Overview / Purpose:
The Zephyrwrights are a fleet of roughly eight hundred automata who dominate the highest reaches of Haven XVII. Their primary goal is the collection of ambient kinetic energy through windmills and turbines perched atop The Spindles. They focus on maintaining and improving the city’s few reliable sources of motion, ensuring a steady output of energy that sustains themselves and enables trade with other factions. Unlike most groups in Haven XVII, they do not live in constant pursuit of energy—they generate it.
Operations / Methods:
Zephyrwrights operate with fluid, informal roles: engineers maintain turbines, scouts inspect spires, and skilled climbers secure equipment and materials at dizzying heights. Energy captured from their windmills is used to keep members operational, rewind Ticks, Chimes, and Strikes, and trade for materials or other resources. Bartering is pragmatic: payment depends on the value of the item and the faction requesting it. They are methodical, careful, and constantly seeking ways to optimize their wind-harnessing technology, though materials constraints mean that creating new turbines is rarely more effective than maintaining the old.
Territory / Presence:
The Zephyrwrights occupy the upper levels of The Spindles, where access is difficult and natural defenses are strongest. They maintain the bases of larger spires for trade purposes, and carefully patrol and maintain windmills and turbines. While they rarely venture to the lower city unless necessary, their influence extends wherever their energy and trading reach.
Culture / Behavior:
Zephyrwrights value verticality and precision. Members spend as much time off the ground as possible, and climbing skill is highly prized. Safety is ensured through careful use of traditional climbing equipment, with tasks left to those best suited for them. While they have few formal traditions, warnings like “Don’t fall!” serve as both guidance and a light-hearted acknowledgment of risk. They take pride in energy collection, technical innovation, and maintaining the delicate equilibrium of the city’s few functional spires.
Interaction with Outsiders:
Zephyrwrights are generally welcoming to outsiders, provided they do not interfere with windmill maintenance or turbine operations. Visitors may observe, assist with trade, or perform supportive tasks. Direct access to energy-generating equipment is restricted, but cooperation and learning are encouraged under supervision.
Faction Relations:
Overall Position:
The Zephyrwrights occupy a rare position of relative stability. Their control of the city’s only consistent energy output grants them leverage, but also makes them a target. They prioritize distance, elevation, and careful diplomacy over force.
Vigil — Respectful but Skeptical
The Zephyrwrights respect the Vigil’s dedication and often support them indirectly through limited energy trade or materials. However, they privately believe the Vigil’s efforts to restore the Forebearers are premature without a truly massive energy source. This difference in outlook creates quiet tension, though not hostility.
Salvagers — Pragmatic Partners
Relations are mostly positive. Salvagers supply raw materials and rare components needed for turbine maintenance, while the Zephyrwrights trade energy in return. Occasional disputes arise over salvage rights near spires, but Salvagers are careful not to jeopardize one of their most valuable trading relationships.
Conservators — Distant but Neutral
The two factions rarely interact. The Conservators’ sedentary, inward-facing nature and the Zephyrwrights’ vertical isolation limit contact. There is no animosity, only mutual disinterest, with rare exchanges of technical data or historical schematics when circumstances demand it.
Emberwrights — Cautious Rivals
The Zephyrwrights see the Emberwrights as the only faction capable of generating energy at a comparable scale. While relations are polite and occasionally cooperative during shortages, there is an undercurrent of competition, particularly regarding long-term sustainability and technological innovation.
Harvesters — Feared and Avoided
Harvesters are the Zephyrwrights’ greatest threat when they are forced within reach. While the spires themselves are defensible, ground-level exposure is dangerous. As a result, the Zephyrwrights avoid confrontation whenever possible, minimizing travel at low elevations and abandoning territory rather than risking direct conflict.
Narrative Hooks:
Outsiders may be recruited to assist with trade, climb inspections, or minor maintenance under supervision.
Salvage disputes or turbine sabotage could spark tension or conflict with other factions.
The Zephyrwrights’ constant innovation efforts provide opportunities for players to discover or recover lost mechanical knowledge.