Towers

Tower Descriptions

Internal Structures

Normally Callie might not have bothered trying to get a reaction out of Fiona, but this op was making her nervous. She wasn't particularly afraid of heights, but there was something intimidating about hanging suspended inside one of the tower's support columns. The shaft ran from the base of the building all the way to its summit, a hollow tube twenty meters across and over 600 meters tall. Meter-thick walls of steel and spell-hardened concrete surrounded them on all sides, the surface far too smooth to climb without rappelling equipment. Sixteen storeys below them lay the landing for Viscount's emergency staircase, which spiraled down around the inside of the column to the exit on the fourth skyway level.

That staircase would have been the obvious way to reach Viscount's escape hatches, but because it was obvious, it was also trapped, warded, and monitored via camera. Brian had told them that he couldn't deal with all of the nasty little surprises down there while also looping the camera feeds and keeping the alarms from tripping, so they had decided to bypass the issue entirely by coming at the landing from above. Viscount's designers had apparently never seriously considered the possibility that someone might try to climb down from the fifth skyway to reach an escape hatch that had no visible handles, hinges, or weak spots.

Making the Cut, part 4

The commuter tunnel was dimly lit and smelled of urine and industrial solvents. Rats scurried out of sight as the four psis approached, vanishing through cracks in the curving brick walls. The fluorescent lights buzzed, adding a steady undercurrent to contrast with the sound of their footsteps. Bringing up the rear, Brian cast frequent glances over his shoulder. The echoes in the tunnel played tricks on him: several times he thought he heard someone else coming up behind them, but when he looked back he saw only an empty passage. His telepathic senses were similarly blank, revealing no other sentient minds in their vicinity.

It was, he thought, one of the loneliest places he had ever been. A hundred years ago the commuter tunnels had been major arteries for foot traffic in Metamor City, especially in the winter months when a heavy snowfall could block the surface streets for days. As the upper levels of the city were constructed, though, the middle class migrated away from ground level, and the tunnels fell into less frequent use. Nowadays they mostly served to move factory workers between their job sites and the subway stations. During off-hours, they served as a transit system for the things that hunted at Street level, the beasts and hunters who lacked even the vampires’ thin veneer of civilized restraint.

Making the Cut, part 6

Outside Views

The building to which Skarig led him [Janus] was an apartment complex built on the eastern face of Hughes Tower. The apartments were dressed in simple brown stone, with ornamental columns flanking the doors and carved lintels above the small, rectangular windows. They stretched at least thirty storeys up the side of the 'scraper, well past the first layer of skyways overhead. The planters in front of the building housed a variety of shade-tolerant plants, all of which appeared healthy and well-tended. It was an old-fashioned building, hearkening back to designs from a hundred years ago, but everything seemed to be in surprisingly good repair.

Skarig pointed to a set of stairs leading up to a pair of heavy wooden doors, which obviously marked the main entrance to the complex at Street level. "The girl goes in there to hide," he said.
The Sentinel

Egan looked up at the building in front of him and grimaced. Another trashy, low-rent apartment complex built into the side of a tower. He was on the first skyway level, not the Street, so it wasn’t quite the slums, but it was a long way from being one of the nicer parts of the level. He looked at the crumbling red brick facade and imagined what the place must smell like.

Making the Cut, part 4

Egan looked at the apartment complex closely. Since it was half-built into the side of the tower, all of the windows faced in one direction, directly out toward the skyway. Likewise, there was one entrance from the outside – no doubt there was an entrance on the tower side, too, but they could always pull the tower’s internal security feed to watch that end. On the whole, it wouldn’t be a terribly hard building to do surveillance on; all he needed was a good vantage point.

Making the Cut, part 4

He [Janus] was three and a half stories down before he decided that this had been a bad idea. The windows in this part of the tower were small and widely-spaced, the facing stones were smooth and tightly fitted together, and there were no ornamental ledges or other decorative features that he could get a good grip on. The design was intentional, to keep potential enemies from scaling the walls to reach the barracks wing; he’d never thought he might need to do the reverse. He was just considering whether to try climbing back up when heard something new over the sound of the wind: the distant whine of lift turbines.

A Lightbringer Carol

Internal Mechanics

Power

Sasha nodded, thinking hard. “The hospital's fed by a main conduit that runs all the way down to the reactor under the tower. To cut the power to everything at once, he'd have to shut down that conduit. But that's not something that just anybody could do! You'd need all kinds of security clearances to even learn how, and you'd have to be even higher up before you could access the hospital's schematics.” She shook her head, disbelieving. “We were in MID for three years before Victor taught us how to—”

Making the Cut, part 6

Water & Sanitation

Ventilation

The city below was eerily quiet. He [Janus] would have expected to hear skimmers moving past on the skyways below, or air traffic overhead, or the fans from the tower’s ventilation system, but he heard nothing but the sound of the wind.

A Lightbringer Carol

Tower Names

Many towers and neighborhoods take on the names of the castles, cities, and other locations that were taken over as Metamor Keep grew into a metropolis. Some are named for the noble families that established/own the tower and live there, or for heroes of Metamor's past.

  • Ballantine
  • Barnhardt
    • West by north-west edge of the city, south of Glen Avery
    • Named for House Barnhardt, who had a castle in this area during the Keep-era. On the edge of Lake Barnhardt and the Metamor River.
  • Brightleaf
    • MCPD (First Skyway (Dusk)), Precinct 9 station house, Central Regional Division
    • Named for House Brightleaf
  • Camulodunum
    • North-eastern corner of the City.
    • This area was known as the Forest of Ghosts during the Keep era; when a tower was built in the area a scholar thought it would be fun to name it for the ancient Seuilman city that was once there.
  • Cardale
  • Connelly
    • Connected to Hutchins Tower via commuter tunnel. Connelly is the tower to the east of the tunnel.
  • Copper Mine
    • Near the site of an old copper mine that flourished in the days of Metamor Keep. East by North-eastern edge of the city.
  • Draconia
    • Extreme north-east corner of the City. North of Camulodunum
    • The town that was here lived in the remnants of a Seuilman city, and part of it was taken over by the Forest of Ghosts. For a while the town itself was forgotten and became a haven for thieves and other outlaws during the Keep era.
  • Eagle
    • North of Glen Avery, almost at the edge of the city
    • This was one of the northern-most guard towers of Metamor Keep.
  • Ellingham
    • At about the mid-point of the city as you go north-south, on the western edge of the city by the mountains.
    • The exact age of the village that was here is unknown but it does show on Seuliman maps created before the Valley fell to the empires legions.
  • Euper
    • This tower would be at the southern edge of the Square.
    • The Seuilman name for the town that was founded here was Eupernium, and evidence points to an older Elven settlement in the same area that was called Hiril Anoran.
    • During the Keep era, Euper was the town just outside of the southern gate of the Keep.
  • Giant's Dike
    • Named for the dike that the Seuilman Empire built at the northern end of the Valley to keep out the inhabitants of the Giantdowns
  • Grenier
    • South central section of the city, north of Lasalle, south of Macaban
    • Keep era city
  • Goff's Oak
    • Western edge of the city. West of Macaban, north of Ticehurst, south of Ellingham
    • Keep-era city
  • Halvord
  • Hareford
    • This is at the center north section of the city, between Glen Avery and Camulodunum.
    • The Seuilman name for the original town was Adurni; in the days of the Battle of Three Gates it was also known as "Outpost".
  • Hughes
  • Hutchins
    • Connected to Connelly Tower via commuter tunnel, has a subway terminal. Hutchins is the tower on the west of the tunnel.
    • Near Halvord Tower
  • Iron Mine
    • Eastern edge of the city, east by south-east section of the city.
    • Keep era city that was named for a nearby iron mine.
  • Jetta
    • South-eastern edge of the city
    • Keep-era city
  • Lanton
    • South by south-western edge of the city, west of Lasalle.
    • Keep era city
    • This was the castle-town of the Barony of Lanton; not to be confused with the province of Lantony, which has a city of the same name as the capital.
  • Lasalle
    • Located at the center southern edge of the Valley/City, on the Metamor River
    • Named for the Viscounty of Lasalle, held by House Drauling. This was effectively the south gate of the Valley before Metamor was an empire.
  • Llancarfan
    • Western edge of the city, west by south-west
    • Keep era city
  • Lyme Regis
    • Eastern edge of the city, east of Macaban, north of Iron Mine
    • Keep era city
  • Macaban
    • The original name for the castle-town that was here was Lorland, but after the Battle of Three Gates it was held by a cruel and corrupted andryogyne cursed noble named Altera Loriod. After that Lord died due to his own treachery, the land was first passed to Philip the White of Whales, then passed to a donkey-morph named Macaban, who became known as a wise ruler and healed the land and it's relations with Metamor; both of which had suffered during Loriod's rule. Soon after, the people decided that they'd rather be known by the name of the man who raised them up out of the darkness of a corrupt rule, than the name associated with that ruler. //Note: this history has to be approved by RavenB, but the Librarian thinks it is something that he'd appreciate.
  • Mallen
    • East by North-Eastern edge of the city, north of Copper Mine, south of Mycransburg
    • Keep era city
  • Maractania
    • This tower's name is taken from the ancient Seuilman name for the Metamor Valley.
  • Matthias
  • Moraine
  • Mycransburg
    • Eastern edge of the City- North of Mallen, south of Camulodunum
    • Keep era city
  • Sawtry
    • Just south-east of Ticehurst, on the western bank of the Metamor River
    • Keep-era city
  • Tarrelton
    • Directly north of the Square, at the old crossroads between Castle Barnhardt and Mallen
    • Keep era city
  • Terreth
    • Eastern edge of the city, east by south-east
    • Keep era city
  • Ticehurst
    • Western edge of the city, west of Iron Mine
    • Keep era city
  • Twone
    • West by north-west edge of the city, north of Llancarfan, south of Ticehurst
    • Keep era city

Sources

Case of the Golden Egg, Making The Cut, The Sentinel

MK Wiki entry- Metamor Valley, Metamor Keep Map 1, Metamor Keep Map 2

Author Notes

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