Haven

The City of Haven is the single most important location in the Iron Helix world. It has been the center of the world both geographically and politically for much of the world's existence.

The Rise of Haven
Haven was originally settled by humans as a small farming town in the heart of The Northland. The soil around it provided perfect conditions for growing an abundance of crops, and the village grew quickly into a healthy town. This prosperity attracted many outsiders as well, including dwarves who mined into the nearby Winterpeak Mountains, elves who sold their spells and enchantments, and many others seeking to find wealth and security in such an idyllic setting.

Over several decades, the town of Haven inevitably grew into a city, ruled by one of the original human settler families, the royal Dedmen family. It was during this period where The Guild noticed the city's increasing role in world affairs, and created a base nearby. With influence from The Guild, the city grew bigger all the time, attracting people of all races and from all corners of the globe. Haven slowly transitioned from a farming and mining city to a bustling trade hub. Incidents occured during this time that would shock most cities out of a golden age like Haven's, such as the assassinations of kings, great fires, rampages by monsters, and random strings of brutal killings, but the expansion and growth continued nonetheless.

Haven's first real challenge came from an unlikely source: the Owlbears. Owlbears had been known to most of the world as being primitve savages, but during an excursion into the Great Forest, members of the Iron Helix Syndicate uncoverered what they had thought to be a colossal owlbear mass grave, but it was actually a sort of hibernation structure. The Helix accidentally awoke the Owlbears, and they poured forth from their underground vault by the millions, thus beginning the Great Owlbear War.

From the heroic combined efforts of the Haven City Guard, the Havenic Army, the Haven Mages' Guild, the Haven Warriors' Guild, the Haven Assassins' Guild, the Iron Helix Syndicate, The Guild, and even Whittington and Quincy themselves, the Owlbears were defeated. In the peace talks, the nearly extinct Owlbears were allowed mercy, and began to settle a village not far from Haven. This village would go through many tumultuous changes in leadership, but would eventually agree to incorporate itself into the city of Haven.

Not long after, the arrival of the Phulubits from Inis Mona and the integration of the Arachne would occur, with each of these races arriving en masse from the Eastern Sea and Great Forest respectively. They followed in the footsteps of the Owlbears and also incorporated their growing townships into Haven, with the Arachne controlling the western coast and the Phulubits controlling the eastern. From these four centers, Haven began to expand into itself, filling in all open spaces and growing upwards and inwards. It was during this time that the Great Walls of Haven were constructed, as well as the Haven Sewers, the latter of these becoming a dark underworld and almost a separate city in its own right.

Haven's second great challenge came when a rogue member of the Iron Helix Syndicate, Franz, released a colossal Phoenix in the center of Haven. The beast, in its confusion, proceeded to scorch the city and burned down huge sections of it. In the chaos, the beasts of the Haven Sewers also escaped to the surface, forcing the defensive forces of Haven to fight a ground war and fight the beast in the sky simultaneously. And if this was not enough, a secret alliance between the Arachne, Phulubits, and Owlbears chose this time to strike the Humans. The Guild attempted to intervene, but at the time was also suffering infighting of its own. Ultimately, against all odds, the Haven forces prevailed, and a new, stronger Haven was rebuilt from the ashes. A massive Phoenix monument was built at the top of the tallest mountain in the Winterpeak Range, giving the mountain its name, Mount Phoenix.

This new, stronger Haven became at this time the veritable center of the world. The last of the Dedmen family were killed in the battle, and so a new government emerged known as the Tetrarch, a group of four kings and queens that represented the dominant races of Haven: the Humans, the Owlbears, the Arachne, and the Phulubits. Under the guidance of the Tetrarch, The Guild, and the Iron Helix, the city of Haven grew into the Havenic Empire, using its superior numbers, magic, and technology to expand beyond its borders and claim land far outside of the city. Colonies were established all over the world, and many factions were conquered or subjugated, including the Kiironotoko, the Cho, the City of Konstantinopolis, the Zuuluu Tribe, the Lutheran Church, Gerrim, among others. This would be the longest single era in Haven's history.

The Fall of Haven
After nearly a decade of ruling the Havenic Empire, Haven began to feel the strain of being the dominant power. Rogue factions began to rise up and cause chaos in the city, including the local branch of The Corporation, The League of Anarchists United, and even the Iron Helix Syndicate itself, as it became a more volatile and unpredictable organization. In addition to this internal strife, nature itself also began to pound the city with freak storms and severe flooding, which in one instance necessitated mass evacuations.

The event that would finally cause the destruction of Haven and the fall of the Havenic Empire would come not from Haven itself or from one of its enemies, but from a conflict between two guilds, the Iron Helix Syndicate and the Trang Muuc Brotherhood. The Brotherhood was founded with the express purpose of destroying the Helix, and was completely composed of individuals with personal grudges against the Helix. The Helix, one day seeing the Brotherhood's Leviathan warbeast peacefully occupying the waters in Haven's western harbors, enacted a plan to slay the beast and gain the upper hand. The created a projectile out of a sack of Heeps, and imbued this projectile with multiple copies and layers of an Earthquake spell. They horribly miscalculated the power of this weapon. Upon impact, the Leviathan was slain, but the projectile continued to travel and pulverized the seabed with such force that it created a catastrophic seismic event, opening a chasm which devoured the Leviathan entirely. When this chasm slammed shut, it created an earthquake and tsunami which, between the physical force devastation and subsequent tidal wave and flooding, leveled nearly the entire city of Haven.

Many citizens escaped the destruction through magic or other means, but the city still remains largely in ruins in the present day.

Geography
Historically, Haven sat at the base of Mount Phoenix, the tallest mountain in the Winterpeak Range, situated in almost the exact center of The Northland. From its original location though, Haven grew in only a short time to become the biggest city anywhere in the Great Wheel. At its peak, Haven stretched over a thousand miles, sprawling from the shores of the Eastern Sea and Bay of Gulls to the Western Sea, and to the edges of the Great Forest in the south. In between the outermost layer of Haven's Walls and the Great Forest, a wide swathe of farmland still exists as well, even after the city's destruction. Many small rivers and waterways wind through Haven, but they have not played a major role in the city's growth or commerce other than for short distance transport, and most of them are unnamed. The ground the city is built on is nearly flat, for the most part, with only the northernmost edges rising up on the small foothills of the Winterpeak Range.

Cityscape
Haven was divided into five major regions: The Human Quarter, the Arachne Quarter, the Owlbear Quarter, the Phulubit Quarter, and the United Townships. The Humans occupied the North-Central area, the Owlbears the South-Central, the Phulubits the East, and the Arachne the West. The United Townships formed a wide ring on the outside of these quarters and were populated by the Minor Races of Haven, the Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Halflings, Gnomes, and Kiironotoko.

While the architecture and layout of the United Townships was fairly standard, each major quarter had its own distinct style. The Arachne built primarily with wood and brick to form Victorian structures, the Humans used refined stone and steel to build soaring towers, the Owlbears used raw, heavy stone to make buildings with a tribal, monolithic aesthetic, and the Phulubits used special sandstone and shells to form classical, columned structures.

Demographics
The rate at which Haven grew prevented any real, accurate census of its population, but the best estimates place its total population at over 3 Billion, with a population density of 5,000 people per square mile spread over 1 Million square miles.