(Legend) The Elemental Towers Arcane

[Creamsteak]

General History
The world sphere, covered with oceans, mountain, swamps, forests, and the wind itself is permeated by magic. Obviously this magic fuels many divine and arcane powers alike, but while one power comes from the outer, the other comes from the inner. Where Druids gather their energy from nature and it's inner strength, and Clerics draw their powers from the gods and planes of existence abound the multiverse, many of the powers arcane are routed in the Elemental Towers Arcane.

There are six towers, perfectly positioned in geometric certainty. They represent Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Positive, and Negative energies. The postive and negative energy towers form in line perfectly with the planets 'axis'. The world turns around thee two towers in a way. At 90 degrees to each other, the four other elemental towers are placed. At certain regular intervals, sometimes hundreds of years in difference, the towers experience celestial events that often coincide with significant happenings around the world.

Although these towers have been purged by many different sorts of life and death, there is no knowledge of just how deep into the earth they go. Perhaps down to the core of the planet itself. At the top of each tower is a shard of an ancient gem brought to this planet from the outermost edges of conceivable existence. These forces fuel many of the elements as they are seen on the world sphere. Each gem has successfully warded itself against ages of experiments, greed, and control. Each one of these artifacts has managed to protect itself, or be protected, by hundreds of different people in kind over the millennia.

It is believed that many have tried to destroy the towers as well. Such efforts, obviously, have been useless, but marks and scars around the grounds surrounding the towers leave ponderances of what would cause such a massive movement against something that provides such a fundamental power to the world. Perhaps they knew something that has long since been forgotten, but it is also possible that they were attempting to destroy the world.

At times, during earlier civilizations now burnt to the ground, cities sprang up around the towers. These cities used the force of the gems proximity to fuel their own desires. These cities were eventually left with no name, and little memory of their existence. Stories have come and gone, leaving many to believe that the towers themselves, while necessary and helpful, are curses to those that use it. It has become tradition, however, among many guilds and cabals of mages that one who has reached the pinnacle of their craft must seek out the towers, in a form of pilgrimage. Whatever happens on these trips is often unknown, many are killed, stripped of their power, or otherwise left inept by their own actions. Sometimes they just quit, which has more often than not resulted in a much healthier future.

Another story tells that the shards are in fact the remnants of six golems crafted by one fantastic god, or godlike arcanist, that were shattered by all other gods in a sundering event that broke the world, and destroyed the old gods. Very few support this belief, however, except perhaps the occational fanatic or cult.

Yet another sect of devout have claims that the towers were at one time part of an ancient and powerful vessel, that traveled between the many stars on a journey of knowledge. The people, at some point, decided to settle down, and so they formed a planet and chose a star to rest it around. They used their ship, the towers arcane, as the structure to support their fanatical development. Many who believe this also believe that the creators of their world are in fact somewhere inside the towers, dormant.

Make of it what you will, there are theories abound over the many ages about why and how these towers exist. It has been a question for a great amount of time, and will likely remain as such. Almost anyone knows of the towers, but very few know anything definite. Let them sit there, or knock them down if you can, but whatever may happen, the results are unknown.



Specific Timeline

[Creamsteak]

Originally Posted by Lichtenhart

ehm, CS, If I shouldn't have posted here feel free to delete this post, but anyway...

it may be unnecessary realism, but if the sun that lights Enworld describes a fixed path in the sky it means that Enworld's axis isn't tilting like the Earth's one, and there are no seasons. Would you prefer the sun to pass straight over the elemental towers every day or only in some special date (e.g. equinoxes) ?

Sounds better than my idea, I'll go with it.


Also, I'm looking for commentary from people about how this 'feels'. It might not feel right with a majority of players. It's an old idea I dug up from story a friend and I wrote about 5-6 years ago. The story itself had a lot of 'ideas' that just were not clearly covered due to our impatience, and I'm trying my hand at re-writing the material into something more useful to a setting or campaign.

[Velmont]

To Creamstreak:

How it feals? I think it is pretty good, and [censured] any scientific explication, we are in a fantastic world. I find it very interesting.

To Pyrex:

Elleptic orbit are very stable, just look at comets, that's exactly the type of orbit they have, and anyway, we are in a fantastic world, who care about scientific explication when a God can change physic laws.

[Snipehunt]

CS, I like it, FWIW. It's interesting to have hints of long-lost powers. Sounds like a nice focus for a campaign.

[Uriel]

CS, we have quite a few mentions of Cities and other notable places at this point.
Have you figured out where 'The City' is on the map that we are going with (are we going with it?),the one in the Avatar for LEJudge.
Have you named your City, btw?
The location is pertinent in that at least one other Player has mentioned his character being 'In Port',so we need to decide if it is a coastal city or an inland one at the least.
My City, Rivenblight is abut 200 miles North, wherever you finally decide to put 'The City'.

OK off to smile at ther Soul-less masses as they imbibe far to much booze and dance to music that Azathoth would find offensive...

-Uriel

[garyh]

I really like the tower idea, CS. It reminds me of a lot of good fiction I've read (the Choedan Kal, Portal Stones and Tower of Ghenjei from the Wheel of Time come to mind, for example). Ancient mysteries are an integral part of any fantasy world.

The physics angle seems fine to me.