Canterspire Circle
Overview
The Canterspire Circle (or more correctly, Circles) are located on the slopes of the Operus mountains in the Urizen territory of Morrow. Custodianship of the Circle grants an Imperial title; a seat on the Imperial Bourse; and a seasonal bounty of valuable weirwood
The Resource
The lower slopes of Canterspire are marked by strange circles of weirwood that grow rapidly despite the barren soil. It is clear that some magic is responsible for their ruddy health, but no ritual has ever been devised that can repeat this phenomena which certainly predates the arrival of the Urizen.
The lower slopes of Canterspire are marked by strange circles of weirwood that grow rapidly despite the barren soil. It is clear that some magic is responsible for their ruddy health, but no ritual has ever been devised that can repeat this phenomena which certainly predates the arrival of the Urizen.
At first there were many investigations. Numerous research teams worked for many months, alongside workers harvesting the precious weirwood. None were able to replicate whatever magics were providing such growth in such soil. Numerous teams, of course, until... something... happened.
Records are blurred. Some witnesses claim it was an accident. Some that it was a sacrifice. All that is known is that there were deaths amongst a group of tutors and students from XXXX Spire. The Spire held an inquiry, but nothing much happened. The Spire, if you ask the workers, looked after their own.
And nothing much changed as a result. Maybe the research teams were a little more circumspect, and maybe they kept better notes. But the research continued, and the tutors aged, and the students became tutors in their turn.
Seven years after the event, death returned to Canterspire Circle. Seemingly from nowhere, a woman walked between the research teams. According to the survivors, she asked each person if they were virtuous. Some of them must have given the right answer, and others wrong answer, because some she left, and the others she killed. She was swift, she was ruthless, and she was merciless.
All research stopped. Since that day, only those with an interest in harvesting the weirwood have come to Canterspire Circle. All research ended, most of the surviving academics left their equipment where it was to run back to their Spires.
Every seven years, on that same date, a woman walks the Canterspire Circle and asks anyone there if they are virtuous. It is a woman chosen by the workers by secret ballot, and she is usually, but not always, one of them. She never kills anyone, because only the workers will enter the forest on that day, for the workers of Canterspire Circle are amongst the most virtuous citizens in the empire.