The Lament of Ulugar

I am Ulugar Bannahr, Twenty-first Regn of Dynkyr. This is my lamentation.

The outer siege was brief. By some wicked craft, the goblins learned our Watchwords through their Vile Congress. We heard them chanting and calling into flames in the eye of night. They had broken themselves against the curtain wall, but with our Watchwords they ascended Mir Vath and poured into the outer halls. Thus the siege was ended above, and began below.

Three years have passed since then, measured not only by seasons in the upper vents but by the emptying of rationed stores and the thinning of voices. We counted grain. We counted water. We counted the living. Now there is nothing left to count.

I sent messengers. I sent them to the kings of men, for we had raised their cities and shaped their stone, and I believed memory would answer debt. I believe now that none of my messengers came through. Either they were taken upon the plains, or they were received and not believed. It matters no longer.

We have tunneled our escape from the Deepwards and today I ordered the last of my people out. It's only a matter of time before they find our escape route under their noses.

I do not name it exile. I do not name it flight. I name it life.

Relief is not coming. Our numbers are too few. The stores are spent. I sent my beloved Stoneborn out onto the plains, into the cruelty of chance. Some wept. Some would not go. I had them carried if they would not walk.

Now I sit the throne alone. I have recorded my name on the tables of our people.

This seat was not made for comfort. It was made for weight. I feel it now upon my bones. Around me are the broken seals of chambers that held for centuries. I hear the goblins hammering at the barred doors, their iron is crude but their hate is tireless. Each barrier falls in its turn. Each sound draws nearer.

I am not afraid of captivity, but I will not endure it.

Before me lies the silver blade of Clan, first husband of Mya, whose grief founded this place and whose steel has not dimmed. I took it from the vault myself. It is well-balanced. It remembers its purpose.

I think of the wall, still standing. I think of the Valkauna, unseen. I think of the Lady Mya and how desperate she must have been. I have no counselor to blame. No Caros deceives me. I commanded those who walked out into the light.

Dynkyr does not fall today. It empties.

They are breaking the last door.

I rise from the throne.

The Tables of the Histories of the Stoneborn of Dynkyr - Table XXIV

Ulugar Bannahr, Twenty-first Regn of Dynkyr. 

I did not beg.

I did not flee.

I am the last. 

History of Man -- Book 1: Westrun Part 9

In 4122ey after three centuries of direct involvement in the affairs of men the gods of Westrun were summoned to Ochre Island by their father and grandfather Heimos. While the sire of the gods had suspended his own activities among men for more than fifty years and entered a kind of reclusive retirement, the sometimes murderous and rapacious deeds of his children continued. These deeds were noised abroad and the worst of them eventually made their way to his redoubt.

The Priesthood taught that the Divine Recession was the prohibition by Heimos for any of his children, or children's children to personally leave Ochre Island under any circumstances. Under a kind of house arrest, he mandated that mankind would have to appeal to their gods for favors using the Invitatory Court or through messages delivered by the High Priesthood, who alone could travel to and from Ochre Island on the Consecrant Vessels.

The Priesthood could not agree as to whether his children or grandchildren obeyed the sire of the gods willingly. Some tales come down through the years of the common people lining the streets to weep for the departure of their gods. Still other tales are little more than a continuation of the previous centuries of battles involving gods and men -- this time with Heimos bringing his recalcitrant offspring to heel. 

Eighteen years after the Divine Recession, in the Fall of 4140ey the construction of the Grand Temple of Heaven began. Funded by the wife of the Earl of the Boldish (and daughter of the Jarl of Wanderhalt), the stones were taken from the ruins of Ald Biye and used to build a extravagant tribute to Heimos. The best artisans were commissioned from across the known world to create sculptures, paintings and tapestries. This magnificent building was placed in the city that was rising up in the shadow of the peak of Mount Oromir, directly across from the Dwarfgift of Sudhall which would later be named Kathmbir Keep.

Some say the tribute was meant to humble her braggadocious husband, others say it was to curry favor for her unborn son. Still others believe she intended to become Heimos' seventh wife. Whatever the reason, ground broke and work continued apace depleting the treasuries of Bolden and Wanderhalt alike. The work was finished thirty years to the day from its start. Entreaties were sent to Ochre Island for Heimos to witness the capstone placed on the dome, but they went unanswered. The completed work was commemorated by mortals alone.

The latter quarter of the 41st century also saw repeated incursions along the Plains of Balsrest and Wanderhalt by Goblin Hordes. In 4181ey a two-pronged simultaneous attack begins by the goblin twins Helok and Horok, who claim descent from an ancient tribe of men (possibly Aras). The Northern part of the so-called War of the Half-goblin Kings ends after eight years at the Battle of the Stonefist. The Southern part is decided at the Battle of Balduren's Gates.

In 4191ey, though it is unknown to the men of Westrun, the Dun of Dynkyr is besieged by retreating Goblins from Balduren's Gates. This siege will end with the abdication of the throne and the eviction of the Dwarves from that home. The Stoneborn people will settle on the Southern peninsula as the so-called Sundered Dwarves and the Goblins will rule Saar for the next 17 centuries.

The Books of the Archflames of the Infernari vol. 2

• 4115 Porphus the Red was a charismatic firebrand whose duels with Dweomersecte enforcers became legend. It is said he invented the Flamewalk ritual still used by initiates.
  
  
• 4160 Sri of Fire has origins shrouded in mystery. Some accounts say she was a Northruner witch.; others claim she was a spirit of flame given form. Her tenure was marked by prophetic writings. Including the Prophecy of the Grand Reunion.
  
  
• 4179 Korval introduced the first strictures of the Infernari which would be increasingly added to over time. It is believed that he was fighting against a schismatic movement in the order.

The Books of the Archflames of the Infernari vol. 1

• 4093 Lara the Smouldering was the First Archflame of the Infernari, but she began as an apprentice in the Dweomersecte.

Born to obscurity in the lower city of Peakshadow, Lara rose swiftly to prominence by the brilliance of her mind and an uncanny sensitivity to the elemental force of fire. She was elevated to the position of magister under Archmage Arecelos I, whose unorthodox experiments into the infernal realms she embraced with fervent dedication. Under the tutelage of both Arecelos and his successor Vynse, Lara honed her command of flame until she was said to be impervious to heat and able to shape fire as a sculptor shapes clay.

When first Arecelos and then Vynse were slain -- torn from the world by extraplanar entities during their summoning -- Lara became convinced that they had nearly achieved ultimate dominion over the material world, what she would later call the Prime Ember. Her attempts to continue their work were met with condemnation. Peredik the Tall, elected Archmage in 4093, issued a censure forbidding the Dweomersecte's contact with infernal powers and suppressed Lara’s research.

Rather than recant, Lara renounced the Dweomersecte, declared herself the head of a new school and led a handful of followers into exile. These defectors became the first Infernari, united by their faith in fire as both truth and transcendence. They named her their Archflame.

Lara's charisma and intensity reshaped magical orthodoxy across the Four Lands, and her brief rule laid the foundation of a flame-wrought philosophy that endures to this day. Her later years remain mysterious -- some say she perished in the volcanic collapse of Mount Erenos; others claim to have seen her in the deep Khard of Southrun. Some say she walks the Sea of Glass, ablaze but unburned and identify her as the Amira al Nar -- a minor goddess of that land.

 

The Recission

In 4122ey, the gods of Westrun were summoned by Heimos, the father of the gods, and given his great command to abdicate from the affairs of men. He mandated that mankind would have to appeal to their gods for favors using the Invitatory Court and a High Priesthood. 

To this day, there is some disagreement whether obedience to Heimos was voluntary, or if the Recission included the violent enforcement of his will. After three centuries of direct involvement in the affairs of men, mankind was able to breathe a sigh of relief from the sometimes murderous and rapacious activities of their gods.

Roll 005

3803    Odak

Then came Odak.

The Tandis Lists: List XI

The Tandis Lists are the compiled lists of all of the Old Bears since the First Gathering of Rangers in 3278ey. They are kept by Tandis of Peakshadow -- a well-respected historian of the Fraternity.

In the 41st and 42nd century there was:

4148 Erolith the Hunter who prosecuted both the Great Goblin War of 4208 as well as the Chanter's War of 4224 against the Goblins of Westrun.

The Arcade

Peakshadow is sometimes called the Gift of the Dwarven Lord, and with good reason. Long before the metropolis expanded out to its fourth walls, there was only the innermost surround and, of course, the Sudhall Keep within. That keep and its surround, was a gift given to Feron the Seventh on the occasion of his investiture as Earl of Bolden. 

Using the craft known only to their kind, the Dwarves cut a notch in the face of the mountain's East slope. Upon this notch, they built Sudhall and its surround. But the discarded stone of their quarrying and excavation formed the Haliron -- a small hill and the second highest point on the plain. It was upon Haliron Hill that that the priests sought to raise their Grand Temple of Heaven.

The Grand Temple was built to face Sudhall, for in 4170ey High Priest Simmon believed it would remind a pompous earl (and the earl's young wife) to keep himself humble in the face of the god Heimos. But it is said that the architect of that structure had a critical shortage of humility himself. He had more vision than space with which to work. For that reason, the south cella of the Temple protruded off the back of the artificial hill and thus had to be supported by large quarried-stone arches. The builders did not have the skill of the Dwarves and it was only completed in 4371ey.

The space beneath the arches was called the arcade. It was a natural place for the priests and penitents to keep their sheep and goats -- animals destined for ritual slaughter. It also became the place to which the once-ridiculed priest, Gamasiel, was banished when he was expelled from his order for teaching the truth.

Gamasiel credited the Arcade for giving him his priestly formation. He spent a decade with the sheep and goats and claimed that by observing and caring for them, he learned to teach men. For this reason, the place where the Church of Westrun now trains all of its priests is still called the Arcade -- though it is not in Peakshadow any longer.

While the original location is now little more than a forgotten slum that still exists in the Second Circle of Peakshadow, the name was given, in the centuries that followed, to the palatial house deeded to the Church of Westrun by the devout citizens of Watersedge of Talir. So while the Arcade boasts arches no longer, it is still known by that name. Every priest who wishes to become a Shepherd in the Church of Westrun, must attend the Arcade and there receive ordination.

A History of the Tribes of Man in Westrun

At the dawn of the 7th Age in the 30th Century, Westrun was home to two distinct subgroups of humans, the Nandi and the Tren. By the end of the 40th Century they had been joined by the Meni and the Fahr. Together these four people groups and their struggles create the Eight Kingdoms of Man in Westrun.

NANDI
The Nandi roamed from the Silverlodes Mountains to the Dagger Sea in tribes. Most of their names are lost to history. Those names that are still familiar -- such as the Nadi, Sahna, Numin, Shina, Anis, Duvi -- come to us as place names. Sak and Rath now give their names to whole kingdoms in the modern era. There are many, many more which have been lost to antiquity.

All of the Nandi were hunters and gatherers who made war with one another continuously. Tribes rose and fell, splintered and merged. Life among them was an ongoing struggle for survival against the unyielding land, the elements, and especially the elder races which still tarried from the previous ages. It was not until the common threat of the Goblinkind, that the Nandi were able to unite and eventually coalesce into states under the Eight Kingdom's Pact.

TREN
While the Nandi were roaming in hundreds of nomadic tribes, the Tren, were another race of so-called civilized men. Once held captive by the Dragon Prince of old, they were eventually entrusted with the matters of their captors and in due time inherited the entire Principality of Treft from its exiled ruler. Though they could not maintain the height of Treft's former glory, they were able to hold the walls of its capital city against those slavering Hordes who would rise against it.

After the Dragon Prince was exiled, the Tren lived under the rule of a long succession of their own unpopular monarchs. A rebellion saw to the death of their last king, Etru III, and the Nine Elders who remained banished the monarchy. In its place they created a system of government in which each property owning inhabitant would be permitted to cast votes in a general assembly. Thus the strange democratic government of that city/state was born. The date of that government's founding is commonly given as 3600EY.

MENI
The year 3413EY saw the settlement of the Meni in Westrun under the leadership of Tal the Just. The Meni were refugees from the principalities that lay across the Dagger Sea. A one hundred year long struggle between two of the more powerful city/states had come to its end with the total defeat of Lanaria. Thousands of Lanarians were slaughtered. Many more were evicted and forced to live as wanderers -- their fields were salted, their noble city destroyed. To this day, many Lanarians still wander the Provinces in caravans with a reputation not altogether wholesome. Others made their way East and South by ship.

Several hundreds of Lanarians heeded the call of Tal -- a lesser son of the old ruling house. Together they migrated across the Dagger Sea and settled on Westrun's shores. Once landfall was made they intermingled with the Nandi they encountered. Their descendants were less nomadic, preferring to settle up and down the coast before eventually spreading inland on the plains. The inland group of Meni founded the kingdom which still bears their name: Menea. Those who spread Southward along the coast eventually divinized Tal their founder. They grew from a monarchy into a theocracy.

FAHR
Many long decades after the settlement of the Nandi, in the year 3300EY the first of the Fahr from Northrun came down and founded Wanderhalt and began to settle on the Southern slopes of Mount Oromir. By 3400ey, Sudhall would be raised and this settlement would eventually grow to become Peakshadow. The Fahr of Sudhall and the Meni moving north from Menea intermingled and eventually give seed to Bolden. The people of Sudhall intermarry with the Nandi of the plains and in time came to see themselves as a different from the Fahr of Northrun. Under the Eight Kingdom's Pact, the massive Northrun holdings of the Jarls of Wanderhalt swear fealty to the Lord of Sudhall and become the Kingdom of Colonia.

The Many Gods of Southrun

The pious pagans of Southrun maintain that two brother gods, Amir and Bhamut, once ruled over Southrun. For six centuries the Brothers held sway over all the Land.

The day came when the Brothers became rivals. For they had a sister named Sekhat, who was greatly desired as a consort by each of them. And the two of them came to blows over which of them would be able to wed her. And the fury of their rivalry caused great tribes and nations to go to war. And it came to pass that Sekhat, who tried to preserve the peace of her brothers, was slain in their conflict. So each looked to the creatures of their domain for wives.

For his part Bhamut took many creatures of the animal world and had his offspring by them. These became beasts of great cunning and strange power. While Amir took mortal women and slew many of them with his seed. But some of his wives survived and produced many offspring for him. All of these offspring were immortal and extremely powerful -- gifted with many of the powers of their sires, but also given to all the failings and passions of their mothers.

Eventually, both Amir and Bhamut grew tired of war (some say they were slain by the machinations of the Dark Elves). They have left the temporal world in the hands of their volatile children and can be seldom bothered to pay attention to the affairs of Erenth, let alone interfere in them. 

The sheer number of their offspring means that every tribe and family has its own preferred god or goddess, with most of the rest being benignly neglected. While they will not sacrifice to the other deities, the Southruner is careful not to blaspheme or disparage them -- for he believes (under the Law Which Cannot Change) that any one who does so will suffer curses for seven generations.

The lists below are far from complete. These are the well-known offspring of the brother gods. In addition to a great number of siblings unrecorded, each of these demigods have further bred with other creatures and mortals, and with each other, giving rise to lesser and least categories of beings with divine blood.

Index of Deities and Demigods

The Books of the Archmagi of the Dweomersecte vol. 6

4120 Arepos III the Illusionist - A master of veils, Arepos III was more legend than man, even during his lifetime. He once obscured an entire city for three weeks, causing invading forces to siege empty fields while the citizenry watched from behind phantasmal barriers. Arepos made a spectacle of his deceptions, crafting mirages of dragons and armies simply to win duels of reputation. His downfall came not through magic, but paranoia: convinced an invisible assassin stalked him, Arepos left public life. His bones were discovered in his tower, surrounded by wards and symbols of his own creation.

4160 Atalias II the Traveler - Atalias II was said to have stepped foot in every kingdom on every known plane of existence during his tenure. Unlike most Archmagi, he spent little time in his tower and was counted a frequent guest of kings and other rulers in far-flung lands.

4174 Systerin the Golden - Systerin was possessed of a great mane of golden hair (the first possible origin of his name.) He is credited with stabilizing the Dweomersecte, reforming arcane education, and abolishing the cruel indenture of apprentices. He was famous for wearing a flowing cloth-of-gold cloak (the second possible origin of his name.) He was most well known for creating the Glittering Lenses by which the Inner City of Peakshadow is lit after nightfall (the third possible origin of his name.)