[MFR] Lore File - The City of Spires

Notes :

Might make it available to preservers after a bit, might not. Usually I write these solely for my benefit, but this one proved to be spoiler free, so I was able to share it.

(Yes, that is why there hasn't been lore files in a while on patreon, they tend to be riddled with spoilers, when the subject itself isn't spoilery as all hell)

The City of Spires

It has been known by many names over the centuries, from Adamantros the Resplendescent to Kilira the Fallen, but the only appellation that has stuck is linked to its most striking feature, the spires reaching towards the skies all around the city.

The historical record on the city itself is somewhat complicated. As for many early settlements, its origin is lost to time, but it is largely accepted that it was settled by the old coastal tribes of the Maryl coastline on the east of the Merian continent, ranging further inland alongside the rivers, periodically creating settlements to allow ships to come to shore safely.

The greatest of these settlements was eventually founded on the slopes of the Taruna mountains, on the Ylira river. Nestled in between the great peaks, it was well shielded from the horrors spewing out of the nearby Stoneblood Convergence, including its manastorms and even manatempests. This allowed the city to flourish, as it was the only port on the Convergence section of the river capable of housing ships in any degree of safety, and the close proximity to the Convergence allowed it to exploit its wealth of mana with relative ease.

Rapidly, the City of Spires became the center of the Merian continent in terms of academic learning and the arcane arts. Universities and Mage Academies began erecting spires, both to have one taller than their rivals', but also to get closer to the refulgence of the manastorms, washing high in the skies. They were the first storm observatories in history, and many continued operation until the fall of the city to the Crusaders and the awakening of the Bane.

The city's geographical locations also became a boon against an altogether more mundane menace. As the continent was settled in earnest, city states emerged and began vying for control. The Ylira river, once an artery of trade, was now the theater of incessant wars, as the various settlements started competing for resources. Their only thing in common was their envy and resentment of the City of Spires, then called Adamantros. Its position made it nigh unassailable by conventional means, and its impossibility to blockade due to its easy access to the Convergence thanks to tunnels dug over the centuries in the mountains, plus vast terrace farms upon the slopes, allowed it to flourish.

Soon the city state had some degree of influence on its neighbours. It might have even created a petty kingdom eventually, if not for the following events.

Because in year zero of the Imperial Calendar, the city fell. Legions of skeletons rose out of the water of the river, and assaulted its walls, as living troops poured out of the mountain tunnels.

In less than four days, the greatest city on the continent, perhaps even in the world, was beaten.

And then something truly bizarre happened.

For cities to fall was not uncommon. For the conquering warlord, ruler of another city or a mercenary thereof to then declare themselves Emperor of the known world even less so.

What was strange was for the invading general to be a complete nobody, with allegiance to no one. Not only that, but the city wasn't sacked, as was customary. It wasn't even looted. The invading troops merely established a curfew, enforced martial law, and waited for calm to return, with a level of discipline unfathomable until then.

These troops were not a rabble of conscripts backed with a few career throat slitters. They were professional, organized, and backed by large numbers of unquestionably loyal and obedient undead. They moved, fought and occupied as one unit, and not a disparate gaggle of tribes and war parties, held together by noble blood ties or pay packets. They were the First Imperial Legion, the Throne's Will, and the distant ancestors of the last defenders who fell to a man defending the Imperial Palace against the Crusaders.

Their leader, Kallaran, declared the founding of an Eternal Empire. Some historians claim that he was widely dismissed, only for his detractors to be proven terrifyingly wrong, but there is considerable evidence that shows the fall of the City of Spires sent massive shockwaves throughout the continent, some of them too big to have been entirely natural. There are whispers that perhaps Kallaran had not just prepared thoroughly for the conquest by somehow assembling the first professional army the continent had ever seen in secret, but also built a communication network to relay news of his successes to the furthest reaches.

From there, the City of Spires became the capital of the Eternal Empire. Not, at first, its Throne City, as one of its more enduring moniker called it until the Age of Fury, as it is said Kallaran took what would become the Eternal Throne with him on his campaigns, but its capital nonetheless.

To have a city be declared a great capital of a burgeoning demesne was nothing new. What was new was the way Kallaran approached it.

Rather than a massive, explosive expansion and then collapse at the end of the life of its leader or their heir, as their domain fell into squabbling and infighting, Kallaran conquered slowly and gradually. His domain grew, one city at a time.

Many Imperial historians, particularly of the Age of Expansion, like to tell tales of the First Emperor felling a dozen cities in a year, but truth be told, the early Eternal Empire seldom saw more than a major conquest every decade, if at that. Every city taken was fully integrated and consolidated within the Empire before the next was set upon.

This slow, creeping progress allowed the City of Spires to gradually grow into its role of capital city. Every new addition to the Empire was carefully integrated into the trade routes of the capital, supplied and by the time the legions marched again, flew the Imperial flag proudly.

By the time Kallaran retired, leaving the throne to his heir and moving to the Imperial Palace rather than trekking across the Empire, building up new conquests or refining the legions for the next one, the Empire had six cities to its name. A pathetic sum in more modern times, but a veritable juggernaut by the standards of the time.

When he died, the Empire had eighteen, several of which the Empire had founded and nurtured from the ground up. And the City of Spires was, without question, the greatest city in the world.

This gradual growth continued until the declaration of the Age of Expansion by Malarak the Great, Imperator Solar and the last sovereign of the Bronze Legions. With the launch of the Great Fleets and the eventual formation of the Armada Solar, the capital began to transition from the economic center of the Empire to its intellectual foundation. While it had access to the seas through the Ylira river, the great ocean going ships could not navigate up it, and gradually, centers of commerce shifted to the coastal region.

Nevertheless, the Throne City remained strong and healthy, though its riches were now eclipsed by the great ports like Uliver and Naulos.

Until the Age of Fury.

The city saw some of the worst fighting, especially towards the end. Initially, the Praetorian Guard and the First Legion were able to keep other forces out of the city, but as lines of succession collapsed and the crisis intensified, it eventually wasn't viable, leading to an ever escalating spiral of violence that culminated in no less than five large scale engagements in the capital, where the Empire's legions clashed beneath the judging spires.

This came to a halt during the Restoration. Sadly, the damage was already done. The overseas provinces were largely in open revolt. An attempt was made to bring them back into the fold, but it failed. Only those on Merian, more stable and anchored in the Empire's culture, not to mention closer to its centers of power, remained. Some were taken back by force, but most simply flew the Imperial flag again.

So ended the short lived Age of Restoration, and began the Age of Silence. Imperial dispatches stopped being sent out of the coastal ports. Great trade fleets dispersed. The Eternal Empire folded back onto its home continent.

And began its final decline.

The Crusades of Life began. Seeking to eradicate the 'curse' of undeath, they began to assail the decaying Eternal Empire. At first, they were easily repelled, but decade after decade, grinding battle after grinding battle, the Empire began to lose ground. Cities fell. First on the coast, then further inland, as the 'Crusaders' began conquering and pillaging their way through the old, rich lands. Crusade after Crusade, war after war, always going a bit further, both in territory and atrocities visited upon the 'unworthy' people of the old Empire.

Finally, at last, they reached the City of Spires.

The battle there was of a savagery unmatched. It is said that the Crusaders killed every being, living or not, that they met. That the shattered remains of the legions fought to the last as the spires were toppled around them, ankle deep in the blood of their slaughtered families and butchered loved ones.

No one knows what happened in the Imperial Palace. The last surviving testimonies were of those who were on the river boats, observing the last legionnaires of the First fall, their banners torn down and trampled as the Crusaders stormed in.

Then...

A scream. A wave of power.

Throughout the city, crypts opened. On the flanks of the mountain, decorative murals collapsed.

And the legions of the Empire awoke from their long slumber.

What remains of the City of Spires is unknown. The last known account was six years after the awakening of the Bane, when a daring airship expedition made it to the peaks.

Of the eighteen vessels, three made it home. The rest told of great scaffolds rising into the skies, bale, eldritch lights illuminating the mountain tops, and bellows of hatred as skeletal dragons took to the skies, trailing Imperial banners centuries old.

And more bizzarely still, they swore they could hear the clangor of mighty battle from beyond the mountains. As if thousands, tens of thousands were fighting each other. Without screams, pleas or cries.

Just the clashing of arms.