"Vellers Square! Vellers Square, the jewel in Jalkin's crown. Vellers Square, famous the world over, site of renown, birthplace of legends, font of all rumours. Vellers Square, first tick on any sightseers tour, the pinnacle of civilisation, vast, sprawling and entirely out of control. You can take your Summers Bridges, your Dorlaf Avenues, your Kings Roads - Vellers Square is the essence of the Cities, its spirit concentrated into one droplet as glorious and lethal as neat alcohol. Vellers Square, inspiration for a hundred ballads, a thousand tales, ten thousand caustic newsheet articles and a million complaints. Vellers Square, the heart of Jalkin, the heart of the Cities, the heart of Dorlaf, the heart of Christoté. "What a hideous, ungodly being it must be, to beat with such a heart," one scholar wrote - that's Christoté he's talking about, that is. Vellers Square the crowded, the noisy, the ostentatious, the raucous, the chaotic, the hideous, the glorious, the odoriferous, the inane - in the end simply Vellers Square the overwhelming, "where strong men become weak men and weak men become litter," which exhausts all epithets because mere words can't do it justice. Ah, Vellers Square, Vellers Square, so good they named it - a lot of things, in fact, and most of them quite rude.
"No one man could have made Vellers Square what it is today, nor even a single generation. The architect Nayston Culnt started it when he laid out the plans for Jalkin three hundred and fifty years ago. Culnt's blueprints, which can still be viewed in Jalkin Library, explain in a footnote that Vellers Square it is to be "the central intersection of the main thoroughfares, so a space large enough to accommodate all traffic...that this will entail". He really said that. Of course, Culnt (a name which has sorely tempted subsequent generations) wasn't to know that his stately civic dream would be hijacked so badly by real life, nor that the traffic could ever grow to such epic proportions. He also planned for Keskos Way alone to run through Jalkin, not aware that some genius would later decide that the Mellertang Way should also take in the Cities. The Mellertang intersects with Keskos Way at...Vellers Square. Think about it. Keskos Way, beginning in distant Yarport perched by the grey seas of the Western Ocean, running through Erenland's rain-filled forests, across the bright glow of the Christotan wheat fields and all the way to bustling Salbair on the eastern coast; and the Mellertang Way, following the great river which names it down from the foothills of the Orc-haunted Zanzin Mountains, through the turbulent little Flaugian states, past Dydesbury and the Sunken Sea, all the way down to the arid port of Crabal on the Eastern Ocean, far to the south of Salbair and on the brink of the Zabric Desert. Two roads hundreds of miles long, peopled by caravans, messengers, bandits and wanderers, converging once only, at Vellers Square, like the impossibly chance meeting of migrating birds.
"And that's not all. If all the world's signposts point to Jalkin, all Jalkin's street signs point to Vellers Square. No less than seven roads run off it. Dorlaf Avenue, land of a hundred shops and a thousand costermongers, heads due south. A short stroll down East Street brings you to Parliament Square and Huwdone House. Head north-east up Lake Lane instead and you're at Suln Tres, the lake where the rivers meet and barges and boats are loaded to begin their journeys. If dockers aren't your wont, there's the ten thousand inns clustered around the curfew gates of Leighman Way and Cuelon Road. For those more inclined to alleged gracious living, Delgardo Avenue and Leighman Way both lead swiftly to the opulent streets of the north-west quarter. The actors of Welles Court, the newsheet scribblers of Stunat Road, the Calderdale, the Kratzan Riding College, Skalamags's Quay: the works, in short, lie a stone's throw from Vellers Square. And let us not forget what sights the square itself offers.
"The architecture is as important as the crushing crowd density in forging the Vellers Square experience. The whole of the north side is taken up by Jalkin Town Hall. If Huwdone House stands on the very tip of the mountain of excellence in civic architecture then Jalkin Town Hall is very much in the valley, possibly even in an ocean trench. Originally it was a country mansion, but it has progressively gained a kaleidoscope of annexes, wings and outhouses to form a baroque jumble of pillars, courtyards, gargoyles, statues and stairways. When the population in a civilised land expands, its bureaucracy expands even quicker. The response from the whole Cities region has been to stick everything in Jalkin Town Hall, rebuilding when necessary. Fortunately the Town Hall itself is set back from Vellers Square, though several obscene details like the bright blue glass globe on top of the east wing are visible. Its chief contribution to the square is a high wall made of bricks every colour under the sun, topped by stone figures and coats of arms. In its centre stands the Town Hall's main entrance gates, their posts the dark green trunks of two elvish trees.
"The sloping diagonal east side of Vellers is surprisingly sober, a collection of tall, narrow buildings of miscellaneous function; but to the south stands the Domes Theatre. Now, opinion is divided on the aesthetics of the Domes. Some point out that, externally at least, it is just a big, solid box of a place. It admittedly stands eighty feet tall and its corners are fashioned into bulbous spheres, but it is nonetheless a sombre and venerable construction, built in times when theatre was a respected art form dealing with sensible topics. (Namely, set five hundred years ago and written by, for, about and supporting aristocrats; a tradition deservedly wrecked by Stayson Cooper). From Vellers Square, though, what catches the eye is the tapestries. The stolen battle scene in Tomas Kenner's room was only an infant. An enormous tapestry hung over the main door of the theatre, portraying a group of old lords carousing revoltingly to advertise another re-staging of Cooper's The Comedians. Surrounding it were only slightly smaller works; a thief riding through a forest, a bun fight in Parliament Hall, a young woman sobbing in an alleyway, the battle of Brays Crossing in the Garreday Uprisings. Almost the whole south side of Vellers is usually covered by a miasma of astonishingly detailed images, some faded by age, others vivid as a sunny day. The effect is partially beautiful but mainly disconcerting; unlike the effect of viewing the centrepiece of the square's west side, which is generally sheer horror. Settle House protrudes into Vellers Square like a bad dream, all too visible behind its low, gem-studded walls and tiny, thorn-filled gardens (filled thus deliberately, no-one knows why). The architect who conjured up Huwdone House discovered later in his career what the other side of genius is. Shortly before hanging himself he unleashed Settle House on the world. It is a grotesque, deeply pretentious building fashioned like a castle - complete with turrets and a mock-drawbridge - with sickly cherubic figures carved into its walls. A pale green tiled roof slopes incongruously up past the ramparts and clashes horribly with the orange stonework. Set into the roof are mirrors which seem designed to flash sunlight into people's eyes. No-one knows what to do with the ghastly thing - Settle House currently houses unwary Domes staff - no-one knows why it was built and no-one knows why, 300 years after being retched up, it hasn't been torn down yet. Tall statues of Tars Tukas, again on a horse looking proud, and Stayson Cooper, rather curiously flourishing a wig, stand on either side of Settle House and give it undeserved gravity. In fact there are bits and pieces everywhere in Vellers Square, statues, wells, fountains and the like, all helping to block up the traffic. King of them all is the Maskham Altar.
"The Maskham Altar was inserted into the very centre of Vellers Square last century and really set the seal on the place. It is a broad, low and perfectly square construction. A wide porch runs round it on all sides, floor tiles in the familiar chequerboard style, slightly raised and surrounded by flights of low steps. The inner walls of the altar building itself hide in the shadows behind the porch, unnoticed and unadorned. At each corner of the porch stand two thick, fluted and entirely tasteless pillars, gaudy blends of jade and ruby infested with silver Garran holy signs. A baroque collection of incense burners and charms generally hang from each pillar but, for all their brazen ornamentation, their real purpose is to hold up the massive roof which dominates the Maskham Altar. The roof completely covers the porch and its ominous low eaves hang over the square itself. It is a heavy and oppressive pyramid, covered in a single sheet of polished gold which shines like a beacon in the sun. On top of the pyramid's point stands a tall brass rectangular clock, the four faces of which are painted with detail so fantastic that it's a shame they are too high up to be seen properly. The Maskham Altar is ostensibly a fully-fledged shrine for the Garran Church but is rarely used - they allow the homeless to shelter in it at night - and it has come to transcend any religious meaning. It is the symbol of shameless ostentation at the very heart of the very heart. The property of a wealth-obsessed church, it is costly, it is pointless, it is the product of a land which does the necessary so well that it can afford the pointless. It is the vulgar boasting of a human race which has won its war of survival, and it is the Cities."
(from City Hobgoblins)