Firespring

Firespring

Fifty miles from Cherak, along the Northern coastline of the Inland Sea, there is an area, maybe ten miles across where the wind is never cold, where the weather is always sunny and balmy. As if transplanted from the South, the tropical plants thrive there all year round, and the beaches are always beautiful, with warm water. Springs in the air give off a wonderful, somewhat sulfery spring water that makes Firespring one of the best sites in the North for luxurious hotbaths.

Nearby towns have no such luck. Their springwater is salty and cold, and they are hit often by blizzards in the winter. Firespring is filled with vacation homes of rich nobles, several of which are owned by Dynasts. Shirts with colorful flowers and pink birds on them are sold by street vendors, along with all sorts of music and food establishments for vacationers. Alone in almost all of Creation, Firespring thrives as a tourist resort.

But why is Firespring like how it is? The nearby fire-aspected Manse, The Domicile Of Summer Grace, owned by Ferem Noja (Wood-Aspected Dragon-Blood, servant of House Ferem and lord of Firespring), is sometimes pointed at as the cause, or perhaps some sort of underground volcanic activity. Neither of these reasons are true, but no mortal or Dynast has yet figured out the reason.

Options for GMs (pick, mix or make up your own):

1) Firespring is a mistake in the Tapestry of Fate. It should be in the Southwest, or at least the local weather should be centered on lonely atoll there. It was originally caused by an accident involving an escaped Second Circle demon and a novice Chosen of Mercury (who was dead by the time the demon was sent back to Malfeas). Attempts by Bureau of Fate agents to fix this error before has only caused other errors to appear in nearby areas of the North. The Maidens are silent on why this is, and only ask that the problem be fixed quickly. Considering Sidereals have been trying to fix it since 348 RY, when the anomaly first popped up, it doesn't look like it will be solved anytime soon. Young Sidereals might prove their worth to their elders by figuring out how to solve such an annoying problem.

2) The Sun Shard, a piece of an ancient First Age weapon, sits within the First Age remant of the Domicile's architecture. The Sun Shard is the reason for the strange climate, and the warm spring water. It is a focused bit of the Unconquerable Sun's power, used to power an artifact that (if reassembled from it's dozens of long-lost pieces) could be used to destroy shadowlands and slay the undead by the legions. In this day and age, that would make a potent weapon against the Deathlords, if a Solar could manage to reclaim it.

3) Beneficial Feast, a powerful and jovial spirit of the Northern Weather Court, lost a boasting bet to one of his fellows at a meeting of the local spirit court, and was challenged to alter Firespring's regional weather by Firespring's patron spriit, Four Gleaming Gems. Beneficial did Gems one up as a favor and got Shifting Leaf, the god of underground springwater to warm the springs. Makialias Storm, a rival of Beneficial's, had to be appeased by putting the burden of the blizzards and storms for Firespring on the nearby villages. All of Beneficial's wrangling has caused havoc in the essence flows of the region. Over the past few centuries, powerful demesnes have randomly appeared and disappeared within a few short years in the surrounding hills and forest. Cattle and yeddim have been found mutilated by mutated predators, and the elemental courts are in complete chaos. But who will stand up to Beneficial Feast and stop this nonsense?

--KingLeon