The Ledger Quarter
Collapsed basilicas of trade with calcified ledgers and vault doors fused by heat; the under-cellars are a maze where Mortifer’s ilk once learned the art of silence.
Overview
Once the radiant heart of Old Kaijistan’s trade empires and counting-houses, Velkaria is now a buried legend—“death or a diamond, often both.” Tribes whisper it lies somewhere beneath the Sandsea of Zhal’Shaar, near black-glass deserts scorched by the sorcerer-kings’ last weapons, its aquifer roads watched by eyeless spirits.
Origin, Decline & Current state
Origin: Velkaria began as the glittering capital of Old Kaijistan, raised by merchant-princes and their sorcerer-king patrons atop the Aquifers of Kaelir, where control of deep water made trade and counting-houses flourish beneath the dunes. Its guilds paved plazas in rune-cut stone and ringed the vaults with oath-wards, while subterranean ledgers and training halls spread under the banking quarter—birthplace of figures like Mortifer, “born beneath the counting-houses of Velkaria.”
Decline: Velkaria fell when the demons simply stopped holding back the desert they’d once restrained for the king’s bargain. The winds returned, the dunes marched, and the Sandsea poured through broken passes, choking plazas and counting-houses in silt. Aquifer stairs led only to packed grit and dry wells; cistern vaults collapsed under the weight of drifting stone. Oath-wards didn’t shatter—they were smothered, their sigils buried layer by layer until even their glow could not breathe. Caravans vanished on routes that changed by the hour, and the last survivors walked out under red skies as Velkaria was swallowed whole, lost not to fire or siege but to the patient appetite of the desert.
Current state: Not seen for at least a thousand years. It is impossible to know what state the ruins are in.
Places of Note
Kaelir Gate & Cistern Steps:
A sunken processional stair that once descended to the Aquifers of Kaelir; mineral rings mark ancient water levels and ghost-cold drafts carry distant footfalls.
The Sorcerer-Kings’ Vaultmouth:
A half-sealed tunnel glazed into black glass, its lips still warm on dry season nights; ward sigils lurk beneath the sheen.