Life, Death
The fallout of a political assassination in eastern Maverot shakes the social order.
Though the Starvation represented ruin and loss for most of the residents of Maverot, some found benefit even in the darkness. As power concentrated around those who remembered the light best, these newly minted nobles experienced broad tolerance of their goals and pursuits. The Preceptor Automata used her freshly acquired power and resources to dive even more feverishly into her work than before, achieving a level of golem crafting never before seen. Her automatons were nearly indistinguishable from their flesh and blood counterparts, save for the fantastically detailed faces imbued them, complete with full ranges of emotional expression. They also possessed a strange form of intelligence that made them capable of understanding abstract conceptualizations like love, or fear, or hate. Into these wondrous machines the Preceptor Automata intended to imbue light; real memories of light that would stand on their own and last. The implications of her control over such a commodity were staggering to the new social order on Maverot. Other "Solarcrats," as they had come to be called, plotted to reduce her authority by diluting her Memory of Light. It was known by this time that death was not the end of suffering on Maverot. A cycle of reincarnation brought people back, albeit with fewer memories than before. Most Solarcrats had even experienced death themselves, yet had not altogether forgotten the light. The Preceptor Automata was summarily assassinated, and it was believed she would return shortly with less power, less arrogance, and less threat to the social order. That is not what happened. The Preceptor Automata had fractured her own memories, granting them to her golems while maintaining an arcane link which tied them all together at the astral level and left her with control. At the moment of her death, this link was broken. If she were reborn at all, she returned to Maverot with only the paltry piece of memory she had retained for herself. The mechanical empire she left behind immediately began to crumble as most of the light vanished. The Solarcrat assassins, in a panic, looted what they could and fled. The people who had gathered to the Preceptor Automata, to work in her vast workshops, dig in the mines and quarries she controlled, and trade in the thriving city that surrounded her died slowly in darkness, madness, and starvation. Those that survived fled to the banner of other Solarcrats, either unaware of their culpability or uncaring. Of the magnificent golems, those taken by the Solarcrats broke down quickly and were irreparable, the sophisticated technology beyond any attempts to understand it. Whatever memories they held were lost. It is believed that some of the most advanced golems may have escaped, though none have been seen in the centuries since. The fallout of this event changed the nature of the relationship among the Solarcrats. An unspoken truce exists among them, each fearing the calamitous consequences of clashing with the others. Paranoia grew and now each interacts with the others only when necessary, and rarely does any leave the safety of their obsessively fortified domains.