History of Paclethea

## **Ancient History**

Legends of the Iskethend Archipelago, says that the first eruption of the Paclethean volcano birthed the first two mortal dragons to take to the skies of Kunnimach. One dragon rose so high that she disappeared above the clouds, gathering and reveling in the sunlight that shone upon her. The other landed on the beach of her birth and allowed the molten rock to envelop her, while she honed her claws and scales with the sharpness of obsidian. The young volcano was said to be the sire of many of the races of the now mythical True Dragons that once roamed this world, and from them came the races of lesser dragons and the saurials.

After its final eruption, the fury of Kunnimach had finished its tantrum and the surrounding area had been dotted with a collection of various islands. It's said that the archipelago that they formed would play host to the returning dragons as nesting grounds, much like how turtles migrate. The land was enough to keep the separate lineages of True Dragons from attacking one another, but it is theorized that none of these dragons approached the Paclethea island.

Once mammalian humanoids began to appear, the True Dragons visited their nesting grounds less frequently until the point that their kind was hunted to extinction, leaving only the lesser dragonkind and the reptilian races that exist to this day.

## **Early History**

### **The Founders**

Main article: Founding of Paclethea

Speculation on the first inhabitant of the island is heavily debated in scholarly discussions, but the most widely accepted answer was that the first humanoid to set foot on the grounds was a druidess named Lady Molidef. Off center from the island she found a small lake and there planted her grove of mangrove trees. From there, it is said that she traversed the barren continent and brought the first burgeoning of greenery that the land had ever experienced.

Following her, the rest of the Founders wound up in the Iskethend Archipelago whether by chance, on a mission from their kingdom, or as a last ditch effort to escape the circumstances that kept them chained to their birthplaces. Each Founder sought out seclusion to pursue the passions that drove them. Over the course of a year each of the 8 encountered one another and found that their unique skills complemented one another well, with any one Founder able to something each of the others couldn't. Thus began the association of the Founders.

### **The Guilds**

Once established, some of the Founders embarked on voyages to the four continents to stock up on supplies and import materials that couldn't be found on the island, namely to bring vegetation and animals to the land. Word of this land spread, thanks to the spirited talk of the skald Lady Vercryptia, following her survival of a shipwreck on the new continent.

These stories attracted the attention of those that wished to change their lot in life and saw this newly discovered land that existed outside the feudal kingdoms as the opportunity of a life-time. Soon the islands north western shore saw the landing of many an immigrant ready to claim a stake on this verdant continent, now teeming with life. The Founders guided those that followed their chosen path to gather together into small communities. Concerns over the tendencies of man were brought up among the Founders. As a way of curbing the worst impulses, the Founders established the Guild System, where each Founder had a responsibility to not only their small community, but also to the entire population of the island. Understanding that continued survival required cooperation, the Guilds divided up the work necessary to keep the continent thriving.

Each of the Founders maintained control of their respective guild until the day of their death. Each Founder chose a successor to light the path ahead for future generations to follow and to aspire to their ideals.

### **Twilight of the Dragons**

500 years after the last Founder was ushered to the afterlife, the city of Paclethea was growing steadily. At this point the sight of dragons in the air was a common enough occurrence as people began to keep track of the months and years based on the mating cycles of the various species of True Dragons that used the surrounding islands of the archipelago as their ancestral mating grounds. Sailors learned quickly what islands to avoid during the year since even the most benevolent dragons became ferociously territorial during their mating periods. This movement of the dragons was mostly undocumented by the kingdoms of the other continents and thus would typically serve as a natural deterrent to attack.

This changed when the kingdoms of Insoclast launched an attack on the dragons to drive them from their floating continent. This launched the War of Breath, a century long battle that was waged on every continent, was launched by the kingdoms that wanted to end the raids on their lands by the behemoth creatures. This, coupled with the high prices that harvested dragon parts fetched, drove the True Dragons to extinction. But for many of the kingdoms, this came at a heavy price. Many kingdoms disappeared from the map during this time. Survivors of these lost kingdoms made their way to Paclethea, which stood untouched, as no dragons ever approached the continent to attack.

### **Glass Upheaval**

Once the War of Breath ended, and the dragons disappeared from the face of Kunnimach, societies slowly crawled back from devastation wrought by the hundred year conflict. Paclethea, now a sizable arcology, was self-sustaining to the point of excess, and was able to send aid to the continents in an effort to reach out to the innocents that needed help. In the year 12 LD, Paclethea was thrown into ruin by a tremor rumbling from the center of the continent. The accounts that survived describe the sounds as "though the caldera had erupted right in your ear". Once the tremor calmed, the ground beneath the southern half of the city exploded upward as though rocks rained into the sky. Citizens were evacuated as quickly as possible, although this did little to hamper the tragic loss of souls over the course of this seismic anomaly. Hours after the ground stopped quaking, scouts were sent to signal if the disaster was through. The scouts returned to the evacuees telling of the obsidian shards that continued to fall from the sky causing massive damage to the surrounding area.

Soon afterward, another roar of sound and earthen fury was felt, and as the survivors of the guilds debated over the best course of action. Many of the citizens felt it best to leave the island. Some emigrated back to the continents and others claimed new stakes in the now abandoned dragon nesting islands.

### **Reconstruction**

In 57 LD, a large group of adventurous souls decided to begin salvaging what they could from the utterly destroyed city that lay in the heart of the Paclethea Continent. News of their success reached the ears of descendants of the families that once populated the island and as more and more people returned, they turned their sight away from treasure hunting and began rebuilding the city from the remnants. Many of the newer tomes had survived enough to be used and from these sources where the governing Guilds reestablished and the laws reinstated.

As the refuse and debris cleared, the city began its slow ascent, taking 800 years to regain the self-sufficiency and prominence it once held.

## **Modern History**

In 1013 LD, the Helix League's High Arcanist Movaac Isasi introduced his final invention. He created an operational facility that could mass produce golems with the ability to understand and follow complex orders and make decisions on their own. He called the facility a Soulforge, and the constructs it produced he named *Warforged* in the hopes that these "living golems" could be used to replace soldiers in the battlefield. The Council, with no hesitation and only one dissenting voice, declared his invention hazardous and seized it. The High Arcanist left the city soon after and is lost to obscurity.

In 1027 LD, a D'Lareme Ironclad Warship, *The Qyru*, was spotted of the northern coast of the continent. Investigators from the Pacificators signaled the ship from afar but when there was no response they approached and boarded the vessel to find out what was going on. The ship appeared abandoned and many of the essential equipment had been removed. Declaring the ship adrift, the Pacificators decided to tow the ship into their military port to strip sizable boat and sell off the materials they didn't need. While towing the warship to port, the tugboat loss control of the larger vessel and it crashed into the docks. From this unfortunate circumstance, the Pacificators contacted the other guilds and converted the large vessel into their new docks.

As the world edged closer to another war, the Fleet Masons became aggressive in their dealings with the council. When the Mystech War began in 1038 LD, the Grand Architect Zlatko Ruknader seized the decommissioned prototype of the Soulforge and began producing soldiers to sell to the warring kingdoms. Specialized *Warforged* were being requisitioned and demand was too high for a single distribution center. With these problems in hand, the Grand Architect sent engineers from the Fleet Masons and artificers from the Helix League to reproduce the Soulforge in the continents, eight in total were spread across Kunnimach evenly. Proceeds from the sale of this hardware was used to finance a new capitol building within the city's Council District as well as replace many of the surrounding structures, to heighten the appeal of the district when foreign dignitaries would visit.

During the resulting tumult that erupted across the world, the Gavaliers took the opportunity to codify a number of social rules and behavioral aspirations. These rules were not intended as laws to be placed upon the populace at large, but to set the framework for the minimum requirements needed for a person to be accepted into the knighthood of Paladins. Near the end of the Mystech War**,**  the Gavaliers had converted Paclethea's fallen *Warforged* soldiers into a kind of "Living Armor" and reconfigured the Soulforge to no longer produce golems, but instead these armors. Properly equipped and trained, the Gavaliers selected ten members of the Paladins to attack a known cabal of necromancers in the village of Myrremort.

After the Mystech War ended, the Circle Salvage wished to improve the growing city's interaction with its surrounding environment. In 1045 LD, they proposed the *Arcology Initiative,* a plan to enhance the metropolis's overall health and reduce the impact that the city was having on the environment with its expansion. Working with the Fleet Masons, Green Priests, and Helix League, the four guilds ensured that the natural flora of the island could continue growing. The amount of growth varied from district to district, showing the most pronounced effect in the expansion of the Circle's mangrove copses. This growth created their iconic canals and transportation systems and the Green Priest's modified forest, that built structures into growing, living trees.

The *Arcology Inititative,* had come a steeper price then originally predicted. This shortfall came from the fact that many of the kingdoms around Kunnimach were artificially increasing the sizes of their treasuries with gold coinage that was less and less pure. At the time, Paclethea trusted that the kingdom's gold was typically valued very similarly across the world and thus accepted all forms of coinage. After this realization the Trade Syndicate began putting together policies that would ensure that Paclethea's gold would maintain its recognized value. These policies bought the coins of visitors or immigrants with Paclethea minted coinage and made it illegal to trade with any currency that didn't have the Trade Syndicate's guild symbol on it. Final completion of this project came at around the conclusion of the *Arcology Initiative* in 1058 LD.

All during the city's history, the Walking Truth served to inform the public of the goings-on within the governing council and in 1062 LD they reported on one of the largest and most infamous scandals to rock the continent. The Walking Truth reported on a break-in of the Gavalier's central temple, Alcanetab , by individuals from the Helix League. After a lengthy interrogation, the members were found out to be assassins from a black ops organization run by the League. Their goal had appeared to be two-fold: They attempted to install messaging stones in the grand court room where the Magnus presided, and more to spy on private meetings of the Gavaliers. The second aim of the operation was to remove Magnus Ironsides from his position. Upon hearing this, Magnus Ironsides resigned from the post, citing that he had planned on retiring soon due to age. In his place, he named the two Paladins that returned from the mission in Myrremort to be his replacement. The Walking Truth saw an increased interest in these stories, and began mass producing newspapers with opinion pieces, news stories, and tabloid rumors that proved to be a major contributor to the guild's coffers.

After the discovery of a new continent, Eumersia, the Green Priests acquired a large dragon-kin specimen from the colonists that had managed to subdue the beast. In 1083 LD, the creature broke free from its restraints in the Priest's Safari District and managed to run amok through the southern districts of Paclethea. Shortly thereafter, a group consisting of Pacificators, Green Priests, and Gavalier Paladins dispatched the thunderous lizard and hauled the body back to the Green Priest's for study. Reperations by the Green Priests were made for any citizens affected by the creature's rampage and the Council passed legislation making the import of Eumersian wildlife illegal until such a time that the Priest's could show that they could contain one of the beasts effectively.

In 1101 LD, an unidentified fanatical group took it upon themselves to sow destruction on the city by destroying large parts of the arcology. Any district that focused primarily on the economic well being of the megalopolis, namely the commercial docks, the three markets, and the Trade Syndicate District were rocked by aggressive arson attacks culminating in the fall of the Trade Syndicate's monument for the Founder Ragiban. Oddly enough, an attack on the Circle Salvage at the same time was thwarted by the guild and no serious damage was done in their guild district.