Dimtu… The Tower, was perhaps the greatest caern ever built. Below the ground lay the true caern while above and around the Tower itself was built. Such a miracle of homid engineering that it was built around not even crossing the bawn. From there, floors upon floors upon floors of wondrous architecture now lost. Entire epics worth of renown in crafts once stood within mere floors of the structure. Now lost forever to the world, but for arrogance or misfortune? That would be for the listener to decide.
The Tower structure was at once a structure used for the Old Faith of the Anunnaki and housed the rare cooperation of Garou, Wyld Ones, Willworkers, as well as other entities besides. Despite the tenuous nature of these beings, the union seemed to work. The Anunnaki were to meet at the Tower, a meeting that held awe for worshippers but dread and fear for those without. Indeed Persian gods, the Yazata sought to preemptively strike from that fear and led Cyrus the Great to view the rival pantheon as an agent of the Angra Mainyu (their embodiment of evil) and begin amassing an army to lead a righteous path to the base of the tower
Knowing what was to be faced at the Tower, agents of the Yazata gathered every group they could find with a score to settle with the supernaturals here, leading to elite squads of vampires commanding bygones, battle mages and gorgons of the wyld seeking to dismantle the Tower's defenses.
What the Tower brought to bear was the combined might of their own. The Garou went to battle, as for them the Caern below was to defend, to this I answered the call, as did ((Name has since been erased from history due to flaw)), and Artio ((Korie)) to bring our aid amongst countless others. However in defense of the tower itself, the Wyld Ones brought their tricks to confound the enemy movements, and the Willworkers… their works forced the course of the battle, though it was far from the deciding factor.
Upon the battlefield we learned the heavier penalty among us. Nabonidus, the leader of men in Babylon, was an incompetent bufoon. Where the Garou are great warriors, what we faced was simply beyond our own capability to fight, but fight we did. Indeed the efforts of the other factions within the tower worked to fight against the invaders who sought to destroy it, but there lacked a crucial element.
The tricks of the Wyld Ones confounded those of the enemy, but also confused and discoordinated our own forces. They were forced into a slaughter, and mortal men died in a fruitless battle. The works of more arcane entities were too slow or too esoteric to help. Indeed we come to the Willworkers, or how they would make their mark as Namebreakers. Indeed as their magicks worked through the tower, unspoken and untied to others, a mistake was made. What their goal was is lost now, but the result was entirely destructive and decisive to the Tower and the Caern below it.
The Tower was built with layers upon layers of rituals to rile energies to flow through it and make rites, Garou and Willworker, work more effectively. When the ritual that the Willworkers utilized failed, a backlash of some nameless power shuddered through the tower. In an instant the names of the Willworkers were broken, and forgotten. In an instant were lost things once held for granted. Manspeak broke and humans and homids would have to learn anew how to speak. However, more pressing was that the Tower itself and the caern heart broke.
In a final act the Anunnaki called the now falling Tower into heaven, taking with it all evidence and memory of its being. In addition, they used their divine power to bring the mortals who died back from the dead. That memory too, was stricken. The humans would whisper about a curse that had fallen upon the native Babylonians and their fractured memories, as their lives had been hazy until Cyrus the Great "liberated Babylon" from the inept rule Nabonidus. And thus did Babylon fall. Man saw the physical structure of the Tower as an ancient memory some few thousand years prior, and with the absence of any deaths, would say that Babylon was taken without battle by Cyrus the Great and the Persian Empire.
We remember. We remember the sight of the sky that opened and swallowed the Tower. And since that day no one has seen a member of the Anunnaki.
Now the question remains, for arrogance or misfortune? Was it arrogance for an attempt at cooperation failing due to a lack of coordination? The struggle of an urban caern is that men choose to do what men do and perhaps that’s where the arrogance lies, to not see what men are capable of. Perhaps those that broke their own names suffered mere misfortune, but the remains of the caern in the cavern below were the ultimate result.
Sung by Mooncaller as part of his Adren challenge 539 BCE.