City of Jewels
The City of Jewels, capital of the dao and crown of the Elemental Plane of Earth, lies deep within the vast subterranean expanse known as the Great Dismal Delve, also called the Sevenfold Mazework. Hidden far from the reach of sunlight and surface air, the city is a marvel of opulence, geometry, and overwhelming material wealth—a labyrinthine metropolis carved from priceless stone, studded with gems, and shaped by the will of the earth itself.
The City of Jewels is a place of imprisoned beauty, where the earth is not simply admired—it is conquered, collected, and displayed. It reflects the dao’s values: power through ownership, eternity through wealth, and status through grandeur. For outsiders, it can be a place of awe, commerce, or peril—where treaties are sealed with diamonds and lives are traded for rubies.
It is not merely a city, but a testament to the elemental will of Earth: unmoving, unyielding, and immeasurably deep.
Defences
The City of Jewels is formidably defended, not only by its location within the dense, shifting stone of the plane but also by geomantic wards, earthbound elementals, and complex traps woven into the very stone. Intruders must navigate shifting tunnels, crushing walls, and magical mazes that respond to the dao’s commands.
Illusions, gravity wells, and echoing trick-sounds add to the city's disorienting nature. It is said that only the dao and their chosen servants truly know the city’s layout, and that certain halls rearrange themselves, hiding secrets or punishing trespass.
Architecture
As befits a people obsessed with wealth, every inch of the city is a monument to possession and control. The dao build for eternity: vast ziggurats, fortress-mines, pleasure halls, and auction houses rise like jagged teeth from the gem-laced ground. Roads are paved in polished stone, bordered by walls carved into bas-reliefs of elemental conquest, tribute, and bound servitude.
Markets and treasure vaults are found throughout the city, where the dao display their accumulated riches like trophies. Gems are so common they’re used for currency, decoration, and even structural reinforcement. Elemental servants, bound spirits, and enslaved mortals toil throughout the city in gilded chains, mining, crafting, and serving their masters in silence.
Geography
The City of Jewels sprawls across immense caverns of impossible scale, their ceilings vanishing into darkness above while shimmering stalactites of crystal drip with glowing minerals. Every wall, floor, and column is hewn from marble, obsidian, jade, or basalt, inlaid with veins of gold, platinum, and glowing gemstones. The ambient light comes not from torches or spells, but from luminous ores, enchanted gem-lamps, and the gentle radiance of magically infused walls, giving the entire city an ethereal twilight gleam.
The city's structure is a seven-layered maze, descending deeper into the plane with each ring—hence the name Sevenfold Mazework. Each level is more grandiose, more inaccessible, and more exclusive than the last, with the most treasured vaults, rarest minerals, and the palatial halls of the Grand Sultana or Sultan of the dao at its deepest heart.
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