Shrine of Champions
The Shrines of Champions is the name given to a sealed bunker near what was once a sports complex of some sort. Inside its halls are numerous vaults, each of which leads to a large room dedicated to a specific sport that was popular in the old world. Rooms for American football, soccer, basketball, baseball, hockey, and many more are filled with memorabilia, jerseys, trophies, newspaper articles, and the names of the greatest athletes in old world history. The largest vault is dedicated to the honored, centuries-old tradition: the Olympics. The champions of old are immortalized here in these vaults so that all of metahumanity, even after the end of the world, will remember their names.
Purpose / Function
The purpose of the bunker was to preserve the collective athletic history of all past human cultures in secure vaults.
Alterations
The bunker has been turned into a museum. Walkways have since been cleared of debris and set up in a manner for guests to see all the vaults before exiting at the end of the exhibition hall, the artifacts have been preserved behind glass in grand exhibits, and a gift shop has been opened at the end of the path. The gift shop sells replicas of memorabilia, jerseys, knick-knacks, and books; all sales go directly toward a public fund set up for maintaining the museum and paying its employees.d
Architecture
The exterior of the bunker was originally a simple, reinforced steel hatch set in the ground and disguised under a pile of deliberately placed stones--this has since been excavated and remodeled to allow easier access by the general public. The interior walls are constructed from reinforced concrete with steel walkways and support columns. The vault doors are thick, blast-proof metal bulkheads that were originally set to hermetically seal each vault when closed. A plaque has been installed on the wall right before guests begin the tour of the museum that reads “Remember us.”
Defenses
As this is a museum, the only defenses are the locks, the sturdy doors, an alarm system, and a nightly guard rotation. As the Stadium Bunker is outside of Olympia's walls, Gatewardens will regularly patrol the road to the bunker and watch for raiders.
History
When the world became filled with magic and monsters and civilization itself was at the edge of collapse, metahumanity wanted to preserve their history. Athletics has long been a celebrated tradition and past-time for people of every old world nation and there was a fear that, at the end of the world, it would all be forgotten. To save a fragment of the world’s collective culture, this bunker was created and sealed away. It had no residents behind its doors--it was meant to be a time capsule waiting to be unearthed by whatever survivors may still live when the dust finally settled. After the bunker was rediscovered and subsequently opened by Ark Runners and archaeologists, the government of the City of Olympia stepped in and voted to declare the vault a world heritage site precious to all metahumanity. It has since become a grand museum about sports, and most of the old sports that people play in the modern day have had their rules and traditions remembered thanks to the records found in this bunker.
Tourism
The Shrines of Champions World Heritage Site is a popular tourist destination, especially for sports fans across the Olympia. Even visitors from settlements in the Wilds sometimes visit. Around 280,000 people visit this museum per year.