HispaZargon wrote:Well, very good question. From a thematic standpoint, I tried to believe that this old city is a long ago forsaken place, which has been dominated by darkness. Instead of happening little by little, maybe there was at a time any sudden dramatic event (an invasion? a flood? etc.) which forced to their inhabitants to abandon quickly the underground city and move to other place, which also forced them to leave there many powerful artifacts. Moreover, if we attend to Warhammer lore, the Colleges of Magic were created during Prince Magnus reign, so maybe before that the access to magic was less controlled or organized and magical documents like scrolls were more easily stored in any random place or library, like the ones you find on this old city. Considering that and the former inhabitants there were probably a bit more primitive society, maybe also explains why there are so many Shrines there, maybe they were more mystical people than the later ones. Other option could be thinking that the old city was a kind of catacomb, where their inhabitants lived hidden in the underground from whatever danger living outside, maybe evil creatures? All this is just speculation from my side, of course. We can imagine many ways to put all pieces together.
In my version, the disaster was plague plus religious tensions. I had the city be a highly magical place, a mirror to Kalos. Initially, all the heroes knew was that the Dark Company had retreated there and Solak befell some mysterious non-specific tragedy in Times of Yore.
What actually happened was: The doors between the various sections energised the civilians (a cheap excuse to reward the heroes with 1BP and a spell each time they travelled a new section via a new door) However, the strengthening doors were actually weakening the populace in the long run. It was not enough to damage the heroes for their quick sojourn, but rather something that affected the civilians after years of regular use. This was a plot cooked up by one of the Vadim Gorefell's rivals - Thalmus - who followed a god named Zitschen. His strictures were that strongest deserved to survive and that compassion was seen as weakness. Late on the heroes get a chance to kill Thalmus (now a Gargoyle) and ease Vadim's soul. After goading Hinsgrim to coup and failing in the attempt, Delzarron (who had used Hinsgrim's war-weariness to encourage the coup) is now trying to channel the latent magical power from Solak and weaponise it against the Imperial troops. There was also a subplot about two members of the Dark Company who realised they'd bitten of more than they could chew. The heroes can bribe them to leave and make the final room a little easier.
The magical doorways and walls caught echoes of the past which played out small snippets of conversation - either from past residents of the aforementioned uneasy mercenaries subplot. The doorways each had a card associated with them (which carried some of the aforementioned flavour-text) - once the heroes had the card, and provided they weren't in danger, they could always retrace their way to that doorway - thus cutting down on all the backtracking making the quest more about exploration rather than a combat slog.
It was all implied rather than spelt out directly, so the heroes can either piece it together themselves or ignore it altogether.
