History of Gorandar

The following are a collection of stories that detail the history of the little known region of Gorandar.
==Avar==
The city of Avar is built by the Dalmer. 
The pillars of the city sink below the sand, forcing the Dalmer to deploy the Tides of Sand.
==The Purge of Gorandar==
A close flying meteor later knocked out all electronics in the Avar settlement, all powered devices fail and restart randomly, including devices such as vehicles. The city is evacuated indefinitely, and later repopulated by human explorers who excavate the topmost part of the city.
Avar is attacked by army of the deep machines from a nearby tomb warehouse. This happened because of the misinterpretation of radio signals cause the legions to emerge and immediately begin a campaign of mass genocide against the human population, destroying everything in the land. The land was permanently scarred after the passage of the AOD. The AOD’s programming malfunctioned so severely that the AOD identified the humans as Dalmer, effectively protecting them against their Dalmer creators.
And so, since the Dalmer never had any real inclination to return to the mostly empty region, the city of Avar remained in its reduced, but still functional state. The humans eventually died out. 
==The Elves of Avar==
Avar was deserted for a long time, until Elves found the city and continued the excavation. When they found the regional palace they started settling in permanently and their lords admired the regional palace. When they worked off their superstitions about the Dalmer, they settled into the palace. Soon after, the Wishing Well chose an elf as heir to its power.
The heir system of the Wishing Well technology chooses worthy people from the population. When the dalmer all disappeared, the system had nothing to choose from for the technology, and had to choose among the new elf denizens.
The first chosen one among the elves created the city through his first wish, immense wealth for his second, and a secret vault to keep his wealth. The third wish materialized as access to the quarter of wonders. The quarter being used as a combination of vault and emergency safe house for those of his line.  The chosen elf became the self titled lord and master of the city, creating a lineage that would last for generations.
The lords traditionally using their vast wealth to solve their problems. This sprouted the rumor that Avar is the location of a massive treasure trove in the fabled quarter of wonders. To secure the family’s wealth the Lords would use diamonds found in the vault (in reality soul gems) to power the throne room in order to reveal treasures to them. A special ring allows the wearer to get treasure from the quarter of wonders. This became the royal ring.
The whole line of Avaran Lords save for a few were worthy and had the wishing technology as a family power. They would send their young into the quarter of wonders as a test of coming of age, a test to see if the youngster was worthy of being Lord.
==The decline of the Avaran Lords==
The subsequent Lords called on the power in times of crisis, but when one Lord was unworthy (and survived all subsequent assassination attempts) the vault was inaccessible and thus were unable to keep the city prosperous and the technology became a myth.﻿ The city however, searched for an heir to replace the unworthy line of Lords. As the line of the lords of Avar declined due to incompetence; poverty and banditry became rampant in the city, while the lords played with toys, distracted and easily manipulated by their counselors. At some point the elf population grew so large that the palace could no longer house all of them, after a brief civil unrest, the unruly were thrown out, and the ruined palace was reconstructed by the family. Slums populated by the unruly grew around the palace grounds.
With the loss over time of the knowledge and ability to use the Wishing Well, the only remains of it were that none save the Lord was allowed to wear the royal ring. The city in later generations became ruled by a Lord, his counselor, and a court of nobles to help with ruling the city.
==The Quarter of Wonders==
The story starts with a street peddler from the streets of the city of Avar. After trying to sell his wares to an uninterested noble elf, he pulls out an old chest of dalmer origin within which is half a golden scarab.
The peddler then tells a tale of where he found the artifact. Intrigued, the noble purchases the artifact and meets with a thief, who hands over the other half of a gold scarab beetle, of which the second half was hidden in the chest. Putting them together, the beetle flies off, before causing a giant sandstorm to rise at the city borders, clearing previously uncovered portions of the city from the sand which would be known as the Quarter of Wonders.
The event naturally caused the elves to go into a looting frenzy, attempting to retrieve the treasures inside the quarter. However, upon approaching the excavated quarters, mechanimals resembling tigers appear and speak, but none understand what is said. Thieves still attempt to enter upon the noble’s orders, but upon entering the quarter the tiger's bite the thieves, and the sand returns to its place closing off the entryway.
===The Street Urchins===
The next day, on the streets of Avar, street urchins, the name given to the mechanimal monkeys, steal things. After outwitting some of the palace guards led by their captain, the street urchins return to the quarter.
The Lord of Avar, meanwhile, is having problems because now the city is essentially surrounded by the mysterious ruins and the street urchins are stealing things, causing public discontent. The Lord of Avar goes to consult with his advisor. By mesmerizing him with the potential rewards the quarters could hold, the Noble convinces the Lord that he needs the Lord's blue diamond ring (another dalmer artifact) to stop the street urchins. Noble actually recognized the diamonds patterns as similar to those on the scarab, and needs the ring to find an entryway into the quarters.
===The Tides of Sand===
Meanwhile, Noble uses the Lord's blue diamond ring and finds an entryway into the quarters, and finds a device known as the Tides of Sand, and discovers the reason the quarters were buried in the sand, however it deactivates before he can watch the animated pictogram.
The machine then shows still pictograms indicating that it requires power. The Noble remarks that in the room are broken street urchins, and recognizes the crystals powering them as the same in the pictogram, eager to learn more, he places the one he has into the device, but it isn’t the one he requires, the ones in the pictogram are larger and said to be kept in the Quarters of Wonders treasure vaults.
The street urchins have retreated for the night with their treasure to a charging gantry. However, they are suddenly set upon by the Royal Guards, acting under orders from the Lord. When the Lord confronts Noble about the empty shells of street urchins that were delivered to him, and inquires of where their contents and treasure is. The Noble lies to him by saying there was no treasure and the contents had already been burned.
In actuality, the contents and treasure has been brought to the tides of sand, and the treasure used to bribe the royal guards into silence. A street urchin wakes in a strange place, and a disguised Noble, who shows it pictograms of a hidden passageway out of the dungeon to freedom. The street urchin (who was partially reprogrammed by summoning by the lords mage) takes him to the Quarters of Wonders. At the entrance, a mechanimal tiger allows the street urchin and the Noble to enter. The Noble is unaware that he can not touch anything in the treasure vaults. As they venture deep into the cavern, where they first encounter a floating carpet, that then leads them to the power cores’.
The street urchin successfully retrieves the power core, but the Noble violates the rule the guardian imposed, and seizes a second power core causing the cave to begin to fill with molten sand. Using the carpet, the Noble manages to get back to the entrance. However the mechanimal tiger at the entrance bites the Noble's arm, and he falls back into the locked vault, as the tiger disappears into the vault.
In the palace, a Royal Guard, visibly beaten and bloody tells the Lord that the Noble has done something terrible, and tells him about the Tides of Sand. The Lord orders search parties to find the noble, the Lord then orders the beaten prisoner beheaded and informs his secretary that he must discuss sentencing prisoners with him from now on.
===The escape===
Deep within the vault, the Noble begins to examine the vault, still wounded and weary of the mechanimal tiger, finding a worn book with pictograms he realizes he is in fact in a museum and that the tiger is sensitive to the Noble touching valuables, but nothing else. So he drops the power core and, using a pole that doesn’t trigger the tigers defense mechanisms, pushes the power core outside the museum. He then bolts the door and escapes with the power core and other treasures.
After getting out the noble travels to a small oasis. Where he is joined by a caravan of wealthy traders, where he finds the peddler, who is leaving Avar, who informs the Noble that he is a wanted elf in Avar by the Lord's order.
The Noble then sells his treasures, becoming fabulously rich, returning to the city on the floating carpet.
Meanwhile, Noble, who is worried that the Lord might have him beheaded as punishment for his treachery tries to mesmerize the Lord once again into granting this request in exchange for his knowledge of the secrets of the Quarter of Wonders a large portion of his riches. He is interrupted when a large and noisy crowd of street urchins riding mechanimal tigers enter the kingdom. The horde bounds into the palace, throwing it into chaos. The Lord appears suspicious and cold toward the supposed invaders, and has his guards stop the Noble before he can slip away. The Noble is taken to the Tides of Sand, where the Lord is unimpressed and rebuffs the nobles explanations of missing the power core. Thinking him to be a crook and a trickster, the Lords has the noble locked away.
The Noble tries to gain the Guard of his cells’ interest again by telling her how rich and powerful he is, but she beats him until he “looks like the other one”. The Noble trades his freedom in exchange for his floating carpet, left at the palace. The carpet throws the guard off it at the first chance, killing her.
===Confrontation===
The Noble returns to the palace and he confronts the Lord over having him almost killed. The Noble tries to take a plasma staff to kill the Lord, seeing what he is doing, a guard grabs the staff. He then tells the Lord that the Noble has been plotting against him, showing him the corpse of the guard he killed out the window. The Lord calls for the guards to arrest the Noble, but the Noble is saved by the museum tiger, who hadn’t stopped tracking the objects to return to the museum. The guards, who try to stop the mechanimal are killed. Sensing defeat, the Lord flees. The mechanimal then leaves with the staff.
The Noble realizes that his luck might wear off if the Lord returns, and decides he must do something about the horde rampaging in the city. The Noble decides to pin his actions on the Lord, using the deaths as proof of his claim, and takes over the throne. Satisfied, the Noble goes to sleep in his new quarters. Meanwhile, betrayed and in a city in chaos, the lord takes his anger out at the outraged civilians.
Unfortunately, the Noble leaves the floating carpet and the summoning book in his chamber and the lord commands his minions to steal it. With the carpet in hand, Noble becomes its next master, giving him the way to the Quarter of Wonders. His first wish is to become master of the quarter. When the mechanimals refuse to bow to him, he wishes to be a more powerful summoner and conquer the world with a mechanimal army. But now, he has the Noble traitor forces to contend with.
The Noble then uses his limited summoning skills to banish the mechanimals rampaging in the streets into one of the palace towers. Luckily, the Lord and his troops are banished with him, and when the mechanimals are under his control go back to Avar, intent on reclaiming the city.
===Infernal Policies===
Meanwhile, Noble, is angry that the court does not wish for him to become lord of the city, despite his actions to save the people. A counselor tries to inform him that he could not become Lord according to their laws. The counselor, who then sees the lords minions sneaking into the palace, pretends that the transfer of power is possible, much to the Nobles surprise, in order to distract him. At first, it seems to be working; the Noble, however, spots the invaders before they can defeat him.
The Noble uses summoning to shut down or banish all the mechanimals, with the counselor being trapped in an hourglass cage. Noble eventually summons a Maresun and fights the guards. When the Lord appears to be defeated, the Noble informs him he was a fool for thinking he could defeat "the most powerful being." the Lord then informs the Noble he is not the most powerful being and that honor belongs to the mechanimals, since they gave Noble his power in the first place.
The Noble decides to prove his power. The Noble is at first convinced that his powers will allow him to rule the mechanimals, but he realizes too late that the Lord tricked him, and has reprogrammed the Maresun. The Noble is shackled and is sucked into the new warp tunnel created by the lord and is trapped somewhere deep under the sea.
Of course, since the Noble is now no longer an issue, the Lord resumes his position, reaffirming his place as ruler of the city. The counselor however insists that the Lord use his power over the mechanimals to make himself a even more powerful, but before he can react, a knights expeditionary warps into the throne room. He wordlessly extends his hand and points to the summoning tome with the other. When the guards try to intervene more knights appear, surrounding them. All seems lost for the Lord who decides that, between his power to control the mechanimals and his life, the latter is more valuable. The Lord therefore gives the knight the tome and when they warp out changes the law so that none may approach the Quarter of Wonders lest they invoke a terrible curse.
==The Nobles return==
===The Jewel and the Statue===
The story begins with a band of robbers arriving in their hideout with their latest spoils. Just as they begin to split the treasure, a rival gang steals the treasures back and distribute most of it among the poor of Avar with the exception of a jewel with a flower in its center, which piques the gang leaders interest. He decides to give it to the Lord, as a goodwill gesture. Upon their arrival, the counselor announces to the leader a surprise which the Lord intends to reveal at this evening's dinner.
Meanwhile, in the desert, in a dig site, excavators manage to uncover a golden statue with the same flower motif on its chestplate out of the sand. The dig boss orders his workers to send the statue to Avar at once, but the workers, tired of being treated badly by him, throw the statue into a nearby well. They go to Avar, hoping to convince the site boss when had delivered the statue as ordered when they return.
===Drinks and secrets===
While approaching the city, the workers have a run-in with the band of robbers and have drinks. While drunk, the robbers talk about their findings, and the diggers tell of the statue. Realizing the potential they just missed, the robbers trick the diggers into revealing where the statue lies, and hatch a plan to reunite the two. That night, the Lord announces that he wants to make the Counselor his new Noble. The robbers inadvertently ruin the dinner while attempting to steal the flower. Under torture, the Lord learns of the statue and the flower. The robbers manage to escape during the night with the jewel.
Later, by luck the statue is found by the robbers first. As it is controlled by the jewel, the robbers are handicapped by their incompetence of this new machine. The robbers desire to use the statue so that they can get revenge on the Lord and rule Avar, but they need more information on the statue to do this.
They decide to seek out the mysterious creature that captured the Noble may years ago (the Maresun) in order to learn from him. They hide the statue and seek out any legends about the creatures.
===Nerabis===
Meanwhile the Lord goes to the fishing village of Nerabis nearby the chasm where the Maresun lies dormant. Using crafty boat maneuvers, the villagers use the machine to fish by beaching it temporarily before it returns to its resting place. The Lord has the villagers execute their trick and, using his knowledge of summoning frees the Noble from his stasis pod. But before he can interrogate him, the robbers capture the noble and escape
The Noble, all too happy to be freed and to get revenge on the Lord explains that the statue can be technically mastered by use of summoning, but it will still assert its powers by tricking the master into wasting command time and placing him in dangerous situations. Once in control of the statue by using better commands the robbers return to the village in order to get revenge on the Lord. however the Lord wasn’t there, leaving only a small force which is butchered by the statues mind boggling warp abilities. The statue then under orders of the robber boss warps them to the palace of Avar.
Once in the palace, the Noble reveals himself to the Counselor and forces him to play along with his plans. The next day, the robber boss and the Noble depart to have a discussion about how to prepare the assassination of the Lord. But before they can leave, members of the court confront the Noble and the robber boss in the Palace gardens. The two order the statue to show its power, and hundreds of mechanical warriors appear in the city streets and the walls, in defensive positions. The Robber boss then has the rebellious court members imprisoned.
===The riders===
Meanwhile, the Robbers celebrates with the Noble, who earns his acceptance as the future Counselor. When the Noble thanks the Robber Boss, they are ambushed by the Lord, accompanied by a group of cloaked riders. The Robber Boss, helpless without the statue (who is trampled to the ground by the horses), fails to prevent the Noble’s capture. When the statue recovers from its broken state, the robbers and mechanical warriors give chase, only to be shocked when the horses gallop off the cliff and seemingly gallop through the air. Despite their surprise, they manage to take back the Noble. They are about to make their escape when an elaborate water fountain appears from the palace grounds, the water pressure from the fountain is so strong it sucks the Noble and the robbers off their feet and into the waterspout. The Statue creates portals to safely take the robber boss to the ground safely, but the others are not so lucky, falling to their death.
The Noble, however, is thrown out at the top of the spout and into a raging river. While struggling to stay above the surface of the water, he manages to grab a rock. But before he can catch his breath, the Lord kicks him back into the river, and he plummets over the edge of a waterfall of the palace. The Lord enjoys his moment of glory, but one of the mechanical warriors, seeing a still target fires its crossbow and hits the Lord with two shots. The riders rescue the Lord, preventing him from meeting his death, and escape together. Meanwhile the Noble is dropped into safer water.
It is finally revealed that all the riders were the court members loyal to the Lord in disguise. The Lord rushes towards his minions, expressing anger that the Noble was saved, Barely keeping his temper, the Lord reminds them of the plan and that the death of the Noble is paramount to its success.
Come nightfall, the Noble recovers on a river back. He is then left to crawl back to Avar on foot.
===No honor among thieves===
When he returns, the robber boss accuses him of murdering the others as only he knew such summoning skills and sentences him to death. He is shocked, but the truth is that he does not know how the mysterious fountain appeared.
In the dungeon, the Noble is berated by the imprisoned court members for betraying them years ago, but their anger is quickly forgotten when he chooses to attempt to free the court members so they can save the Lord from the Robber boss. Moments before his execution the Noble frantically attempts to tell the guards of the treacherous nature of the robber boss, but they don't listen. Finally, the counselor stops the execution, and orders the court members free. But after the Noble is exposed as a traitor to the counselor, the court members are forced to defeat the guards, the Counselor and free the Noble, who is saved just as the sword falls. While the court members suggests that they run, the Noble decides to attempt to stop the robber boss from conquering the land. The Noble tells the court that, in order to defeat the Statue, its original programming must be restored. The Noble chooses not to face and leaves, and the others let him go without blame on account of their new freedom.
===The Lords summons===
The Robber boss celebrates the Noble's death, and wants his Statue to conquer land for him. However, the statue does not respond due to poorly worded commands. The confusing commands leads to the statue conjuring mass amounts of gold and treasure, while the court members attempt and fail to restore its programming without being seen by the robber boss.
The boss, surprised and enraged to see that they are still alive, and the statue blows them out of the throne room into the palace garden.
The court members engage the statue and the mechanical warriors in combat, but even when bound by the poor wording of the robber boss it easily outmatches them, using its tremendous powers to stop them from getting to the robber boss. The indiscriminate use of warp power opens a fissure in the ground which is filled with magma (due to the warp limitation in the programming being erased). Thoroughly trapped, the court members face certain death when suddenly the Noble reappears and opens the statues command inputer. A mechanical warrior blasts him, leaving him for dead, but the Noble manages to recover for a moment and uses his last ounce of strength to kick the inputer into the magma; making the statue and its mechanical warriors deactivate and warp out into a cloud of dust. the Statue could not permanently warp in the police bots, they were just fractions of its power. That means when the statue was destroyed all of its summons disappeared.  
===Epilogue===
To the joy of all, the Noble recovers from his injuries, since it is among the mechanical warriors (police bots) programming that they can't kill. Amidst the celebration of the robber boss’ execution, the court members announce to the Noble that they will follow him as new Lord of Avar. one mystery that the Noble still cannot place is the mysterious fountain, and theorizes that there is another player at work in the city.
Today, the chosen one is the UC found in the statue in the lords return who is the most recent lord of Avar since the sundering, despite is binding caused by reprogramming. On the plus side, no one else in the city may use the wishing well technology.
==The Golden Towers==
===The Dragonfly===
After a jeweled mechanical dragonfly appears at the Avar marketplace, the jewel is given to the Noble, now the Lord of Avar, as a gift. The Lord immediately recognizes dalmer technology and tries to make it work. After the Lord makes the toy work, the dragonfly uncontrollably shoots out steels of spikes and tries to attack the Lord. Although the guards destroy the toy, two are killed in the struggle against the dog sized mechanical insect. When interrogated, the merchant reveals that many similar mechanimals were found at the village of Chasmere, but none were in working order.
===Chasmere===
They go to a canyon in the desert where the town of Chasmere is located, they find that it has been destroyed. When they arrive, the townspeople welcome the Lord as their new leader. Mechanimals appear to destroy the town and the Lord orders his guards to fight them off. One of the destroyed mechanical bugs goes to a large golden building . The Lord follows it as it depicts the battle in a drawing with oil. The Lord wonders who the message is for as the tower is empty.
While having a feast with the townspeople, more mechanimal bugs appear and kidnap the Lord. The townsmen realize that they are powerless and without protection and they leave to Avar. The guards, led by the Captain head out to rescue the Lord by following the oil left by some of the wounded mechanimal.
They track the mechanimal to another gold tower where they find the Noble, feverishly working at what looks like an inventors study, only being persuaded to leave when the captain begins to break things, they leave with the strange books (pictogram readers) found there.
===Gazrea===
Fearful about how many more there could be, the Lord sends some guards and their sergeant to investigate. Their search brought them to a town, Gazrea, that was being terrorized by something called the 'golden plague'. The golden plague, which turned out to be three large mechanical warriors (Bleaker company operatives). The guards barely defeat them in the town square, but the warriors escape into the village. Following them, the guards enter the tower and find that one warrior drew yet another picture of what had happened, but the warriors are nowhere to be found. 
Angry that his efforts yield no results the Lord draws up a new plan: sending more armed forces to the three nearby villages to guard the gold towers found there. Word comes from the villages that great insects captured villagers and disappeared in the golden towers. The village suddenly comes under attack, and the guards immediately head for the golden tower, where they lie in wait for the warriors. Once there, the group quickly hide as the warriors return and quickly noticed that the warriors use the prisoners to fill mysterious gems with their life force. They mess up the hideout however they can. The warriors find them and retreat by opening a portal using a frame in the tower. However, the enraged sergeant manages to get through the portal.
===Through the portal===
Once through the portal the sergeant unleashes his secret weapon in the mysterious beings prison: the chaotic dragonfly that begins attacking everything. In the chaos, the sergeant releases the remaining prisoners and returns through the portal safely. However, the enraged beings unleashed a giant mechanical beetle (a Cavalier) to destroy the village, but the sergeant and company were able to defeat it by jamming the portals inner workings, cutting the beetle in half. The Lord then orders the destruction of the gold towers, only to receive word that they have disappeared from the villages.
Category:History
Category:Other race history
Category:Dalmer History
Category:Pages with red links
Category:Gorandar