Valianto: History and Rumors
Valianto was founded next to the Redlands by the Valianto family of Sedera, on Dregar. A family steeped in the tradition of pottery, they had heard about the special properties of the Tilmar clay, and went to see it for themselves. They settled in 943 near the Yaubu pit, the largest quarry on Tilmar, and proceeded to dig, shape and fire the clay into amazing works that earned them notoriety across the island. Over time others came, a family here and a family there. Traders made it a stop along their route and pottery, tile and brick was carted back and forth from Huangjin and many local settlements in exchange for food and other staples. Water was and still is obtained from Sunset Lake, the water cart leaving weekly to fill the all the town's barrels in one run. The water must be blessed and cleansed with alum before drinking, however.
As the Yaubu pit was already open it's clear that somewhere nearby there must have been a city, but there was no evidence of any settlements at the time Valianto began. However, Mana Hen'oz does remember the "clay cart"? coming from the quarry into Huangjin before the taun began so it's assumed someone was out there digging before the Valiantos put down kilns.
The Yaubu pit got larger and larger, deeper and deeper. Valianto prospered. Then, sometime in the early spring of 1327, the quarrymen didn't come back to town. The team sent to find them didn't return either. Messengers were sent to Huangjin for help, and Keitai Ohoro sent two dozen of his men to investigate. What they found horrified them; on the bottom of the quarry, seven bodies, pummeled to a pulpy mass and baking like meat on the hot clay. Slime trails of what looked like tar streaked the floor of the pit and several tunnels were visible. Worst, the bodies had no bones; they had been smashed and de-boned like one would prepare the breast of a chicken. The Ohoro guards split into three groups and trekked into the tunnels to find the beasts that had done this. What they did find was no beast ever seen walking the land, but the five that made it out alive spoke of "huge black tentacles" and "bones of our dead".
The Yaubu pit has been off-limits ever since and most have the common sense not to go there. Valianto, abandoned when Bloodstone's army came, was revived in 1412 by some artisans who lived there previously although the remaining Valianto family has not returned from where they fled on Dregar as yet. Despite this, the taun has as many people now as it ever has, mostly laborers lugging clay from the new quarry to meet the demand for road and housing brick.
