Origin of Gridania: Gelmorra

[JeniLinsky]

As for the advanced state of decay of the Gelmoran ruins in the Shroud, consider the text of the mining levequest "Elemental Housekeeping":

Of overgrown traces of Gelmorra, few remain to disturb the order of the forest, yet occasional ruins are still found that must needs be removed. What is under the forest may stay, but our laws decree that no stone of Gelmorra mar the home of the elementals.

So if the Gridanians are actively destroying traces of Gelmorra, we really have no clear indicators for how long it's been since their civilization fell.

[Enkidoh]

Well, they're obviously not doing a very good job, as there's tons of Gelmorran/Admapori ruins still scattered throughout the Shroud on the surface, in varying stages of dereliction.

Considering the level 10 Gridanian main story quest mentioned that when a building/construction in the Black Shroud is no longer required by Gridanians, they turn it over to the elementals in a special, although probably mostly symbolic, ceremony overseen by CNJs (the player only saw a tiny part of the ceremony before a certain black robed troublemaker showed up), it's likely that levequest description is simply metaphorical.

And besides, nature quickly reclaims abandoned buildings very easily anyway. So that sounds contradictory I'm afraid.

[Kyan]

During that particular leve, you actually mine/destroy parts of the building to get rid of it, so I'm not so sure it is a metaphor, it's just that we don't have a dynamic world where it changes.

It is sort of like the Sasamo steps leve - there are rocks on the steps caused by the calamity, and miners are required to destroy/remove the rocks, which you do in the leve - only they don't disappear.