Historical Marker 37A, Lepidos
This partial structure you now stand within is all that remains of an Occult Fraternity watchpost. Directly to the south lies the Execution Hill Launch Complex and, obscured by modern structures, the Execution Hill Memorial Museum. To your east lies the expanse of the Great Ilmenite Desert. The closest Ilmenite Desert communities are Stone River Hollows and Steel Mill Corners. To the west lie the Charcoal Spine mountain range best known for their shale melon ranges and remains of rebel encampments. Historical Marker 36C lies (15 miles) to your west-southwest in that range, just out of view. The Occult Fraternity instituted a civic religion that, while not centering on the propitiation of gods or spirits, elevated its founders and national ideology through a system of ritual practice. Thousands of ethnic Raikepists - the ancestors of modern Northern Lepidosians - were sacrificed in elaborate, torturous spectacles as a means of accomplishing ritual goals, maintaining control over the population through fear, and eliminating individuals deemed dangerous to the Occult Fraternity's ongoing political rule. Common forms of execution included impalement, sawing, and breaking on racks. Occult Fraternity beliefs held that, the longer and more excoriating the pain a victim suffered, the more spiritually potent the sacrifice was. No class among the Raikepists was excluded from such offerings, as emotional distress was counted as 'sacred pain' for these ritual purposes. Execution Hill was one of the most common places where such sacrifices took place. Before the destruction of the Magocracy of Lepidos and the institution of the League of Lepidosian City-States, these stone brick towers were used both by ritual officiants to oversee civic sacrifices from afar and, when such activities were not being undertaken, by soldiers tasked with watching for rebel incursions along the Magocracy's northern frontier. Ritual activities on the hill would often provoke armed responses from Raikepists operating out of the Charcoal Spine, and any captured by guards at towers like these would often find themselves added to the sacrifice as a warning to others. The Harkinite Expedition, under the command of Wurth Harkin of the Cobalt Protectorate, arrived on Lepidos in the autumn of (1756 AD). Unable to persuade the Occult Fraternity to end the practices of slavery and human sacrifice through diplomatic means, the Expedition allied itself with the Raikepist rebel groups and, through a campaign of guerilla warfare and orbital bombardments, toppled the Magocracy of Lepidos. This military campaign is known as The Midnight in Evermornan Basic and the War for the Liberation of Lepidos in Tae na Lepidesn. The city you see to the south was erected by collaboration between the Protectorate and League as a token of mutual friendship across the gulfs of time and space. Structures like the one you stand in now were partially demolished in the upheaval that followed the collapse of the Magocracy, but the foundations were preserved and plackards like this one put in place so that the events of the war to liberate Lepidos from opression should not be forgotten. While no longer contaminated with radioactive materials thanks to post-war environmental remediation efforts, the League Office of Antiquities requests that you do not alter or remove any part of this structure so that future guests can visit, enjoy the view, and ruminate on their shared history for many decades to come.
Comments