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Northgate City

Prior to the Starvation, there was no city like Northgate City. Called the "Dawnside of the Mideast," Northgate went from literally being a gate on a dangerous road to city with over one hundred thousand people in the space of a few decades. Following the wild success of the High Plains Estate in monetizing the eastern high plains region, that little gate suddenly marked the northern edge of the most prosperous business in hundreds of miles. A trading post sprang up overnight, and then two more the night after, all vying for a cut of the high quality goods flowing out of the plains.   It wasn't long before simple trading wasn't enough. Refineries were established to convert raw goods into more profitable commercial items and starry-eyed young entrepreneurs - those who eschewed the hard labor characteristic of employment at the High Plains Estate - flooded the town looking for fortune. At the same time, large deposits of mithral, adamantine, and Siphoning Stones were discovered nearby, adding another layer of industry to the booming young metropolis.   As Northgate rapidly expanded, its poorly defined and supported government proved unable to manage the growth and it quickly became an unnavigable mess of twisting roads, confusing architecture, and rampant crime. On the verge of collapsing, an alliance of opportunistic gnomes - drawn by the promise of an easy takeover of the failing mining industry - bought, bribed and coerced their way into positions of power and turned the city into their own profitable stronghold. Wielding money as their weapon, they razed old buildings to the ground and paved over the meandering roads. Within a few years the city was a shining example of gnomish architecture, its buildings rising like metal trees hundreds of feet off the ground, woven together by branch-like walkways and suspended platforms. With a near limitless amount of mithral and adamantine - and later adamanthral - provisioning the construction, the gnomes were able to innovate to their hearts' content, using the nigh indestructible materials to build ever grander metal canopies. Its unique appearance earned it the name "The Metal Forest."   After the Starvation, Northgate City was the brightest and most populous spot in the east thanks to the inventive genius of the Preceptor Automata, a gnomish engineer whose brilliant fabrication work confounded even her peers. Her Mana Reactors supplied clean, functionally infinite raw magic power that made exceptions to the laws of physics the norm. She had even managed to create golems with their own Memory of Light, pushing the darkness of The Long Night further and further from the city's borders.   Alas, her great success drew the ire of The Baron, and with careful insinuations, threats, and insincere promises he played upon the paranoia and vanity of other nearby Solarcrats and convinced them to assassinate her. As fate would have it, the targets he chose for his plot formed a team uniquely suited to the task.   The Three Hunters needed little persuasion and offered only token resistance before gleefully joining the attack. Undisciplined and manic, they served as distraction as they rampaged through the silver streets, setting fire to anything that would burn and slaughtering any cityfolk they caught. With much of the city's defenses focused on trying to capture the elusive murderers, the other Solarcrats were free to engage the Preceptor without interference.   The Silver Siren and Chronicle Proprietress both fell prey to the Baron's quiet suggestions that Northgate's growing light and safety would pull people away from their domains and leave them alone in the dark. Both women, with their pathological need to have other personalities around to dominate, slowly succumbed to anxiety and madness. With their shared talent for illusory and other mind affecting magics, these two easily addled the Preceptor's sentient golems, turning them against their creator. Holding onto the myth that they had somehow kept their hands clean in this affair, these two murdered the Preceptor with her own creations.   The Reconstructive Surgeon and Mask Collector served in support roles, with the Surgeon present to ensure the other Solarcrats survived the assault and the Collector acting as the betrayer. Having worked with the Preceptor before, he was able to teleport the group into her sanctum and convince her to drop her guard. The Surgeon was promised access to the Preceptor's magnificent technology to aid in his own research, which he later discovered he had not the understanding to even use. The Collector acted out of fear of the Baron's retaliation against his defenseless "guests." Having been the victim of the Baron's cruelty once before, the Collector acquiesced to the mad Selem-Vat's demands immediately, convincing himself that the Preceptor would shortly be reincarnated and could be spirited away at that time. Little did he know that the Preceptor's sentient golems held much of her mask's potential and this was to be her True Death.   In the aftermath of the assassination the Mana Reactors failed and the hypercompression routines the Preceptor was using to compact adamanthral to impossible densities broke, causing an instant expansion of decompressing metal. The entire city was engulfed in what now appears to be a colossal adamanthral sculpture of an explosion in progress. Tens of thousands of people died instantly, and many more thousands were plunged into instant darkness when the Preceptor's Memory of Light winked out. The Solarcrats responsible escaped only due to the Collector's mastery of teleportation magic.   The destruction also loosed the Preceptor's most secret experiment, a golem named Marya. Intended as an invincible container for someone important to the Preceptor, the unfinished golem went on a rampage that carved out the Clouded Canyon and killed the Gnomish Selem-Vat, Lyddiormyd, before becoming inactive. Marya contains the last working Mana Reactor and is currently held by bandits west of the canyon.   This event also changed the nature of the interactions between the Solarcrats involved. Formerly aggressive towards one another, they now live in an uneasy truce, each fearful that the others may strike at them as they once struck the Preceptor.   Now the city that once shined like a beacon fire in the darkness of Maverot lies in eternal shadow, outlined by the lightless lightning of unending electrical storms attracted to the metallic surface. Embedded in the wreckage many of the Preceptor's golems exist in a state of frozen hibernation until some stray bolt of lightning provides enough power to awaken them. Trapped forever in a claustrophobic hell, the cold surface of the explosion resonates sometimes with their terrified cries.
Alternative Name(s)
Dawnside of the Mideast, The Metal Forest, Beacon in the Dark
Type
Large city
Population
Pre-Starvation: 800,000+ | Post-Starvation: 180,000 | Current: 0

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