Credit to Julius
☼Inn de ClairmontAn ornate, three-story caravansary. The Inn de Clairmont serves as a way-point on Terran's northern road. A common home for passing travelers, it boasts a stable for their horses, a small smithy for small repairs, and an attached shop for purchasing essential wares. Just the place to relax-, re-equip and get what you need before moving on to the next leg of your journey. The hanging gardens fringing the building and surrounding its inner courtyard, which is often used for venues, is also a tourist attraction.☼Rookhelm Tavern HallA finer place to feast and rest your feet could not be found for miles away from the Rookhelm Tavern Hall. Somewhat a more legitimate establishment than most towns might offer by way of tavern, the Rookhelm is often times used as a meeting place for businessmen, merchants, visiting dignitaries and the Constabulary.☼The Gypsy MarketThe Original Bazar of Blaurg, and a grand location for magical trinkets and bizarre curios. It is here that many a hedgewizard plies their trade, along with many thieves.☼Tower QuarterArguably the only proper mage district in all of Terrenus, and inarguably the larges. Numerous spires jut out from the low-lying shop fronts, and many "mage clubs" are hidden in the twists of houses and along the gaps in the cobble. Here the professional wizard makes their services available to the public, sometimes with prices too steep or unique for the common brand of adventurer.☼The UnterholmBlaurg's subterranean furnaces, the crucibles and kilns that form the backbone of Blaurg's ore refinery business. Much of the lower caste in Blaurg society filter their way down into these depths, finding honest if physically demanding labor. It is rumored that some born within the deeper recesses of the Unterholm are cursed never to see the surface.☼The Walls of BlaurgA magi-tech marvel, the Walls of Blaurg are a massive, thinking artifact, tasked with forbidding entry save by those who pass through its front gate. A very, very rare few know about the Wall's mechanics, and fewer still know just how far the walls are willing to go in keeping to their collective programming to protect the people within.☼The Pavilion of The Sun, Moon, and Seasons.Festival and parades are a part of Blaurg culture, and the The Pavilion is the center of that culture. During the day, it forms the center of the town, but when parties are about, few can hardly comprehend the wondrous, exciting chaos that it plays host to.☼Artifacture TowerA massive, 14 story keep, roughly four blocks wide on all sides and made of ashen stone. Contained within are the acitivites of the mysterious organization known as Artifacture Unlimited, ho serve as opaque benefactors to the city. The only listed member of Artifacture is its owner and sole proprietor, Julius Aldoid. Julius is best known for coming to the aid of the city following the Arcantian assault.
- Gypsy Market - Dragon's Egg: Three individuals helped an old mobster's wife steal a dragon's egg, and caused a serious ruckus in the Gypsy Market which resulted in their ownership of the egg.
- The Sacking of a City: A legion of demons and creatures, headed by a warlord, arise from the marshland and march on Blaurg. The city is on high alert, having been struck with sorrow once too often, and rallies to defend itself. As quickly as they came, the army vanishes; the purpose for their feint remains unknown.
- Unlike Tower One: Events of the past that explain why Artifacture Tower was empty and the reason behind the 'disappearance' of Julius Aldoid and 'The League of Mages'.
- Artifacture Tower - Chapter One: Months after Julius Aldoid's disappearance from Valucre, Soren, a time-traveling Mage and his companion, Lunarius Maji, arrive in the emptied Artifacture Tower. Finding the fourteen-story keep empty of both life and activity, Soren and Lunarius claim the tower as their own. Taking Julius Aldoid's study and laboratory, Soren escorts Lunarius to a guest room before bidding her a good evening.
- Julius Aldoid and his employees and personnel vanish mysteriously and abruptly, leaving behind an empty tower.
- Blade Sweeping: Blaurg has been razed in a bold, daring move by the Arcantians of Altus Arcantium, located in Genesaris, in a decisive victory for the Arcantians in the Terrenus (Gaia) vs Genesaris (Altus Arcantium) war. Blaurg has suffered the most damage of any single town in the history of Terrenus beginning with Odin Haze's reign.
History
Beginnings
The City of Blaurg's charter was signed in the Second Great Unification, during a period known as [ABBR abbr=Thus named due to several calendars used by historians of the period]The Times of Many. King Oros, ruler of an ancient nation predating Terrenus, had commissioned cartographer Erebus Langley to survey his land and make a map of it. The Langley Expedition is one of the great early stories in the nation's history and it was Langley himself who first discovered and recorded the supernatural effects of Terrenus's forests.
In the ancient past custom was king and decided things without question, and so Blaurg was named by Thaddeus Inigo, Langley's second in command, who announced that 'the name of this newly discovered and magic-rich land shall be:" and fell off the podium shortly after.
Pre-Crusade
Through most of its history, Blaurg has been a city outside of Terran culture. Wedged between hills fringing the Wastelands and the Coconino Marsh, Blaurg was often thought to be a backwater city and their trade was limited to Langley's Keep and Patia. Wet winters that gave way to monsoons and dry summers that gave way to drought gave the early settlers a rough time of claiming their stake.
Mages, gypsies, and aberrant races have historically shown favor to Biazo, as its melting pot nature made Blaurg a home to many outcasts. Early mayors offered a welcome haven for many nomadic merchants and offered a welcome haven to many of the gypsy families seeking refuge from Langley's Keep. Much of the market place and the trade sector is still run by the ancestors of the Gypsies that first settled the town.
Blaurg's outsider nature quickly attracted many mages and representatives of the arcane world, due to its ready access to materials mundane and illicit. The city also quickly became well-known for its artisan spirit, and the local booming sector of craftsmanship resulted in Blaurg's growing fame and financial stability.
True wealth did not come to the region until three major crops started to show up in national circulation. Blaurg's high elevation made it ideal for harvesting tea, the diverse climate fostered the growth of a variety of spices that could be easily harvested year round, and the numerous sediments making up its topsoil and crust make dye manufacture a staple industry in Blaurg's economic growth.
With these crops Blaurg gained and continues to hold command of its own destiny. Independence and aloofness, more out of internal interests than external apathy, have been prevalent themes through much of its history. Strong walls, rich merchants and a vast mage population has made Blaurg a city that can stand its own.
The Crusades
The Battle of Western Plains was a decisive victory for the Imperialist Forces. Pagan Separatists held much of the town and it took 18 months to crack open Blaurg's walls in a war of attrition. Even after entering the city, fighting was toe-to-toe for six months. The battle tore much of the town apart and it had remained a ghost town, functionally abandoned, for half a century, until its ruins eventually settled by the gypsies and mages that claim the town now.
Saturnia Regna
It is only in the last ten years that Blaurg has once again entered into the national stage, its involvement encouraged by Odin Haze and the great respect he earned for himself and for the national government he represented by way of his selfless restoration efforts. It is notable as well that in the last thirty years before flying the Terran banner, Blaurg was untouched by crime syndicates, malevolent warlocks and Hidden Devils. Blaurg was a humble town, small compared to other cities but charming in that regard. Only recently has it returned to its proud heritage of artisanship and, though bustling, it is not yet the arcanopolis it once was.
Knock the Bottom out of the Sky1
During a clear March day, Blaurg was attacked by Arcantian forces. A single, massive airship covered in blades fell from the sky and razed a great portion of the city. Civil engineering damage reports indicate that a defense satellite, the northern Gaian church, and the largest local library were also destroyed despite none being in the path of the crashed airship and intelligence reports indicate that these locations were specific targets of Arcantian forces.
It is difficult for historians to agree on a specific death-toll. Altus Arcantium reports suggest hundreds of thousands dead, while Terran estimates suggest a conservative ten thousand. Some theorists suggest that the disparity between the two reports is a result of propaganda, though it is unclear which side is engaging in the lie, and the destruction of census records in the targeted library make it hard to agree on a base number as well. Refugee camps spread out along the region and numerous subterranean developments sprang up within the foundations of the town.
Reconstruction
Terran Government contracted private arcane research and artifact company Artifacture Unlimited, due to the personal friendship between Odin haze and [ABBR abbr=CEO of Artifacture]Julius Aldoid, a renowned philanthropist and local resident of the city. Rebuilding the city and its foundation took a single week, while planning and development stretched the affected quadrants of the city into a month of abandonment. Local merchants proved themselves a hospitable bunch, opening many of their warehouses and factories as temporary shelters for the displaced citizens and transplanar immigrants. Six weeks later citizens returned to their homes and the city lived once more.
A Vision for the Future
Shortly after the construction of Artifacture Tower and the revival of the League of Mages, some suggested that Blaurg may have been entering a second golden age. Pressure from international relations, more deeply felt in the notably individual Blaurg than in other cities of the federation, attributes to a great strain felt by the people.
Currently the city resembles much of the Post-Crusades Blaurg – a place filled with magical secrets, exotic people, and a thirst for wonder paralleled only by Hell's Gate's thirst for knowledge.
