The City-State of Endergaln is a steam and clockwork metropolis that fills a valley nestled amount high, jagged mountains, and resides over one of the only passages through one of [[Ixadal]]'s most intrusive mountain ranges.
Endergaln itself is built on and around fissures where the veil to the Plane of Fire is thin, and the heat from these fissures is used as a source of perpetual power to heat water, which is harnessed from the flows of the nearby mountains, to create steam, which is then piped throughout the city to motivate all variety of clockworks and steam-engines, including trains, slow-moving-zeppelins, automatons, elevators, and the city’s large gates.
Access to these planar-thermal vents is controlled largely by three powerful houses and the complex political interactions with dozens more lesser houses and commoner unions within the city’s auspices.
Though there is no de facto leader at the top of Endergaln’s hierarchy, the three major houses, which have maintained a reluctant peace among themselves for more than a century, control significant power and influence when compared to other organizations.
The isolated, adversarial, disjointed political and practical influences within Endergaln has also given rise to unofficial societal groups within Endergaln, with laws created, negotiated, and maintained among often changing groups of commoner influence within the city, with little distinction between unions, gangs, and other forms of organization, each with complex ambitions and motivations within the city.
Beyond the walls of Endergaln, the sprawling valley and the mountains and forest themselves are far from safe nor civilized.
The forests and deep mountains are home to enormous and monstrous beasts, dangerous and powerful beyond adversary, while smaller monsters often emerge from the forests and mountains to threaten even the most brave travelers and caravans in the surrounding regions.
It’s because of this threat that a variety of organizations both in Endergaln and the surrounding towns and villages are often in need of the brave to fight off intrusions of monsters that threaten homes and farmlands.
Beyond this to the West, a growing tension between Houses of Endergaln and the slowly encroaching arrival of the Concordian Alliance threatens to alter the future political and regional landscape.
Appearance
Iron has a significant presence in the city’s structure and architecture. One of the results of this is an abundance of rust-colored dust mixing with the snow that is a persistent part of life, resulting from the wear on ancient gears in their perpetual movement.
Clothing and other such things being stained red or orange is a sign of poverty and a symbol of class, with the wealthy preferring colors like green and blue, and the most wealthy sometimes wearing white, because of the impossibility of keeping it clean if you spend any time in the streets.
The Party’s Involvement
Gwin Clockwright has gained the patronage of one of these houses, the House of Beryl, headed by Beryl Vanadium.
Gwin has a workshop funded by this patron for who she creates technologies in parallel with her own efforts to find her son, Esmund Clockwright by way of experimentation on Samsel’s Stone, which is discovered to be a fragment of an Aasimar Confluence, a piece of an Aasimar power source that fell from the destruction of the moon in a time long passed.
History Divergence Note
This object offers the potential for great discoveries, but also will require significant research by brilliant minds.
The party is offered function accommodations by the House of Beryl through their relationship to Gwin by way of paid and permanent rooms at The Cog and Sprocket, a modest but pleasant inn in the same district near a railway station and market within a ten minute walk from the Tower of Vanadis, where resides the members of Beryl family.
Assuming perfect conditions it is a roughly ten day journey eastward by wagon to Kendall’s Forge, where Salinger Morel lives, though this journey is seldom safe.
As a result of the dangerous and deadly nature of the wild lands, the surrounding mountains and forests are largely unexplored beyond a few days journey into either.
The City of Endergaln and the surrounding area is large and varied enough that players have the freedom to create small unintrusive features, npcs, creatures, and events needed to express their stories, interests, and interactions during the break, which will in all pass 1 year of time.
The Three Major Houses
The major houses within Endergaln established their power through resources and innovations centuries ago, and maintain their dominance among the many houses through leverage of their established power, fueling innovations and discoveries in competition with all others.
The House of Saphaisle
Notably commands a small fleet of inexpensive and slow-moving zeppelins facilitated by exclusive access to a magical gas element that allows the family’s zeppelins to with ease, among a variety of other technologies.
The house is lead by Saphaisle Carat, depicated in statues and paintings as an extremely lean High-Earth-Genasi figure of indistinguishable gender standing over eight feet tall with a body of imperfect blue gemstone and long sharp fingers and ears.
The House of Diamante
The first to achieve airship manufacture among the families of Endergaln, it commands small fleet of airships, along with a large warship known as the Amberglass. The house also controls the largest and most powerful of the planar fissures, making them marginally the most powerful of the houses.
The house is lead by Diamante Carbonado Carbilla, an elderly and sophisticated High-Earth-Genasi woman reputable intellect, beauty, and cunning schemes.
The House of Beryl
Arguably the weakest of the major houses, but controls exclusive access to a source of a rare metal that allows for the quick and inexpensive construction of exceedingly small and complex clockwork automatons.
The House is lead by Beryl Vanadium, a stout High-Earth-Genasi of raw emerald and a large mustache of finely growing crystals. Despite his short stature, he is often depicted through large statues that stand overseeing a variety of local markets.