Compilation and Comparision - Early Sanctuary by Sky

[Nihm]

Dunwarren as discovered by Sanctuaries founders
 
It was a city of great size and mystery. To the nearby duergar, it was a place where deep gnomes dwelt but nothing much was known. To the nearby deep gnomes, it was a place of peril where outsiders should not go. To the refugees who came across it through a darkness alive with predatory horrors, it was heaven.
 
The city was a marvel : clean, undamaged, abandoned, and defensible. Yet it was much more than a city. Much of it resembled parts of some great machine. Interspersed with residential areas were deep vaults, locked and trapped and guarded by animatrons, containing untold knowledge and wonders of a unique Deep Gnome society. Throughout, machines that treated or were powered by water performed unknown roles in the overall complexity. Water and the machines of Dunwarren seemed to form one complete system of unknown purpose.
 
The animatrons were the reason the city had not submitted to the ravages of neglect. Though there was no sign of the Deep Gnome creators who had seemingly abandoned it, the animatrons - which were golem-like constructs of metal that could perform simple tasks - had faithfully cleaned and repaired the city and its machines, and would have continued to do so forever in darkness had not the founders of Sanctuary, weary and harried, come stumbling forth to claim it.
 
The Founders
 
Frederick and Charles Bresely, taken from the dalelands by slavers at a young age and sold to Drow, were not broken by the endless monotony of demeaning tasks that is the usual lot of a slave. They wanted the sun back, and one day the chance finally came. A rebellion involving about fifty slaves saw them all, finally, free of the drow, and into the darkness they plunged, happening upon the city Dunwarren in 1222 DR (Year of the Horn).
 
From the beginning, Charles was focused on improving and strengthening the fledgeling settlement while Frederick and those of like mind explored, relentlessly seeking a path back to the sun. Charles took a wife, Melinda Serena, a spellcaster who learned how to repair and control broken animatrons to act as guards. These would play a vital role in defending the town.
 
Organizations of Sanctuary
 
Charles Bresley was originally Overseer of nine Watchers and two Warders (spellcasters) that kept the peace, defended the town, and punished violators of a patchwork law code that consisted of surface memories and common sense. He acted as judge in cases where the accused could defend themselves in trial, and as the population grew this came to take too much of his time, which was seen as an important reason he turned governmental duties over to a Council. As the numbers and territory to defend increased, a Civil Defense Act was drafted which defined a tertiary approach to keeping Sanctuary safe.
 
The Seekers, lead and created originally by Frederick, would scout the surrounds, identifying and striking proactively at threats. The Spellguard, led by Melinda, would pursue the secrets of Dunwarren, reactivating defense systems and animatrons already present, warding the city from scrying and magical attacks as well as defending from magicially oriented foes. The Watch, led by the first Sherriff Hanett, would keep the peace by arresting criminals for trial by the Council and defend the wall and gates through valor and combat prowess.
 
Thus it was that when Charles and Melinda passed on, leaving son Michael to take the mantle of Mayor, they left a stable foundation of defense for the growing town. As well, Sanctuary had begun to trade with nearby Duergar for much needed resources. Some say this arrangement of outside trade helped the town survive, as it was seen favorably as a neutral trading ground by outside powers.
 
The Ascended One
 
While Charles and Melinda passed on, leaving a teeming and secure town to which escaped slaves had come like moths to a light, Frederick persisted as a myth. Disgusted with what he saw as complacency, a willingness to stay, in the growing settlement, he moved on alone 12 years after Sanctuary began. His brother (who erected a statue in his honor) and those who would later come to worship him as the Ascended One believed he had made it to the surface. Many others claimed he had perished alone in some desolate tunnel. The notes and maps of his proposed route vanished soon after he did, leaving mystery and myth in his wake. We now believe the faith of those who believed was justified. Frederick B. was here on Ymph, and has left carvings in the rocks about the island to inform others that he found his beloved sun.
 
Roots of Discord
 
Frederick had been sternly warned by Melinda to not seek the surface lest he raise the ire of nearby slaving races- warnings which he ignored. It is supposed that the roots of the Spellguard - Seeker feud began with this. Some say the Seekers became ever more reckless and took on raids which endangered the town in response to a perception that the increasingly insular Spellguard had come to see itself as protecting the town from overzealous surface-seekers, as well as the outside threats. Frederick’s departure came hard on the heels of a furious town meeting in which he had denounced those who were content to stay as complacent cowards, and in which Melinda had revealed documents that indicated Seeker recklessness had gotten them noticed near Treansyr, a nearby drow metropolis. Some of the council argued for an evacuation along the upward route Frederick had found, others for staying. In the tumult Frederick vanished, and Ivlysar (who became head of the Seekers) and Alexander Ubel were publicly suspected by Melinda of murduring him. That he may have actually reached the surface and not returned was not a perception she wanted to flourish.
 
Civil War
 
Albert Ubel, son of original escapee Alexander (other noteworthy originals including Archibald and Donrick) was born 42 years after the founding. He was a man passionate for change, a Seeker supporter who proposed that the Spellguard should be reduced to becoming an animatron repair unit of the Seekers, among other things. He also denigrated the way in which Council handled trial judgements, citing them as too arbitrary, and argued with then-Sherriff Doghur about how standard Watch procedures infringed on citizen rights; in short, a very argumentative and rebellious individual who wanted the causes of Frederick revived. He enjoyed great popular support, not among his fellow Councilors, but among the common population of Sanctuary.
 
When Mayor Michael Bresley vanished during a patrol, Albert argued in favor of making the Seeker leader Ivlysar the next Mayor (ignoring Ivyslar’s own objections), despite the fact that Michael Bresley had a son, Yorrick, who was able to take up that mantle. It is said that the prospect of a new Mayor who would not be of the Bresley line gave other faction leaders, such as Sherriff Doghur, similar aspirations.
 
When Albert was arrested for various charges of illegal spellcasting and city endangerment, there was no Mayor to try him and it seemed his imprisonment in the Spellguard tower could be indefinite.
 
Lower Sanctuary, though under Watch jurisdiction, was a place of discontent, where those who felt alienated or persecuted in Upper (where the law factions, council, and wealthier families dominated the scene) went to dwell and exchange tales of conspiracy and discrimination. It had always maintained a stronger rebellious and criminal element than Upper, and in this ripe ground for rebellion the son of Albert, Montgomery Ubel, found an army to redress the injustice done to his father.
 
Initially successful, the rebels trapped the Councillors in the townhall and stormed the spellguard tower, attempting to overthrow the mage order after Albert Ubel was slain during the battle. Sherriff Doghur proclaimed himself Overseer of Sanctuary and conscripted all able bodied citizens of Upper to repel the rebels. After two months of bloody fighting, he was finally successful.
 
Overseer Doghur left Lieutenant Greer in charge of Upper and invaded Lower, reinstituting his heavy - handed entrapment, random search, and intimidation tactics that Lower residents had loathed him for. Despite this he could not bring the Ubel rebels to bay, for they had retreated deep into the Sewers and were being supplied by unknown elements (most speculated these were the Seekers).
 
Yorrick Bresley meanwhile was working with the Council to create changes which would ensure that the grounds leading to the civil war were not revisited. The Watch was to be cut in both number and legal powers, the Spellguard could no longer arrest in Lower, and a host of other changes were made to curtail the extent of which law was able to cut into the freedoms of common citizens. Yorrick was institued as Mayor and with Greer’s support, informed Doghur that his campaign against the Ubels, and his position as Sherriff, was at an end. Doghur acquiesed peacefully and lived out his days in retirement.
 
Early Sanctuary and the Ziggurat : A Comparision
 
Most of us here were taken by the magic of the mythallar from various points in the known world. The original escapees from the drow set out with the purpose of freedom and cooperated from the start to escape, and later, found a city in the abandoned Dunwarren. They were beset by disease and monsters and were unified in the desire to survive and thrive in their harsh environment. We have no such cohesiveness, and it shows in failed governments, failed militias, political murdurs and instability, and a general passiveness in the majority of the ziggurat citizens who are content to live out their days bashing troglodytes.
 
For the most part, those with ambitions and plans have come here by ships, accidentally or on purpose, to exert their will on this island - the inhabitants of which now include us. But since they lack the blatant identity of a drow or beholder we would rather continue bashing troglodytes than bestir ourselves to look at who they are and what their motives may be.
 
To sum it up : unlike the founders of Sanctuary, we have no purpose. We have no cohesion. We do not know who our enemies are and would not care if we did, because there are more troglodytes left to bash.
 
The Ziggurat, like Dunwarren, contains layers and mysteries which may be vital to the survival of those that would inhabit them. In Dunwarren Melinda and her Spellguard learned how to reactivate defenses and animatrons to protect them. Here, no such concerted effort has been undertaken to use the native magics and resources to defend ourselves - once again, apathy and lack of organization to do so seems to be the cause. Groups who purpose to do so, such as the Banishing Light, do not enjoy popular support - actually most people don’t even bother to form an opinion one way or another about them.
 
Like Dunwarren ,the Ziggurat is near to powerful slaving groups such as those in Old Port. They are not drow, but they deal directly with them. Our peril is the greater, for we will have no Sanctuary to hope to escape to, no safe metropolis lies polished and gleaming, maintained by machines before us. It has been destroyed, and the minute chances the Founders had when they escaped are not available to any others. Let us take a moment and reflect, first on how likely escape is from the cruel and cunning drow - and then factor the odds of finding an uninhabited ruin with metal golems that could be made to protect us. Sanctuary was unlikely to the point of being absurd. It will not happen again. For those who are captured, there is no return. We are in peril, but unlike the inhabitants of Sanctuary, we do not know it and cannot be bothered to think about it.
 
What would Frederick Bresley have thought of the way we so lightly take freedom - something him and his friends had to fight and struggle for - for granted?