GAZETTEER · THE RAMPART FOOTHILLS
Caer Vallen
The shattered seat of the Vallen Imperium under the northern Rampart — the human empire's holy heart, and the place where the god was drawn down and cracked. Publicly, the great works here 'failed.' In truth this is where the Sundering was done to Vallen, not suffered by him, and the ground has not forgiven it.
A field of leaning columns under the Rampart, roofless now, where the wind moves through halls that were meant to hold a god at their center forever. This was the seat: the place the Imperium raised over the strongest presence of the Wright in all the Vale, so that his making and his law would sit at the empire's heart and hold the march. It held, until the Vyr came to it. What lies under the throne-floor is not architecture. It is the wreck of an engine — a great graduated bore sunk straight down through the god's own seat, its rings of imperial bronze warped outward as if something vast had been pulled up through them and had fought the whole way. This is the Drawing-Down. The Vyr, with Athra's art, built the works here to draw on Vallen's power — to lift their sky-cities, to fuel a golden age — and they drew too hard, and the god cracked, and the crack ran out through every oath sworn in his name and became the Sundering. They did not mean to kill him. They cannot say they did. So the story became that the great works 'failed,' which is true the way a felled man has 'fallen.' You can stand in the sundered court and see it plainly if you know how to look: the columns nearest the bore are not toppled outward by any quake — they lean IN, toward the hole, drawn down after him. House Vandahl claims the ruin by blood and will not sleep in it. The Temple claims it by right and holds no rite here. The tribes claim it by silence, which is the only claim the place answers. It was from this floor, in the broken hour, that the largest solid piece of the Wright was carried out wrapped in a dead man's coat — the shard that now lies walled in the eastern barrow. The ruin and the relic are halves of one wound. The wonder is not that no one will spend a night inside the walls. The wonder is that anyone, four centuries on, still comes back to dig.
KIND
vault
CLIMATE
high, cold, roofless wind
DANGER TIER
Tier IV
CONTROLLING FACTION
House Vandahl
Connected
Type Fields
All Relationships (44)
occurred_at
- ←The Sundering — The Sundering broke here, in the Imperium's shattered seat.
- ←quest.the-throneless-hall (unresolved) — The delve runs down the sundered throneless hall to the apse.
- ←The Drawing-Down — The working was raised at Vallen seat, where the god broke.
- ←The Unclosing of the Deep Listeners — Deep under the seat, where the note pools thickest.
- ←The Waking of the Seat — A Resonant expedition to the seat's deepest resonators.
- ←The Drawing-Down — The working was raised at Caer Vallen and broke there — the same hour and seat where the Wright's Shard was later raised and shattered.
references
- ←The Wright's Shard — The weapon was raised and shattered here in the same hour; ruin and relic are one wound.
- →Vallen's Barrow — The seat where the god broke and the barrow where its echo sleeps are halves of one wound.
- ←The Karth Deep — Its galleries run under the Rampart toward the ruin no surface map records.
- →Frost Shrike — They roost thickest in the broken eaves of the shattered seat.
- ←The Hollow Writ — The mandate it enforces is the dead Vallen Imperium's, whose columns still lean at Caer Vallen.
- ←The Stoneborn — To the Stoneborn the Imperium's leaning column-fields are a quarry the old empire was kind enough to leave standing.
- ←Vallen, the Wright — Caer Vallen is the seat that bears his name and the hour-and-place of his breaking — the shattered throne of the god who sang the Imperium whole.
- ←The Cindervault — The Cindervault is the Emberwaste's counterpart to Caer Vallen — both are Imperium bronze-vaulted halls sealed by the Sundering's fault.
- ←Mournwright's Concordance — The Concordance is a complete exterior map of Caer Vallen — every column face, conduit socket, and threshold inscription Taras could reach with a ladder.
- ←Mournwright's Field Notes — Exterior Survey, Year Two — The notes document Caer Vallen's exterior architecture in exhaustive detail.
- ←The Cairn-Shrine of the Watcher — The Cairn-Shrine's purpose is to mark the approach to Caer Vallen as Temple ground and warn people off before they cross the column-field.
- ←The Coldhum Deep — The Coldhum Deep is a buried length of Imperium colonnade connected to the same complex as Caer Vallen above — the cave opened into the seat's plumbing.
- ←The Drowned Course — The Drowned Course is the aqueduct that fed Caer Vallen — its resonators may be tuned to the same note as the hall above.
owns
- ←House Vandahl — House Vandahl claims the shattered seat by blood, though none will sleep in it.
rival_of
- ←The Ashen Temple — The Temple claims the ruin by right against the house's claim by blood.
- ←The Saltglass Vault — The Saltglass Vault is the Southern Flats' answer to Caer Vallen — a second Imperium bronze-vaulted hall, cousin in architecture and in what it still guards.
located_in
- ←Vallen Revenant — They keep their posts in the roofless halls of the seat.
- ←Vallen Sentinel — It paces an ancient patrol through the shattered halls.
- ←The Leaning Columns — The toppled pillars are Caer Vallen's processional, thrown down the slope by the Sundering.
- ←Pinewatch Camp — Pinewatch sits in the wood below Caer Vallen, living off what its ruins shed.
- ←Aelvyrenn — The sky-city hangs in the cold air directly above Caer Vallen, so the elder Vyr look down forever at the wound they made.
- ←Corren the Last — [died_at] character.corren-the-last → place.caer-vallen
- ←The Blessing That Broke — [located_in] text.the-blessing-that-broke → place.caer-vallen
- ←Corren the Last — He wore the Sundered Crown at Caer Vallen the hour the god broke, and died there.
- →The Vallen Imperium — Caer Vallen was the Imperium's eastern seat — the frontier throne of the god's march.
hidden_in
- ←Imperator's Word — Cold in the apse where the last Imperator's swing was caught mid-arc by the Sundering.
- ←The Last Census of Vallen — The Imperium's master ledger, left in the seat the year before it fell.
- ←The Sundered Crown — Cracked brow to nape on the dais where the last Imperator wore it as the city came down.
- ←Starfire — Starfire was left on a Resonant's warded lectern in Caer Vallen, stood on its rod where the scholar had been reading by its cold light.
- ←The Sundered Crown — The last Imperator's crown lies in the throne-wreck of Caer Vallen, where it cracked the day the city came down.
- ←Imperator's Word — The last Imperator's blade lies where he drew it, mid-swing, as Caer Vallen fell.
- ←The Last Census of Vallen — The imperium's master ledger lies in the drowned archives of Caer Vallen.
guards
- ←Vallen Sentinel — It paces the route it was set to walk an age ago, between any delver and the apse.
- ←Vallen Revenant — Vallen revenants walk the roofless Imperial seat, still keeping a watch their empire no longer needs.
- ←Vallen Sentinel — An Imperial automaton that never stood down, guarding Caer Vallen's broken halls by its last order.
descendant_of
- ←The Asheni — The Asheni are the old blood of the Vallen Imperium that broke at Caer Vallen — ash-skinned heirs of the Sundering.
foreshadows
- ←The Cairn Road — The seat is visible from the road for a day before you reach it — the road foreshadows the destination without easing the approach.
- ←The Last Column — Standing at the Hum-Stone and looking north, Caer Vallen is visible on the terrace above — the stone is the first place from which the seat can be seen above the treeline.
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