⚙️ The Council of Sparks
“No law survives its own ignition.”
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Overview
The Council of Sparks is the governing body of Embervault, the forge-city at the eastern edge of Canava.
Part senate, part syndicate, and part philosophical experiment, the Council is the only ruling assembly in Aescharion that formally rejects permanence as a virtue.
Composed of twelve guildmasters chosen for invention rather than lineage, the Council exists in constant flux — every three months it burns its own decrees and elects anew.
To outsiders, this looks like chaos.
To Embervault, it is sacred rhythm: a city refusing to ossify beneath Serendahl’s stillness.
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Structure and Selection
Each of the twelve seats represents a guild or discipline, but no seat is ever held by the same person twice in a row.
Guilds choose their representatives through contests of invention rather than politics — whoever builds the most impressive, functional, or dangerous device earns the right to serve.
The twelve disciplines are fluid, but most cycles include:
1. Forgewright of Motion – Oversees industrial and civic forges; typically an Antipriest engineer.
2. Glasswright of Vision – Manages optical crafts, lenses, and scrying-tech.
3. Sparkwright of Energy – Regulates Embervault’s molten canals and energy exports.
4. Tinkerer of Flesh and Metal – Specialist in prosthetics, golems, and construct design.
5. Archivist of Unfinished Works – Curator of abandoned or failed inventions; a historian of imperfection.
6. Mediator of Heat – Responsible for city defense and external negotiations (especially with Silverwake).
7. Coinburner – Treasurer; maintains Cindermark’s ledgers and oversees Heatnote minting.
8. Pyrestudent – A position reserved for apprentices and prodigies; symbolizes Embervault’s commitment to the new.
9. Antipriest of Motion – Always included; provides philosophical and ritual oversight.
10. Architect of Flux – Urban planner, designs Embervault’s shifting cityscapes.
11. Reclaimer of Waste – Manages slag, scrap, and recycling of failed experiments.
12. Speaker for the Forges – A purely ceremonial role; chosen at random from the common workers.
The Council never meets in the same hall twice — its chamber rotates between forges, laboratories, and even open air over the volcano rim.
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Function and Governance
The Council does not write laws in the traditional sense. It issues sparks — temporary decrees that burn out after a set period unless rekindled.
All civic policy is experimental: taxation models, urban designs, and trade rules are tested like prototypes rather than enforced as constants.
When a law expires, it is fed into the Combustion Archive, where its ashes are studied to determine what went wrong.
> “We govern the way a smith tests a blade,” says Master Lume Jarra.
“Strike, shatter, repeat — until the metal sings.”
This rhythm of creation and destruction keeps Embervault from stagnating — but it also makes diplomacy nearly impossible. Other nations never know who they’re negotiating with.
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Relationship to the Antipriests
Though officially secular, the Council’s ideology is steeped in Antipriest philosophy.
Half of its members are openly Antipriests of Motion; the others quietly borrow their rhetoric.
Every Council session begins with the recitation of the Liturgy of Sparks, affirming that “no decision is final until it has failed once.”
Cindermark the Reforged, Embervault’s brass dragon banker, acts as arbiter and moderator, ensuring the city’s economic survival even amid constant ideological combustion.
He is the only figure in Embervault considered permanent — and even then, by his own choice.
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Relations with the Outside World
Silverwake:
Officially condemns the Council as anarchic heretics but continues to buy their weapons and ships.
Embervault manufactures Silverwake’s engines and mirror cannons under carefully worded contracts, embedding imperfection into every commission.
Harlequin Vale:
Supplies dyes, ropes, and cannon components in exchange for performance technology and stage machinery.
Many Harlequin inventors trained under Embervault’s visiting scholars.
Fenmarrow:
A growing trading partner for agricultural machinery, particularly in Dean Fallow Pien’s secret Project Restoration.
Thorgun:
Tense relationship — the Cleftwrights admire the Council’s defiance, while the Pulsewrights fear it might awaken Uldrun through unchecked industry.
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Philosophy & Symbolism
The Council’s crest is a broken gear encircling a flame — a deliberate reminder that no mechanism should ever be perfect.
Its motto, “No law survives its own ignition,” reflects its central philosophy: permanence breeds tyranny, and decay is democracy.
Every invention, every law, every leader must burn to prove it was ever alive.
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Legacy
The Council of Sparks has kept Embervault alive for centuries without ever forming a dynasty, scripture, or stable government — a feat no other Canavan city can claim.
To Serendahl’s clergy, this is proof of sin.
To Embervault, it is proof of concept.
Their forges burn, their laws die, their people keep building — and the goddess still cannot make them stop.