Birka

Enel's homeland, which he destroyed. One Angel Island in five is a Birkan island: most of them in ruins, a few still inhabited.

An island in ruins

A Birkan town in ruins, round its crater.

Most Birkan islands were struck. They lie under a veil of ash — grey fog, a dull sky: plates of Scorched Cloud and Ashen Cloud, small craters, and one great crater, fifty to ninety blocks across, where the town's heart stood. Nothing grows there.

Round the crater lie the ruins of the town, in Birka's own pale masonry: low houses, stepped houses, tower houses, broken and open to the sky, in three rows. Nearly one building in two still holds a chest: what the fire left, a common dial now and then, and a rare dial about one time in nine.

The vault lies at the bottom of the great crater, laid bare: the temple's crypt and the treasure the town kept there — a rare dial every time (Flame, Impact or Reject), gold and gems, a heavy purse, and now and then a box.

A town the lightning spared

About one Birkan island in five is inhabited: no crater, no burnt cloud, no ash — an Angel Island's white cloud, trees and clear sky — and its town stands whole — the town the ruins are what is left of.

• The temple on its square, at the heart: its hall, a room in each tower, and in the west tower a stair that turns down to the crypt — the vault, whole and guarded.
• Thirty to fifty houses in three rows, furnished, each with its people and a modest chest: provisions, a little gold, a common dial one time in ten.
• The merchant, behind the counter of his shop before the temple's portal: Birka's masonry, cheap and in number, and two sorts of common dials. He buys burnt cloud — Ashen or Scorched Cloud brought from a ruined island — for extol: hold it out to him.
• The craftsman of dials, in his workshop beside the shop: Flame Dials and Impact Dials, and the rarest of Sky Island's dials, Jet Dials and Vision Dials, always.
• The guards: two at the portal, two in the crypt, two by their posts. They fight like the divine soldiers, with their dials, but go for nobody on sight.

Theft

Strike a Birkan, open a chest of the town or break a block of one of its buildings, and the guards around come for you. The town remembers: a guard who was not there knows the thief all the same. A chest or a torch of your own, set down in a house, is yours.

Blocks

Nine blocks for builders: Birkan Plaster and its slab, Birkan Brick with its slab and stairs, the Chevron, Diamond and Cross Friezes, and the Birkan Rose Window. Plaster is burnt in a furnace from Ashen or Scorched Cloud; the merchant sells all of them.

In a world already played

An Angel Island not visited yet may turn out to be Birkan, and one partly explored may be Birkan in the parts not seen. An island already walked keeps what was seen of it.