Re: Game Information


THERAN NAVY AND EMPIRE
As long as the flow of orichalcum and other magical elements remains steady, the Therans care little about the war. As the Orichalcum Wars rage on, more and more Theran mining vessels sail over Barsaive. These barges rarely touch down, instead mining and gathering True Air from the clouds around the highest mountain peaks. Using new techniques known only to them, the Theran miners are very successful. That success makes them targets.
The crystal raiders, having set off the Orichalcum Wars, sit back and watch them rage. Because the furious fighting has halted nearly all mining in the area, they make only the occasional supply raid. The Theran air barges, however, offer them a target they cannot resist.
The raiders strike quickly and often, plundering and looting the air barges. Thera warns that they will not tolerate further interference with the air mining operations. The Therans begin protecting the air barges with warships, military airships. At first these ships are vedettes, air barges expanded and armored for war. The raiders thumb their noses at the Theran war vessels; they continue attacking the convoys, using their faster, more maneuverable drakkar airships to escape back to the Twilight Peaks with their booty.
The Therans then begin protecting the mining convoys with kilas, sail-less, massive, floating stone citadels built specifically for war. Despite mounting losses, the raiders step up their attacks. The final straw for the Therans comes after they lose a massive fleet of air barges, vedettes, and kilas to the raiders. Sixty days later, the Therans reveal their true power.
As morning comes, the clan-moots of the crystal raiders awaken to the sounds of alarm across the Twilight Peaks. Drifting across the great plain to the southeast of the mountains, not far from Vivane, is the largest airship anyone has ever conceived of, let alone seen. Devoid of a true ship’s hull and sail, the vessel Victory is a massive shard of rock the size of a small city, propelled by raw magic in defiance of the laws of nature. The Therans call this terrible machine of war a behemoth.
The crystal raiders are astounded by the sight, but swarm to their airships and move to attack. The Theran airship commander dispatches a messenger spirit to the raiders, telling them to surrender or be obliterated. Proud and defiant, the raiders destroy the spirit.
Moving to attack, the raiders encounter a thunderous rain of weapons fire from the Theran ship. Siege engines, mounted onto the ship’s stone hull and guided by magic, catapult giant arrows of metal and wood at the attackers. Bolts of mystic energy lash from the airship as well, as Theran mages focus their powers against the raiders. The raiders scatter under the onslaught, straight into the waiting guns of kilas hidden in the clouds overhead.
The battle continues for hours until the Theran behemoth finally reaches the edge of the Twilight Peaks. Then, it turns its terrible destructive power away from the remaining raider airships and directs it against their homes. The siege engines pound the moot-homes, magics tear into the raider families who attempt to defend the surface buildings and caverns, and elementals unleashed from the Theran ship ravage what little defense remains.
Stunned at the massacre they are witnessing, the raiders surrender. They are taken prisoner aboard the floating city-ship, to be brought back to Thera as slaves in chains. The Theran forces burn their airships, though they do not bother to destroy the few remaining survivors in the Twilight Peaks. With what will become known as the Battle of Sky Point, the Therans prove they are a power to be reckoned with. No longer content to simply conduct trade and commerce subject to the whims of local lords, the Therans use Sky Point to show the world what awaits those foolish enough to interfere with Theran desires and aims.
One hundred days later, in the four hundredth and forty-third year of Throal, the then-human Elder of Thera, Thom Edro, proclaims the Theran Empire. Thera declares the lands of Barsaive a Theran province, promising all those who swear loyalty to her protection from the ravages of the Orichalcum Wars, as well as first rights to new enchantments to defend against the Horrors. To enforce their power, the new Empire places a permanent Theran military presence at Sky Point and founds the provincial capital of Parlainth in the northwest corner of the land. Dozens of smaller city-states and kingdoms quickly submit to Thera. More powerful kingdoms submit more slowly, but visits from the Theran Navy prove persuasive.
A leading citizen of Thera, the human Kern Fallo, is named the first Overlord of Barsaive. Though Thera controls the province, Fallo sees the practical value of local administration and calls upon the dwarfs of nearby Throal to assist him. Throal, unwillingly allied to Thera out of need for the Theran enchantments against the Horrors, agrees.
Through this administration, Throal mediates between the Therans and Barsaive. The dwarfs provide a buffer between the governments of Barsaive and their Theran overlords, defusing much of the tension between them. Also through this administration, Throal spreads and promotes the dwarf tongue as the trading language of Barsaive. For the first time in its history, citizens of various Barsaive regions can communicate with relative ease.
JARON AND THE SPHINX
When Thom Edro establishes the Theran Empire, he installs himself as its First Governor. Many know it is only a matter of time before Edro secures the backing to proclaim himself Emperor.
Other grumblings surface as well, rumors that Edro is using unnatural magics to extend his life and those of loyal human and ork followers. Of course dwarf Adepts had long ago developed life-extending magics for themselves ... but this is different.
Magic had extended the life of the dwarf scholar-magician Jaron as well, though it left him less energetic than previously. He fears that Edro is turning Thera into a mockery of the teachings of Elianar Messias. Each time Jaron voices his objections, another of his followers vanishes. He realizes that despite his deciphering of the First Book of Harrow, the expanding Theran Empire no longer considers him an asset.
The night after the disappearance of Jaron’s closest apprentice, a great working begins in the open park across the harbor from Thera’s central citadel. Three Great Form earth elementals tear rock, stone, and True Earth up from the very foundations of the island and begin to sculpt them under Jaron’s watchful eye. Theran imperial guardsmen and magicians rush to the area, but a powerful shield surrounding the park holds them back. They gape in wonder as a giant stone sphinx takes form. Its head is sculpted turning downward and seemingly asleep. As the sphinx is completed just before daybreak, Jaron turns to address the masses gathered in the park. He speaks to them of the teachings of the Martyr Scholar and the dreams of Kearos Navarim. He also speaks of the dangers of power and the dark path he fears Thera is beginning to walk. He has constructed the sphinx, he tells them, to watch over Thera and her governors. It will remain in the park as the guardian of the beliefs of the past and an eternal reminder to the future. As Jaron falls silent, the shield protecting the park dissolves. The three earth elementals gather Jaron within themselves and together the four merge with the sphinx. The crowds rush forward, and the sphinx slowly opens its stone eyes, which blaze from within with a blue-white light. The sphinx lifts its head to stare out across the main harbor directly at the central citadel and the heart of Thera. From that moment on, it remains in that position.
Theran magicians examine the sphinx’s construction, but its magical weavings baffle them. None can penetrate it enough to even glimpse the sphinx’s True Pattern, much less learn enough to gain power over it. Because they cannot predict what may happen, they fear trying to manipulate or unmake it.
To this day, the great sphinx sits staring out over the harbor of Thera as a reminder to all who come and to all who rule there. The leader of Thera remains the First Governor. None has dared call himself Emperor.
THERA AND THE DRAGONS
Thera’s domination of the cultures of the Selestrean basin and neighboring areas is not total. Kingdoms and peoples continue to search for their own solutions to the problem of the Horrors because success means greater independence from Thera’s increasingly oppressive rule. They sponsor eager scholars and brave adventurers to seek out dragons, for the creatures are known to have survived the last Scourge (as the invasion of the Horrors has come to be known) remarkably intact. However, many dragons have no desire to share their secrets, greatly reducing the population of eager scholars. Some dragons, through bribery or entreaty, share the method of creating the dragon lair, which scholars believe protected them. A rare few actually contact kingdoms on their own, offering to help for their own dragon reasons.
The leaders of Thera see the dragon actions as a challenge to their power and position. Proposed responses spark fierce debate; Edro has no desire to antagonize the dragons at a time when Thera should be using all its power to prepare for the coming Scourge. But the factions that profit most from the trade in magical elements mount effective pressure. The Theran Navy organizes strikes against three powerful and influential great dragons. The first two succeed in killing the target dragons and destroying their lairs, though the action costs the Therans one of their mighty stone behemoths for the first time. The third strike, against the great dragon Icewing, fails. The Therans find only his lair, largely empty of anything of value and power.
Theran ambassadors pass firmly worded communiques through discreet channels; they refuse to tolerate dragon interference in Theran domestic policy. The dragons appear to retreat; Theran merchants and guild Adepts do a booming business as new orders for Theran protective enchantments flood in.
Then, one sunset, sailors and dock merchants spot a dragon atop the head of the sphinx. As the Therans hesitate between staring and fleeing, the dragon flies off. The next morning twelve citizens are found dead. Two are provisioners to the navy, one an earth-element smith, one a clerk to the treasurer, two guild Adepts, one a moneylender, and five are principal contractors for protective enchantments. Each of the twelve had agitated for, or profited from, the action against the dragons. Over the next two weeks, the dragons strike twice more. Two dozen more leading Therans die. Theran diplomatic channels convey a second message: Therans are to leave dragons strictly alone. No further Theran raids will be planned or executed. The dragons apparently take the Therans’ message to heart and cease to disclose what they know of the Horrors and the coming Scourge.