Vault-upon-Chronus

Once a great city dedicated to Abadar, Judge and Treasurer of the Gods. The city, and the rest of the Gilded Demesne of Abadar, fell during The Fifth Horseman’s vile crusade to end all life. Many of the buildings themselves were left intact at the time, but have since fallen into disrepair. Despite this, The Fifth and his minions were utterly unable to crack open the actual vault at the center of the city and plunder its vast resources, secured as it was by the blessing of Abadar himself. In one final attempt The Fifth Horseman brought forth the might of his hollow magic upon The Vault before giving up and returning to his dark work.

Unbeknownst to him, while The Vault remained sealed, Thane had weakened the wards with his corrupting power enough that, in an ironic turn of events, they would dissipate and allow access mere weeks after his defeat at the hands of Chronus’ finest. It didn’t take long for the people of Siacros to hear to spread the word, some intrepid explorers letting slip the news as they loudly celebrated their spoils. Soon enough representatives from all of the Siacron factions had arrived in the ruins to try and liberate the supposedly endless resources of The Vault for their own ends.

Much as with anything worth doing though, it would not be that simple. True enough, those explorers had recovered some material wealth from the chambers directly inside, but beyond that The Vault’s defenses make further excursions a dangerous and lethal prospect, though that doesn’t stop people from trying.

The Vault

At the center of the city lies what was once the Central Bank of Abadaria, the outer structure stripped bare by The Fifth’s violent attempt at entry. Now it is simply The Vault, a highly reinforced structure with a single gap in its wards, the great doors themselves, forged of an enchanted Elysium Bronze utterly impenetrable. Thankfully you can just open them with sufficient strength, allowing entrance into depths of The Vault.

Structure and Layout

As far as anyone can attest, The Vault likely stretches deep into the earth and possibly into other planes as well. Its halls and rooms branch out to cover an impossibly wide area on every floor, housing what many speculate to be an unending supply of wealth. As is typical for such places, the more valuable spoils are deeper underground with the level of defense also increasing with depth.

The structure of each floor has proven impossible to map save for the central path that leads and winds ever downwards to the lower floors. Deviation from that path can be mapped, though only for that day before everything shifts and rearranges, oftentimes dooming explorers to be lost to The Vault.

Rooms themselves can take any structure imaginable, from seemingly natural caves to replications of great structures one might find above ground. For the most part it is common to just traverse corridors and rooms though, rather simple and basic in shape though arguably more deadly given the tighter spaces and higher frequency of traps. Typically each area will follow a theme, though the thresholds between such areas can be jarring as one transitions between them, with some being obviously magical in construction while others feature marvelous technology.

Defenses

Raiding one of the guarded vault rooms tends to increase the defensive response, aiming to deter further plundering and usher the robber’s out. Beyond that though it seems that The Vault has a short term memory of those that plunder its halls. Regardless of the excursion, how long it takes or how much is recovered, The Vault will utterly prevent people from returning for anywhere up to a month after having left.

The defenses themselves are quite diverse given the corrupting influence of The Fifth’s hollow magic having seeped into them. Traps, magical and mundane, are common within The Vault on all levels though the more obvious threat will be from the myriad of creatures bound to its defense. Anything from intricate constructs to vile aberrations may be found wandering the halls, including fallen or lost raiders themselves that succumb to The Vault’s power. Quite how this works is anyone’s guess, though the prevailing advice is simply not to linger for longer than a day or rest within its confines.

The City

A view of the city, the damage almost invisible at this distance.

Vault-upon-Chronus (shortened to ‘Upon’ of ‘Upon-Chronus’ at times) was a great city of commerce and industry before its fall, vast in size. It was the capital city of The Gilded Demesne of Abadar which fell to The Fifth’s attack, but remained largely intact due to the heavy use of hollow magic which focused largely on those living there and less so on the structures themselves.

Now, though dilapidated, the ruins have remained intact but were left alone due to lingering hollow magic that made the city uninhabited. It was only after The Fifth’s fall that the magic was thought to have dissipated within the city itself with nothing to sustain it and nothing to feed it, but it was later discovered to have receded into The Vault itself where it continues to feed on Abadar’s divine magic, corrupting it.

Upon-Chronus was an ordered city with many distinct districts. Residential districts were of varying quality, from the inner noble district to the tenements of the outer city. The industrial district, constructed and operated primarily by Naramoore Steelworks before the fall, sits against the mountains in the north and has a great many mines not far off that were never truly exploited to their fullest.

The financial district, centered around The Vault itself, housed a number of lesser banks, financial institutions, the central guardhouse and a once bustling market that have all now been looted by explorers and the factions themselves.

Factions

Though adventurers often come to the ruined city in search of wealth, the major factions of Siacros have more permanent holdings there, acting in many ways as patrons for the excursions deep into The Vault. Though it is a closely guarded secret, all of them have worked out some limited way of plotting out where certain spoils are and, for a cut of what is found or the completion of a specific task, will offer that information as their sponsor for the raid. All of the factions have specific interests, both on Siacros as a whole and with The Vault, and aiding them here surely strengthens them in the pursuit of their mission.

Above Eyrie

The Owl-folk of Above Eyrie, hoarders of knowledge and watchers from above, rarely descend down to the ground below, but the prospect of tablets, books and other valued information within The Vault is enough to tempt even them. A small group of likeminded ‘representatives’ have therefore set up in the ruined upper district of Old Upon, employing bound air elementals and other beings of elemental wind to defend them should any wish them harm.

Their interest in material loot extends only so far as books and other repositories of knowledge and their interests therefore clash with Nedjime’s Observer in most cases and The Iron Keepers where the collection of technological information is concerned. They otherwise go unbothered by many of the other factions.

Those of Us

Composed of the rare ‘Lightwalkers’ among the order, this contingent from Under Eyrie is one of the few known to permit walking in their sacred light, making their mission all the more important. It is said that a vision from the sun itself set them on their course, allowing them to be the first to arrive. They traveled to The Vault by night to avoid exposing themselves to too much of the sun’s divinity, as their tenants decitate. Upon their arrival they settled into the underground cellars of a large storage warehouse and expanded it to meet their needs. Worthy paladins and clerics all, they are more than capable of defending themselves if necessary.

Those of Us prize and covet marvelous gems above all things, believing that The Vault must surely house such artifacts of divine significance.

They sometimes come into conflict with Nedjime’s Observers over their shared interest in gemstones though not often enough to cause too great a concern.

The Dragonkin Tribes

Though the tribes may come to blows, these representatives of the many Dragonkin Tribes of Dune Plateau stand together in their avaricious pursuit of the relics deep within The Vault. Their base of operations is among a ruined series of tenements towards the outskirts of the city, keeping them away from the other factions. Given their nature, they are all capable of defending themselves with elemental force projection.

Arrogant and unpleasant to work with, they are at least able to share in the loot brought back from their excursions and often target items of high value or lesser artifacts, magical in nature.

They dislike all of the other factions in equal measure, though for no particular reason and not to the point of conflict.

The Angel Outlaws

Arriving late by comparison to the others, this loose collection of celestial blooded lawbringers come with the hope of locating something, anything to divine an understanding of the strange force that guides their pursuit of justice. Fittingly they have set up in the still mostly intact central guardhouse not too far from The Vault.

Their interests are in texts of a divine and celestial significance, though most that get returned don’t quite illuminate what they are looking for. That and gear, liberated to aid them in their unending crusade against the unjust.

This brings them into conflict with Nedjima’s observers, who also seek divine knowledge, as well as The Tsurugi Shogunate and Iron Keepers who also have a deep interest in equipment, weapons and armour.

Observers of Nedjime

Second to arrive, The Observers are Nedjime’s chimeric servants sent out to plunder the knowledge of The Vault for their master’s archives. It is said at Nedjime knew of the city’s fall before it even fell and prepared her Observer's in advance, supposedly beaten to it by Those of Us on account of some divine revelation from the sun itself. Their established base is the old University, repaired and restored to act as a temporary repository for what it lifted from The Vault before its eventual transportation back to Nedjime’s observatory.

Books, tablets, charts and scroll. Knowledge is what Nedjime seeks, typically those records of a divine nature or venerated oracles. Rarely her representatives may direct their sponsored adventurers to seek out unique lenses or stashes of rare, glasslike material and gems, presumably for their master’s observation of the heavens.

They conflict most with both the Owl-folk of Above Eyrie, Those of us from Under Eyrie and with The Angel Outlaws.

The Tsurugi Shogunate

When it was said that The Vault contained not only wealth, but equipment, the most ‘tolerant’ of the Shogunate were deployed to requisition such resources in their fight against outsider influence. Upon their arrival they claimed a small section of larger, once more lavish abodes to serve as their base of operations.

Interested primarily in weapons, armour and raw material of high quality, The Shogunate are largely unconcerned with items of strictly monetary value. They will, naturally, refuse to work with outsiders under any circumstance, but clever parties have simply gotten around this by having such members of their group wait out of sight.

They clash primarily with The Angel Outlaws for obvious reasons and at times with The Iron Keepers for their use of magitech.

The Iron Keepers

The last to arrive and only after news of technological finds were shared, The Iron Keepers sent a detachment of soldiers and engineers to lay claim to the foundries once established by Naramoore Steelworks in the industrial district.

Their major focus is anything of technological significance, though they do occasionally pursue caches of resources or components as well.

They oppose The Angel Outlaws mostly because they make use of pistols and other firearms, a rather petty reason all told, as well as The Tsurugi Shogunate for their use of magitech detectors and devices.