#austerra

This is it. I was really excited for this one. Only going to write about Avaloth because Avaloth is the only interesting one.

Avaloth:

The Basilisk, the dragon-blooded lady of the city, holds sway in large part only because she is irreplaceable. She represents the sorcerers of the city.

The Minister of the Left represents the social sphere of the city, and is usually a High Harper in the new church of Thross. They manage all issues of social welfare, whether the reeducation of criminals or care of the poor. He is selected by the clergy of the city.

The Minister of the Right manages all matters deemed to be issues of commerce and order. He determines what is crime and what isn't, and enforces the laws he creates. He is selected by the citizens, a group of middle-class inhabitants of the city who pay taxes. The courts and heads of police all report to him.

Historically, the Right and Left ministers fight constantly, although they've only had significant power for the last several decades. The Basilisk mediates their discussions and decides who to favor.

The minister of the right is the most directly powerful within the city, but has to be careful. The Minister of the Left holds tremendous popular sway, and can create all kinds of problems for the right.  The basilisk can only maintain her position if she supplies songrcraft to everyone, but her opinion is still highly respected, since she could leave at any point if she felt threatened or unloved. (Avaloth prides itself on being able to survive without a dragon-lord, if necessary, but they haven't actually tested this theory.)

Let's gooo!!

Tristan Werden:

46

Nurnen

The Crooked King

5'10", 83.6 kg

White hair and beard, blind eyes. Dresses in simple Avolothan dress garb

Tristan is the bastard son of a whore from Nurnen. His mother was a beauty, a highly valued slave of Lord Andrius Forcher, and Tristan grew up on the edge of affluence. Shunned by children his own age, Tristan had little to do but explore the palace and read.  Throughout his studies he came to the conclusion that All of the talk of the song as a beautiful gift of Thross is a lie told to humans to keep them subdued. When he was twenty, he fled into the Wilds and started running with the wilders. Vicious, fast, and brutally intelligent,  he became their chieftan in a year's time. Soom he was brokering trades with Nurnen itself and calling other wilders to his name

He toppled his first city before his 40th birthday, and he hasn't sopped since. A dozen kingdoms, a dozen dragons, and so far no one has stood before him. His clan numbers in the millions, subduing and controlling dragons and wyverns to work for them.

All song is dissonance, a lie told to man to hold him back. A real man chooses his own fate, creates his own song. The fourth strand is the only true one, the one that strips away all pretence. That is how man was meant to live.

Adalinda, the Feathered Serpent:

21

Wilder

5'8", 61.5 kg

Brown Hair, Golden eyes, and yellowish tanned skin. She dresses like a poor city dweller of Nurnen to highlight that she is Tristan's slave

Tristan had the idea of enslaving a young rock-dragon, much in the same way that he had captured young wyverns, but was utterly surprised when, after slaying the mother, he found a human child of six of in the nest. How or why Adalinda was conceived, no one knows, but Tristan has exploited Adalinda's innate sorcerous talents to no end

She resents him, and plots his murder with every waking moment, but is unable to kill him, for reasons she can't explain. She only works with him because of his strange power of compulsion he has over her

Surviving in Austerra is no simple task.

The first thing to acquire in Austerra is a container for water and method for purifying it. The rain is acidic to the point of being undrinkable, and the ground water in many areas is rich in earth metals, which make it toxic and highly basic.  This leads to the lakes catching on fire when it rains, after which point the lakewater can be purified without much difficulty.

Secondly, you're going to need a weapon, and preferably one with few moving parts. The oxygen-rich atmostphere of Austerra allows for truly massive beasts to flourish, and quickly degrades any complex machine.  A spear will probably work as well as anything, although a simple rifle with bayonet is probably better in most circumstances. Realistically, if you're alone and a large beast comes after you, you're dead. Fortunately humans are not popular prey.

Speaking of that atmosphere, a heavy coat, clothe to wrap your skin in, and a a gas mask are always good ideas. Whether its O3 or SO3, most regions are home to some sort of toxic gas.

A knife or steel hatchet is a safe bet, just as in our world. Most regions are rich with resources if you know where to look.

Flint. The oxygen-rich atmosphere means that fire is easy to produce, but it is still as useful as ever.

A shovel. In many regions, the best way to find shelter is to dig a trench. Many times, the wind will be too strong to reliably set up a tent.

A songcrafter: If you can find a mountain dragon or wyvern's cave, you'll often find that they calm the weather patterns and make the air more breathable around their cavern, so that their young ones can live safely. Do this with extreme caution.

The year is 1196

Most historians would say that the history of Austerra begins with Bannis Half-dragon descending from the mountains of Om. While there are legends of Half-dragons who came before him, and it is difficult to separate fact from legend, Bannis, for better or worse is the hailed as the founder of all civilization.

In year 0 he descended from the mountains, and founded the first human city of Cormoran. According to myth, Cormoran was an ideal society, perfect and resilient beyond measure. For unknown reasons, the city was abandoned in year 630.  Myths and conspiracies about the reason for its fall abound, but the simple truth is that no one really knows.  Avolothans say that it was destroyed by Thross for its decadence; the imperial college of Theurgia blames the ruin on a civil war. But the ruins of Cormoran have never been found, and efforts to find it have invariably ended in disaster.

At the time of the fall of Cormoran, Avaloth was but a small, estranged colony in an unpleasant part of the world, and so perhaps it is unsurprising that they have no records from that time. A hundred years later however, however, the city had tripled in size and had colonies of its own, including Theurgia and most of its modern allies.

At this point in time, the Dragon-Lords of Avaloth and its colonies  were both kings and high-Templars of Thross, and the Protectorate of Tretia had little room for dissidence. While in Avaloth itself the theocracy still functioned, in many of its colonies the hierarchy had become exceedingly corrupt and unfaithful, even to their own creed.

Ultimately, the Theurgian Academy led a series of popular uprising and one by one unseated many of the dragon-lords loyal to Avaloth, or convinced them to renounce their religious roles. Theurgia developed a new structure for itself that allowed for massive personal freedom for the nobility, and anarchy for the common man. (Although the commoners of these areas usually self-organize quite effectively.)

For a time some thought that Avaloth's days of relevance were over and that the Creed of Bannis was going to pass away entirely. Attempts were made to rid the remaining City-states of corruption, which eventually led to thirty-some noble families fleeing the Tretian Alliance and founding Nurnen. These attempts at purification had mixed success, but only forestalled the unrest in these cities.

Therin Caliburnus took the throne in 1120 and changed everything. Backed by scholars with new translations of the ancient texts, Therin was able to massively overhaul the government and reshape the practice of religion.  (Some assert that these 'new translations' were merely politically astute rewritings. But scholars agree that his reading of the old texts is admissable, and possibly correct, so far as such a thing is possible.) He gave massive personal freedoms to the commoners and after a few bitter wars with his subordinate lords, was able to establish a vaguely egalitarian society.