The Four Cities 2. Slagate Refuge

A series played using Palimpsest. This post is published under the CC-BY-SA-4.0 licence.

City 2: Slagate Refuge

Descriptors: Ancient, Hopeful, Mundane, Sepulchral.

Concept: A growing community of exiled nomads looking for a place to end their days.

 

Flaw: Fatalism; when the end came they accepted it without resistance.

Lenses: Remembrancers, Grief, Veterans, the Dead.

Epoch 1

Keystone: What drew us here?

Remembrancers: Needing to store the scrolls of dead names for future generations to preserve.

Grief: [R] The Stone Circle is the focus of a growing array of burial plots.

Veterans: Wanting a place to rest, to lay down arms and try to find peace.

The Dead: Reliquaries of bones and scrolls of names. Blood and memories in the living.

Flashpoint: Homes and sanitation were low priority, disease spread.

Epoch 2

Keystone: How have we changed?

Remembrancers: [R] Oubliette Tower is now a vast archive of our histories. We look in awe.

Grief: We have time and space to grieve. We build memorials and perform our rites.

Veterans: We forge tools, instead of weapons. We march in pride, not toward death.

The Dead: Our numbers grow but at a gradually slower rate. The living speak to us.

Flashpoint: A growing ancestral cult takes root, progress stalls.

Epoch 3

Keystone: What goals do we pursue?

Remembrancers: A full record of our histories so that we will never be forgotten.

Grief: Honouring the dead to be sure they are always present in our lives.

Veterans: Forgetting what we had to do to survive. Preventing future conflicts.

The Dead: For a second chance at life so that we can experience all that was stolen from us.

Flashpoint: Stasis continues, the focus shifts to the past.

Epoch 4

Keystone: Is necromancy the future?

Remembrancers: The past shouldn’t be just memories, we should try to restore our dead to life.

Grief: Grief is natural process. We should not seek to prolong or deny it.

Veterans: Making tools of the dead is only a short step away from making them weapons.

The Dead: [R] Ossuary Eternal where the first words were spoken by the dead.

Flashpoint: Division leads to conflict and eventual civil unrest.

Downfall

The living underclass, subject to disease and other risks not prioritised by the necrarchy, slowing wane in number until finally there are none left. The city is shunned for centuries and much of it sinks into the swamp.

Remnants

The Stone Circle where blood was shed in ancient rites at the centre of the burial grounds.

The Oubliette Tower where dissidents are imprisoned the historical archives are stored.

The Crystal Array that harnesses the aetheric currents that power the city.

The Ossuary Eternal where the dead are given voices.