Stentuur

Map of Stentuur

## History

Stentuur, former prison country of the Dragon Empire turned modern day crime desert ruled over by various powerful guilds and merchants. Named after the Dragon that was first sealed here.

### The Dragon Empire

During the age of the Dragon Empire, Stentuur was a putrid swamp, the now-named Green River, carving across the land and staining the ground, turning much of the entire land into thick and muggy swamp. This was a habitable climate for many dragons however, and the Dragon Emperor gladly handed the land to a noble family of Dragons that were underneath the banner of Aquaprimus, the Gramens. These dragons were a merger of the families of Aquaprimus's house and those of Terraprima, and the Emperor was intrigued into the potential of these cross-blooded dragons. But, the popular opinion was that pure-blooded dragons were superior, and the Emperor hid them away from the sight of his people, sending them to the swamps.

The Gramen natively took to it, and began to develop and master their own version of Druidism, which they named Gramenism. Unlike modern Druidism, Gramenism was not about working with the land to aid it, but about forcing the land into your service. It was vehemently powerful, but taxing upon the land that they worked upon. To combat this, Gramen-pater began to channel his life-force into an incredibly powerful tree of nature energy within the center of Stentuur. This tree blossomed, and infused the land with it's life-magic, it's roots stretching wide across the swamps, reaching across most of the land. Gramen-pater infused themselves with the tree, and in the process, became connected to the sleeping dreams of Gaea.

This act of power, however, was noticed by the Dragon Emperor, who demanded that Gramen-pater hand over the secrets of the tree, as creating life on such an invigorating scale was something that the Dragon Emperor was unable to do. Gramen-pater, through the dreams of Gaea, had learned that this was not something that could be allowed to happen, and as such, refused. Refusal, however, is not something that Dragon Emperor takes lightly. He had his chosen daughter, Mel Flore, burn the tree, removing it. This action decimated the native life of Stentuur, the years of taxing from Gramenism decimating the ground as it was no longer sustained by Gramen-pater and the tree. The action left a giant hole in the center of Stentuur, and cavernous tunnels that snake out across the land. A few remanents of the tree did manage to remain within the deepest reaches of the caverns, however, offering a semblance of hope to the survivors.

The Dragon Emperor then banished Gramen-pater and his kin into the caverns, calling the caverns Purgamentum, and renaming Gramen-pater into Stentuur, a name that he bound to the concept of weakness and cowardice. From that day forth, the Dragon Emperor began to utilize the now-decimated Stentuur as a dumping ground for the dragons that refused him. He installed Vascitas, infusing it with stolen Fey Magics to keep the prisoners in a permanent dissarray, manning it with dragonborn to monitor the coast and prevent escape that way. He eventually expanded it as a place to keep non-draconic criminals that may prove of some use in the future.

### The Post-Empire Era

Following the collapse of the Dragon Empire, Stentuur began to thrive as refugees from the fall of the Faion Kingdom and the Empires both in Auron and across the sea fled to it's shores, many settling in Vascitas. Vascitas began to rapidly expand far beyond what it could sustain, and coupled with the lingering fey magics upon the pyramid, Vascitas was unable to get permanently stablized and struggled to maintain any semblance of organization, but the pyramid prevented people from fleeing it and prevented it from fully dissolving, trapping it in a horrendous cycle.

Meanwhile, the remanents of the Faion Kingdom also settled with the recovering Green River valley, creating small isolated communities to avoid the spreading plagues that had decimated the Faion Kingdom's lands. These communities focused on remaining isolated and unknown to the destruction being wrought on their old lands, developing their own cultural identities as people of order, peace, and security.

Over-time, well within the last hundred years, the enchantments on Vascitas began to weaken, allowing the formation of the most primitive form of organization: gangs. Many broke out across Stentuur, waging small turf wars across the coast-line. In Vascitas proper, the power struggle was settled by a Maoran Orc who simply was called the Hog. A towering fellow, ancestral fey-bargians allowed him to be unaffected by the curse of the pyramid, and allowing people to see him as a leader. Along the coast-line, however, this was considerably more difficult of a struggle. Eventually, a group of warriors stemming from an Amunist settlement in the northern coast managed to claim much of the territory under the leader of a paladin by the name of Monin, founding a fort to control the coast north of Vascitas.

This rise in violence within the desert stemmed the formation of a Coalition within the river valley to protect themselves from any ne'er-do-whels that cross the hills and attempt to disturb the peace or threaten their security. The Coalition Operating for Protection and Service became the primary governing force of the river valley, ruling with an iron (or in modern times, Golden) fist.

## Religion and Culture

Most of the residents of the Desert do not follow a faith, a left-over enchantment from the Dragon Emperor upon Vascitas preventing worship of anyone that isn't him, which following his demise, has left the residents listless without a religion. Amunism however has enjoyed a steady growth across the years, especially with the influence of the Amunist-founded Monin Mauraders controlling the coastal region. Within the valley, Amunism from Helianen dominates heavily.

Culturally, Stentuur has earned a reputation as Crime Desert, and this is mostly true. It is a hard and violent place, brutal in it's people's honesty and belief. The common Vascitain saying, "A turned back deserves a knife," tends to sum up the way of the world within it, but that is not to say that there are things that the Stentuurians do not value. An exceptionally strong family culture thrives here, with people living with their families for their entire lives quite often, and loyalty to your family is expected. Betrayal of one's family is considered something to be done by only the most horrendous of people. Loyalty in general is highly valued, with turn-coats and traitors being unwelcome anywhere at all.

## Locations

### The Desert

* Purgamentum- draconic/mage-tongue for garbage/filth, a dumping ground for the Dragon Empire's undesirables, whether that be other dragons or disobedient servants. It is a vast network of tunnels that stretches below central Stentuur and has made central stentuur basically uninhabitable as the tunnels cause water to not stay, preventing plant growth, and there are also an incredibly large number of monsters and beasties below the surface.

### The Coast

* Vascitas- draconic for A Waste, was originally used by the Dragon Empire as a place to both keep an eye on Stentuur's prisoners and to get some of the criminals that were still useful but not super dangerous out of public eye, it continued to grow and flourish after the fall of the Dragon Empire and is now one of the oldest cities by far and one of the most populated in all of Auron, unfortunately the Dragon Empire cursed the entire city via the pyramid on its east to cause those within the city to act more irrational, aggressive, and generally worse but also to not want to leave.
* Monin- named after Lord Monin, who founded the Monin Marauders, one of the largest military mercenary companies that control most of the coast. Monin is their headquarters.
* Corin's Launch- where Lord Corin left Auron, is now a prosperous port town and one of the few in Stentuur that has a functioning government, was quickly bought by the CPE.
* Exilum- draconic for Exile, this was the prison for the prison, it is now home to the Exiles, another mercenary company.
* Amunwatch- founded by a bunch of Amunists trying to sread Amun to Stentuur. Praesidum-draconic for Guard/defender, originally a fort to also watch over Stentuur, now a prosperous town along the river.
* Isolation - undead settlement, due to the lawlessness of Stentuur, this is one of the most open settlements

### The River Valley

* Griven- Green+ River butchering, a large town that acts as the unofficial governership of the river valley of stentuur.
* Laketown- military outpost by the Lake of Yurin, used by various mercernary companies as a neutral zone