Description
On occasion, the creatures of Zheng-Kitar band together and build something truly wonderful - the requirements for what is considered a "wonder" are murky at best, but over the many thousands of years of history surrounding Zheng-Kitar and its surroundings many things have earned the right to be called by the title of "Wonder". These things can vary in size, shape, and age but are all things that people the world over have banded together to classify as something that all should journey to see once in their lives. These were all invariably made by mortal hands at one point or another - which tends to be the only requirement for what is considered a wonder.
These sites are popular places for people to set out to visit, and as such see frequent foot traffic and tend to be good tourist spots - though some have been lost to time and thus are in an unknown location. In such cases, searching for these lost wonders is often a popular pasttime and goal for fledgling adventurers, and one that many dream of as children - to be the one to find the lost Blackgranite Gates of Nan-Dhurgalir has long been the stuff of childhood wonder.
The Seven Wonders
- Bushūbunáo, The Salvaged Supercarrier: The truly enormous floating city on the water, the Bushubunao, capital of The Gāngtao Migrant Fleet, was constructed centuries ago by a far-off empire in a distant land to be an invincible ruler of the seas - an invincible weapon with which it could sink its foes. Sitting at over one mile (1.6 kilometers) long and hundreds of feet tall, it is a massive floating metal behemoth of a ship, with enough firepower to gut a small nation all its own, and a main cannon whose cacophonous roar is so thunderously deafening that it can shatter glass when fired for miles around based solely on the sonic shockwave from its firing. Wholly immune to all mundane and magic weaponry, it sits a powerful relic that was unearthed by the Migrant Fleet long after its initial sinking, and given new life and service as the capital of the Fleet. With several docks in its interior for smaller ships, a steam-powered train system to spirit its crewman around quicker, and so many corridors that one could spend weeks exploring its depths and not see it all, it is a marvel of engineering and a monument all sailors should see once before they die.
- The Blackgranite Gates: One of the oldest and most well-known wonders of the world, the Blackgranite Gates sit as the looming, terrifying gates which stand in guard of the ancient Dwarven Capital of Nan-Dhurgalir, better known as the city of a Thousand Smiths. These gates, said to have stood nearly 200ft tall and were in excess of 20ft thick, were, incredibly, constructed of solid Adamantine as a monument to the inception of Nan-Dhurgalir's founding millennia ago. Rumored to be invulnerable and a monument to the pride and enduring might of the Dwarven People, the Blackgranite Gates were unbroken and unscarred in all their eons of service to the Dwarven People - for good reason did the Dwarves boast that 'not even an army of giants with a century to spare could hammer down those gates' - and they were an incredibly awe-inspiring sight to behold, said to steal the breath away of those who saw them for the first time. Flanked by titanic statues of Dwarven Heroes, the Blackgranite Gates were a marvel of Dwarven Engineering and Construction - gorgeous and intricately detailed with centuries of history carved into the gates, they had never once fallen - until the very end, when the city fell to the Celestial Host at the end of the Age of Descent. Now, they stand, wherever the city might be, as the cell door to a prison of unfathomable power - holding in the Celestial Host now locked inside Nan-Dhurgalir for all eternity.
- Bzeth'Nir, the Lost City: Once the crowning pride and joy of the Kobolds, Bzeth'Nir was and yet remains as the most mighty monument ever built by their hands - said to have been built on a mountaintop of such unfathomable height and power that it could gaze out upon the entire Shenchaun Tundra with ease, it's location has long since been lost to time, alongside the Ancestral Kobold tribe which founded it. It was said to be a beautiful resplendent city capable of movement and rotation, though the details of this are unclear - the city is simply mentioned in ancient records as "migrating, rotating, and adapting to its shifting terrain like a series of titanic gears from the gods" - and as such, though many Kobolds yearn to find it and reclaim it for their tribe, many other non-Kobolds yearn for it as well, eager to claim its ancient marvels of engineering for themselves.
Most other details of the city have been lost to time, as its age is immense - it was said to have been the first city constructed by the Kobolds after the Advent of the Spirit Kings, and their first new settlement in this newly reclaimed land of Zheng-Kitar. Less well known, is the fact that its constructors vanished entirely not long after the city was finished, vanishing with the city they had built - even ancient maps, recovered from old dig sites, point to an empty mountaintop where perhaps it might have stood - as if the city had simply slid away, down the mountain. The knowledge of these ancestors, not to mentiont their legacy of masterful engineering and construction that rivaled even the Dwarves of Nan-Dhurgalir, sits as the secret treasure of the lost city of Bzeth'Nir alongside the city itself.
- The Sakhradi Canal: The most recently constructed of the world's wonders, The Sakhradi Canal was a marvel and legendary achievement of the city-state of Sakhrad - and a world-renowned monument of trade and commerce. Carved out across dozens upon dozens of miles of unforgiving Savannah by dedicated and loyal workers who vowed to protect the city-state they had founded, the Sakhradi Canal fell under attack constantly by the nomadic tribes of Khadagar during its construction, as the city-state of Sakhrad, constantly blocked by Khadagar from trade and constantly ignored and all of its offers for commercial coexistence refused by the brutal tribes of Khadagar's steppes, decided to instead bypass the brutal land of Khadagar with the construction of the canal.
Once built it would entirely cut Khadagar out of the trade routes of the time, reshaping trade routes to flow through the canal and thus bypassing the barbaric nation entirely - and somehow, despite the constant setbacks, deaths of the laborers, sabotage, and attacks by Khadagar, the canal was completed as a monument to the death of Imperialism and the rise of free nations and city-states. Now, run by Sakhrad, the Canal single-handedly sits as the most important economic construction in the last two thousand years, shaving weeks off overseas journies and putting Sakhrad on the map all by itself.
- The Mausoleum of the Six: As the final resting place of The Six Great Ancestors who gave their lives to bring about The Advent of the Spirit Kings, the Mausoleum of the Six sits as the oldest and most ancient wonders of the world, beating out even The Blackgranite Gates for age. Forged as a mausoleum worthy of the six who single-handedly gave Zheng-Kitar a future, the Mausoleum of the Six is a stupendously extravagant and enormous building built into the side and atop a titanic glacier north of Liushi village on Hyeojiin Island over the course of 200 years - a sprawling building of marble, Utterice, and carved mana conduits that combine to form a living, breathing complex powered by the latent spiritual energies of all who come to worship there and come on pilgrimige. As a literal place of power, the mausoleum's countless thousands of feet of halls and corridors pulse with an indescribable life, as if the Six Ancestors were there in person watching over those who come. It is a place of awe, of reverance, and described as the closest place in all the world to the Divine - just standing in its ancient marbled halls is as if one was standing at the Six Ancestor's sides themselves, and many are overcome with rapturous bliss while present there. It is also a common place for oracles and others to have visions, glimpses of the future, and for many to hear voices - further solidifying its reputation as a place of indescribable power on the Material Plane, and a place to pay reverence to the six who gave their lives to grant all other creatures on the continent a future.
- The Grand Library of Kamarnassa: A place of hallowed learning and ancient history, the Grand Library of Kamarnassa sits as the crown jewel of the Dharan Alliance - though they themselves did not construct it, they DID find and uncover it, buried and entombed within solid rock beneath the very southern edge of the Great Vhudsing Range. Tended to by an army of flittering sheets of paper, paper constructs, and invisible intangible servants, the Grand Library was constructed eons ago by an unknown culture that was believed to have been an underground society of incredibly primitive simplicity - their original name is unknown, as are almost all details about them aside from the name of the one who is credited as the "Head" of the Library - a being named as "The Yaesu" who, unnervingly, is STILL credited as serving and ruling the library, to this day. More incredible, perhaps, is its very nature - its halls extend for miles beneath the earth, and are believed to be self-updating - a complete and total record of history that has been found to have records from before the Advent of the Spirit Kings. However, despite its incredible and amazing nature which repairs and replaces books and tomes that are lost and destroyed, the library, which contains all manner of information media from stone tablets, parchment scrolls, paper books to even strange metal disks, hampers those who wish to study there by its seeming complete random categorization. There is no reliable way to access the information there, and the library's guardians prevent the removal of knowledge from its premises...making it a mystery that is being investigated to this day, as well as how such a primitive culture was able to construct such a marvel.
- The Myrkheim Causeway: Another mystery of which not much information on it remains, the Myrkheim Causeway is a bridge of unfathomable size and scope, built in the far-off land of Myrkheim long ago. Though the land now belongs to the Myrkese, it was in the past the sole stomping ground of the most ancient and powerful of Giantkin - such as Jotun, Dai-Yukai, Sun Giants, and more. In fact, Myrkheim is largely considered the homeland of the True Giants - their exists evidence of a great and mighty Giant Empire there many thousands of years ago since well before the Advent of the Spirit Kings, who is assumed to have created this very causeway. Stretching for dozens of miles across the ocean from the western tip of Myrkheim to an offshore island far off the coast. Several hundred feet wide and hundreds upon hundreds of feet tall, it looms above the ocean and links the mainland Myrkheim to its distant island cousin, with giant gate-like openings in the bridge between its support pillars to allow ships to pass beneath it. It stands as a breathtaking welcome to those traveling to Myrkheim, and as a bridge built by Giants, is impossibly sturdy and strong, and thus used as a military fortification by the Myrkese. And though its giant overlords may have long since vanished, it remains - linking the mainland with the island which once held the Giant Capital, now long gone from the world - untouchable by time and attacks.
Most other details of the city have been lost to time, as its age is immense - it was said to have been the first city constructed by the Kobolds after the Advent of the Spirit Kings, and their first new settlement in this newly reclaimed land of Zheng-Kitar. Less well known, is the fact that its constructors vanished entirely not long after the city was finished, vanishing with the city they had built - even ancient maps, recovered from old dig sites, point to an empty mountaintop where perhaps it might have stood - as if the city had simply slid away, down the mountain. The knowledge of these ancestors, not to mentiont their legacy of masterful engineering and construction that rivaled even the Dwarves of Nan-Dhurgalir, sits as the secret treasure of the lost city of Bzeth'Nir alongside the city itself.
Comments