Sitting below the waters of the Lake of Ill Omen, lies the entrance to what was once a thriving iksar city. A sort of Sebilisian resort town built on top of the supposed healing spring waters of Kunark.

The designer behind the zone tells us how an unlikely 80s movie with a similar – destroyed city theme, inspired its development.

I’m Allen Bond, senior artist. I build just about everything except characters. So I do environments, objects, armor, housing objects.

I like all the zones that I build. They’re all equally good to me.

But recently I’ve heard a lot of people really like the first zone that I worked on, Veksar.

I based that off of The Escape From New York movie.

That one goes in and out of buildings because they do the same thing in the movie. They’re on the street. They’re inside the buildings. Back out on the street. On the buildings.

So there’s a theatre in there. Same as in the movie.

Allen Bond, designer of Veksar

The theatre that Allen mentions is now home to the spirit of Trakanon’s former general, the now slain dragon Garudon.

He attacked the city and as it was knocked from its pillars he was caught in the snare traps set by the iksar. In his last breath, trapped in the dome, and brought down by the iksar soldiers, he crashed through the ceiling of the theatre.

The city is now destroyed, but as it collapsed, the healing waters flooded the valley and diluted the healing properties.

Garudon still roams Veksar as an undead dragon in both EverQuest and in EverQuest II