History of the Second Paladian Kingdom
Following the conquest of the Paladian by Azul the Bear in PT 11965, the human nations began a more than 4,000 year rise to a highly advanced civilization. During this period, the remaining demihumans, including Paladians, who had survived the persecution of Anaird the Destroyer, lived in relative obscurity in small groups within the general human population. At various times within the reign of future human kings, persecutions and pogroms threatened the non-human races, but the greatest threat the non-humans faced was being bred out of existence. Human populations greatly outnumbered the depleted demihuman races, and the humans in general, reproduced faster than the demihumans. The race of Paladian elves may have been little more than myth today, had it not been for the human defiance of the deities which caused the Devastation.
The Devastation brought down by the deities focused on humans -- greatly reducing their population, and putting them again on equal ground with the elves.
Out of the Dark Years of the Devastation, the elfin children of Calaphy once again began a rise to power. While the human population of Fälgorna had suffered greatly during the years following the Devastation (the Devastation was brought down by the deities on the humans for their arrogant belief that through the powers of the mind they could become like unto the gods), the elves, especially the Paladian elves, had grown in strength now that they were once again free of human persecution.
Their war leader recorded only by his first name, Llewdban (Pronounced: Lew-VON), gathered the far flung families of the Paladian who had survived centuries of human rule and persecution into an army during the second millennium of the Dark Years and led them toward what he believed was the ancient homeland of the Paladian, the ancient kingdom of the star, Talish.
The area he believed to be their ancestral home in the Rone Hills bordering the Spineridge Mountains was only sparsely populated by humans, even at the height of their civilization. The elves with their force of nearly 3,000 warriors made quick work of the few broken human settlements remaining in the region. The elves forced those humans not killed in the ensuing battles to leave the area for other lands and not return or suffer the consequences.
Llewdban, mortally wounded in an insignificant battle at a human town known as Pressmord, never fulfilled his dream of sitting upon the star thrown (the artifact had somehow survived in the hands of one noble family), but he had seen victory on the horizon for his people, and died assured the Paladian would once again have a homeland.
From the noble houses remaining, a new leader was selected to lead the Paladian in the rebuilding of their home. They selected Vlewyws Sidhe (Val-LEW-uss SHE) as their new leader and he began the rebuilding of the kingdom, beginning with the elfin capital of Lydia (located at the site where the heaven star was believed to have fallen).
Under Vlewyws rule, the borders of the new homeland were sealed against non-elves by force of magic and force of arms. All who sought entry were turned away, forcibly if necessary. This condition lasted for close to 3,000 years. The Paladian wished to be sure they were secure in their new home before allowing others to enter. They also held long standing hatred for those who once persecuted their people.
With the rise of the Empire of Roland to the west, the Paladian began to soften their resolve to keep humans out of their lands. In previous centuries agreements had been reached with the Hestlegartle dwarves in the Spineridge Mountains and the Gnomes of the Rone Hills. Halflings had always been favored by the elves to some degree and were mostly free to enter the elfin lands at their leisure.
The Paladian saw the Empire not as a threat, but as a plea for sanity among the humans. It was a bastion of order in a world reeling in chaos for more than five millennium. It also pleased them to see, he bore some elfin blood and therefore was not unlike themselves, and had made no move to conquer the elfin lands or persecute the elfin people.
The elves were again on the defensive with the coming of the Arrakian invasion. Caught unprepared for an invasion by sea, the city of Nimarando and Edbrania (present day Vebronia) fell to one of the early invasions from the north in PT 1423. The Paladian quickly took back Nimarando, but the Arrakians fought valiantly against the elves in Edbrania and decisively defeated the force sent to retake the city at the edge of the elfin kingdom. By PT 1377, Arrakians who had landed at Nimarando and Edbrania only 40 years earlier had taken roughly a third of the elfin kingdom from its former owners, including much of present day Eirbron.
The elves deciding that it would be more prudent to make peace with the invaders than to risk the loss of more land, met with the Arrakian leader, Bradwwin the Wise, at the town of (Odbanwyll) in PT 1373 to sue for peace. The proceeding talks which resulted in the Treaties of Benefice solidified the current balance of power in the region. The treaties called for mutual respect of borders and mutual protection from the barbarian hordes of the Juads whose migrations were making their way toward Arrakian lands.
This treaty would be tested in PT 1324 when Juad and Arrakian forces met at the Battle of Crystal Lake. While the Arrakian forces where initially defeated, the Paladian remained true to their promise and came to the aid of the besieged forces in Vebronia. Their intervention stopped a total defeat and set the stage for a future alliance between the two human nations (in PT 1258 peace was made between the Juad and Arrakian peoples and sealed with the marriage of Björn Osternik, a Juad prince, to the Arrakian righ’s eldest daughter. The Osternik line would later claim the Arrakian throne through right of succession).
In PT 1234 with the assassination of Martin I in Roland, Eirbron and Paladondia would more tightly seal their alliance with the treaty of Lydia, agreeing to mutually defend the Spineridge passes from the forces of the sorceror-king usurper in Roland.
Today, the Paladian feel themselves once again threatened by a new kind of enemy -- the loss of cultural identity. With the treaty with the humans also came the exchange of culture. Many humans and elves alike found shared interests and ideas. Shared interests quickly became shared passions and many marriages came about between the two races. Some even adopted human religions. The elves in only three short generations found their culture infiltrated by many concepts alien to their tradition.
This situation has broken the kingdom into to opposed philosophies. The one who wishes a return to isolationism and traditional ways. The other that sees the future as one of cooperation with the other races. The ruling queen, Queen Fiona Sarida, does not feel cooperation and the mixing with other races as a completely bad philosophy, but has chosen to subtly support the more conservative side (held by most of the noble houses) while escewing total isolation. She has taken the recovery of the mythical Heaven Star as her rallying point and all on both sides support her move. However, there are those who do not believe she goes far enough in her support of the return to traditional ways and would at the very least have humans and some other races, completely banned from Paladondia.
The Land
Paladondia is ruled in name by the hereditary king (or queen), but the ruler owes power to the support of the noble holts or houses of the realm. Maintaining but a small force of her own, without the support of a majority of the nobles, the sovereign could not rule.
Various holts vie for power, constantly struggling for greater influence in the royal court and greater privilege for their house.
The Tale of How the Heaven Star was Lost
Sometime before the disappearance of the Heaven Star, King Cithnard the Watchful commissioned the highest wizards in his realm to build a mechanism that would allow the Paladian to freely travel between the planes and alternate dimensions. His reasoning for the endeavor ? he wished to spread the White Elfin culture to all the known worlds. He believed the Paladian civilization worthy of emulation, perfect in form and incomparable to any he had ever imagined.
His wizards toiled day and night pouring over arcane texts and manuals. Experimenting in their high towers, dank dungeons and urban town homes across the land. Each hoped to find the solution before the rest. To be able to claim credit for finding a way to complete such a holy endeavor would cause the wizard responsible to have his name illuminated in manuscripts, and praised in poetry and songs of generations to come.
Decades passed without a single wizard discovering a means to create the magic contrivance the king desired. Not wishing to disappoint their sovereign, the high court mage called a conclave of all the wizards, conjurers, illusionists and dabblers in magic across the realm. They debated their dilemma and struggled to find clues to the problem among their combined research. Unable to determine a solution, the elected from their number 12 powerful wizards who would pool their resources to create a gate to the other worlds.
Thus working together they determined that by using portions of the most holy of holy relics of their culture they could create an item that would help the king realize his dream. They would sunder the Heaven Star and with its metal forge the Stargate, a portal to all the known worlds. They would also create several devices, one in particular shaped like a nine-sided shield, that would allow any elf to open the gate to a random or known destination.
The king was so pleased with the wizards’ discovery that, ignoring the religious significance of the Heaven Star he allowed the wizards to defile it. The wizards, for their part, also succumbed to the pride of their ruler and thought nothing of splintering the birthstone of their people.
Undiscovered in the wizards’ research was the realization that the Heaven Star harnessed energy from both the positive and negative material planes. The elf gods disappointed with their children decided to teach them a lesson for their arrogance. When the star was cut they caused the wizards to only pick pieces which drew upon negative planar energy.
This metal appeared no different than that which drew upon positive planar energy, but in the long term it would prove quite dangerous.
The decision was made to construct the gate in the secure caverns of what is now Talishando Monastery, so that it might be defended from falling into the hands of those who might “misuse its powers,” a thankful precaution considering the events to come.
Nearly a century passed while the twelve wizards gathered the components they would need to complete their enchantments and build the physical structure that would house the magical energy necessary to offer egress to the multiverse. When their preparations were complete they sealed themselves in the cavern to begin an enchantment that would last for the next year and a day. Upon completion of ritual only eight wizards emerged four having expired during the enchantment. Those who survived were all of them old and decrepid, aged by the vast magical forces channeled through their spirits, but swollen with the pride of having created the greatest artifact ever known to this world.
The king feasted them and praised their names (just as they had expected) and appointed an army of scribes and minstrels to document their accomplishments. That very night he called forth 150 of his most worthy knights and courtiers to be his royal emissaries to the multiverse. He gave them golden batons bearing his seal, documents of introduction, and gifts for the rulers they would meet and sent them through the gate to spread the Paladian culture to all creation.
None of his emissaries had yet returned when war broke out with orc hordes from the Spineridge Mountains. In order to insure the safety of the Heaven Star the king order an elite detachment of elven knights to carry the artifact to the Talishando Monastery were it could be defended more adequately. It is unknown whether the star ever reached its destination, but as the fighting raged on it was discovered that the knights assigned to carry the star had disappeared and Talishando had been overrun by orcs, its temple pillaged and its priests put to the sword. The king took what remaining forces he had left and rode to Talishando to liberate the Stargate from his enemies. After a fierce battle and the loss of nearly 1,200 elfin warriors, the Paladian were victorious.
Entering the chamber of the Stargate the king found the gate activated flashing random worlds before his eyes. Quite possibly, through its use orcs had been able to infiltrate many worlds. Falling to his knees he realized that he was responsible for the loss of the Heaven Star, the symbol of his people ? not just a symbol, but an icon that had protected his people from the enemies at its gate, and in the same stroke enable the scourge known as orcs to spread throughout the multiverse. This folly had come because he dared to defile the Heaven Star. Unable to live with his sin, he drew his sword and killed himself as a sacrifice of repentance to the gods. He died begging the gods to forgive his arrogance and spare his people from the orcs who were still attacking.
The gods not being evil, heeded his plea and caused the orcs to be turned away. And this is how the Heaven Star was lost.
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Paladondia
