Spire Shaping

History

The origin of Spire Shaping has been lost, its creators either not remembered by the people who propagated it, or forgotten by the world during one of the tumultuous periods since, and there have been several; Spire Shaping is a very ancient game. The oldest surviving written record of it is from the early days of the Kingdom of the Sun Elves, but while it's an excellent overview of the mechanics of the game and a look into how it was viewed at that time even that offers only musings on a potential origin, and if something isn't remembered by the Sun Elves it must be very old indeed. It is generally though that the game was once a significant ritual, likely either undertaken as part of a coming of age tradition or perhaps as an evaluating measure of its players. The requisite creativity and teamwork to perform well are both what lead to this conclusion about its ancient importance, and what makes the game enjoyable and popular on Khthon today. It's believed that the original game used seashells collected from a beach and this is often considered the most "pure" way to play, but its popularity has spread far from the coasts, and today you can find spires being shaped from nearly any non-uniform material like sticks or stones.

Execution

Spire Shaping is played in teams and with at least one impartial judge. Each team shapes their own spire, and each team member takes turns adding a new object to raise the spire up. Different traditions, places, and even game sessions can have different rules for the size of a spire's base, but it is usually uniform between all teams, unless some form of handicap is being placed on one or more. From there, each team will continue to place their objects and shape their spire until it grows too large and collapses. The object of the game, however, is not to build the tallest tower, but the most visually impressive. A well decorated smaller spire can often win out over a huge horror-show. The difficulty of the game arises from the fact that each team must continue adding objects until their spire collapses, and the aesthetics are judged as the tower was before the final object was added. This means that players need either a very good plan rooted in a deep understanding of structural integrity, or to ensure that their tower continues to maintain a pleasing aesthetic with each addition no matter how many additions take place. Intentional collapse of one's own spire is grounds for immediate disqualification in essentially every variety of the game that's played.

Participants

The literal minimum number of participants in a game of Spire Shaping is three, one for each team and the judge, but very few play this way or consider it a true representation of the game, which comes into its own with a minimum of five, with two teams of two. This brings in the cooperative element to the game which is considered one of its pillars. Though there only needs to be one judge, it's usually considered to have one to watch each team in case of unexpected collapse and a third to break ties. Thus, the most commonly cited minimum for a true game is seven.