[Excerpt] Notes on the Ayleidoon Pre-History of the Imperial City

Before any Aldmeri stock came to the Heartland, Dreugh populated the Imperial Isle. While they mostly populated the waters of Lake Rumare, the isle itself was populated by Land Dreugh when undergoing Karvinasm. The Ayleids, looking to annex the Isle, introduced slaughterfish into the lake to control the population and conducted twisted experiments on the Dreugh in an attempt to create a slave workforce. These experiments are thought to have become the dreaded Vermai, the Death-Angels of Maztiak (a stolen name from a bygone kalpa). After wresting control of the isle from the Dreugh, they built their Tower, the Temple of the Ancestors, followed by the construction of the rest of the city.

The construction of White Gold Tower, as it would later be known, is still a mystery. Some believe that it was constructed from the bones of their enemies, twisted in some profane emulation of the Earth-Bones. We do know that it was built in emulation of Adamantine, the Ur-Tower. The Ayleidoon Theocrats decreed that no structure should surpass the height of their temple-tower, so the nobles of the Heartland constructed their demesnes horizontally, creating mazes of pathways, cul-de-sacs, and dead ends left in darkness. Only the main avenues were illuminated with Varla stones, a symbol of their magical prowess and a display of excess greed.

The surrounding grounds of the Tower were dominated by former Theocrats who had been turned to stone statues. In a twisted version of Ancestor Worship, they remain alive, after a fashion, driven insane, their macabre cries echoing throughout the Tower grounds.

The southeastern part of the city was the Flesh Garden District. Here you would find open displays of the finer arts of torture. Priests hanged upon sixteen spoked wheels, with each spoke delivering a different potentially fatal agony. Artists could also be found here making bone sculptures, using slave-flesh as canvas, and blood for paint. Later, after the enslavement of the Nedes, Slave-Bards could be found playing discordant harmonies adding their own flavor of pain to the delight of their masters.