The Searing Gate
The Searing Gate is the primary outer gate of Ashvault — a monumental, rune-laced portal carved into the obsidian walls of the city that stands as both a defensive bulwark and a fiery testament to Ashvault’s dominion over flame. More than a simple entryway, it is a living threshold of burning wards and molten mechanisms, designed to awe visitors and incinerate would-be invaders.
Purpose / Function
- Original Purpose: To serve as the primary fortified entrance into Ashvault, deterring armies through sheer intimidation and direct destructive power.
- Current Purpose: Still functions as the main trade and traveler gate, but also as a ritual space where citizens swear oaths of loyalty or forge pacts under the eye of the ever-burning arch. Additionally, serves as a demonstration site for Ashvault’s might during festivals.
Design
- Shape & Size: A towering arch over 60 ft high and 40 ft wide, framed by giant vertical rune-steles and crowned with massive flame-braziers.
- Materials: Black basalt and slag-stone, intricately inlaid with veins of glowing ember-quartz that channel defensive magics.
- Colors: Dominated by deep charcoal and ash-grays, streaked with molten orange veins and flickers of crimson rune-light.
Sensory & Appearance
- Sight: Waves of distortion from the heat, swirling cinders drifting like lazy fireflies. When the gate fully activates, lines of molten runes race up the walls and down into the ground in dazzling patterns.
- Sound: Constant low crackle of flames; when the runes flare, a deep thrumming bass note rolls out, rattling armor and teeth.
- Smell: Scorched minerals, sulfur, faintly metallic ozone.
- Touch: The very stones vibrate faintly underfoot from contained elemental force.
Denizens
- Regularly manned by the Crucible Wardens, elite soldiers in salamander-scale cloaks and soot-blackened armor.
- Gate Pyroclasts tend the rune mechanisms, occasionally whispering incantations or feeding powdered ember salts into chutes along the gate’s base.
- Ember crows (ash-colored birds with faintly glowing eyes) roost on the braziers, feeding on charred scraps or seeking warm nesting.
Contents & Furnishings
- Defensive platforms line the inside of the gate wall, fitted with rune-ballistae designed to launch quarrels wreathed in elemental fire.
- Several braziers filled with ever-burning coal rest on heavy iron tripods, moved around by gate staff as needed.
- A pedestal near the side holds the Oath Brand, a searing iron used in formal declarations or punishments.
Hazards & Traps
- Multiple concealed rune arrays can trigger walls of flame that sheet across the archway, incinerating anything trying to force an entry.
- Mechanisms embedded in the street can erupt with pyroclastic jets, sending molten rock geysering up in lethal bursts.
- The inner doors are enchanted to resist all but the most powerful siege spells, and can also be forcibly superheated to glow white-hot, burning attackers who try to breach them.
Special Properties
- The gate’s runes are keyed to the city’s greater ley circuit, drawing power not only from the local magma flows but also from Ashvault’s entire rune network.
- When fully activated during times of siege or ceremonial display, the entire gate radiates a corona of fire several feet out, making it nearly impossible to approach without protective wards.
Alterations
- Post-513 AR: Additional elemental siphons installed to draw excess heat into holding tanks, preventing accidental runic overloads like the small breach that nearly collapsed a wall section during the Crimson Siege.
- Occasional additions of new ward layers or experimental rune types by the Ember Council’s artificers, testing next-generation defense glyphs.
Architecture
- Follows the stark, imposing style of Ashvault with a unique grandeur: instead of raw angular brutality, the Searing Gate arches elegantly upward, channeling flame motifs in flowing lines meant to intimidate and awe simultaneously.
- Decorative reliefs depict famous duels, volcanic gods, and the founding of Ashvault, all highlighted with fine lines of glowing rune script.
Defenses
- Beyond its natural hazards, the gate integrates with the city’s entire perimeter defense. Nearby towers have sightlines on the gate and can pour down arrowfire or caustic alchemical grenades.
- A series of nested internal portcullises and pivoting barricades mean even if the outer gate falls, attackers face kill corridors heated by burning rune troughs.
History
- 372 AR: Original gate completed, replacing older ironbound palisades.
- 461 AR: Withstood a combined assault by mercenaries from the Emberwastes and rogue fire giants.
- 513 AR: Survived the Crimson Siege after the Crucible Wardens detonated part of the outer street, turning magma flows against attackers.
- 562 AR: Used as the site for the Pledge of Ashes, where hundreds of young forge apprentices swore loyalty, each branded with the Oath Brand.
Tourism
- Many merchants and pilgrims linger outside the gate simply to marvel at its scale and heat displays.
- During certain festivals, the gates are opened wide and the rune arrays pulse in grand rhythmic patterns, drawing thousands from across Embergarde to witness the spectacle.
- Souvenir vendors outside sell trinkets like miniature gate charms, bits of “blessed slag,” or amulets with etched likenesses of the great doors.
Founding Date
372 AR
Type
Gatehouse
Parent Location
Environmental Effects
A wave of intense heat rolls from the gate even at a distance of fifty paces. The air shimmers with rising currents, occasionally coalescing into drifting spark-motes. Prolonged standing near the gate can cause dehydration, dizziness, or burns. Yet for Ashvault’s citizens, it is a familiar furnace kiss — proof they are home.
Owning Organization
Comments