People say that before Bartholomew of Sandwich was anything else, he was a humble stonemason.
That the rock was his canvas and the cave his atelier.
Of course, this is a warping of the truth — for the life of the man who came to claim a piece of an "unknown" land was not humble nor romantic.
But it is true that he held a passion for stone. It bent like clay beneath his molding hands, and anything he wanted, he could carve from the hardest of rock.
Sandwich had a gift. He had multiple, in fact. One, his most well-known, was the visions that would come to define his life and that of generations hence. But one thing is to have visions. Another is to use them. A prophet who does not know how to speak to the masses is no good. But Sandwich had the gift of eloquence, too — when he spoke with persistence and indomitability of a world in ruin and of an unmarred one across a sea, those poor souls working day and night came to believe him. Not in a day or a year, yet the story still tells that over the course of eighty years, Sandwich led eight hundred across an ocean to a land of vacant caves.
Well, vacant except for millions, but man trumps beast, does he not? And so those who had lived for eons in the depths became lower beasts, with the exception of those who stood by Sandwich and his men's attempts at carving their place in somebody else's home. These became friends and sworn brothers.
That was Sandwich's third gift: he could carve and mold even the hardest rock.
And so he built Regalia and called it his paradise — the city rose from the ground as if a god had raised it straight from the natural rock, and its walls came alive with fantastical creatures and men dancing among one another. By the light of torches darkness was banished, and a great palace was erected with no door to allow in no evil. And behold! what need would anyone have for that old world when the Under may be a land of our own making?
Sandwich was a stonemason, and the rock was his canvas. Anything that interfered with his carving, he could chip off — waters were poisoned, enemies were killed. Yet he was the self-proclaimed master of this stone, and the image he carved, even stained by blood and dirt, would remain for ages.