The Neon Spear on the Southwestern Sea, and the Sapphire of the Three Suns and Moon
Dangling off the permanent low tide of the southwestern sea, far Northwest from the Ruins of Tyralinthian there is a 550-year-old shoreside beacon. It is a 70-story tall glass, steel and silver tower recently and rapidly populated by tens of thousands of survivors from both the land and ocean. These are the mechanical and magickal remains of what was the only hydroelectric sea wall dam of Atma’Zae. This place once reliably powered approximately 55% of the western continent by way of underground cables which extended High North and into the icy heart of the Frozen South. This was a site of raw power production, capturing the energetic properties of strong over-and-underwater currents of the Storming West to generate an energy capacity solution for, at the time, a heavily expanding population. Although its infrastructure was nearly totally decimated by underwater earthquakes and tsunamis, and the northern portion of the dam is now laying entirely on the seabed, the wretches of the Frozen South made their way up the coast to escape drowned horrors and founded here a new settlement. This busy coastal outpost and naval colony is now the most active port in the known World, operating as a primary distribution center for erratic mass-produced raw materials and what remains of oceanic business endeavors of all varieties in the Days of Ash. Gambling, whoring and trafficking of both mind-altering illicit substances and slaves are its biggest current commercial attractions. This is one of the only locations in the Realm that has the technical-magical resources and sheer workforce to mass-manufacture rare and important goods capable of warding off the total environmental rot of the Undoing. Although the vast majority of its electrical sub-stations and main tower are too broken to create its own power anymore, the focal tower has recently been affixed with a potent artifact from the sunken and doomed city that was Tyralinthian; The Eye of the Cosmos, a magickal gem of inner chaos and outer balance designed to deal with the electrical yield of a city roughly eighteen times its current output.
Once known as the Orcinus Great Dam, frantic and frostbitten stayers from the melting South came to the wide mouth of the Choral Rill to hunt whales for food and lamp oil. When stragglers came to the Orcani Shallows and saw a metal tower left shaken and powerless on the coast, they recognized opportunity and quickly mobilized to serve a burgeoning population in the ruined and fractured Frozen South. Whaling, crabbing and fishing was their remaining long term viable food source in the region and as a pirate’s luck would have it, marine activity was in abundance after the Nemesis. The fat of the sea would become some of its most trafficked original resources. By land, survivors had to quickly construct narrow bridges made of ash wood and basalt to traverse the remaining crest of the dam, which is now known as the Freebridge District. The continental Navy once boasting 1000 total boats including longships, troop transports and supply ships had been cut in half since the four decades which passed since the Nemesis. Still a formidable force, captains desperate to make landfall would begin rumoring about a translucent tower in the Southwest and sail thousands of nautical miles here to congregate and plan for what little collective future they had left. Naval officers of high esteem agreed to abandon their posts, and the once-mighty Navy of Atma’Zae became a confederation of loosely organized pirates with small, loyal crews and completely selfish interests. With no official military at sea, a once proudly serving and highly trained marine army became nothing more than smugglers and scavengers picking at the corpses of what remained of nearby high civilizations. When the seas became lawless so did the ethics of the occupying continental Navy. Originally populated by surviving hedge mages and tradesfolk from the highway, the military and economic might of the Pirate Guilds became the organizing purpose of this region. Anyone from rich investors to lowlifes can find a life at sea here. As long as the bribes keep coming, the productivity keeps going, as there are trades and ample work for all that seek it. Guilds manufacture large panes of magically infused glass at the bottom portion of the focal tower, and distribute it through contacts North, West and in between.
Widely regarded as Orcaspiere, this tower of marine power and raw energy industrially blends into a heavily contaminated and multihued coastal horizon and has many names across the Ashes. This large settlement is known well by reputation across the World and has different names in different regions including the Chameleon Tower, the Unseen Keep, and the Glass Dam. Rummagers of the weather-beaten and eroded southwestern region pulled together resources and materials, some of them magical in nature, to cobble together a new community made of steel, silver and outwardly reinforced with its own flat sheets of thick and tempered industrial-grade laminated glass. The most precious artifact discovered from its commissioned oceanic surveys was the Eye of the Cosmos, found loosened from its facet deep below the Southern Sea. Some say the gem was freed by way of the Catastrophe, some say by way of the creatures of the Deepest Darks who humanity had long forgotten and largely regarded as mere mythological gobbledygook. When the Nemesis began, it first arrived in the form of earthquakes under the Southern Sea, causing sudden flash floods and tidal waves that sank a magically charged metropolis asunder. The Eye of the Cosmos, disconnected from its towered facet for three decades, floated atop the icy waters of the Southern Sea until it was scooped up inside a whaling net. Carefully designed and cut to store the concentrated and harvested energies of immediately neighboring stars, this brilliant and massive orange sapphire was twice cleansed with moon water and charged by the very solar flares of the three nearest stars: Xear, Nuc and Qo. When high profile magicians and pirates of Orcaspiere realized the raw power source they had accidentally skimmed from the skin of the sea, they had their hedge mages design an internally reinforced intake tower made of silver for super conductivity. They utilized the manpower of 10000 workers to build massive prongs made of copper wire and brass. The Pirate Coalition brought the stored energy inside The Eye back to roaring life with an earth burial, a third cleansing in moon water, and a simple flame cantrip. This thriving harbor is retrofitted for survival in the harshest of freezing and toxified coastal conditions. Immediately local waterways must be de-iced daily in every direction for miles to make the port approachable for travelers by the tranquil low tide. The new southwestern city, which houses and otherwise supports nearly 35,000 lives, relies on slave labor and large capital investments from wealthy pirates. The dam’s population celebrates being alive, especially at night, with the multicultural foods, colors and delights of a dead nation of wizards and technocrats.
Lore Entry # 7 (click here for art)
