Tamriel Data:Firewatch: A History

Book Information Firewatch: A History
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Firewatch: A History

by Savri Hlervu

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With the signing of the Treaty of the Armistice at the close of the Second Era, the new Morrowind Province was divided into administrative districts, to be ruled by nobles of ducal rank in the Imperial peerage. Initially, the Empire intended for the new Telvannis District to be headquartered in a native city, as was done in Narsis and Mournhold. This plan quickly proved impractical. Envoys sent to Port Telvannis reported that they were not even permitted inside the ancient northeastern metropolis, and there seemed to be no local lords on the mainland willing to exchange their reputation among their peers for an accommodation with the Empire. No active rebellion formed in these early years - it would have no doubt been suicidal for the petty Telvanni lords to attack the Legions directly - but the mushroom lords' intransigence proved no less an impediment to quick imposition of Imperial Law.

It was thus decided that Telvannis District would have a new capital, one built in the Imperial style to accommodate all the offices and infrastructure of empire. Several sites were surveyed, both coastal and inland, before General Symmachus chose a barren headland on the Inner Sea, well isolated from any standoffish Telvanni. It soon became clear why the site was uninhabited. The new holdfast - dubbed "Firewatch" after the firecone visible on Vvardenfell across the sea - was a mean, grimy shore-fort, battered by wind, wave, dust, and ash. For the next two centuries, the dukes and duchesses of Firewatch rarely visited their seat, preferring instead the high halls and softer living of Ebonheart and Mournhold.

Firewatch remained a meager fortress town until the 270s, when the war-Emperor Uriel V began to assemble his mighty Far East Fleet. Firewatch was transformed overnight into a city of note when it was chosen as the Fleet's northern staging base. Firewatch's most famous landmark, its towering lighthouse, was built in 271 to guide the Fleet's vessels in and out of the treacherous straits of the Inner Sea. With the dozens of ships came hundreds of sailors, and with the hundreds of sailors came thousands of civilians. Mercenaries, adventurers, traders, and camp followers alike swept into the city, eager for the chance to accompany the enormous force on its invasion of the Uttermost East. As the Padomaic archipelagos fell one by one, fantastic treasures seized from each new conquest came first to Firewatch before being shipped back to the Heartlands, delighting old and young alike.

The failure of the Akavir invasion itself, however, was felt nowhere more keenly than in Firewatch. The ships that limped home were a pale shadow of the once-mighty Fleet, and more despairing spouses found themselves new widows or widowers as each vessel made port. The jubilant atmosphere that had driven Firewatch's first bout of growth gave way to a sullen paranoia; it was commonly thought, in those days, that the Akaviri were sure to strike back at Tamriel as soon as they were able. The city's walls were strengthened and fortified to prepare Firewatch for just such an attack, and the mighty Chapel of the East Empire Everlasting was constructed in a fit of piety. The city's residents hoped that the grand temple, completed in 293, might appeal to the surety and rigid law of Akatosh in the face of this ubiquitous sense of doom.

It was during this period of unease that Firewatch faced its first military test; not from Akavir, but from within Telvannis. A local lord of some renown named Turimal made war on the Empire's holdings in the northeast, armed with strange and terrible magics wielding Dwarven metal weapons. Though the soldiers of the Dustmoth Legion defeated the rebel lord again and again in the dust wastes and ashen mountains, the crafty Telvanni repeatedly escaped Imperial justice. Only when Turimal audaciously besieged Firewatch itself, in spring 306, was his insurrection quashed. The Dark Elf mage was executed, his constructs dismantled, and his prized staff - dubbed "Oathrung" by the victorious Legionnaires - seized to become Firewatch's crown jewel. The occasion came just before the three hundredth anniversary of the city's founding, an event celebrated with the dedication of the new knightly Order of Firewatch.

By the reign of Empress Morihatha, it seemed that the long-feared counter-invasion from the east would never come. Akatosh, it seems, had seen fit to protect his faithful. Through the early decades of the fourth century, Firewatch once more became a destination; not for soldiers and sailors, but for archaeologists and academics. Turimal's defeat and the successive peaceful reigns of Morihatha and Pelagius IV brought new material prosperity, and with nearby roads once more safe to travel, the many forgotten ruins of the northeast became accessible for the first time to scholars. Recognizing the unique opportunity of her city's location, Duchess Bredami Vaynth chartered the College of Firewatch, an institution dedicated to the study of Morrowind's history, in 379. Over time, the College has expanded into more disciplines, and today attracts scholars of history, magic, and the philosophies from around Tamriel.

The Imperial Simulacrum put a bloody end to these glad years. Attacked by forces of the traitor general Casik by sea, Firewatch only barely avoided a sack. Duchess Vaynth herself was slain in 397 defending the northern outpost of Nivalis, and while the Order briefly held power in the vacuum, the city's mercantile and academic institutions fell into decline. It was not until the restoration of the true Emperor and the appointment of Perulia Jandacia as Duchess in 400 that these dark clouds began to disperse.

Firewatch has yet to fully emerge from the shadow of the Simulacrum. Duchess Jandacia rules wisely and well, but the old paranoia that gripped the city in ages past has settled once more. Perhaps many years of peace and good order will restore the city's cheer. Despite its hardships, Firewatch remains ironclad, a stout outpost of the Empire at the edge of the world. The Watch-of-Fire, it is said, shall ever continue.