Spire Concept - Auric Horizon

When man was first driven into the mountains by Orcish aggression, he found abandoned Spires already built into the rock. One spire in what was to become Morrow was notable for possessing viewing platforms that gave observers a perfect view of the Sunrise and Sunset and it rapidly became a place renowned for divination and revelation. This Spire came to be known as that of the Auric Horizon.
What knowledge and wonder they saw in their rituals may never be recovered, for the Spire suffered a tragedy during the reign of Nicovar the Mad. Her libraries were among those ordered destroyed in the Emperor's paranoia and many vaults of lore were lost.

While there are legends that repositories of lore yet survive beneath the rubble of the purge, such stories have not born fruit in recent years save a single tome on cookery that was uncovered in YE 332.

When Spiral fell, the Auric Horizon was noted for extending aid to Havenspire, as well as accepting refugees in order to relieve the overcrowding. The tragedy seems to have awoken the normally reclusive spire to increased contact within Urizen and later the Empire.
While Stargazers gather within the Auricspire, there is a recent tendency to intervene in the world around them in an attempt to positively affect the Net of the Heavens. These new Illuminates are joined by a few young Sentinels and Architects in order to bring balance to an otherwise magically-focussed Spire.

That's really good background, I love the cookery book bit.

Only issue I have is;

Maninblue wrote:

...When Spiral fell, the Auric Horizon was noted for extending aid to Havenspire, as well as accepting refugees in order to relieve the overcrowding...

I'm okay with the offering aid to us, but accepting refugees does rob my group of our concept.

I fired the description of the interaction to Darren before posting and removed everything that was contravercial at the time.

We don't intend to contest your schtick as the heirs to Spiral, we just want to open the doors up to backgrounds that beyond that of "my folks have lived here for generations": a catalyst for shaking our slightly insular Spire out of gentle decline and into external contact (in time for the first event).

THB people that want to be displaced could either be foundlings or adopted from brass coast. Perhaps they had an aunt/uncle in Auric Horizon, or their mother/father was originally from there. As long as a former spiral born / decedent has a legit reason to not be part of the refuges' group (havenspire).

I'm not trying to police this, or refuse people saying their character was from Spiral - that would be impossible and stupid; considering new players/characters later on. Just trying to save the watering down of our flavour.

The cookery book bit is outstanding... and I expect a copy of it to be a prop on the field

tbh.. I'm not sure if it's worth mentioning that some of Auric's population are made up of Spiral refugees if you're locating in Morrow. I didn't see the suggestion as contreversial simply because if Spiral people decided to settle somewhere other than Haven, then they were never really Havenites to begin with anyway. So that provides no connection between Auric & Haven anyway.

The geography is perhaps going to be against you though. Morrow is the oldest of the 4 territories, and is mountainous. Spiral was the youngest I think, and low-lying. Would refugees really trek through all of Redoubt & Zenith to go settle in Morrow?
I know we really need the map to know if this is a possibility or not..

Of course.. that also puts doubt onto the Auric offering humanitarian aid to the founding of Haven, but I actually think that can work in our favour.. with a far off and usually reclusive spire offering aid to those in need when nearest spires perhaps offered none, or only token aid.

Certainly, I don't want to claim we're the entirety of Spiral.. that would be crazy.
But perhaps we are the entirety, or at least majority of those that still think of ourselves in those terms... likely refugees that settled elsewhere would now consider themselves of wherever their new home is.

The relieving overcrowding part isn't all that likely, simply because the wiki does go to lengths to describe Urizen as having a surfeit of space available to all.. relatively large areas of land for low population size.

Rather than 'offering to aid the refugees in Havenspire', how about instead sending protective aid to Spiral refugees, to allow them to flee safely from the barbarians?

I understand the concern here that everyone & his mother will want a connection to Spiral (for that tragic background origin), but I don't think there will be many people making Spiral characters outside of Havenspire.

Quote :

The geography is perhaps going to be against you though. Morrow is the oldest of the 4 territories, and is mountainous. Spiral was the youngest I think, and low-lying. Would refugees really trek through all of Redoubt & Zenith to go settle in Morrow?
I know we really need the map to know if this is a possibility or not..

From my perspective the refugees that travelled all the way to Auric may have done so because they wanted to get as far away as possible from where the tragedy occured, and went up into the mountains BECAUSE it was difficult terrain and so felt more protected. Also:

Quote :

When Spiral fell, the Auric Horizon was noted for extending aid to Havenspire, as well as accepting refugees in order to relieve the overcrowding.

The part about overcrowding in particular. Redoubt & Zenith may have filled up with refugees (or acepted as many as they were willing to, think DA2 with Kirkwall) so some refugess might not have had any choice but to keep walking.

At any rate I think people should be allowed to decide there own origins, and this allows them to do so, but by all means Spiral associated characters could be encouraged to join Havenspire.

There are plenty of other ways to have a tragic background, rather than just using another groups concept. I don't mind someone stay they had a connection to Spiral (example, my parents were born in Spiral. I was living in Auricspire when it fell and they were killed.)

There aren't going to be loads of refugees because most will have been slaughtered and Urizen spires typically are small communities, so there wouldn't be any overcrowding.

All I'm asking is that; if people want to have a Spiral connection, that they put a connection to their new spire too, saying they are refugees is too simple.

I should point out that Spiral wasn't just one spire, it was a whole province with a quarter of Urizen's total population in it (in the absence of statistics to the contrary).

The idea that the whole thing would simultaneously fall in one single massacre seems incongruous with the predictive and pre-planning nature of Urizen. The idea that a single spire could contain 1/4 of the total population of the Nation (minus the bulk of its sentinels) also seems incongruous...
Unless there is a Rio-style Favela thing going on, which would be cool.

Maninblue wrote:

...The idea that the whole thing would simultaneously fall in one single massacre seems incongruous with the predictive and pre-planning nature of Urizen...

The background says that not only was Spiral overrun by barbarians (which suggests a quick loss of the territory) but also the Empire, at the time, couldn't find their organize a piss up in a brewery yet alone organize the defense of their territory. Also take into consideration that Spiral was the first territory lost, nobody was expecting it.

I certainly get the impression that Spiral fell quickly and that survivors weren't exactly in large numbers.
I've no doubt that a fair number of survivors did go to spires other than Haven. Those they originally came from or had family at for example.

If a spiral connection is relevant to a player/character, then of course that's something to include in personal background. Not sure it's something to state in group background unless it's a key part of that group's background, not just some players within, that they had/have that connection.