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CityCairns
CityCairns are one of the three Keystones of Elventi Society; allowing Elves to live in harmony their beloved forests. Without these stone pylons, there would be no Elventi Society.
Function
CityCairns are one of the most important artifacts in Elventi culture, allowing for cities in harmony with nature. Six or more surrounding an area creates a slight field of mystical energy. This field insulates the area, keeping it from getting too warm or too cold, and deflects most rain and snow. (Seeing the rain/ snow slide off the 'sky' to the side can be an interesting site.) A set of cairns defines the general boundaries of every Elventi city. If one is lost to accident, the area scribed by the remaining cairns will remain protected, unless there are fewer than six. Then the magical protection fails and the full fury of the elements can touch the delicate Elventi city.
On Arth, Every Elventi city and most Humanti towns/ villages on FirstLand is protected by a set of cairns.
Like Hearthstones they must be enchanted to a specific biome, in that specific biome. They can not even be moved, once they are in place.
Description
A cairn must be tailored to its city and environment, so there is no 'one description' of these items. They are made of stone in any permanent location (wood in 'temporary in Elventi terms' locations). Each cairn tends to be .5 to 1 meter (19' to 39') tall cylindrical poles (or similar shape). The pole is .2 to .3 (7' to 9') in diameter with a flat top. The top has a series of intricate knotwork symbols that binds the magical forces to it in connection with all the other cairns.
Now some look like poles, other pylons, other small table, yet other stone mushrooms. Some are quite plain, while others are decorated. They tend to be hidden in out of the way places around a city.
History
The Elventi have been using Cairns for so long, they do not properly know the origin of them. They were made to initially protect sacred groves or work spaces. They were then expanded to protect 'The Places' where the Elventi lived. They are one of the earliest magic enchantments the Elventi mastered.
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This article links to 2
- HearthStone MoonHunter linked by MoonHunter
- HomeTrees MoonHunter linked by MoonHunter
Links to this article 6
- City Image - Chedru MoonHunter linked by MoonHunter
- City Image - PinesdeepForrest BlueValley DeepbutnotWide MoonHunter linked by MoonHunter
- City Image - PlaceBetweenSunsetandFalls or Anshenestardaywadaden MoonHunter linked by MoonHunter
- City Image - UnderSkyWater MoonHunter linked by MoonHunter
- HearthStone MoonHunter linked by MoonHunter
- HomeTrees MoonHunter linked by MoonHunter
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I like them! A piece of original magic if I may say so myself.
I have a question:
You say it deflects most of the rain. Does this mean that there is too much rain? Do the elves have to manually water all the plants in their cities?
There is a difference between a bit of liquid or snow and a blizzard or storm. The dome works in either to two ways. First it could accepts X amount of percipitation and wind, anything beyond this threshold is deflected. So it will allow a gentle shower through but deflect most of a real storm. The second is a simple deflection of the majority of every percipitation or wind, so only 15% of the a shower or storm hits the ground directly.
Note: The dome could be weakened in certain areas, allowing perciptiation to fall more heavily there (or actual run through from the dome), and strengthened in others, eliminating it, depending on the design.
Also remember that they could use the 'run off' from the dome to fill specially created underground pools that water is drawn from. They don't want to waste the water, they just don't want it to spoil their day.
Aha, the last comment answered my next questions which would have been: "What about droughts". Now we know. Thank you MoonHunter
There is always the weather control magics...
First: follow the Freetext of Keystones of Elventi Society to the other two. You could add Elf Lights and one or two other things, but really, the big three are all that you need for such a society.
Second: I was reading this and started thinking about if other races would have the same or similar magics. Then it hit me. Dwarves. A few cairns to define a city in the mountain.
Cairns could ....
reinforce the stone so it will not cave in.
keep the temperature to a more constant level.
ensure that the air was fairly clean.
Thus this could eliminate the need for complex engineering by the Dwarves or lots of magical handwaving to explain this. And since Cairns have a complex rune pattern on top of them, it falls perfectly in line with the Dwarven Runes. Thus a Cairn for them would be plaques in the city walls.
So I contemplated some more.
Seafolk could also use Cairns. They could use it to keep big monster fish out of their areas and keep "food fish" in their areas. It could regulate currents and temps as well.
One last one, and this is a stretch... Cloud Folk. Several small cairns are carried to a cloud. The cairn would make it an island in the sky. The cloud would become a spongie ground to land on. The cairns could then protect the cloud from disappating, provide warmth and protection from wind and rain and high altitude air. Hmmm. I like this one.