History of Torrune

The recorded history of Torrune stretches back to the early days of Qossite domination in Rhydain, over two millennia ago, when it is known that mariners from Qoss sailed up the Helvander as far as the cataracts and established an entrepot roughly in Torrune's present-day location (apparently starting with a fortified outpost on the island where Beklagard fortress now stands). The best estimates of this outpost's establishment are around 900 BV. However, given the natural importance of the site, it is likely that settlements of some sort have existed there for as long as humans have dwelt in Rhydain, probably all the way back to the Archaic Era.

Thus it is probable that the Qossites simply imposed their rule and established their trading post where the pre-existing inhabitants (perhaps the XXXXXXs) already had a town of some sort; a dearth of good historical records from pre-Qossite Rhydain make it difficult to say for sure, but certainly some of the ancient stonework found beneath the foundations of present-day Torrune seems to predate the identifiably Qossite remnants. Legend and local rumor also assert that elves had an enchanted sanctuary on the site in the primordial days before mankind spread out from Ulshanru, or (perhaps more realistically) that an outpost of some ancient dwarven empire stood there prior to human colonization of Rhydain.

Whatever the case, Qoss's outpost below the cataracts seems to have grown to considerable size by the time of the Great Cataclysm, which of course lead to the end of Rhydain's domination by Qossites. Tales from the post-Cataclysm period tell of the region being repeatedly menaced by orcs driven down to the lowlands by dwarven expansion into the easternmost Adhemars. The settlement there was probably sacked (either before or shortly after its abandonment by its suddenly-isolated Qossite overlords) and then abandoned for a time, but by the time of the Asgali Empire's early formation roughly a century later, it was evidently re-settled and considered important enough to merit the construction of new walls, water cisterns, docks, and granaries. This period also saw the apparent first usage of the name Torrune for the rebuilt town, which as an entrepot of Qoss had gone by the name of XXXXXX or XXXXXX.

By 251 CV, with the young Asgali state booming under Emperor XXXXXXXX's visionary rule, Torrune had become important enough to merit the massive investment that went into construction of Beklagard and the Fortress Bridge. By this time, trade was flowing freely up and down the Helvander, all the way from the Sarpic Seas up to Kuzulnizam and back again, so the commercial significance of Torrune at that time was probably as great as it is today.

With the final collapse of the Asgali Empire in 844 CV, and the anarchy and internecine warfare that engulfed Rhydain over the ensuing decades, Torrune again fell on hard times. The flow of trade up and down the Helvander valley dried up almost completely, and with it, the city's lifeblood. In the place of a single huge empire which had made great efforts to facilitate free movement within its lands, there were now dozens of small squabbling states and mercenary warlords. Torrune was sacked at least twice, in 850 and 867 CV, with great damage done to the city and its works; even without these disasters, the general disorder and the end of unimpeded river trade led to a collapse in the city's population.

By 900 CV, Torrune was mostly ruinous and only sparsely populated. The hulk of Beklagard, still standing in the middle of the river, was intermittently occupied by a rotating cast of robber-barons and river pirates (the former being differentiated from the latter only by a notional lordly title) who used it as a base to extract their “tolls” from what little traffic still filtered up and down the Helvander.

However, in the later 900s CV, with a coalition of Rhydain's more far-sighted local magnates cooperating to lay the groundwork for the Helvandrian League, the importance of Torrune to the project was recognized. A concerted effort was made by the fledging League to restore the city (whose ruins now lay on the southern edge of the Duchy of Charagma) to some semblance of its former role. The robbers and river pirates were driven off, the portage road was restored, the walls and docks were again rebuilt as they had been during the early days of Asgalia.

As the League grew strong and trade flourished again, Torrune saw another period of great growth and regeneration. The riverfront docks and the warehouses were expanded, and expanded again. The city grew too large for its old walls so they were torn down and new ones, enclosing a much greater area, were built. The merchants grew rich and built great houses. Common people flocked back in from the countryside, seeking employment by the thousands and then tens of thousands. Public reservoirs, canals, sewers, and baths were repaired or built anew. The city's tessaraon was renovated and the temples restored.

All this growth and prosperity greatly benefited the dukes of Charagma. Many among the ever-wealthier merchants of Torrune resented the rule (and tax burden) imposed by the dukes, who they came to see as greedy and high-handed brutes, holding their position only because their ancestors had been successful as local strongmen in the anarchic days after the Old Empire fell. Now, the merchants grumbled, these grasping dukes away to the north in Dun Charag help themselves to a lion's share of the profits that we generate by our industry and cleverness. They know nothing of the commerce that yields this profit, they're just the bullying descendents of some petty warlord who was handy with a broadsword a hundred years ago. But there was little they could do, so they bided their time.

The opportunity they had been waiting for came in the 1080s CV, when a crisis over the palatine succession broke out into open civil war between the Helvandrian League's many principalities (the so-called War of the Four Palatines, 1083 - 1087 CV). During this conflict, Torrune itself was besieged by an army of the Meniri faction, since the Duke Rhogal of Charagma was a partisan of the opposing Rhanamulis. The siege was unsuccessful and Torrune's walls held, but although the Rhanamulis were victorious in the end, the duchy of Charagma had been practically bankrupted during the crisis years. On top of this, Rhogal had died at the end of the conflict; not slain in battle, but, according to popular rumor, perishing of some dreadful abdominal complaint after eating over one hundred apricots on a wager at a wine-soaked victory feast. The ducal seat was inherited by his son Gharro, who would prove to be short-sighted and naive.

The most prominent merchants of Torrune, acting together and pooling their finances as a cartel, were able to persuade Duke Gharro of Charagma to sell them the city's independence and self-rule in perpetuity. The price it took to convince Gharro was enormous, and the proceeds of the sale indeed rescued the duchy from its dire fiscal straits, but in the long run it was a good deal for the city and a bad one for Charagma. With the acceptance of the existing League states and recognition via formal decree from the Prince-Palatine (both secured, it is said, with additional huge bribes paid by the merchant cartel), Torrune was enshrined as a full-fledged League member and party to its Grand Charter. Its ruler was ennobled with the title of Archon and the city became an archonate, or archonal city-state. The year of this momentous change was 1089 CV.

All the tax revenue from the trade that passed through Torrune was now Torrune's alone, and long after Dun Charag's windfall from the sale had been spent, that great flow of wealth would continue to accrue in the city's coffers year after year. The Dukes of Charagma would ever after regret and resent giving up their hold on Torrune, and Gharro's successors have schemed many times to bring it back under their control, but thus far without success.

The Archon of Torrune, the Lord of the City, was originally supposed to be periodically elected by a council of the city's most prominent merchants (more or less the same cartel who had conspired to buy the city's self-rule from the dukes of Charagma), in an arrangement that much resembled, in miniature, the larger League's method of electors choosing a new prince-palatine at intervals. This system functioned well enough for the first few decades of the city's independence. However, it was perhaps inevitable that eventually an archon would decide he preferred the simple expedient of passing on his position to his son, rather than leaving the question of his succession to the tedious haggling of several dozen of his fellow merchant-magnates.

The archon who reached this conclusion was Alberic "the Grasper", of the House of Thoab, fourth lord of the city, whose abrupt abolition of the electoral council and bloody suppression of his rivals among the mercantile class marked a turning point in the city-state's political system. His ambitions of establishing a long-lasting archonal dynasty did not bear fruit (three other households have seized the lordship in the city in turn since then, culminating with the house of Gedeira which currently holds it), but he did succeed in permanently breaking the electoral tradition and establishing a system of father-to-son succession which has been followed by each of those succeeding households. The various major merchant clans of Torrune, who used to have a say in picking their archon, certainly still resent the loss of their old prerogative. On the other hand, any one of them might eventually be able to displace the current ruling house and seize the archonal seat for themselves, if they navigate the city's politics adroitly enough.