Clifton

Clifton is a small Ichosian frontier village located on the eastern edge of The Rolling Dunes Desert. In ages past, the town was a prosperous city, though disaster has reduced the region to a pitiful reflection of its former glory. The oppressive heat of the desert has made the area nearly hospitable to live in, turning away many who might choose to make the area their home.

History

The town of Clifton was first incorporated in the year 3E 571, as part of the Ichos Revival Project, which sought to rebuild the nation to its former glory in the aftermath of the Age of Domination. At the time, the residents of the town had envisioned a sprawling city on the edge of the Rolling Dunes Desert, one that could serve as a final stop for travelers looking to voyage into the great dry expanse.
In the year 3E 885, the town found itself running into a rather unique problem: being on the natural border of a massive desert, water was quickly becoming a scarce resource, especially during the dry months. To compensate, engineers and arcanists worked as best they could to develop a solution to save the city from an inevitable collapse. Their solution was the desert vaporator, a machine that pulled water from deep below the sand and dust and filtered it to ensure it remained drinkable.
Clifton served its intended purpose for centuries, blossoming into an economic hub for the region. Travelers both entering and exiting the Rolling Dunes brought with them a vast amount of wealth and exotic knowledge, allowing the city to become as much an intellectual hub as it was an economic one. Those who stopped within Clifton's walls could find themselves drinking alongside adventurers of all stripes, many of whom would spend their evenings sharing stories of their wild adventures across the known world.
The city's prosperity hit a ceiling in the year 5E 247, which saw a string of mysterious occurrences within the Rolling Dunes Desert. Records from that time, while sparse, suggested that the dunes rose in what appeared to be massive tidal waves of sand and stone, burying many of the settlements along the desert's edge. Geologic surveys do provide some level of evidence for this, as there exist a number of odd cave formations deep below the desert sands.

City Info

Nation: Ichos
Population: 796
Incorporated: 5E 571
Dominant Religion: Prozen
Leadership: Guy Panshawe