A city twice burnt and twice divided. Once by the removal of the once loved and now gone White Rose nobility that once ruled the city, and again by the Trade Alliance. The estate of the White Rose is tended by the people of the bustling town, a grand monument to how the kind are treated in the great game the nobility play. The wall of the trade alliance separates the empire from them but more than that it is their coin, and their defiance to the empire. Seeing themselves as merchants not a part of the Empire. The city is an open wound, raw and tender, the citizens are not loyal to the Empire but to the Rose and their exiled heir, the Alliance are loyal to coin and all who swear fealty to it. A powder keg with a lacquered finish.

Each of the grand estates of Barzon competes to show their wealth and prestige among the other houses. They are towns unto themselves. Each of them attempting to show their power to one another, building atop the old to show off their brand new designs. From gothic churches to the church of humanity, to grand old trees rising over the city, to aqueducts bringing heated water to open baths. Each house tries to out-compete the other, in their grandiosity of power, thinking little of what is underfoot.

Underneath all of the Grand Estates of Barzon lies a shadow city. These are the houseless dregs, sometimes literally as well as figuratively. Mushroom farms, jumpers and ‘jumpers’ hand me downs, and the brackish water of the riverway are staples of this life. A cold and uncared about underclass populate this area, just waiting for any opportunity. From houseless masses, to varrin purge survivors, to fallen nobles. All of them clinging to what little the have and the hope that they can rise to the light of Barzon.

In the north a new threat immerged, Imperious, but it did not fight like a hawk, or a wolf, or bear, no it fought like a wildfire. While the empire fought among itself, its nobles waring among each other Imperious was unified. Instead of having to clean up a rabble they found an implacable foe, that had burnt through their empire. Now a hundred houses are stationed at red cliff, hotblooded young men wait, coldblooded old men wait, and bitter widows wait. Waiting for a spark to strike the Redcliffs…