Okay. So this is the result of a combination of thoughts. I’ve been reading/watching Pathfinder lore lately, and the idea of the dwarven Sky Citadels fascinates me. I will admit, though, that when I first heard them referenced, in a discussion on Adventure Paths and in particular Dongun Hold in Alkenstar, I thought they were sky citadels. As in dwarven flying cities. Which, let’s not lie, would be boss. Though the mythology of the actual Sky Citadels, that they’re where the dwarves emerged onto the surface during the Quest for the Sky, is also very cool. But. Dwarven flying cities.
This idle thought merged with a thought I had a while back regarding one of D&D 5e’s trinkets from the PHB. No. 37: a small, weightless stone block. Because I thought, even at the time, with just that, I thought: put a piece of stone that weighs nothing in a dwarf’s hand, and let them imagine what and where they could build. Because, again, I’ve wanted flying dwarves for a while.
And then I added in some other things. The concept of a space elevator, and how compression-based ones aren’t possible, because of weight. The biblical Tower of Babel. And, a little bit, the Islamic version of the building of the Temple of Solomon.
So we get this. A piece of worldbuilding, a setting element. Something to put in a fantasy world that’s heading for steampunk levels of technology, possibly beyond.
The Legend of the Compact Tower
A lot of people think the name is ironic, calling the tallest thing in the world compact, or perhaps that it’s a joke, a reference to its builders’ shorter stature. But the name doesn’t mean compact as in small, it means compact as in agreement. Pact, covenant. The Compact Tower was named for the holy agreement that enabled its construction.
There are different versions of the story, depending on the teller, but in the dwarven one, it happened like this.
Dwarves are creatures of the earth. Of the stone, of the depths. They are called to delve, not to fly, and it is a holy calling. The gods of earth and the gods of dwarves look kindly upon it. But from the moment dwarves first stepped out onto the surface of the world, from the moment a dwarf first looked up and saw the raw splendour of the sky, there have been dwarves who hear a different calling. One, perhaps, less favourably looked upon once, but no less real.
And, though many still deny it, no less holy.
Much as there are gods of earth, there are gods of sky. They are not dwarven gods, but they are gods nonetheless. Dwarves can hear their call. And even pulled by this foreign thread, dwarves are precious to the gods of dwarves. They are creatures of the earth. They are rooted, not only in the stone, but as a people, and their gods no less than them. These ties do not break for a foreign calling. A dwarf, no matter where their heart leads, is still a dwarf.
And so the gods of dwarves spoke to the gods of sky, on behalf of their children. And those dwarves who had felt the longing for the sky spoke also to its gods, on their own behalf. They spoke of their awe, their appreciation, their longing. They spoke of their nature, of earth and stone and roots. And they spoke of a joining between them, the earth and the sky, the root and the longing. They spoke of a construction, for dwarves are builders before all things, that would honour both.
A tower, built by dwarves, and allowed by the compact of gods, that would reach from the stone roots of the world to the top of the sky, where all was weightless, and even the concept of falling was lost. A vast pillar, miles in diameter, visible for untold miles around, that stretched upwards as far as the eye could see. A tower built of stone, in its lower reaches, and then of something else, as it reached higher. A gift, a blessing, from the gods of dwarves and the gods of sky.
Skystone. That which has no weight.
The dwarves say that skystone was a gift, given by the gods so that the Compact Tower could be built. But others say it had other origins.
Among the surface peoples of the world, the primary claim is that skystone was born of magic, a creation of dwarven arcanists, and that it was far from holy. It was mundane, created by mortal ingenuity. And, thus, it may be created again, if one could only find the formula. Perhaps even some dwarves believe this, that skystone was a thing they made with their own hands, that no gods were necessary, and that if they only searched hard enough, they could find the means to make it again. In the aeons since the breaking of the Compact Tower, many, many people have sought the secrets of skystone, both dwarves and otherwise, among the peoples of the earth.
But among the peoples of the sky …
Here is the other legend, the darker legend. For the elementals of the sky, the creatures of air and lightning, claim that the Compact Tower was not built by a compact of equals, but by a compact of slaves. That they were bound, against their will, to imbue stone with the essence of air, their own essence, and create skystone so that the tower of dwarves could be built. The gods of sky, they claim, did not look kindly on the pleas of dwarves, and so the gods of dwarves took matters into their own hands, on behalf of their children, and granted them the power and magic to enslave the creatures of the sky.
And for this reason, millennia ago, the children of the sky attacked the Compact Tower, and severed it in two. Sundered it, in a great surge of rage and lightning, and tore free the upper half of the tower, the skystone half, and claimed it for their own. It was born of their suffering, their magic, their essence, and thus it belonged to them, or so they claimed. They tore it loose, and have ever since sailed the skies with it, a vast, trailing shape, the massive cylinder of the skystone tower looming distantly above the world beneath. And the dwarves which had inhabited it were bound as slaves to their elemental masters, as recompense for the slavery that wrought the tower.
The dwarves refute this, with all their soul and ardour and honour. Their stories tell of treachery, of a holy compact broken out of greed, and a tower and a people stolen by their enemies. Dwarves do not deal in slavery, nor the binding of free creatures. Their ancestors would not have done what the elementals accuse them of, nor would their gods have permitted it. They do not know the source of the legend, but they refute it, down to the stone.
And the gods, of dwarves or earth or sky … are curiously silent on the matter. As if the truth is obscured to them, perhaps. Or as if they cannot speak it. And that … is a source of legend and of terror in and of itself.
Whatever the truth of the matter, however the Compact Tower was built, whatever created skystone, and whatever happened when the Compact Tower was shattered, these are the truths that remain:
A vast stone pillar stands upon the stone, still reaching brokenly skywards, yearning for its other half. The dwarven half of the Compact Tower, now known as the Broken Tower, remains a dwarven citadel, and has thrived across the centuries. For the dwarves of the Broken Tower have not lost the sky-yearning of their ancestors. When the Compact Tower was shattered, shards of skystone were flung and scattered from the tearing, and the dwarves have gathered it jealously. These shards have become the hearts of engines, as skydocks sprouted from the miles-high flanks of the Broken Tower and skyships sprang from dwarven ingenuity to scour the skies for the Skystone Tower and their long-lost, enslaved brethren. The Broken Tower now stands at the heart of a dwarven empire of artifice, magic and construction, reaching from the depths of the stone towards the lost reaches of the sky.
The Skystone Tower, inhabited now by djinn and other elementals, soars miles above the earth, where the sky kisses the great beyond where perhaps the gods dwell, a vast, weightless edifice that drifts horizontally across the sky, trailing its broken end where once it was torn free. In its depths, it is said, live another people too, a blue-grey people who bear a remarkable resemblance to dwarves. Whether these people are servants, slaves, or equals among the elementals of the Skystone Tower is difficult for outsiders, what few have ever gained access, to ascertain. Perhaps their status has changed, in the millennia since the sundering of the Compact Tower, or perhaps it is the same as it ever was. Slaves, or equals … or something else.
The gods of earth and sky remain silent on the questions of the Compact Tower, no matter how their children plead for the truth. If skystone was a gift of the gods, it hasn’t been given again. If skystone was an offense against the gods, it hasn’t been struck down. The gods of the sky do not disdain to grant their gifts to faithful dwarves, and the gods of dwarves do not offer the secrets of binding elementals to their children. Those secrets remain the preserve of arcanists.
And arcanists and artificers the world over search for the secrets of skystone, not least to challenge the might of the dwarven sky empire. Adventurers, thieves and secret operatives seek to find and smuggle fragments from the sundering, or to sail the skies, even as the dwarves do, in pursuit of the Skystone Tower. Elementals are bound, in search of the secrets of how they were once forced to create the material. Arcanists and alchemists seek to recreate it with naught but their own genius. The world of the Compact Tower claws its way ever skywards, seeking what once was theirs. The gift, or secret, that they were once given, and that so many wish to discover anew. A means to travel from the very root of the world, to the very top of the sky.
And, perhaps, beyond.
Perhaps this is why the gods are silent. To prevent mortals from going where they have no right to go. Or to protect them, to keep them from going where they cannot survive going. But the gift was given once, and the knowledge of it not rescinded. The world yearns skyward. And the gods have not explicitly forbidden it. Perhaps there is something with the power to command gods, a sinister force behind the sundering of the Compact Tower, that forces them not to. Or perhaps the gods, of earth and sky alike, wish to see what their mortal children might accomplish, when given only the thought and the proof, and the ingenuity of their own minds and hands.
And if that is so, say the dwarves of the Broken Tower, then they shall be the first to build again. Their tower shall be whole, and reach once more from the heart of the stone to the edge of the sky.
Further Thoughts
Whether or not dwarven inventors and magic users pioneered skystone itself, they definitely did pioneer a lot of the magic and technology that made living inside the Compact Tower possible. The Tower covered miles of vertical and horizontal space, and while it was, initially, basically an upwards extrusion of subterranean living, adjustments were made. So things like teleportation magic, mechanical and magical elevator systems, massive water transportation systems, hydroponics, fungal gardens, how to build with weightless materials, how to build and function in low orbit, magic items and technology to work around lowered gravity and thinner air, etc.
Now, large chunks of those latter ones in particular may have been lost when the Skystone Tower was ripped away, and are now (potentially) the sole preserve of the Sky Dwarves of the Skystone Tower, but not everybody who knew how the systems worked was in the upper reaches when the Sundering happened. So fragments of those technologies remained behind, and the dwarves have had millennia to capitalise on them.
The legacy of the Compact Tower and the magic/technology it left behind have had a massive warping effect on the politics, magic and technology of the world since. Particularly since the Broken Tower dwarves absolutely did not give up on their lost technology and dreams, and have built a skyfaring technological empire in the aftermath. Skyships build around shards of skystone, and the quest by other peoples and empires to gain or recreate skystone for themselves in order to match them, are a huge element of the world’s politics. Piracy, espionage, secret experiments, ground to air defenses, all of that will be in play.
There’ll also be a divide between Broken Tower dwarves and fully subterranean dwarves who never heard the sky’s call, and who are not only perfectly happy building in the stone as the gods originally intended, but possibly view the Sundering as proof that the gods did, in fact, never intend dwarves to go skywards, and hold that Broken Tower dwarves are heretics who’ve made all other dwarves enemies of the surface world, so thanks for that, buckos, real nice of you.
(Just because the gods are real, physical presences on your world, doesn’t mean you can’t have religious schisms and different interpretations, especially if the gods in question, for whatever reason, choose to keep or are forced to keep quite on the religious issue in question. Or it had nothing to do with them, and they’ve been watching the fallout in bemusement ever since)
The Skystone Tower itself has been pursued relentlessly ever since it was Sundered from the Broken Tower. Whatever the truth of the relationship between the sky dwarves and the elementals that fly it, the Skystone Tower these days is extremely reclusive and inclined to be very hostile towards intruders. The Tower haunts the far upper reaches of the sky/atmosphere, basically as close as it can get to low orbit, and even Broken Tower skyships struggle to get that far up. Magical storms and elemental force protect the Tower and its secrets, as well as raw height and speed. And, again, it’s huge. A vast mobile city-tower in the upper atmosphere that’s visible to everything below it.
Possibly the Skystone Tower casts a mobile shadow that’s a factor in the magic of the world. Tidal pull could also be a factor. The Broken Tower could also be an issue when it comes to shadow, warping the natural plant and animal life in the area, as well as being a massive weight on a single location on the world. Skystone is weightless, but the Broken Tower was built of normal stone, slowly merging into skystone in the upper reaches, some of which might be left (probably as the basis for the skyship factories). So the Broken Tower may well have a physical warping effect on the world round it too.
And then … Space travel could so very easily be a thing. It could be a thing the Skystone Tower dwarves and elementals are working on. It could be a thing the surface mortals invent in the course of pursuing them. It could be achieved by diplomacy and a reunification of the Towers, creating an actual space elevator that would allow colonisation up into whatever lies beyond the sky.
What does lie beyond the sky? Are the gods there? Is something else there? Is it survivable? Don’t you want to find out?
I just. I want fantasy science fiction. And sky dwarves and/or space dwarves. Apparently. Heh.
So. The Legend of the Compact Tower.
