Native Ardealians refer to Ardis as the True Capital of Ustalav, regardless of whether they remember the city’s slow desertion with the court’s relocation south. With the stubborn arrogance of those still bristling from the sting of decades-old defeat, the people of Ardis cling to their pride, their traditions, and their vaunted past, as nearly all else has passed them by. Gargoyles clamber upon the needle-sharp towers and lean onion domes of Ardis’s aged architecture. Sweeping arches, somber spires, and rib-like buttresses once served to give the city center an air of hallowed circumstance, as if every dark stone edifice were the setting of some great import. Yet, as if no longer supported by the magnitude of the deeds that once transpired within their halls, many formerly great buildings show the weight of somber years, appearing ever more like neglected crypts and sagging tombstones. While neglect shows throughout Ardis, some of the city’s districts now stand largely abandoned, the thoroughly pillaged communities primarily the demesne of rats and squatters.
The people of Ardis widely share an impotent anger and sense of injustice, yet how such feelings exhibit themselves varies. Most consider themselves patriots and hard-liners as they curse the royalty and other former residents as fools and traitors. Many of the younger generations feel as though they were born into the aftermath of some elaborate con, of which they’re forced to live with the consequences. Their anger tends toward visceral outlets, as penniless noble scions drink and smoke away their ancestors’ sins, while impoverished lowborn form gangs and avenge themselves against forsaken structures and the elite who wander through their territory—even though such lingering nobles rarely have it any better than they.
Locations in Ardis
Though much of the city has fallen to decrepitude, several noteworthy settings can still be found upright in Ardis. Blindstone: After the conquest of Spirit-King Voagx and the exile of the last Kellid from his land, King Ustav had the godstone of the fallen Stormheart clan dragged to his capital in chains as a symbol of his victory. Centuries later, the ancient menhir called Blindstone stands at the center of Crusader’s Square. Accounts of the country’s founding describe the stone as central to the shamanistic rites of the Stormheart, bearing images of barbarian dancers cavorting to its 21-foot summit, where a being made of storms and eyes welcomed its children. None in untold generations have laid seen these carvings, though, as the rusted links of Ustav’s massive and mighty chains bind the monument even after an age.
Evercrown Cemetery: Should one leave the Vhatsuntide, paddle up Drownnag Stream, past Ceiver’s Drink, and into the small lake called the Tears, on the far shore sprawls the ancient royal burial grounds of Evercrown. Once a lavish garden full of majestic monuments honoring the heroes and royalty of Ustalav’s past, the resting place of the nation’s former kings now stand unguarded, its once-glimmering stones and quiet statues now besieged by creeping vines, brazen gangs, and the righteously offended dead.
Merridweigh Gardens: More commonly referred to as “Mud Way” in these dismal times, this run of garden estates once included some of the most lavish addresses in Ardis. Like toppling dominos, emigrating noble families sold or abandoned their estates until what were formerly the city’s most coveted homes became nothing more than forsaken wrecks sinking into the muddy shores of the Vhatsuntide. Gangs of youths sometimes venture into the Gardens, seeking forgotten heirlooms or a bit of excitement. Often they return with tales of hearing mysterious footfalls or seeing faces in upper story windows. Sometimes, though, they don’t return at all.
Our Lady of Lanterns: Poised between the once thoroughly manicured pools known as the Shrouds, Our Lady of Lanterns offers the patience and dispassion of Pharasma to Ardis’s people. Fifteen glass onion-shaped domes shed constant light from the church’s heights, radiating upon its grounds and much of the surrounding neighborhoods—especially in the abandoned eastern community of White Corner, where no other light shines.
The Palace Tower: Thrusting from among the vaulted roofs and thorny spires of Stagcrown, the abandoned former home of the country’s royal court, the Palace Tower stands as a symbol of Ustalav’s dauntless past and dismal present. Soividia Ustav constructed the tower so he might personally keep guard over his lands, but in the ages since, the ominous black spear has been a home to madness, a prison to traitors, and the death of more than one ruler. Here King Ardurras, the last king of Ustalav, later reanimated as the Shrieking Sovereign, hung his cackling carcass over Ardis, shrieking a score of doom and profanities as the legions of the arch-lich massacred his city. Danstird Clase, heir to the Arch-Duchy of Melcat, lived 11 years in a lavish prison at the tower’s height after offending the virtue of Gaile Ordranti—who, as princess, leapt to her death from the spire’s crown after her paramour’s release. Today, in abandonment, the tower that served as setting for countless tales of ghostly nobility and bodiless guardsmen has developed an even more ominous reputation. It’s said that Ustalav’s royal spirits take umbrage at the capital’s desertion and, nightly, hold spectral summits and regal revels once more, from the echoing throne room to the moaning heights of the Palace Tower.
Rumors in Ardis
Even the departure of the royal court couldn’t curb native Ardealians’ passion for rumor and gossip-mongering.
Heirs to Ashes: When Barstoi invaded Ardeal, droves of boastful noble scions rallied in Ardis and, in a festival of delusion, marched east to glory. Nearly all were slaughtered. Today, in a city fallen to shadows and tatters, a new age of young nobles seek their chance at claiming the heroism and import fate seemingly denied them. Yet with no enemy and no expectations of inheritances from their destitute parents, an arrogant and angry generation raises shouts of throwing down old leaders, of ousting foreigners, of putting the peasantry back in their places, and of rising in a “renaissance of rulers.”
New Residents: Before the capital moved to Caliphas, more than 20,000 people called Ardis home. With thousands of families and businesses following the royal court south, whole city blocks lie abandoned, docks sag in disuse, once-regal homes crumble for want of care, and even the former capitol stands empty. Yet tales of new inhabitants spread among the remaining populace, stories of rags come to life to walk equally forsaken thoroughfares, of manor rats adopting a semblance of their estates’ departed lords, of family burial sites yielding up long-dead relatives to reoccupy deserted residences, and of living shadows once ignored in crowds grown bold and deadly in territories now entirely their own.