Weehollow

Weehollow, the Giant City, is one of the Thirteen Cities of Norn.

Back before the time of humanoids, giants constructed a series of enormous ziggurats in one of their smaller settlements. Today, a few hundred thousand humanoids live in these buildings. Since the ziggurat stairs are far too large to climb, cables cover the buildings and everyone travels in aerial gondolas. Dividers have been put up inside the ziggurats to create apartments, so Weehollow is a popular city for young professionals coming out of high school and college.

Arthur Emeric is the longest-tenured Champion, having been in charge of Weehollow for just over nine years. This is a great source of pride for Weehollow inhabitants, and replicas of his morningstar can be seen hanging in bedrooms across the city. He is a half-elf (and, if you believe the rumors, half-giant) who stands nearly seven feet tall. The champion of brutish cyclops Jamrog the Massive has a polished public persona and can be found at charity events nearly every weekend. Arthur does not rely on gimmicks or puzzles in his challenge, beating anyone who manages to reach him by simply overpowering them in honorable combat.

Weehollow is a group of 25 ziggerauts arranged in a rough square. They stand at around 600 feet tall and covered in webs of steel, on which gondolas (spherical cabs that work like a metro and can carry about 10 people each) run up and across. They are all constructed from slabs of sandstone except for the one in the center, which seems to have been carved from a single piece of limestone. This is known as the Great Gray, and its levels include a convention center, the town hall, and the upper floors where Arthur Emeric lives and conducts his challenges.

The city is surrounded on several sides by the ocean, known as the Domain of Man or just “the Domain”. Many college students and young professionals spend time on the rocky beaches or take boats from Weehollow Harbor when studying abroad. The Wyrmspine, the mountain range that contains the Hoard, ends to the south, so many apartments have a lovely alpine view.

Weehollow is recognized as the best college town in Norn, and is known for three main schools. The first is Hollow University, the “state school” of Weehollow. It doesn’t have much in the way of specialized or magical education, but solid all-around programs and low tuition for locals make it a popular choice. It has a bit of a reputation as a party school, and students (called “Hollies”) often heavily pregame Arthur Emeric’s fights. The second school is Soulspark College, which primarily markets to sorcerers and other students with innate magical abilities they are struggling to control. It has the vibes of a small liberal arts college and the students, known as Sparkplugs, are considered somewhat pretentious. The final main school in Weehollow is Jotun Tech, which has pretty bad academics but offers a variety of combat-themed majors, such as Bladesmanship and Advanced Brawling. JT has produced a fair number of Champions, including Arthur Emeric. This is a huge talking point for Jotuns in their rivalry with the Hollies.

There are four main neighborhoods in Weehollow. Gray Zone, the central area, is home to the Great Gray as well as government buildings and upscale shops and restaurants. The northwest section of the city is known as Helmet Coast, so named for the protective gear that locals used to wear before the adjacent Jotun Tech and Soulspark College imposed more safety measures to get their students under control (many a concussion was suffered from a rogue Catapult spell). This area has a lot of popular bars and clubs, giving it a rowdy atmosphere at night. The southern neighborhood of Weehollow is known as Cobble Heights. This area is heavily residential. The 600 foot ziggurats are about 50 stories each, and concrete and metal have been inserted inside to create enormous apartment buildings. Each one is large enough to house about 20,000 people. There are a few major housing companies that manage several ziggurat apartments each, and rent is somewhat pricey but manageable for students and recent graduates. Cobble Heights is next to the business center of Weehollow, Venture Row. This area’s pyramids are full of standard companies: insurance, healthcare, construction (a specialty of Weehollow), etcetera, but there are also a few more unique businesses. Channel 13 Exports, the merchandise hub of Channel 13 Entertainment, is headquartered here. Many people are employed in factories or advertising firms that create and sell Arthur Emeric trading cards, Maxie Tallowtwitch hair products, and Gus Grimeclaw .22 caliber bullets. Weehollow is also home to the Champion Archives. Run entirely by volunteers working with donations, this organization is the foremost expert on the history, trends, and drama of the Champion Challenge and features stacks of digital and paper records as well as statues and descriptive plaques of all Champions past and present.

A timeline of Weehollow's champions.