The Great Cnomon

The wastelands that span across much of northwestern Eterna are featureless and hostile. Ruins and pieces of the past lie buried under millenia’s worth of junk, rubble, dirt and stone. The sole exception, and the closest thing one could call a ‘landmark’ in the wastelands, is the Great Gnomon.
The Great Gnomon is a large pillar hundreds of stories high, a stone and metal obelisk that juts up out of the ground and cuts a silhouette. Surrounding the pillar are ancient words written in Celestial, but most of it has been worn down by time. At any point in day or night, sunlight or moonlight falling on the pillar casts a great shadow across the wastelands. The pillar and the shadow can be seen around form miles, though visibility of the monument has decreased significantly in recent years due to industrial pollution and general changes in weather patterns.
A ‘Gnomon’ is the part of a sundial that casts the shadow. Thus, the Gnomon was once used thousands of years ago as the absolute measure of time in Galoria: the pillar is located dead-center in the middle of the entire continent. Markings on the ground surrounding the Gnomon suggest that it was accompanied by a large clock face in ages past; but all that remains of it now is ruins.
The Gnomon itself is hollow; inside the massive pillar is a spiralling staircase that reaches the sky. The few scholars who have travelled to the Gnomon and made it back alive have confirmed the staircase's existence, but none have managed to climb to the top. The area around the Gnomon is entirely wastelands of the Sundering, and infested with all manner of monsters and environmental hazards. What was once a place of noble pilgrimage has been reduced to nothing more than a fading memory of days past.

RUINED STRUCTURE
Sundering

Type

Temple / Religious complex

Parent Location

Eterna Province