Fallsheart Guardian

Overview

The Fallsheart Guardian is a Wintermark Imperial title commissioned by the announcement of Breeta Dunning a bearer of an Imperial Wayleave, in Autumn 381YE. The position of Guardian is a sinecure, requiring minimal responsibility but offering a regular income of crystal mana.

Responsibilities

The Guardian has no particular responsibilities; they simply receive a bounty of crystal mana from the Fallsheart Cave in Hahnmark. If the cave were to be threatened in any way, it would be the responsibility of the Guardian to deal with those threats.

Powers

Bounty of Mana

The Keeper of the Crystal Vale gains custodianship of a sinecure. They receive an income of 9 crystal mana each season.

Appointment

The Fallsheart Guardian is appointed by unanimous decision of the Wintermark senators. If a unanimous decision cannot be reached, the title may be appointed by the Imperial Senate instead.

The title can be held by a Wintermark citizen. The Guardian has tenure, and serves until they die or step down. They can be revoked by the General Assembly, the Wintermark National Assembly, and by the Assembly of the Nine.

Fallsheart Cave

This dark cavern on the edge of the sinkhole in Hahnmark was discovered entirely by chance during a particularly heavy thunderstorm. The cave is almost spherical, like a massive naturally occurring geode, but among the naturally occurring minerals are rich crystal mana deposits.

“Aye, it’s safe” Axhind had assured her before she set out from the new market town back to the old mana site.

It was unusually warm for so late in the Autumn and the going was pleasant. Headed to the hole quickly left human activity behind, the risk of the trogoni had migrated most of the forestry trades elsewhere, the sheer upheaval of geography had broken the land, paths and trails were rent, fissures had to be crossed or circumnavigated. Breeta was determined to learn the fate of her mana site, it had been tended by her direct family for generations. Clouds rolled in, the woods felt closer, darker, broken trees made the going tough until she stumbled upon the path Axhind’s patrols had cut through the ruined forest.

Eventually the forest suddenly ended and the land just dropped, a section of ground had simply slid down and the woodland continued at a lower elevation until a distant haze of the hole. The trail down wasn’t difficult, the near diagonal slope and layers of freshly exposed stone almost formed natural stairs, and Breeta was quickly into an eerily unspoilt forest on this plateaux. She recognised these woods and soon found the hut which covered the entrance to the site. After taking her ease and a meal she opened the hatch and climbed down the ladder. It was not dark, glow crystals cast a pure, constant light throughout, ornately carved wooden beams supported the cavern, runes of Verys, Cavul, Pallas, and Feresh repeated endlessly on these great supports. Others sported carvings of creatures, beasts mundane, magical and mystical, some simply left initials and names, many lost even to the scops. Items had been left as personal mementos, old metal tools, dried flowers, ivory carvings, her sea shell owl stood watch as always. The crystals had grown well from the tiny veins, she collected a number that had matured. It was an art like plucking petals from a flower rather than harvesting countless heads of wheat, a mana sight is carefully tended.

Outside fat drops of rain now rolled off the leaves of the forest canopy. Soon a true Wintermark storm had begun hammer down onto the land. Unbothered Breeta made her way back to the slope but cascades of brown water washed down its face, silt and scree rolled down from above making the path up impassable. The flow at the bottom seemed to head south so she headed north hoping that eventually the plateaux raised to meet the land. As the storm really whipped up, mudslides made following the cliff face too dangerous, she found a cabin in the woods and waited out the storm.

In the morning the forest was fresh and bright again, birds sang, drops of water still pattered down, a memory of the storm before. Despite a small landslide, the original route down had survived the storm and was now dry enough to trek up. Breeta began climbing but noticed something, a distinctive glowing glint in the sediment from the storm. Working over to the newly exposed rock there was a tunnel with its own luminance, after much crawling through this natural cavity it became ever brighter but likewise ever sharper, spare clothes protecting hands and knees, until the centre. It was like crawling into the heart of a magnificent radiant geode. Bright mana flowed, waved and danced, lapping around likes a borealis in all directions in the crystals. It was almost a tragedy to spoil this natural wonder but such a boon was too much to let waste.

Text contributed by Marie Skinner (?)