Tower People

The Tower People are a race of humanoids that lived on Mure in Marcus Malone's Firefall novella.

Biology
The Tower People closely resembled the Lily People in appearance. However their population was much more diverse in terms of hair color, and build.

History
Many centuries ago, Mure was ruled by the willots who lived in peace. However one fateful day, a band of outcasts from the plains below climbed the ancient stairway that curls along the cliffs of Mure. Entering the Tower through a huge air shaft they demanded the willots to relinquish their tower for their own refuge. When the willots refused, they drew knives and spears against them. The outlaws established the Tower as their domain, renaming themselves the Tower People.

The Tower People craving red meat to consume tried to use the willots to provide such luxury, however found their meat to be unappetizing and chose to instead enslave the willots. To substitute for a missing commodity the Tower People used their own people to create a herd to provide them with an ample meat supply. To maintain the difference between the classes that would be chosen to feed the Tower, the ruling powers stripped them of their clothes and access to fire before throwing them to the wilds of Mure.

Around 75 generations ago the descendants of the herd managed to relearn the use of fire. They came before the Tower carrying torches demanding deliverance, and a rebellion soon followed. The Tower People were victorious after harvesting the entire herd at once. A new herd, the Lily People, was reconstituted by taking the strongest of the lower classes, then casting them into the wilds to reproduce and provide meat.

The ruled of the Tower people would be threatened with the coming of the Earthman Jacob Rowlin, who the Lily People hailed to be Hur powerful wizard. In fear of losing their authority over the herd, the Great One invited Hur to the Tower for a feast, but when wizard sight fell on the corpse of a member of the Lily People that was being dined on, he decried the Tower People as monsters. Hur was taken to the dungeons, but with the aid of the willots, 'magically' escape. The Tower People then initiated firefall on the Lily People. As the Tower People gathered at the top of the Tower to view the sight, the willots launched a full scale revolution, sealing the lower levels from the top floor.

The Tower People managed to launch a counter attack driving the willots lower and lower into the Tower. They were nearly victorious but thanks to Hur alerting the outside authorities of the illegal squatters and inhumane actions, the Tower People, were placed in chains and arrested.

Culture
The Tower People were a closed, narrow culture, mostly due to their fear of the hostile dangers of the outside forests of Mure. Despite being the same race as the Lily People, they would insist that their clothes, possessions, knowledge, and genetic diversity set them apart from their primitive herd of food stock.

Due to their class system and family structure it made them believe they were more refined, and much more deserving, than the Lily People. But this logic only kept the ruling regime to maintain their cruel and unjust class system.

The Tower People maintained a three-tier political system. The system was stagnant with members of various ruling tiers keeping their jobs until death. Promotions were rare and only occurred when someone died, and demotions simply did not happen.

At the top of the political pyramid was the Great One who was the only solid authority on Mure.

Source

 * Firefall by Marcus Malone (2011)