect the wastes large enough to be seen from Semunet!! Hire as many as you can, conscript the rest. Promise them what you have to to get it done. If they resist, then their bones can join the stone and mortar. ~ Verona Elmahdy, Empress of the Valcoran Empire, 723 ST.

Purpose / Function

After the Eltaran-Valcoran war, and the second collapse of the Valcoran Empire, the then empress Verona sought to protect her seat of power in the Upper Wastes from another land invasion. Her plan to do so was simple: construct the biggest wall the world has ever seen.

Alterations

Thanks to the lack of rain and firmness of the stone used in its construction, no alterations have been yet made to the Wall of Tears

Architecture

The wall is made almost entirely of massive 10 ton stone blocks. The only part of its construction not made of these blocks is the massive Gate of Tears, a massive thrree story tall gate of black iron, fashioned into the likeness of a human face in mid scream when opened.

History

Construction of the wall began 25 years after the Valcoran Empires' second collapse. The then newly reformed The Order of the Dead was sent out by the will of the Empress herself, who many had thought dead, and spread the word of a great work to be completed in The Wastes. Many, disregarded the message, taking it as the lies of what ever mad fool had seized power in the aftermath of the war with Eltar. Those that did heed the call were whisked away with all haste to the edge of the Upper Wastes, and immediately put to work moving the massive stone blocks that had begun to be mined and shaped by the mages of the Order of the Dead from the Undambi mountain range within the Upper Wastes.
When the number of workers that had volunteered proved to be moving to slow for the Empresses wishes, entire villages in the Middle Plains were empties, conscripted into service by the Order of the Dead, at the decree of the Empress Verona.
The wall took sixty years to finish. So much stone was used in its construction that the entire mountain range of Undambi was leveled and hauled away, leaving them for the time nothing more than small stone hills. An estimated eight thousand died in the process of its completion, many of whose remains were worked into the mortar between the blocks of stone. The sheer number of those who died, in through forced labor or in free given service, in turn gave the wall its name, and to this day, Torrese descendants of those within the wall will make pilgrimages to the wall to leave small offerings at its mighty base.

Alternative Names

The Wall of the Wastes

Type

Wall section

Parent Location

The Upper Wastes

Owner

Verona Elmahdy

Owning Organization

The Valcoran Empire

O'er the world did travel I. Sailed from one shore ta' the next. Seen ev'ry sight thar is to see or so ins thought I. But no'ting ev'r matched the vastn'ss that is the Wall o' Tears.

~ Overheard from a sailor in Hebbesport, circa 43 ST