The Celestium

Now, more than ever before in Isturoth's history, reaches are exceeding grasps. Industry and innovation are fueling the minds of tinkerers and architects, engineers and smiths, and propelling them to heights never before seen.   No projects are more reflective of this than the legendary failure of the Celestium, a clockwork orrery. It was to be a mechanical model of the solar system, an immense, clockwork-driven structure built into a mountaintop. It would not only track the movements of the sun, moons, and planets but also the paths of various magical celestial bodies—comets of pure aether, wandering star-islands, and the shimmering paths of the gods themselves.   The original architect, a recluse named Master Kurza, was a brilliant but eccentric Prime Metallurgist whose mind worked in ways no one else could comprehend. She saw the cosmos not as a simple machine, but as a living tapestry of gears, crystals, and whispered enchantments. Her plans, scribbled on dozens of crumbling parchments, are a chaotic mix of astrological charts, alchemical formulas, and intricate mechanical drawings. They are more akin to a personal diary than a set of blueprints, full of cryptic notes about "harmonizing the Stellar Echo" and "aligning the Crystalline Heart with the First Breath of Dawn."   Since her sudden and mysterious death, no one has been able to make sense of her work. The half-built orrery is a sprawling, dangerous marvel. Massive brass gears hang suspended in mid-air, connected to nothing. A colossal, unpolished metal sphere intended to represent the world sits in the center, waiting for its celestial companions. The entire structure is a testament to a grand vision that no one alive can hope to complete, a beautiful and bewildering ruin where the secrets of the universe and the genius of one woman died together.