The Boarstall tower and the blue rain - JanLetovanec/laurasia-worldbuilding GitHub Wiki

The Boarstall tower & the blue rain

Gate's Rest

Found at the border of one of the City states of Memel, a Boarstall tower stands tall within the rainy fields.

It is the final resting place of brave people of The Gate. Peaceful and melancholic atmosphere of the interior of the tower is reinforced by the constant, gentle tapping of the raindrops on the windows. Whether it is the history of the Gate, respect for the heroes or the mystery of the rain that people came here to seek, they all leave with the strange sense of peace.

History

Originally the tower was built by the local city state. After quite some time, The Gate bought it off them to establish their presence in the region and we are told there were a couple of contracts they fulfilled nearby. From that point onward, the Gate maintained the premises.

One day The Gate was fulfilling one of their contracts for The Inquisition and realized that something horrible was going happen. They evacuated the whole area for that night. We only have limited records from this period but the bottom line is that the tower was overrun, The Gate members were killed, and the rain is blue since that day.

There was a slight confusion about what exactly happened, and who should own the tower. In the end Boots pulled some strings and managed to get the ownership over the tower. They rebuilt it, cleaned it up, and set up a memorial to the Gate. In the weeks that followed they slowly opened the tower to the public.

Today, the maintenance is fully funded by donations, namely from the Boots, but some minor donations come from the Elves and general public. Administratively, the place is owned by The Boots, but the tower maintains a relative autonomy with the Keeper functioning as the head of the staff, museum guide, and manager of all things concerning the tower.

Purpose

Originally, this was a Memel tower / fortress. There are numerous caverns at the base of the cliff the tower is built on, and it is believed that the tower was constructed to look for the beasts that emerged from the caves. However, no monsters have been reported in the vicinity of the tower for a long time...

Today, this site serves as a memorial and is open to public. People come here to pay respect to the once heroes of The Broken Gate. There is a small museum set-up detailing some of their feats and exploits.

Alterations

The first major modification was built by the Gate when they bought it off the local authorities. They reconstructed the walls and outfitted the tower such that it was more in line with the state-of-the-art defenses at the time. Keep in mind that this was just one of many stations that Gate owned around the Laurasia so they did not pay too much attention to it.

However, just before the Gate fell, they dug-in in the fortress. They installed every defensive measure they could think of. As a consequence, the tower is now in a state comparable to Lynxian present-day fortresses, which are notoriously defensible.

That being said, the Fall of the Gate did leave a mark on the fortress. While the core of the building was still standing, it needed some serious repairs.

Boots arranged for the fortress to be cleaned and rebuilt to the current state and maintains the premises to this day.

Visitors

Gate was once regarded as heroes and earned a good will among many people. Some of them chose to pay their respects at this place. The Boots mercenary company holds a yearly commemoration for the Gate, and oddly enough Elves are often seen at the premises paying respect to the fallen heroes of the Gate.

The next category of the type of people that visit the Boarstall tower are historians. Some wish to simply visit the place of legends - legendary battle-ground and a resting place for one of the greatest mercenary companies. For some, what is left behind can be learned from - there are numerous diaries, chronicles and contracts left behind the Gate. It just might be next link in the undiscovered history. And there are some who just enjoy to listen to the Keeper leading them through the museum.

And finally, we have the academics. The mystery of the blue rain has puzzled many brilliant minds and many try to explain the phenomenon. So far there is no clear consensus among the academic communities, and so some visit the premises to conduct experiments on the rain (with Keeper's approval of course).