Excerpts from the History of Iador by Autilus
On the History of the Lore Valley…
Let me now focus on the Lore Valley, where I spent a great deal of my time. The Lore Valley is a large U-shaped region in the center of the continent of Leranon. At the north end of the valley is the Marenon Bay, and the coastal home of the Himmittes, the sea-faring merchants that much of the Valley relies upon for outside trade. To the west are the desolate, treacherous Rhavidan Mountains, which separate the Lore Valley from the neighboring Senin Valley. Nothing lives in the Rhavidan Mountains and its foothills except for myths and legends of dangerous creatures and old cities. Those tales I will come to later. To the east are the Rhokan Mountains, home of the nomadic Halstatt Berians in the north and the barbaric Galatae Berians in the south. Closing off the southern end of the valley are the majestic Lore Mountains, home to Anzarins, Assarins and Happarans. The ring of mountains to the south, east and west, and the ocean to the north, effectively separate the Lore Valley from the rest of the continent, except for sea travel.
On the White Horsemen…
The wars started in the nation of Irsay, east of the Rhokan Mountains, an Outerland kingdom as the people of the Lore Valley would call it. Refugees from Irsay began arriving in Himmitte towns and cities by boat. A small trickle came at first, then boatload after boatload arrived, first from Irsay, then the neighboring kingdom of Neratos. They all came to the Valley seeking refuge from the mysterious arrival of people they called the White Horsemen.
All the refugees spoke of tall men wearing black armor that covered every inch of their skin, and riding white horses and wearing white cloaks or capes. These White Horsemen had appeared suddenly in Irsay, in small numbers at first but they grew in size quickly. They captured village after village, forcing some people into slavery while others would disappear to never be seen again. Eventually their numbers grew large enough to capture the capital city of Irsay and then move south into Neratos and begin a new conquest there. The strength and skill with weapons of the White Horsemen was incredible. It was said it took three men to even come close to defeating one of the invaders. The strangest thing of all about the White Horsemen was that no one knew where they had come from, and no one had ever seen one of them without their armor on. The people of the Outerlands concocted a huge number of stories to explain it. Some said they were an invasion force from lands across the sea no one had even known about. Some speculated that they were dark and evil men, corrupted by the Magic of some terrible Magician, and that sunlight would kill them. Others wondered if they were even human at all.
Slowly but surely the White Horsemen moved along the Outerlands of Leranon, conquering every nation they came to, and the people who managed to escape all fled to the Lore Valley, or the neighboring Senin Valley. The large cities of the Lore became flooded with people. Nations made new alliances with each other and armies became ready for war, should the White Horsemen ever make it into the Valley. People from all nations and all classes were on edge, wondering if the world was ending as these mysterious invaders defeated every army laid before them.
On Mergoran crystals…
Magic at this time, though, was primitive and weak, and the only way to use it was to have a power source. That power came from Mergoran crystals, which were discovered and mined in the Lore Mountains, just south of the Anzarin cities in the Halaraan Steppes. The Anzarins, after throwing off their Trohman overlords, mercilessly took over the mining operations of Mergoran crystals, and held a stranglehold over every facet of their use. As a result, the Anzarin leaders in each city, called Clerics, were by far the most powerful and wealthy people in all of Leranon. And power and wealth soon led to corruption, greed and tyranny, all of which the Anzarin Clerics were famous for.
On the Wind Riders…
The Wind Riders story starts with a small group of Clerics from the Anzarin city of Elbasa. Around the time the White Horsemen began showing up in Irsay, these noble Clerics, tired of the corruption and the brutality, had been secretly meeting to overthrow the current Cleric-Justicier of the city. Unfortunately, they were discovered, and forced to flee the city. They went into hiding in the foothills south of the city of Tyr, where they made a discovery that would allow them to create objects that could fly through the air.
The discovery led to the creation of ships that these former Clerics could use to soar over the mountains and foothills, easily out of reach of their enemies. They decided to use this discovery to change things in the foothills, attacking Anzarin mining caravans and outposts and freeing hundreds of the slaves used to mine the crystals. A number of these slaves came back with them and joined the Clerics, who named their new following the Wind Riders.
For almost fifteen years the Wind Riders owned the skies and wreaked havoc with Anzarin mining and slave trading. They constantly moved around, making themselves impossible to find, and when they attacked, they hit hard and fast, with Clerics-in-training, now called Pilots, flying the ships or attacking slavers and guards from above, while soldiers, called Landers, dropped from the vessels on ropes to fight on the ground, free the slaves, and capture crystals and other equipment. They were denounced as evil pirates in the Anzarin cities, where they were called Wind Raiders, but in reality the Wind Riders became a source of hope for all subjugated Anzarins.
The tides of battle changed abruptly, however, and the Wind Riders were woefully unprepared for it. Tyr, who bore most of the brunt of Wind Rider attacks, was rumored to have captured a Wind Rider Pilot. A year later Tyr built a massive airship and sent it out into the Lore Mountains to find the Wind Riders, which they ultimately did. The Tyrans found the Wind Rider camp and attacked immediately, destroying more than half the Wind Rider ships and killing or capturing dozens of people. Only a handful managed to escape on a few ships, and the current leader or Pilot-Captain of the Wind Riders, Idaris, was killed in the attack, along with most of their capable Pilots. The surviving Wind Riders were beaten and wounded, with little hope of continuing on...
On the Anzarin people…
The Anzarins were easily the most dominant race in the Lore Valley at this time. The Anzarin people settled mostly in two places - the harsh Halaraan Steppes in the southeast corner of the Lore, and on the fertile lands surrounding the Trin Lake in the southwest. It was the Anzarins of the Steppes that had the most influence, though.
These were the Anzarins who ruthlessly mined, purified and sold Mergoran crystals to the rest of the world, at exorbitantly high prices, mind you. The Clerics who ran each of the giant, walled Anzarin cities were wealthy, power-hungry, and corrupt, and spent their days enslaving more and more of their population for the crystal mines or for the ever popular Pits, underground arenas where slaves fought to the death.
The largest of the cities was Tyr, formerly called Eleril during the Trohman Domination. Tyr was built on the banks of the Mirken River, which allowed it an easy trading route to the Kirn and the Himmittes in the northern lowlands. Although each Anzarin city ran itself separately from the others, Tyr was the most populous, most wealthy, and most powerful, by far.
On the Assarin people…
The people of Assar are unlike any other in the world. They are known throughout Leranon for one thing, tattooing themselves with symbols that represent major life events. You can sometimes find elderly Assarins with every last part of their skin covered with these markings, each of which tells a captivating story. It’s an amazing trait, and I am to this day fascinated by the effort they put into it.
Of course, Assarins have more than their share of stories to tell. When the White Horsemen came to their nation, they put up a tremendous fight. Even though they were outmatched, they battled for days in their capital city of Assar, fighting from building to building as they retreated. They finally had to surrender the city, but the majority of the survivors regrouped in the northern part of the country and moved en masse across the Lore Mountains, a trek later called the Great Journey, hoping to find a place to settle on the other side.
They lost a large number of their people on that trek, and when they reached the lands near the Trin Lake on the north side of the mountains, they were greeted with hostility from the Anzarins in the area, and were attacked. The Assarins were scattered and driven back into the mountains, an event in Assarin lore that came to be called the Breaking.
Again, the Assarins faced the end of their nation and their people, but again, it was not to be. Young Maradin Dumon, the son of the former great general Andurain, began rallying his people. He spent three years roving the hills and mountains, attacking the Anzarins in small, easily winnable battles. He eventually gathered so many of his people that they were able to attack and conquer the Anzarin cities around the Trin. They captured the largest city, Keramos, and renamed it Assar, remaking the former Assarin kingdom into an empire, though one now sitting on borrowed Anzarin lands.
* * * * *
Maradin Dumon came to be known as “the Ghost” in the fighting against the Anzarins because in all his battles, he never once suffered so much as a scratch.
On Magic and Religion…
Magic and religion are closely intertwined in Leranon. The vast majority of people believe in a system of gods called the Basarah, four gods each responsible for an element of life – Fire, Earth, Air and Water. Each god controlled one of the elements and although each was powerful in his own right, it was when they combined their powers that spectacular things would happen.
There was no single god of right or wrong, though, or good and evil. Instead, good and evil were represented by the duality of each god. For example, a pleased Irah, the God of Fire, could create warmth, while a displeased Irah could burn down towns or forests. Angering Majah, the God of Water, and Ilarah, the God of Air, could create a hurricane or typhoon, wrecking the coastline. Kohju, the God of Earth, could either bring down the mountains with an avalanche, or make the gardens and forests grow. Of course, given the history of Iador before this time period, the system makes perfect sense.
Magic, though incredibly weak and raw at the time, was considered an extension of the power of the Basarah. Those who studied Fire Magic were called Irahdan, Earth Magic users were Kohjuhan, Air Magic were Ilarahan, and Water Magic disciples were Majahan. Strangely, the magical disciplines rarely overlapped…
On Happarans and Garns…
The Lore Mountains are home to two notable indigenous peoples, the Happarans in the East and the Garns in the West.
Happarans are short, stout people, with dark hair. They stand chest-high to a human and live in small towns built into the sides of the mountains or hills, or sometimes even in the caverns below. Happarans are known throughout the continent as excellent stone-masons and woodworkers, and are frequently called upon to build large, ornate structures for rulers of many nations. They’re also incredible weapon smiths, though they seem to frown on work of that type.
* * * * *
While most Happarans are only tall enough to stare at a normal human’s navel, a human would unfortunately do the same to a Garn. Garns are large, primitive, tribal people who live in the caverns of the western Lore Mountains. They hunt in packs, using large clubs as weapons, or large axes or hammers taken from humans they’ve killed. They have no notable skills as a people, other than incredible strength and a voracious appetite. Garns are known to eat anything with meat on it, animal or human.
On the City of Tyr…
The city of Tyr, known as Eleril during the Trohman Domination, eventually became so large over time that a former ruler of the city, the Cleric-Major known as Rohannan, divided it into five districts for easier management. The center portion of the city, which was actually the original city of Eleril, became the Old City. The outer sections became the four districts of Avis, Agor, Gotan, and Ohvro. Rohannan appointed four new Clerics-Major to run those districts, and then created a new rank for himself, the Cleric-Justicier, to whom the Majors would report, a system which still exists today. As time passed, a sixth section of the city appeared, called Harbortown, a motley collection of buildings and huts that stretched from outside the western wall to the eastern bank of the nearby Mirken River, however it was not run as the other districts were. It was merely patrolled like any other camp or village outside the walls of Tyr. The actual administration of Harbortown is left to an elected position amongst the Kirza, the merchant class of Harbortown, called the Dockmaster.
On the people of Lir…
The people of Lir are a strange folk, indeed. They stand at least a foot shorter than a human, similar in stature to a Happaran actually, but nowhere near as stout. Liren people are thin, reed thin, their extremities only marginally thicker than bone. In addition, their foreheads slope back slightly, and that, in conjunction with their large noses, has earned them the nickname of ‘ratmen’; that and the fact that they have a reputation for incredibly fraudulent business dealings.
Before the White Horsemen uprooted them, the small nation of Lir could be found nestled in the hills southwest of Neratos, where the Lirens herded goats and sheep. Lirens are dexterous people and had a well-deserved reputation as excellent cloth workers and sewers. Liren cloth was by far the finest material to be found anywhere in Leranon.
On the History of the Senin Valley…
I’ve spent very little time in the Senin Valley, despite my long life, but I shall surely return there one day. The Senin Valley is quite a different place than the Lore Valley, even the Outerlands. The lands of the Senin aren’t as open as the Lore, it’s much more mountainous and rugged, and there are entire nations there that are separated by impassable terrain, making the people of the Senin Valley much more secluded and isolated. As such, you can find strange customs there that have survived for centuries, and whole cities of people who have never seen an Outerlander.
Don’t get me wrong, the people of the Senin Valley aren’t cut off from the rest of the world. The Trohmans still control port cities there and pass on goods and news to the nations of the Senin, but the difficulty of movement keeps the people there confined more than anywhere else in Leranon.
On the Baran Desert…
The entire western portion of the Lore Valley, the area that edges up against the Rhavidan Mountains, is known as the Baran Desert. Divided into the Upper Baran in the south, which was a little north of the Trin Lake, and the Lower Baran in the north, which edged up against Himmitte lands, this desert and the mountains next to it, were home to creatures and places that had born legends for centuries. I could spend the rest of my life chronicling the assortment of animals you would find only in this area, and perhaps I should considering my age already, but I say that only to give my readers an idea of just how fascinating the desert is.
Unfortunately, unless you are incredibly well-prepared and supplied, or already a creature of the Baran, you would not survive long there. Once you entered the desert, you would find no water above ground until you reached the Rhavidan Mountains, which is why most of the indigenous life lives underground in caves and tunnels. Food is scarce for humans, and the heat alone could kill a weak man.
But anyone with the time and resources to explore the Baran would find magical places beyond recount. The landscape in some areas is dotted with the ruins of the great cities that once stood there, before time and nature took its toll.
On Tyran Prisons…
Tyr was widely known for its Pits, the many underground arenas built under the Old City where slaves, criminals, or even professional fighters would kill each other for sport. Some were small, where only a few dozen spectators could gather around a cage while two captives would fight for survival, while a few were much larger, hosting up to several hundred people and numerous small or large-scale battles.
* * * * *
What was less widely known, was the existence of the Tyran prison of Deep Hold. Built even father below ground than the Pits, Deep Hold was a dungeon of the most ruthless sort. The worst of criminals were brought here and tortured, or just jailed and forgotten. Though everyone speculated on whether it was a real place, with parents using its name to scare little children, most Tyrans had never seen it, since the only people who ever went to Deep Hold, never came back.