The History of Avlis - Volume V

• Published by the Academy of Mortal Magic, an Entity of Andrinor's Trust. Information within this book may not be used without the permission of the High Mage Council of Avlis*

VOLUME 5 - Recent History, Revised Edition

• • • The fall of Kuras. (1825) ***

The power of the Kurathene Empire peaked under the rule of the immortal Emperor Kuras in 1825. Throughout his reign, Kuras assembled a vast collection of unique treasures from across Avlis, including artwork, jewels, and magical artifacts. Among these, the most notorious was Godslayer, a powerfully enchanted scepter. Kuras came to treasure Godslayer above all else, for the magic woven into the artifact was said to corrupt, and the scepter became the Emperor's symbol of power.

However, Godslayer ultimately led to Kuras' fall, for it drew to the Empire forces seeking to claim it. First among these, the gods themselves wished to remove Godslayer from mortal hands, and an avatar of O'Ma came to Kuras to retrieve the artifact. But Kuras resisted, and struck O'Ma with Godslayer, banishing O'Ma's influence from Avlis. The absence of one of the Nine Gods was felt across Avlis, causing despair particularly among the fairies and faithful of O'Ma. Shortly after this, a mage by the name of Nemeril appeared to claim Godslayer. Unlike O'Ma, Nemeril was successful, slaying Emperor Kuras and claiming the throne of the Empire for himself. In the span of a day, four other claimants to the scepter are known to have fought and died at the hand of Nemeril. But a fifth, an elven archmage named Angadar Sunstreamer, fought Nemeril in an arcane battle that left the Imperial Palace of Kuras in ruins. At the end of the battle, Angadar was victorious. The archmage restored O'Ma's presence and relinquished Godslayer to the deity.

When offered, Angadar refused the Kurathene throne. Instead, he found his own path to immortality, eventually ascending to divinity as the God of Arcane Knowledge. In the absence of a strong emperor, civil war broke out among the Kurathene fiefdoms, driving the Kurathene Empire to its current fractured state.

• • • The Great Famine and the M'Chek/T'Nanshi War. (1900 to present) ***

The largely human nation of M'Chek had long been a wealthy land enriched by trade across the sea and with the elven nation of T'Nanshi to the north. Nearing the end of the nineteenth century (1900), the population of M'Chek began to outpace its resources. A growing population spurred increased farming, but the soils of the land were not rich enough to sustain the intensive cultivation that the M'Chekians demanded. The land became depleted, unable to support the food crops native to the region. Fifty years later, the crisis had progressed so that hunger and starvation were commonplace, leaving M'Chek in a weakened state and subject to bouts of slaving raids from Brekon.

Ironically, just north of M'Chek, the forests of T'Nanshi remained bountiful, leading M'Chek to request some of T'Nanshi's territory. The Council of Nine that rules T'Nanshi refused, citing a fear that their lands would not support M'Chekian farming practices any better than M'Chek had, and that the M'Chekians would then demand further territory. Despite this, some M'Chekians settled in portions of southern T'Nanshi, prompting the Nanshi military to forcibly expel them, with some bloodshed. This initiated a series of sporadic skirmishes and battles that evolved into the simmering war that has continued for over a century. The towns and wilderness between T'Nanshi and M'Chek today remain haunted lands of bloodshed and sorrow.

More recently, the war between the two has grown even direr. In 2063, the elite fighting dark elves, the sereg¡¦wethrin, took it upon themselves to defend T¡¦Nanshi against the M'Chekians. Taking on the name sereg¡¦wethrin en edan (assassins of men), the dark elves used ruthless genocidal tactics, causing even the T¡¦Nanshi military to disavow the sereg. In response, the sereg have broken away from the larger elven nation to found their own cities in the Underdark. Despite this, they continue a war of genocide against the humans of M¡¦Chek. As the war endures, others aside from Brekon have sought to capitalize on the conflict, including giantkin who attempted to subdue the weakened city of Mikona, and shaahesk from Drotid who have led slave raids into the T¡¦Nanshi forests.

• • • The ascension of Andrinor, God of Magic, and the death of Tianna, Goddess of Trickery and Deceit. (2000)***

In the year 2000, a series of events in the planes beyond led to great changes in the heavens and hells. As the events involved the gods Valok, O'Ma, Angadar and Andrinor, a reasonably complete version of this episode can be gathered from the histories recorded by all four clergies.

Valok and his consort Tianna, the Goddess of Trickery and Deceit, conspired to open a gate that would grant Valok access to the mortal realms in his true form, gaining him great power over Avlis. Valok, with his armies of baatezu and souls of his faithful, was opposed by the gods Angadar and O'Ma, by O'Ma's divine children Dra'Nar, Dre'Ana and Pelar, an army of celestials, and a collection of mortal heroes: Vanoviel Niltaurwen, Aratelda Rinthon, Orianna, Tupaia Dagroth, Rynn, and Jade Sunstreamer (Angadar's daughter).

In the immortal realms, O'Ma's and Angadar's forces delayed Valok's passage to Avlis, while in the mortal realm, followers of O'Ma were able to alert Mikon the Balancer. In the ensuing battle in Valok's realm, Tianna was forced through the rift to Avlis. However, Mikon, who guards Avlis precisely against such invasions, immediately seized the demi-goddess and destroyed her (although rumors persist to this day of some remnant of the goddess remaining in Avlis). Mikon stepped through to Valok's realm, prohibiting Valok from entering Avlis. He then bequeathed Tianna's former mantles of Trickery and Deceit onto Angadar before returning to Avlis and destroying the gate.

In retaliation for their part in blocking his goals, Valok pursued the armies of O'Ma and Angadar across the realms of the gods to O'Ma's own domain in Elysia. There, the armies of fiends and celestials clashed while their gods fought each other directly. In the presence of the gods, the mage Andrinor cast a spell using knowledge and power shared with him by Angadar. The tiefling mage drew power from the battling deities, using it to bind himself to the Vortex of Arcane Magic, the source of all arcane magic that permeates Avlis. In so doing, he became the God of Magic. Some versions of the tale hold that Andrinor was intent to aid Angadar and O¡¦Ma, but was drawn away by the Vortex itself. Rather, the armies of the gods remained in a long and heated combat, which remarkably was ended by the mortal Vanoviel Niltaurwen, who wielded Godslayer against Valok and banished him from Elysium.

On return to Avlis, Vanoviel founded the Champions of O'Ma as an order of holy knights dedicated to O'Ma, and established Elysia as a city guided by the ideals of O'Ma. In reflection of that alliance between Angadar and O'Ma, the grottoes beneath Elysia have become a haven for the followers of Angadar, particularly the drangonari, the reptilian-like elves created by Angadar. Strengthening his own presence in Avlis, Mikon also established an order of holy knights, anointing as his first Equalizer, Nimonay Dunster, the M'Chekian lord of Equaloria Keep who had made the perilous journey to Mikon's realm in Avlis to warn of Valok's intentions.

• • • The breaking and reformation of the Mage Orders. ***

Of the changes wrought by the war between Valok, Angadar and O¡¦Ma, the ascension of Andrinor as God of Arcane Magic had probably the greatest effect on the mortal realm. In the days when magecraft was new, the wizards and sorcerers had aligned themselves according to the nine philosophies of the gods, making the Mage Orders. Together, the Orders formed the Fold of Nine, which until the Great War served as body that guarded over the use of arcane magic. After the Great War, the Gold Order was all but decimated, and much distrust was sown between the Orders, but the remaining Fold of Eight and the weakened Gold Order continued as best they could to regulate use of magic. Thus, the Mage Orders were alarmed at the ascension of Andrinor, a god who usurped their place in the order of things, and worse, was considered to be a highly irrational being. The White, Gray, and a unification of the Ebony and Gold Orders (the Black Order) launched a series magical attack on the newly ascended god to kill him or, at the very least, to wrest control of the arcane magic source from him. But under the guidance of Dru¡¦El, Andrinor gained complete control over his powers, and the power of a god, even one so new as Andrinor, lies far beyond that of mortals. In retaliation for their affront, Andrinor exercised his power over the source of arcane magic, the Vortex of Mortal Magic, and staunched its flow. With the sudden loss of the magic art to all wizards and sorcerers, the nine Orders dissolved.

However, it is not the way of gods to remain turned against those who should be their followers, and the God of Magic did not hold to his punishment, and permitted the arcane magic to flow again. Despite this, the mages still did not turn to their new god. Many decided to work in isolation, while others formed smaller cabals. But the original nine orders, which once stood to moderate and guide the use of arcane magic on Avlis, remained broken.

In the year 2071, a new force of arcane magic appeared on Avlis. This Vortex of Chaos, as it came to be called, began to sweep across the southern lands of Avlis, particularly M'Chek and T'Nanshi. The phenomenon spawned destruction and horrors as it appeared and vanished at random, raining down fires and lightning and bizarre magical effects. Three powerful mages saw a need for a new generation of mage orders to again organize and deal with this threat. Thus, the former archmage of the White Order guided the assembly of the Ivory Order of the Sun, the former Gray archmage guided the formation of the Ashen Order of the Stars, and the former Ebony archmage gathered some of the Black mages as well as many novice mages to form a new incarnation of the Ebony Order of the Moon. Each of these sought out the Vortex of Chaos, though their goals for the vortex varied depending on their philosophies.

For years, the three Orders pursued the Vortex, often battling each other in their attempt to seize it, until finally, in the year 2086, the Ebony Order archmage, Cyprian, gained the Vortex with the intention of unlocking its powers for himself. However, the remainder of his Order feared Cyprian was too mentally unstable to gain such power, and sabotaged Cyprian's efforts. In the midst of his attempt to unlock the powers of the Vortex, they triggered a massive explosion, killing Cyprian and destroying the Vortex.

At this time, Andrinor's avatar stepped down to Avlis. His voice is said to have reached across the lands of southern Avlis to the ears of all mages of the three Orders, telling them that he was pleased with their work, and that he had set the Vortex on Avlis to draw them together again as Orders. Andrinor declared that as a reward, they would again serve as guardians over the use of arcane magic in Avlis, but they would do so in his name. He directed them to establish the High Mage Council to carry out his goals, which included the eventual founding of a magocracy in the Kurathene Empire. With that, he bestowed on the mages of the three Orders his mark, establishing what is called Andrinor's Trust, to signify those mages who work for Andrinor's will.

The three Mage Orders have rapidly become some of the most powerful groups of arcane magic-users in southern Avlis. Recently in 2105, Andrinor's Trust was further expanded with the acceptance of the newly reformed Green Order of the Forest onto the High Mage Council, founded under the guidance of the former Green archmage, and a Blue Order of the Sky has also recently claimed Andrinor¡¦s blessings as well. Perhaps most telling, a spire called the Tower of the Nine has been assembled under the direction of Melonius Mannellin, Andrinor¡¦s representative on Avlis, suggesting that the god intends nothing less than the reconstitution of all Nine Mage Orders.

By Hilde Meyldur