Taria

Taria buried its capital on top of catacombs older than its own history, worships its ancestors, and runs the strangest economy on the continent — the Bone Market, where the remains of ancient monsters are bought, sold, and very occasionally locked away in a vault nobody discusses.

Eight hundred years ago, something happened here. The records are fragmentary, because the event itself ate the records: an entire nation forgetting, in waves — names, then skills, then languages, then faces. Taria survived. Diminished. The catacombs were sealed, and the death rites that look like culture to outsiders are, to the priests who maintain them, something closer to feeding schedules.

Deep below the sealed levels, the old stone is warm. The warm zone is growing. And the priests have a rule they enforce with absolute seriousness and no explanation: nothing comes up from below level four.