Topwarp

Topwarp is one of the six warps of the Puzzlebox, an endlessly-refracting work of gears and astrology devoted to the Apollonian impulse: Rules and regulations, often arbitrary, and so many of them that they can't help but become self-conflicting.

Environment

If there were an "origin point" in Top, a central point to which everyone in the warp could at least provisionally agree both exists and is important, it would be Compass Tower. By some unspoken agreement, it remains the tallest building in the Warp, visible from almost any rooftop. Even on the cloudiest days, its silhouette looms overhead, its back-lit clock like a watchful eye gazing across the ever-unfolding cityscape. Many have threatened over the ages to build some structure glorifying one House or another that could dwarf the Tower, but to date, all attempts at such a landmark have ended in disaster, both for the structure and for those who've proposed it.

One such story tells of one of the original founders of Mars House, Katerin Wheel, who published a proposal to build an elevator that could reach the heavens, complete with blueprints and the materials research necessary to craft such a contraption, the better to gather stardust from the source. After three months of demolitions and ground-clearing, a prior from a nearby abbey arrived at the proposed construction site and asked the heads of Mars House to reconsider. The prior was rebuffed, and left. Soon after, work crews began reporting seeing other from the Order gathering near the site in larger numbers, pacing around its perimeter in packs. Then, one morning, the site was simply gone. The morning laborers arrived to find that all that their adamant scaffolding and gossamer cable — as well as the cabin in which Mx. Wheel had been staying while overseeing construction — replaced with several blocks' worth of parkland. Of Katerin, there was no sign and no word. Not even the psychohistorians of Saturn House could explain it. When asked directly, a provost of the Order said only, "we did ask they reconsider."

Sociology

Outside the Compass Tower and its gardens, if there's an "order," it's really the fractally complex intersection of geography, geometry, and personality. Everyone in Top is a member of a House, but membership lasts as long as you want to stay, and as long as others in the House will have you. Houses are known to split over the trivialest of disagreements as a matter of honor and pedantry, only to reform if a unifying synthesis can be found before the new Houses crystalize into their own views. Every House not only has its own feast days and punch recipes, but also its own units of weight and measure, time and currency, based on whatever its Founder or organizers thought were most elegant. Aesthetics can vary from the ostentatious, depending on the whim of the founder, the requirements of the beliefs, and the interests in inspiring creative violations of the rules for "corrective" purposes.

Keeping a Commonplace is typical habit, detailing personal observations about the universe. Occasionally someone's Commonplace will evolve to the point of foundational document to a House, either as an addendum to someone else's or as a unique guide to itself. House membership is seen as critical... as long as it lasts.

Some houses have been around since just after the Fracturing, and are largely considered "The Main Houses," though nothing stops them from fracturing other than the fact that their founders are still around, and _too_ much disorder would be swept aside by the Abbey.

Within the territory controlled by a given house, at least some sway over the laws of the universe seems to be extended. The members of Jupiter House have captured etheric force in crystal, which eludes even the brightest of Saturn House's natural philosophers. Meanwhile, Saturn House's talents with precognition, at least within their own demenses, seems to be near-guaranteed, at least as long as the Abbey doesn't intervene. Mercury House can store memory in a story or a song. Mars House can make materials beyond any other, and Venus House has cross-bred all manner of plant and beast. Strangely, no house named either Sun House or Moon House exists, and though records exist of people trying to found them, no record of either surviving more than a few days at most exists. The Abbey has always intervened, and when the Abbey gets involved... well, you don't have to be in Saturn House to know what will happen.

Inspiration and Reference

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_the_Winds
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_compass_winds
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_clock
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_astronomical_clock
• http://www.thesecretknots.com/comic/the-gif-day/
• http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-keep-a-zibaldone-a-13thcentury-answer-to-tumblr