Redoubt
Overview
Redoubt is the smallest of the three Urizen territories and the wildest. The peaks are lower here and many spires are actually built in the foothills. The lowlands are quite dangerous, being inhabited by several bandit tribes of orcs and barely a year goes by without a nest of trolls or a den of drakes becoming a nuisance. Unsurprisingly, there are many citadels here and a strong martial tradition, but this is also a territory that produces more than its fair share of zoologists and botanists. These natural philosophers are sometimes blamed for the more esoteric animals and plants found here, and the occasional mutated hybrid horror that appears here is often a sign that a magician is straying dangerously close to insanity.
Minor Settlements
Cargo
The most advanced port in all the Empire. Food from the pampas of the Brass Coast and even the far Marches reach Cargo. Its cranes and docks ensure it can handle the traffic required to feed most of Urizen. Unsurprisingly, its spire concentrates on civil engineering.
Delving
Delving is built in a network of deep caves that bear star-map patterns allegedly carved by the Sarassians. It is more mercantile than many Spires. Although it is still a place of study, its wealth is based on mining and knowledge of the principles of engineering when it comes to mining. Winterfolk often come here to teach and to study.
Elos
A base for what little navy Urizen had before the time of Empire; just a few small fast pinnaces to keep an eye on the more martial nation of Highguard to the North, and any raiders from across the Bay. Now a fishing village, and a haven for riverboats coming down from Cargo and Hedra - there’s no welcome for them at the Necropolis.
The Hollows
So called for its unusual construction: wind-blown caves in the sandstone formed into extensive dwellings by years of patient, meditative, stone-carving.
Tabulos
This college specialises in training civil servants, although it caters to scholars of all kinds. Its curriculum focuses on teaching rigorous objectivity and complex mathematics, allowing civil servants to make accurate accountings and forecasts.
Visten
Brings produce from across the Empire to the southern Spires. It is a thriving community, home to those Urizen who have found the life of the Spire too stifling and want more contact with the wider world.
Willstone
Built largely of wood on the lower slopes of the mountain, surrounding a central carved stone pillar, worked with many runes. It is thought that the pillar was used as a focus for training in the early days of the Spire.
Places of Interest
Rebekah’s Leap
At the highest point of this headland that looks out over the Bay of Catazar is the place where Rebekah, Steward of the Dead is said to have thrown herself into the bay after breaking free from those who restrained her. It is said that she was insane, having spent a month convinced that she could hear the tolling of a great bell summoning her. She was desperate to reach the sound’s source, which she believed to be deep in the waters of the bay. Some fisherfolk of Elos and the settlements around the Necropolis still claim they can hear a bell in the deeps, from time to time.
The Unmade
A fused ruin of blasted stone atop a peak in the Redoubt. It’s said that it once was a spire, and was eradicated completely by the massed Spires of Urizen early in the days of the Empire. No-one remembers why.