Spirehold

General Description

To get to the entrance of Spirehold, one must traverse one of the wide, switchbacking roads that climb the side of the basalt column into which the city was built. 500 feet high, the trails were built to handle the weight and size of caravans. At the top the rim of the mountain is surrounded by a 20' tall stone wall, topped with an array of ranged defensive weapons. One gate lies on the East side, and one on the West, allowing entrance into the city. From each of these gates cross an open, flat market area before beginning their descent into the hollowed out column that shelters the city, corkscrewing down. Scattered throughout at various heights are the occasional bridge, built to allow access to either main road without blocking the three massive cranes used top haul mined material up from below.

Demographics

Spirehold is occupied by two primary groups, with very distinct demographics.

Upper Class

Consisting of merchants, business owners, land owners, and elite Guild Members of S.A.C citizenship. This group is mostly made up of humans, although there is a healthy variegation of local and non-local species who came here to make their fortune, and succeeded. They occupy the upper districts of the city.

Mining Class

This group of people are under the "employ" of Blacksteel Industries. Some of them are, like so many across the Occupied Territories, just regular people off all lineages trying to feed their families. But unlike Bastion, there are less of these willing participants. Most of them are dwarven slaves.

Government

Managed by Mayor Armand Burrard, the town falls under the Jurisdiction of the Kashan Caliphate. However, this far out into the Silent Sea, the facade of the Caliphate's power is cracking. Many of the formalities afforded local leadership by the S.A.C are not offered here, and it is clear at a quick glance that the isolation of this place has granted Blacksteel a sense of security and control over the mayor that has gone unchallenged.
While Armand does report directly to the Grand Hierophant, he clearly does not have the spine, or perhaps the granted authority, to stand up to Blacksteel's obvious annexation of the mining town. This leaves Operations Manager Victor Mortas as the most powerful person in the town.

Defences

Complimenting the heavily fortified position the town occupies, is a large 20' wall constructed around the rim of the rock column. Regularly spaced, long ranged weapon emplacements line its top, and both of the two gates are manned by The Spireguard, locally referred to as Redcloaks, Spirehold's police who are technically employed by the Caliphate, but also are on Blacksteel's payroll.

Infrastructure

Various venting holes were drilled through the walls and capped. Cooling technomancies were constructed on these holes, allowing the winds of the desert to enter, and circulate through the city, cooling the air in the upper districts. The vents could be shut during sandstorms.
At the very peak of the column, massive shipping infrastructure has been constructed, with cranes looming over the city, their cables dropping to the floor of the mine entrances, where materials packed for transport are loaded, and raised to large platforms to be loaded onto cargo skiffs for efficient transfer to Zemira for export.
Spirehold was home to the creation of the Vaporator, a device that has been in use since before the first Saikar Empire conquered Yridos, although it has had its efficiency and durability greatly enhanced by Technomancy. These Vaporators are long porous cylinders designed to absorb stray moisture from the atmosphere and slowly condense it into drinkable water. They are not as common closer to the Heartshard Glacier; however, in Spirehold, without them one missed water shipment means death for hundreds.

Districts

Brightpeak Market

Located just inside the town's outer walls, the Brightpeak Market is occupied by the town's shipping and logistics facilities, as well as a flat, open space near each gate where the travelling caravans are allowed to set up on arrival, as bringing their cumbersome wagons full of supplies through the narrow spiralling roads would be nearly impossible. Narrow, dusty pathways diverge from the single, large road entering the city gates, and crisscross throughout the scattered, seemingly random array of tents and small permanent structures, some currently empty.

POI

Victor's Vittles, run by a kobold named Victor Vermont (a taken name, having left his birth name behind when he fled the Blackfire Desolation), sells basic rations and survival supplies, gear for traversing the Silent Sea, and some basic weapons and equipment that appear to be on their second, third or even fourth owner. It is one of only 2 only permanent buildings in the market area used by travelling traders.

Hydration Suits (100gp) recycle body moisture, and draw moisture out of the air, removing the need for all Con saves in the desert.

Thiz's Tinkering, the other permanent structure in the tent market, is run by a quirky, but friendly goblin named Thiz Duran. While not a formally trained technomancer, Thiz is a skilled artificer, and sells tinkering components and her strange concoctions she has brewed up.
The Hunter's Apex original guild hall is run by Yaletria Asmar.
Redcloak's Perimeter Barracks, run by the Redcloak Commander Tamas "Ironfist"

Cloudspire District

The main roads that corkscrew down the rock walls are, in this district, wide avenues. The Cloudspire district is the home for the rich, or at least the established. An unreasonable amount of effort has been put into making this place beautiful. There are a large number of scattered park type areas along the path down filled with sturdy mountain and desert vegetation, as well as several (specifically in front of the Mayor's home and city hall) which feature fountains and what appear to be tropical plants. While many of the homes here are built into the rim of the basalt column, many have also been built outside of that, on rocky ledges left from the excavation for them, or on engineered platforms sticking out over the drop. Whichever space they occupy, the houses share a luxuriousness of construction that feels out of place here. The lower edge of this district is defined by a fortified, guarded gate blocking the roadway, named the Checkpoint.

POI

The Gilded Emerald is a first class inn, and tavern run by a half-Elven woman, Falenas Luleth, who carries herself with an air of graceful arrogance that she uses as a defence mechanism against the mistreatment her heritage draws from S.A.C upper echelon. It is decorated with lavish tapestries paying homage to the old Saikar, and decor reminiscent of the Saikar design style featuring regal, squary designs. It features a range of lavish rooms, comfortable beds, and big suites for visiting dignitaries, starting at 1 gp per night and going up to 50. Being the shrewd businesswoman she is, Falenas runs a private backroom gambling game nightly for a host of powerful people, as well as hosting high class prositutes in some of her rooms.
A small Redcloaks barracks shares ground with city hall here, mostly meant to make the inhabitants feel safe, as this district tends to experience very little excitement.
City Hall, which contains within it the Blacksteel Regional Branch Office
The Royal Guild Historica Guild Office next door to City Hall

Upper Dregs

The district just beyond the Checkpoint is home to the free, paid workers of the mine. The road narrows significantly as it passes through the gate, allowing for more space to build housing in. These are primarily supervisors, specialists, refinery managers, and those responsible for logistics and supply. It is made up almost exclusively of low-budget housing, and those who live here mostly have clearance to pass through the Checkpoint. The area is somewhat nicer than the Lower Dregs, with private 2 and 3 bedrooms homes and small public spaces for people to gather.

POI

The Drunken Dwarf is a seedy inn and tavern owned by Blacksteel, and operated as a way to keep their workers in a state of compliance. Everything here is cheap, and tastes like it. The shop is run by a particularly nasty human man named Dario Drach, who hates dwarves, and as such hates nearly everything around him. The bar is accesible to the dwarven slaves as well as the those of the Upper Dregs, although they have a decent walk to get to it.

Lower Dregs

The road narrows even more as it enters the slums of Spirehold. The lower dregs is where the slave workers of the mine are housed. They are granted small shacks, barely more than a single room, stacked on top of each other along the rim of the spire, with narrow passages between stacks leading to further stacks behind them, deeper in the stone. When they ran out of room, rickety, metal sheet huts were constructed on small platforms sticking out from the narrow pat The district has no amenities, and is designed purely for efficiency of space. Very little direct sunlight reaches this low, with the place instead lit with the light reflected off the upper districts bouncing down, as well as technomantic ley energy lamps that line the streets. Thuis district is home to the largest contingency of Redcloaks, with high numbers of armed patrols, as well as the Blackrock Penitentiary, near the bottom.

Spirehold Mines

At the very bottom of the hollowed basalt column, a large, flat area was cleared out for the mine operations and entrance. A third of the floor is taken up by a yawning black chasm at the edge of which is a personelle elevator and a massive cargo lift, both powered using a large ley field generator. The center of the space is simply left open, with painted markings on the ground denoting landing zones for the crane platforms used to haul material to the surface. Around the rim of the space, large processing and refining facilities take the chunks of mined rock and ore and break them down into transportable, cleaned up samples of pure ore, package them into shipping containers, and send them to the loading areas.

POI

The Blacksteel Mining Office separates the elevators accessing the mines from the rest of the area. To enter, one must pass through a security check point, and a long line of bank style service desks where workers clock in and out, report unusual finds, or, in the case of paid workers, submit their Receipt of Contributions noting how much ore they mined, from which their day's wage is determined. The Hardened Pick is attached to the Mining Office, and is run by Angor Whitblade, a retired dwarven miner who, when no longer physically useful below, was put to work here to use his extensive skill and knowledge. This serves as the equipment Requisition, supplying miners with their tools, as well as selling various mining and blacksmith related equipment to the employed workers.

History

This deep into the Silent Sea, there are few places of refuge, and life for those not adapted to the environment can be near impossible. So when Blacksteel prospectors located a wide column of solid basalt rising up from beneath the sands, they immediately began work. Dwarven slaves were brought in, and the center of the column was hollowed out as the prospectors sought valuable ores. Eventually, at a depth some 50' below the level of the sands, the basalt widened and revealed ore veins. Upon this discovery, construction began on the city itself, using the rim of the column as shelter from the sandstorms, winds, and beasts of the Sea, as well as offering some protection from the direct sunlight.

Maps

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  Spirehold Town Map

  Located deep in the Silent Sea, this town is run by Blacksteel Industries.

Founding Date

1875 AD

Founders

• Alistair Reynolds

Type

Underground / Vault

Population

25,000

Owner/Ruler

Mayor Armand Burrard

Owning Organization

The Kashan Caliphate