History (Pandlechron Supplement)
| “ | Truth be told and legend be heard: the great city fell. Though t'was mighty in its glory days, not one man's city could ever live up to her again. That's why it took nine. | ” |
| —Falix Moord, Pandlechron city shipmaster | ||
A Brief History of Pandlechron
Twin Cities
Years before any of the established groups of present day Pandlechron existed, there were two great cities. What is known about these cities is that they were each controlled by elves: one city by High elves, the other by Drow. The elves of this time were different, however. So different in fact, legend is, the elves alive today are merely reflections of the immortal souls of the elves of then. Some say that elven meditation rejoins their soul for a moment with their immortal self in the other world.
At this time the world of Pandlechron was self contained. The gods had brought in the elements, good and evil, and magic, but they had closed all portals to the planes these aspects came from.
Regardless, elves were different then. Drow weren't the twisted evil creatures they are today. Their magic was truly phenomenal. Also, both cities were at peace. They considered each other twins.
Both cities developed Utopian societies. Their purpose was to live comfortably with sport, art, music, and feasting. Their immortality allowed them to perfect their skills.
Eventually, competition became the main source of entertainment. The joy of competition became such a powerful form of entertainment that a game they called totali was created. Totali started out as a way of scoring a man's skill. If he won at a sporting game, he would earn points in totali. If he lost, he would lose points. The elves become very interested in the fierce competition of totali. A man could be poor at swimming, but a strong climber. So he would earn points climbing, but lose them swimming. The elves had to carefully decide what to focus their skill with. Should they focus in their weaknesses to be passed in their strengths or master their strength and lose at their weaknesses? Totali extended into all walks of life, including art, dance, song, and cooking.
Totali eventually became a way of life. A massive set of rules were put in place and the elves began judging each other completely by score. It wasn't long before the twin cities began to compete for having the highest totali score.
The Birth of Llolth: The End of the Twin Cities
During this competition a diabolical drow woman began to strategize differently. She realized that it was fruitless to train in one avenue only to abandon training in another. Instead, she decided to look for alternate means to improve her talents. She researched relentlessly, ignoring her totali score as it plummeted with every lost competition as her skills weakened from lack of practice. She was mocked and ridiculed by her peers, but she persisted laughing to herself about her plan. Eventually, she had one of the lowest scores in the city and her family, after constant pleas with her to improve herself, disowned her. She didn't care. She slipped into a mad fury of determination, becoming less and less rational each day. One day she met some success. Her insanity gave her a maddened understanding of patterns weaved in the laws the gods left the twin cities with. Though the patterns would seem random to any other person at that time, she knew they had meaning. She was correct as well. A god of chaos had slipped in a terribly complex pattern into the laws the gods had wrote. When decoded, it detailed information about other planes: the thing that Pandlechron was protected from.
The drow woman cracked the outer walls containing the world from the other planes and made contact with an extraplanar entity called Abbadon. Abbadon was delighted to make a trade with this Drow woman. In exchange for her creating a portal to his world, he would teach her all the secret powers that evil had to offer.
With her new source of power, the drow woman rocketed to the top score of totali. She won every event with no contest. The high elf city became angry and accused her of cheating. The drow city defended her by stating that she had broke no rules. In a short matter of time the conflict escalated into a war.
The drow woman took command during the war and demanded complete obedience. She used her great power to lure demons through the planar portal she created to Abbadon's plane. Abbadon became very angry, but could not fight her anymore. She had managed to become a deity with her strength and influence, and Llolth was born. Under Llolth's rule the drow became twisted and evil. The high elves managed to find the crack to the outer planes and opened it further asking for aid from various elemental forces.
The war escalated to massive proportions becoming a multi-planar event. Each side took more desperate measures to win the battle. Eventually they both were creating monsters as well as other humanoids. Though the other races may deny it, this is the true origin of Dwarves, Humans, Halflings, Gnomes, Orcs, etc.
And then it ended. Llolth managed to destroy the high elf city with the help of her enslaved demon army headed by Abbadon and a monster she created called the Tarrasque. Abbadon turned sides after Llolth was finished, however, and attacked her armies in their weakened state. The drow city also crumbled.
The various races created during this conflict were abandoned. Some had not learned enough about culture and technology and reverted to a primitive state for thousands of years (humans, orcs). Others had learned enough from the ancestor elves that they were able to form cities and societies (dwarves and elves). The drow were cursed by the gods for their creation of the most terrible war and were forced to live with their most vile creation, the illithids. All elves were cursed with mortality to live like the monsters and men they created.
The Building of Pandlechron City
All the races were scattered around the world over time and driven away from the ruins of the great cities by creatures of untold power. The planar rifts slowly closed, except for those created permanently by the elves. Many thousands of years later, an ambitious army of humans led by Emperor V'laddin found the ruins of the high elf city. The city was brimming with magic, but had many powerful creatures in its depths. V'laddin desired its power and ancient treasure and built a fort just outside the ruins. There he sent troops of soldiers into its depths led by his nine generals. The ruins themselves were generally bare and covered by earthen soil at this time. Little did V'laddin know at the time, but the thousands of ruins were actually the tops of towers from the great city.
V'laddin was able to generally seize the ruins and felt that the magic energy flowing in the area would make it an ideal location for a new part of his empire. He began construction of what was to be Pandlechron city.
Disaster struck, however, in the form of a monster so terrible that half of V'laddin's army fell in its wake. During his excavations and constructions, he had awakened the Tarrasque. It destroyed his fort and killed V'laddin.
His nine generals took over the construction of the city after the monster had left. They started what would become the nine guilds that run Pandlechron.
Guilds
Each Guild represents one ideal and one alignment that is necessary to create true balance in a city.
Raier [LG]
The Raier Guild is one of the least liked guilds in Pandlechron city. Their popularity elsewhere greatly varies just as any extremely aligned guild's popularity does. Members of their guild are far more likely than members of other guilds to try to push the law with their moral beliefs than to interpret it based on circumstance. If is for this reason, that the guards they supply to cities are often very extreme with the law to the point that citizens will avoid these guards as well as they can.
In most places of the world, the Raier Guild has little or no political power much like the other major guilds. Members are expected to maintain strong moral integrity. Paladins are often drawn to this guild but they definitely do not make up the majority of guild members.