Victus' Fall

Originally the Fortress City of Scepter, the town of Victus' Fall sits on the fringes of the Didacian Consulate near the border with the Final Kingdom. Considered a dismal backwater by the citizen of both, the people of Victus' Fall do not particularly identify as either. After thousands of years of neglect, apathy, and irrelevance took their toll on the city and its people, Victus' Fall is viewed as a part of the Consulate in name only. Its people have been content to live on their own in the dusty wasteland of the Stargash Crater's outer slopes for millennia, while paying the occasional tax to the Consulate to the south. Ignored by virtually all war and conflict since its fall and renaming, it has quietly existed on the fringes of both major societies, only occasionally sending its representative to the Consulate Parliament. It has been known as a place for outcasts and criminals to escape to. Recent years, however, have brought a great deal of change to the town, thrusting it headlong toward an influential position in Consulate society.

Early History and Fall to the Didacy

The city was originally founded at some point before 900 FFC by the Final Kingdom. Likely built amidst a previously-uninhabited Fortress in the wilds of Sinderlan along the arctic fringe.
During the devastating war with the Didacy, the city of Scepter was the site of the final battle. Didact Victus I directed massive amounts of Warforged battalions to assault the city in an attempt to use it as a base of operations to stage a siege on Throne. Five miles south of Scepter, the Queen of the Starfall engaged directly with Didact Victus I and his forces. The details of the battle are unknown as the only known survivor was the Queen of the Starfall and her retainers, who disclosed nothing but the fact that the war was over. The death of Victus I and the vast bulk of the Warforged population was enough to permanently end hostilities.
Citizens of the city witnessed nothing but the Starfall itself, blinding many of those who were outside when it occurred. While the Queen protected the city from direct devastation, the farmland of the south was obliterated and the land just outside the crater became warped and buckled. For months, meteor showers lit the day and night sky. Shortly after, Warforged 2 and the new Didact, Lunarcha I, were summoned to the city to sign the treaty that ended the war.
A concession granted in the treaty was that Scepter along with a fringe of land around the crater be given to the Didacy as compensation for the devastation wrought by the Starfall. The citizens of Scepter began immediately feeling the loss of the Gift of the Throne. Thousands fled the city across the border to the Kingdom, which strained at the refugee numbers. Eventually the Kingdom closed itself to refugees for a time. Many who found themselves turned away sailed into the Roil rather than live in the Didacy controlled areas. Others made their way to the Grey Sky Peninsula and joined the Hrim Expedition.

Years Following the War

After the population stabilized following the exodus, the remaining citizens resolved to make the best of the situation. Now cut off from Kingdom supply lines, the town was forced to begin farming what land they could. For a time, the fields were plentiful and the town managed on its own, with little contact from the Didacy. However, in 1545, the soil began to give out and was depleted by 1547. The result was a rapid desertification of the region. The citizens begrudgingly petitioned the Didacy for help, but they were unable to provide any given the devastation they had sustained. Hundreds starved to death, cementing a deep cultural hatred for the Didacy and its successor state, the Consulate, for millennia.
By the time the Consulate formed In 1895, the population was under 1000. In the new constitution of the Consulate, Scepter was renamed Victus' Fall. The citizens did not resist this change and regarded it with apathy. Victus' Fall maintained a voter turnout of just 3% for nearly 1000 years, sending representatives to Parliament who would abstain from most votes and solely advocate for further aid for the dying town.
In the late 2000s, relations with the Kingdom had improved enough that food and goods once again were traded, typically for labor as it was all the town had to offer. The influx of trade was enough to sustain the town to a level of subsistence. However, its great fortress walls and structures began to crumble; a gradual decay that would last until the 91st century.
In the 3200s, several efforts were made to use Victus' Fall as a trade artery, but they all failed miserably due to environmental conditions being unstable. The roads began to completely deteriorate, aid was minimal from both the Kingdom and Consulate, and the environment became harsher.
Life continued in Victus' Fall for nearly another six millennia, characterized by apathy and irrelevance. As the years went by, the population was occasionally bolstered by groups of criminals or outcasts settling in the city as a means to escape their former lives. Community became integral to the citizens, identifying solely as citizens of Victus' Fall. A culture evolved of looking out for one's neighbor and for ensuring the good of the community, as well as generous hospitality, a trait many attribute to a large influx of Goliath into the population in the 3200s. Consulate government structure also seeped into society slowly, but steadily. Mayors and elected officials became pillars of the community, representing the best interests of all, but were rarely heeded by the world at large. To the citizens, though, that mattered little and they continued to live their lives as they always had.
In 9035, the young halfling named Jenna Hagan from Victus' Fall was elected to the office of Comptroller for the city at the age of 14. Despite her low position, she began serving on nearly two dozen community committees. She had an idea to import to Bolodonian Pine from the Free Cities to grow on the slopes, as they grow incredibly fast in alkaline soil. By 9043, the entire slopeside of the crater near Victus' Fall had become a lush pine forest with trees dozens of meters high. Hagan, now a City Councilor, traveled to Crater's Rim and Vortex, claiming that her community could eliminate the Conulate's reliance on foreign timber for its seagoing vessels. The Parliament was so impressed that they almost immediately gave her the rank of Shore Admiral, a rank for regulating and managing mainland distribution. With the resources at her disposal, Hagan transformed Victus' Fall into a burgeoning lumber town. On her return home, the citizens of Victus' Fall unanimously hailed her as a hero as their town now is fully capable of sustaining itself. By 9047, the culture of community pride has skyrocketed with bustling community events. Many Warforged who have passed through express extreme disbelief and hardly recognize the town with its proud and kind people.

Demographics

42% Goliath
22% Human
11% Halfling
10% Elf
5% Kobold
3% Dwarf
2% Gnome

Infrastructure

The infrastructure of Victus' Fall has historically been extremely poor. Roads leading to and from the town are rarely maintained, making most trips in and out difficult and slow. Attempts to break open trade routes to the Kingdom with Victus' Fall have ended in financial ruin due to the hostility of the landscape. In 3208, a joint operation between the Didacy, Consulate, and Kingdom attempted to break through an existing breach in the Crater known as the Twilight Gap. They spend billions of gold to finance a quarrying operation to establish a safe trade route to the northern inner crater. While the job was nearly completed in 3295, it had become clear that the paths along the inner crater would never be secure or safe due to the frequency of craterslides in the area. Attempts were made to erect powerful magical barriers to protect the trails, but they only proved capable of preventing tsunamis. Debris and dust regularly buried the trails, and the project eventually went bust. 
Roads to the north and east outer crater and Kingdom are the easiest routes to Victus' Fall. Even in this area, the roads have historically been poorly maintained due to lack of tourism or business in the region. However, in recent years, great strides have been made to improve roads. Logs from the timber fields have been laid as road bases to prevent erosion, leading to a greater degree of through traffic and a boom in business.  
Additionally, the logging industry has established the need for a transportation system from the slopes. The Goliath Tinkerer's Association of Victus' Fall, in collaboration with Shore Admiral Hagan, devised a network of log flumes that transport the lumber quickly and easily to the city for processing. An added benefit of the flumes is their dual function as aqueducts which have brought fresh water from the slopes to the city to be used as drinking water and a means to drive the sawmills of the city.

Founding Date

Before 900 FFC

Type

Town

Population

2387

Location under

Sinderlan

Owning Organization

Didacian Consulate

Scepter before the Starfall