Arginbury

Arginbury has always had a fiercely independent character and citizens who take great pride in its long standing traditions of supporting democratic methods of government. The formation of the town and the very birth of democracy on Magicians' End are closely connected, via the person of Claire Argin, although she was not the first elected town Mayor. During the age of the First Popular Ascendancy, which began when Arginbury was less than a hundred years old, the Popular Council exercised direct rule over the town from the Popular Council Chamber.   In more recent ages, the Popular Council Chamber has become a museum and tourist attraction. Local government is currently run from a more modest Town Hall at the border between the Arginbury Heart and Arginbury Falls West districts. It still runs on a model of elected representitives and is allied to the Congress of Concerned Citizens, a modern international organisation that reflects some of the same philosophical ideas that began at Arginbury almost five thousand years before.

The centre of the town sits on a semi circular ring of relatively level ground to the south of the Argin Spring, with suburbs extending downslope along the line of the watercourse which leads to the South Eroveth Stream. The upper district is known as Arginbury Heart and it is characterised by an intricate network of beautiful canals, the most famous of which is Claire's Canal, shown in the image at the head of the article. The Arginbury Falls district is divided into western and eastern sectors on either side of the Arginbury brook. Where the land levels out a little at the point where this tributary meets the South Eroveth Stream, the North Bank and South Bank districts straddle the river.

When the geologist Claire Argin discovered the properties of the Argin Spring in 1840 APC, she knew immediately how important it was in the prolonged drought the world was experiencing. Central Myruthea was suffering badly in the Age of Famine. The population in the traditional inland towns east of the Eroveth mountains had fallen dramatically. The remaining citizens continued to struggle to grow enough crops and to keep their animals with the meagre rainfall the current climate supplied. Arginbury was therefore founded by eager exiles from Klaractazum. Though they were looking primarily for water they also sought freedom and civil liberties they did not have in their home city. So it was that the new town became a centre of radical thought which included many with democratic aspirations.   Although initially uninterested in politics, Claire Argin was elected Mayor in 1881 APC and the town became the nucleus for a movement that would come to fruition at the Tree of New Greening in 1916 APC, as the Age of Famine drew to a close and more normal patterns of rainfall returned. This was the beginning of the First Popular Ascendancy and Claire Argin would be the first of its leaders, the so called First Ascendants. For more than a hundred years, the First Popular Ascendancy would rule the world from the Popular Council Chamber at Arginbury, using a democratic model. Eventually, however, their international order would come to an end in the middle of the 21st century when the New Pale Empire broke away.   During the Time of Terrors in the 34th century, the town was attacked by an alliance known as the Wardens of the Central Plains because it was sheltering political exiles from Zalgurim and Klaractazum. The war mage Herakaldyn Bell unleashed an experimental magical spell designed to bring the defenders to their knees in an overwhelming sonic assault. The Silent Thunder, as it came to be known, was a catastrophic failure, killing far more of the beseiging army than their enemies and it ultimately brought about the end of the Wardens of the Central Plains, whilst Arginbury itself continued to thrive as a refuge and centre for independent thought.   In more recent days, the town became allied to the Congress of Concerned Citizens in 6417 APC, with which it shares many historic values.   A timeline of local history related to Arginbury can be found behind the button at the bottom of this article.

  The greatly revered Argin Spring, which has famously never run dry, cascades out of a chasm in the mountain rocks to fill the Spring Pool at the upper end of the Arginbury Heart district, before flowing out into the town's canal system. This water will eventually empty into the South Eroveth Stream, but not before it has passed through a carefully built series of dams and waterways, with a managed proportion drawn off for irrigation and domestic use.     The best known building in the town is the famous Popular Council Chamber which stands foresquare in the centre of the Arginbury Heart district, bridging the Main Canal which flows beneath it. It was built in 1857 APC, originally for the governance of the growing town, but then enlarged into a much grander building, between 1918 and 1920 APC when it was repurposed to be the debating hall of the First Popular Ascendancy and the meeting place of the Popular Council. During the age of the First Popular Ascendancy it was the centre of world government and to this day it remains a location of hugely symbolic importance to those who admire its role in the early development of democracy on Magicians' End.

Arginbury is a beautiful town and due to its historic importance as the birthplace of a kind of democracy when it was the home of the First Popular Ascendancy it continues to attract tourists to view the Argin Spring and to see the Popular Council Chamber.

The Argin Spring and the reliable water it has always supplied for the town was the reason for its foundation and is far and away its most important resource. The spring has a highly unusual origin which was not understood until many years after its discovery by Claire Argin, although it was apparent immediately that there was something unnatural about the flow rate in an era of drought and low rainfall. Careful investigations revealed that deep underground there was a portal to a deep underwater source of fresh water in another dimension. The location of the high pressure connection is unknown but is likely to lie deep within the Discontinuum within one of the Water Worlds. To keep the long term fluid cycle of Magicians' End in balance, it is expected that there must be an exit portal, most likely somewhere in the deep ocean, but the theorised gateway has never been located.   On Magicians' End, the creation of the portal has been attributed to the experiments of some unknown mage or group of mages from the Trinity Moon Triple Enfolding. Expert analysts in the Stability Council are inclined to doubt this and instead ascribe the effect to the dabbling of some ancient Power. All that is really known for certain is that the magical effect must have been in place for centuries at the least before it was discovered, but the spring did not appear remarkable in any way until the drought drew attention to its exceptional properties.