SIM Appendix: Celeste
Just a little bit of world-building for the upcoming novel …
Appendix: Celeste
Exactly when Celeste was founded is impossible to determine, although the combination of three rivers and fertile farmland in a strategic location near what would eventually become the Kingdom of Alluvia and the Princedom of Valadon made it certain that something would be founded on the site. The city was absorbed into the Empire when it took shape and granted a certain degree of independence, partly because of a desire to keep the trade routes out of aristocratic hands and partly because it had already attracted a sizeable population of magicians, which the original city council used ruthlessly to establish itself as the trading hub of the western empire. This happy state of affairs came to an end when the Empire collapsed, leaving the city undefended and vulnerable to advancing armies from the newly-founded kingdoms.
Realising their vulnerability, and isolation from the magical families that made up a de facto magical aristocracy, the magicians of Celeste banded together to destroy the first aristocratic attempts on their cities and establish near-total independence for their city-state. The kingdoms were not best pleased about losing access to the trade routes, but the establishment of the Compact between the magical and mundane communities and a degree of understanding that the city would remain politically neutral and open to all ensured the kingdoms agreed to tolerate the city’s independence. This did not sit well with the new city fathers, who believed – perhaps correctly – that they had been sold out by the magical families.
Celeste continued to develop over the next two hundred years, turning itself into a city of magicians. Determined to separate themselves from the mundane, as well as maintaining a degree of political unity, the city fathers developed a two-tier political structure that essentially locked the magicless mundanes out of power. Magicians got the vote, as well as the right to join guilds and quarrels; mundanes had very few rights, and indeed required a magical patron if they wanted to do business within the city. Intentionally or not, these measures limited the mundane population: Celeste was a wealthy city, and an enterprising merchant could be sure of making himself a fortune, but it was not regarded a safe place to raise mundane children or indeed live permanently. The vast majority of mundanes were either transient citizens at best or enjoyed the patronage of a powerful magician, who could be relied upon to take revenge if they were harmed.
On paper, the city is divided into seven districts (seven being the most powerful magical number) which elect one Great Sorcerer to the High Council and three Sorcerers to the Low Council. The High Council proposes laws and the Low Council votes to accept or reject them. In practice, politics are dominated by a mixture of openly-active guilds and shadowy quarrels, and councillors are often selected through inner circle dickering rather than open electioneering; public votes are often little more than a rubber stamp on candidates the council has already decided to accept. This would be a recipe for disaster, or at least corruption, elsewhere, but the combination of shared interests and limited authority has prevented major problems.
Celeste prides itself on being independent from the greater magical community, and makes a big show of accepting every magician – from hedge witches to lone powers – as long as they have a spark of magic. Where the great families try to assimilate newborn magicians, using them more as breeding stock than anything else, Celeste makes a big show of allowing anyone to rise to the top without (overt) political connections. On paper, apprenticeships and funds are handed out by merit, rather than family ties, and that is surprisingly true. Older magicians are encouraged to welcome newcomers, and teach them their skills. There are still secrets – the fact that some guilds keep certain techniques to themselves is a constant political headache – but fewer than elsewhere.
Celeste is known, also, for its surprisingly innovative magical researchers. The city only reluctantly recognises the strict rules laid down by the Allied Lands, and the researchers regularly push the limits to breaking points. It is generally believed that if those strictures were to be removed, magical research would advance in leaps and bounds; the council, including many who feel slighted by the greater magical families, suspect the strictures were intended to weaken independent researchers and ensure the families maintain their magical supremacy. This has produced a somewhat paradoxical political movement that both fears the New Learning (and the Heart’s Eye University) and, at the same time, wishes to emulate their ground-breaking approach to innovation. It also encourages the city government to turn a blind eye to anything that does not pose a major threat to the city itself.
Like most magical communities, the magicians of Celeste enjoy a considerable degree of individual freedom. The council is empowered only to intervene when one magician interferes with another, and even then the council has a nasty habit of siding with the stronger regardless of the legal niceties of the issue. Magical dwellings are regarded as the magician’s castle, and the owner has near-complete freedom within his walls and wards. Unlike other communities, Celeste rarely shuns magicians who violate social norms; the population, for example, does not exclude or ostracise slavedealers or slaveowners, and in fact magically-bound slaves are a common sight within the city.
Powerless mundanes, by contrast, enjoy very little freedom, and they have very few civil rights. They do not, for example, have the right to own property, nor to conduct business without a magical patron. A handful of particularly wealthy mundanes have managed to carve out a semi-legal niche for themselves, often through connections to smuggling rings or trading networks that operate within the city, but the majority are effectively second-class citizens, rarely – if ever – treated as anything other than serfs or slaves. They have their own schools, social clubs, and entertainments. Perversely, the only real advantage – other than the chance to make a small fortune – for a mundane living in Celeste is that the city recognises men and women as equals and an innovative young woman can make a fortune in her own name, rather than her husband’s, and keep it. (The banks draw no distinction between mundane and magical customers, which makes them largely unique within the city.)
It cannot be denied that Celeste is a very old city. The modern settlement was built on an earlier settlement, which in turn was built on a settlement that was earlier still. The upper levels are quite fantastical in many ways, with magical architecture created to show off the power of the original designers; some, it should be noted, would collapse under their own weight if magic wasn’t being used to constantly prop them up. Celeste prides itself on being one of the most beautiful cities in the world and there is a considerable degree of truth to that claim, as the local architects can allow their imaginations to run wild in a manner impossible to their mundane counterparts. Outside the inner circle, the architecture is much less wild; the lower-ranking magicians do not have the money to turn their houses into fantastical palaces, while the mundanes are forbidden to decorate their homes.
Below the city itself, there is a network of secret passageways and endless warrens that have never been properly mapped. The combination of high magic residue – the result of endless magical experiments that were later flushed into the sewers – and deliberate misdirection spells cast by smugglers and dark wizards ensure that anyone who goes into the subterranean world does so at severe risk of his life. There are no shortage of rumours about what might be lurking under the city, from crazed necromancers to the walking dead or creatures hideously mutated by magic (or transfigured humans who never regained human form); there are also tales of ancient artefacts, including some that date all the way back to the pre-empire days, that would make their finder wealthy for life if they managed to bring an artefact back to the surface and sell it to the highest bidder. Unsurprisingly, quite a few young magicians – and mundanes – try to get rich quick by finding an artefact. Some succeed. Some return empty-handed. Some never return at all.
For the duration of the Necromantic Wars, the city maintained a precarious truce with the greater magical community and the Allied Lands, a truce that was, for various reasons, very unpopular within Celeste itself. The city council maintained a vague pretence that it was willingly choosing to follow the rules, and uphold the Compact, because of the importance of keeping a united front in the war, but this pretence came back to bite them after the end of the war. There seemed no pressing reason to maintain the Compact, which the city regarded as having been forced on them, and the devastation unleashed by the Void Wars significantly weakened the magical families, limiting their ability to intervene. Worse, the endless series of rebellions and revolutions in mundane lands convinced many magicians of their superiority. Worst of all, the development of magitech threatened to undermine the very basis of the city’s existence. The idea of mundanes with access to magic was terrifying.
The Supremacists had always maintained a major presence within the city. Indeed, it was the closest thing they had to a stronghold. The combination of sudden changes in the balance of power, and the lack of any outside force that might hold them to account, gave them the opportunity to come into the light, declare independence, and formally renounce the Compact. For the Supremacists, it was the chance to prove their essential rightness; for everyone else, it was going to be hell.
