SourceMaterial-Tabayelle

This is Avlis Source Material ⚠️Use of this material has NOT been authorized on the NWN Avlis Servers.⚠️ To use any of this material IC on NWN Avlis Servers, you must request approval of this material from the Avlis Team. Send a PM to the Dungeon Masters group on the Avlis forums to begin that approval process. To learn more about what Avlis Source Material is, please click here. You may use this material for non-server-related Avlis events, such as D&D/PnP.		History The continent of Tabayelle was settled in the early Age of Dawning by a group of Fold of Nine mages who were dissatisfied with the state of magic on Negaria. They believed that magic should be the basis of society and disdained the coexistence of mages and clergy on the mainland. These mages hired large groups of settlers from the Southern Romini tribes and purchased slaves from orcish slave markets of various races before setting out on a one way journey by teleportation spells. The exact ritual used for this large scale teleportation has been lost in time, but it was devised to be untraceable. A thousand mages arrived on a virgin land with a mixed band of ten thousand slaves and settlers. They set about constructing a city using every arcane tool at their disposal and named their new home "New Land". The name "Tabayelle" is a corruption of the original name which was often written in the language of magic Hadetin-di-Tabayele. Kerket-di-B'kyryen (City of the First) was built of a rare blue marble, excavated with golems and centered around a great mage spire. The highest ranking members of the nine orders, known as the "First Hundred" settled in the spire with a thousand of the slaves building out around them, while each of the remaining groups of the nine orders fanned out to create their own city-states. Alchemical aid to fertility combined with extensive use of magic and social engineering led to rapid growth in these city-states. Each city-state began to expand geographically, creating new colonies in distant locales on the continent. Within ten generations of the first landing the mages had expanded their network of colonies, creating a sprawling mageocracy that spread through the continent. Use of magic flowed into novel forms over the next thousand years. While Negaria suffered under the Demonspawn War, The Fairy War and The Great War, no such conflicts took place in Tabayelle. Ruled by the Council of the Hundred from Kerket-di-B'kyryen, the mageocracy of Tabayelle expanded steadily. Rather than the nations and states that were created on Negaria, the mageocracy focused their efforts on city-states that were easier to control. Vast amounts of country-side were farmed not with manual labor but magic. Crops prospered even in the worst of scrub-lands, labor was plentiful and the population grew in turn. Magic became the measure of worth. Those with an affinity for magic became the aristocracy, while those who showed no aptitude became an underclass. Control of the continent rested on the vast network of mage towers which united the continent. Most non-mages were barred from using these mage towers for transportation, but they shared in the wealth brought about magic. Cities remained warm through the winter and cool in the summer from the use of chained elementals, travel became easier as golems replaced beasts of burden. Entertainment came from illusionists, highly skilled in their art keeping the masses subdued. Life for the average citizen was substantially better than most of their counterparts on Negaria. Commoners knew no want, though many of them worked in less than glorious occupations. Some complained of a lack of direction, a certain hollowness in life, but the majority were content to live their lives in comfortable cities, fed by food farmed by golems, buildings built by elementals and order kept by outsiders. Small pockets of settlers did move out to eke out a living outside of the great spire cities. They were rare, and often the communities did not last long. Population growth made it necessary for the mageocracy to construct new cities at a rapid clip. By the end of the first millennium of occupation, the mageocracy had settled most of Tabayelle. Efforts were made to curb the growth of city populations, but even the most heavy-handed Spires could not afford to do more than slap an unenforced law against more than three children per household. The possibility of at least one child becoming a mage was considered an incentive for the population to continue having large numbers of children. The decision was made by the Hundred to create new colonies on the shores of a continent found to their north. Unlike the colonies on Tabayelle, there would be greater restrictions on magic service provision. Golems and elementals would not be used for labor outside of building the initial cities and citizens would be required to tend to their own needs. These new colonies were seen as an outlet for population growth where criminals or the less desirable members of the populace could be moved. Further by using a land that was uncultivated and needed less land for food it was hoped that luxury alchemical reagents could be grown in larger quantities. The reduction in magic gave the colonists opportunities for self-sufficiency. Though many perished in their first few generations, the colonies themselves began to accumulate wealth by selling large amounts of reagents that were rare in Tabayelle. Less entertainment also created more questions, and the first saplings of religion were established in the colonies as philosophical societies debated the role of the Supreme in creation. Not all of the colonies were successful. Many of the more brutal colonies run by descendents of the Dark Orders fell into anarchy when their overlords were massacred by rebels. The connection to their mother cities were often severed and these colonies became roving war bands in the wilderness of Apytazadta. These bands grew in number, forming clans and eventually raiding the territories of colonies that were unlucky enough to be in their way. It was during this time that the seeds of the True Faith began to take root. In the refugee camps that became prevalent during the war, rumors spread of a woman who was able to heal the injured and sick. She did so without the traditional book and staff of a mage, and instead attributed her gifts to the Supreme. Rumors of her abilities spread through the colonies, though only a handful of witnesses had actually seen the results. Known as Mariam the Healer, she became the first Prophet of the Supreme. People began to worship her name even after her abrupt disappearance several years later. Disciples of Saint Mariam spread through the colonies and stories of new prophets and saints began to spread among the populace. Gradually divine magic came to be practiced through the True Faith, as many paths to the Supreme were created among the inhabitants of the nearby continent of Atradyse. Although there were attempts to drive this new faith underground by the mages of Tabayelle, the faith survived this persecution. The Atradysean cities grew into small feudal states as their populations increased despite hardships. Their mother cities steadily paid less attention to them, content to allow them a measure of self-rule so long as the valuable stream of alchemical reagents continued to flow in. Over time the cultural connection to their mother cities declined and these new states came to have virtual independence from their homelands. This was made easier by the limited amounts of magic used in Atradysean cities. Cutting magical contact from Tabayelle was relatively simple, requiring only the dismantling of the mage spire. After that the safeguards made to keep rogue mages from taking over these cities made it possible to keep out Tabayellene mages. While the Atradyse generally kept cordial relations with Tabayellene trading partners, on the whole the continent began to chart its own course sometime around 1600 O.D. Tabayellene society had grown used to luxury and this decadence lasted well over 2000 years. The Ascension of Andrinor in 1950 O.D. had a calamitous effect upon the Tabayellene. Their society relied upon access to the Vortex to function. Safeguards had been built to sustain them in the event of a plane-shift, but none had foreseen an extended gap in access like the one Andrinor caused early in his godhood. Outsiders and Elementals broke free of their chains, golems shut down and entire cities starved as crops rotted in the fields. Some chained Outsiders simply returned to the Outer Planes, while others turned on their former masters and set up cults of their own. The continent of Tabayelle collapsed into anarchy, and the great Mage Spires fell. A society that had been constructed over centuries vanished over little more than a year. Darkness fell on Tabayelle. In Atradyse the abrupt silence from their old trading partners was greeted with little concern. When the reality of the situation dawned on the successor states in Atradyse, many viewed it as vengeance from the Supreme for wicked and decadent ways. Some of the old Spire Cities in Tabayelle had indeed turned into lands of excess and cruelty. Run by mage-aristocrats who had unlimited power, they had abused their populations and crafted magical abominations for their leisure. These now turned on their overlords with a vengeance. Life in Atradyse continued apace thanks to the lack of reliance upon arcane magic. Divine magic became more prevalent as new prophets and saints appeared as part of the True Faith. The True Faith itself divided into multiple sects, often based on a single patron saint or a national creed. In general the states of Atradyse were more apt to be feudal kingdoms or empires than the city-states of Tabayelle. As they gained prestige and power, these new countries began to dream of redeeming the Tabayelle and returning the Supreme's Light to the darkness. The first of these expeditions set out two hundred years after the Fall of Tabayelle and began the conquest of the Old World...