Victoria Grasis

The Gothic Cathedral City Of Artisans And Workspeople

Fallen City— The ninth flying city, torn from the sky and reclaimed for the people.

The People

In the final days of the last war, the rich and powerful—kings, queens, emperors, presidents and their lackeys—gathered in nine ornate cities designed to serve as escape pods, putting the monarchs permanently outside of the people’s justice. This plan would, for all intents and purposes, fail. Nowhere more visibly did it fail than in the cold, dark Ander-Grasis mountains. Nestled in the stoney peaks lies the remains of Victoria Grasis, home to Ald-Amura’s busiest hub of artisans, traders, legendwriters, and inventors.

Housed in the absurdly pretentious facade of spires, ridged buttresses, ten-story-tall stained glass windows, and ornate gargoyles is a bustling permanent marketplace of a thousand workshops. Artisans of every imaginable form, and many besides, work and live shoulder to shoulder in a chaotic ocean of busy hands. Basic navigation within Victoria Grasis is so impossible that most have grown comfortable with wandering visitors spending the night in a spare bunk beside their workshop, or borrowing a surface to quickly hash out an idea as they search the maze-like megastructure for their own home. There even exists a small cottage industry within the castle-city of mapmakers and guides attempting to bring some sense to the disorder, or at least a helpful hand through it.

Citizens of Victoria Grasis call themselves Grascians, mostly, though some use the antiquated “Victorion Grascian” title (an ironic twist on the royal name the previous owners of the city gave themselves) on occasion. Victoria Grasis prides itself on being a collective of immigrants, and its culture celebrates the rich tapestry of ideals and culture that brings with it. Strange rituals, esoteric ceremonies, and illusive festivals are common, and they often add to the sense of mayhem that most associate with the city.

Life within the city is hot, with so many workshops and living spaces crammed so close together, but the people of the city like it that way and discussion of expanding the city or settling the mountains around them never really comes up. People enjoy the closeness to their neighbors, and many visitors express a familial identity that goes beyond even the solidarity one commonly feels for one’s confederation. Grascians view themselves as members of one big union, and take their responsibilities to one another very, very seriously.

As elsewhere in Ald-Amura, housing, workspace, food, and other necessities are provided gratis to any who make this city their home. The city governs through an ingenious system of true democracy - every citizen receiving at the top of the day that month’s business via a pneumatic tube in their workshop, along with their voting sheet.

Notable Sublocations

  • Draxxus’s Trading Post—A large stage just outside the city where the newest inventions, art projects, and incomprehensible constructions are piled high for visiting trade wagons and curio-sniffing visitors. Some consider this a “watered down” version of what you can find deeper within the city, but Draxxus has an eye for quality and has been curating the collection for decades now.
  • Rafter—A nightclub, of sorts. Under the gleefully vandalized crystal domes and garish frescos, the people have built a massive dance hall. Rafter’s custodians have also retrofitted two of the larger domes to act as enormous extractor fans, drawing in the frigid icy winds from outside and venting the musty furnace-heated air within. The drawing in of the air happens three times a day, and it is always cause for celebration.
  • The Honeycomb—An affectionate nickname for the utter chaos that makes up the bulk of Victoria Grasis proper. Imagine a thousand homes and workshops haphazardly erected in the peak of a fevered rush of creative compulsion, staffed and inhabited by a thousand geniuses utterly devoted to their passions, and you have a half of it. Flimsy walls and secret passages under countertops and work benches. Noise. And love. More love than you can dream of.

What Happens When You Arrive

  1. Rafter’s fans are locked, and the city is growing more uncomfortably hot by the minute. Nothing seems to fix them for long.
  2. The machines that made the city fly are coming online, and nobody seems to know how to make them stop. The mountain shifts underfoot.
  3. A communications panel somewhere in the city has begun lighting up. The eight floating cities, gone now for over a millennium, are calling out for aid.
  4. The area is in the middle of its bi-annual three months of sunlight, and the celebrations are reaching a fever pitch.
  5. The voting tubes are clogged, and people are getting annoyed about their issues not being addressed.
  6. An inventor within the city has gone a little too far, and has attached the titanic building to a train for reasons nobody can ascertain.