Tovan Monastery
Geography
The Tovan Monastery is one of three Ancient Race ruins to have been found largely intact and then inhabited by humans (the others are Anvard City and The Citadel on Barakeel). A few dozen enormous pillars like fluted columns tower above a verdant surface jungle, and are connected by bulbous protrusions that seem like they grew between the columns at random heights. Apertures in the structure have been turned into high windows and outdoor platforms, but the bulk of the monastery is indoors. A spacious Gate Hall dominates a central "bulb" about halfway up the maximum height, and it contains the Traverton for visitors and the few merchants who service the monastery. An interior stair circles down the column to a huge chamber nearer the surface (the Lower Hall) built out with quarters for surface adventurers (and a few scholars). Access to the rest of the structure is controlled by the Tovanese monks.
Surface Danger - low
The Monastery is unique in that there are no Gate Guardians at the Gate - but there are 18 of them surrounding the _outside_ of the structure. They activate daily and frequently, and in hundreds of years of continuous habitation no beast or horror from the surface has ever breeched the monastery. However, the sick feeling that accompanies their activation makes the bottom levels nearest the outer edge a very discomforting place to spend any length of time. Forays and adventures outside the walls are frequent, as intrepid adventurers have only to race back near the guardians to avail themselves of their uneasy safety.
People and Culture
The surface adventurers of the Tovan Monastery make up their own little community. They come from all over the Islands and meld into a rough and rowdy bunch, ready to cooperate and compete with each other depending on the circumstances. Alliances are made quickly out in the surface jungle, and abandoned quickly back in the "safety" of the Lower Hall. Groups come and go, gangs form and disband, and there is no steady core other than the ubiquitous suppliers of food, water, weapons, and armor.
The community at the Gate Hall is far more sedate, but just as mixed, with people coming to the Monastery from all over the Islands to avail themselves of the Monastery’s offerings...
For the Ancient Race ruin that is the Tovan Monastery contains thousands of rooms sealed up by Ancient Race arts, and the Tovash (the head of the Tovanese Monks) holds the unique ability to create keys to these spaces. No one is sure how the ability came to be, or how it is passed from generation to generation. No human has ever breached any of the spaces by physical or magical means, and only the created keys can generate access to the spaces. No one but the holder of a key and the Tovash even know how to locate a particular space - for until the key is presented, the "doors" to the spaces appear as nothing more than walls, often with empty space on the opposite side where the "room" should be. The rich and the secretive from all the Islands use the Tovan Monastery as a vault, a bank, and a reliable keeper of secrets.
The Tovanese monks who serve the Tovash keep order in the Gate Hall, act as guardians when keymasters deposit or remove their cargo from the rooms, and keep an inventory of which keys have been issued to which keymasters. Some keys are set to only be used by the keymaster of record, others are set to be used by whomever holds the key. The monks wear garments of thin green cloth woven from some surface materials, adhere to a regimen of austerity in action and thought, and practice a form of unarmed martial combat typical of protective cloistered communities.
Local Authority
The Tovanese Monks control much of the Monastery, but usually stay out of the Lower Hall, which is governed by the communal consent of a shifting assemblage of adventurers.
Language
The Tovanese speak a variant of Low Anvardi, but Travit is heard most often in the Gate Hall and Lower Hall.