Pathfinder: The Fractured Fortress of Gear’s Gate

Tomorrow sees the release of Shadowsfall: Shadow Plane Player’s Companion and we could not be more thrilled! This book we have been working on and planning for over a year now is going to see the light of day. All week long, we are giving you an early peak into the land of eternal darkness. Monday, we looked at the overall setting itself. Yesterday we discussed the cosmopolitan stronghold of Blackbat, a city where safety is as common as bright sunlight in Shadowsfall. Today we are looking at a city that could not be more different: Gear’s Gate.

For over a thousand years, the citizens of Gear’s Gate has resided in relatively safety. The citizens within this stronghold suffer few attacks from monsters and roving undead hordes that the city’s military or the various houses cannot repel. The houses runs Gear’s Gate as an arcanocracy, where the city’s mages and alchemists hold significant power and a house is only as powerful as the knowledge of its casters. This is because daily life and the stronghold’s defense relies on the vast array of magic items and powerful artifacts within the stronghold. The powerful magic requires skilled crafters and arcanists to both use and maintain these items. So in this city, knowledge is power.

The houses are in change of everything in Gear’s Gate from food production, water purification to magical transit and mining. And the houses compete with each other for power and money. This competition result in delays in food production, disease running rampant and transportation being delayed. There are even rumors of violent skirmishes between the houses far away from the city walls. All this infighting leaves the populous unhappy with the houses and the arcanocracy. Talk of revolt continues in the taverns in both outlying villages and in the city itself.

The most powerful artifact in the city is known as the Eldritch Projector. This powerful magic item keeps the guardians operating without any need for alchemical fuel, powers the siege batteries, and otherwise keep life at a relative normal for the people here. One house, House Sarvenva, possesses the unique knowledge to keep the projector operating and they wield that power like a cudgel. That power have maneivered them in a position where many consider Sarvenva to be the city’s rulers, but the situation is far more complex than most realize. The houses work to collect blackmail on each other, forcing backroom deal and bribery to be more powerful than the rule of law.

Despite the relative protection it city offers, powerful forces have been hitting Gear’s Gate at the edge of its territory. Guardian pilots are lured beyond the edge of the Eldritch Projector’s range, leaving the pilot in difficult situations. The sophistication of these attacks has increased. The field captains in charge of that region fears some intelligent commander waits for any mistake that Gear’s Gate might make.

Be sure to come back tomorrow where we tell all about the Outlands, the vast stretches between the pockets of civilization on Shadowsfall.

Preorder your copy of Shadowsfall: Shadow Plane Player’s Companion today. Get more character options, no matter what race you play with Shadowsfall: Favored Class Options. Get a print copy of the Book of Beasts: Monsters of the Shadow Plane and discover their deadly secrets with your free PDF. Live the adventure with a half-vampire fighting to help the living with Shadowsfall Legends: Pawn, Deception, and Sacrifice, by Mur Lafferty. And don’t stop with that story. Read about an umbral kobold in the stronghold of Blackbat in Shadowsfall Legends: The Gem That Caught Fire by Ed Greenwood.