Name:
Icarus Falling
Gender:
Genderless
Age:
Approximately twelve thousand.
Family:
It is one of the nine mountain-cities of the Icarii. Its eight siblings are Storm Raging, Sun Dying, Star Singing, Comet Blazing, Infinity Calling, Gravity Breaking, Void Speaking, Horizon Dawning, and Daedalus Weeping.
Personality:
Icarus Falling is the eldest and largest of the Nine, and has a bit of a superiority complex. It is also a deeply lonely mountain, for all those who made it are dead; their children are dead; their children's children's children are dead; those who remain have forgotten that the city is alive at all. Even its siblings are beginning to die, their star gates smaller, weaker, and in worse states of disrepair. In spite of itself, Icarus Falling has become spiteful and scornful of the current Icarii, who are now only pale shadows of what the Icarii race used to be.
History:
The history of Icarus Falling begins with the history of the Icarii. In the beginning, the billions and billions of Icarii were all followers of one of the Star Gods, the celestial beings that sing their songs that bring everything that is into being. They joined their voices with their master and made songs that created suns and stars and planets and comets and asteroids and everything else that could possibly be. One day, though, a single Icarii man dared to question the order. He began to sing songs for himself. He sang songs of size, until he was as large as the god. He sang songs of light until he glowed like a sun. Then he dared to sing the song of immortality, and that the Star God could neither forgive nor tolerate. Billions and billions of Icarii were destroyed for their insolence, until only ten million remained, the ten million who were too craven to stand before their gods wrath and cowered beneath him. He could not trust them either, so he exiled them all to a newly formed planet.
They landed in a mountain range which they named the SkySpears, and separated into nine groups. Eight groups of one million; one group of two million lead by Emperor StarWhisperer Daedlin. It was StarWhisperer who lead the songs which formed Icarus Falling. It was formed by two million voices and nearly as many songs. Songs to make it big and strong and clever and bold, songs to make it helpful and ever-changing and wise. And then they dared to sing the song of immortality, out of spite for the Star God. And deep in the depths of Icarus Falling they constructed a gate to their old home. The Star Gate.
StarWhisperer sired seven sons, and a series of seven bloody civil wars were fought. It was not long before the Daedlin line was extinguished, and if anything, Icarus Falling was glad to see them go, for they had been greedy and selfish. The line of Pallas came next, but to no greater effect. Then the line of SunSoars, denounced for incest by the mountain itself, outraged by the secrets the royal family expected it to keep.
Then the war of the Sevenfold Suns, where the libraries were burned and nine out of every ten Enchanters put to the sword, and Icarus Falling lost all faith in its citizens. Ever since then it has been unable to speak or take a form in which to easily communicate, though it hasn't much minded. The population of the Icarii nation has fallen to just one and a half million, nearly half of them in Icarus Falling, under the reluctant protection and indirect guidance of the immortal mountain.
Current Goal/Purpose:
To keep the Icarii away from the Star Gate and War Rooms. The mountain has enough autonomy that it can switch around its layout to confuse attackers... or Icarii no longer wise or learned enough to handle the responsibility of such powers. It hopes that one day they will have a renaissance and become great again, but until then it cannot let them know of the great powers that their ancestors once took for granted.
Appearance:
The mountain is made of pale marble and granite and a hundred other stones in a hundred thousand shades and hues. There are tunnels and catacombs extending beneath the surface of the planet and generoous chambers in the peak of the mountain; the entire thing is a spongelike construct with enough room to house the entire original Icarii nation and then some. The mountain estimates it could fit fifteen million if the need ever arose. Right now most of it is abandoned, with leagues upon leagues of empty stone corridors and lofts. It is decorated with elaborate carvings and sculptures and murals and mosaics, which the mountain is quite proud of and sometimes, just for fun, will make a few new versions of.
Once the mountain could take the form of an androgynous Icarii with pure white wings, hair, and eyes, but those days are long past and it tries not to linger on the humanoid form now long lost.
Example of interaction with a living creature:
In the Observatory, a dozen Enchanters and Scholars argued over whether or not a novice had truly seen the comet he claimed to have. Subtly the mountain shifted one of the telescopes sprouting like stubby hairs from its Northern face, pointing it to the comet and proving the novice's claim. It wasn't that Icarus Falling had any reason to aid the poor boy, but it had a dedication to further Icarii learning and this was one of its few opportunities. In a library nearby, a young girl searched for a book of poetry. While she was distracted Icarus Falling shifted bookshelves, positioning the one she needed behind her. It had a vague feeling of satisfaction when she found the long-lost rhyming history of her people. Few bothered to read these days, and fewer still got anything from it.
Suddenly one of the motion sensors flared into life, and it realized that a probing expeditionary force had grown close to a weapons storage facility. Deftly the mountain switched the corridor they were about to enter with a tube instead, forcing them to either turn back or fly up to the next level, where a dozen different stairs lead down to eleven empty rooms. It could not block off a room entirely (for risk of cutting its magical connection with the room) but it could make it awfully damn inconvenient to access. It was enough to have the expeditionaries turn back in disgust, amazed that the maps made just last week were so totally inaccurate. All previous mapping expeditions had failed, and Icarus Falling intended to see that all future ones did as well. A child did not need to know the secrets the mountain hid in its depths, and nowadays all Icarii were hardly more than children for all they knew of anything.
