OK -- here's the second draft. But first, please vote in the poll I set up to clarify who Lady Kelvin is.
And now, the history (draft #2):
Legend of the Enorian Lake and Mountains
At the beginning of time when the world was covered by the ocean, fishes larger than anyone can imagine lived in shining cities of shells beneath the sea. These realms existed for countless ages until the gods raised up the world from the ocean.
While most of the fishes abandoned their cities and fled to the outer ocean, Enoria the Perch was too proud of her beautiful castle with its grey rock spires. And so she swallowed a thousand thousand gallons of water and when she was raised onto the land, she spat it out and dove into the lake it made.
When Enoria dove into her new home, she was greatly displeased to discover that the thousand thousands gallons of water she had swallowed had contained all manner of creatures: seaweed, silkfish, anemones, barnacles, crabs and even other fishes. Seeking always to make the lake her own dominion, Enoria spends her life far beneath the surface, devouring the interlopers who stole away in her belly.
It is said by some mariners that Enoria still emerges on rare occasions from beneath the surface of the lake to gaze upon the shattered remnants of her castle. It is for this reason that attracts a small number of worshippers who pray to her for bountiful catches of fish from the lake and in exchange protect the secret of her lair beneath the water.
Legend of the Founding
Year of Mor 1-70
For as long as anyone can remember, the dwarves of Irkulngoravrom have been at war with the Derro of Dvoriathroglim, each vying to dominate the endless caverns beneath the Enorian Mountains. Fortunately for those who live in the light of day, much of this war has taken place in the deep places of the earth where their two realms converge.
Nevertheless, the people of Enheim have, for many years, lived in fear of the Derro's slave raiders: orcs, bugbears, gnolls and most often savage human tribes of the Enorian Mountains. Yet despite the raids, a tiny scattered human population has eked out an existence in the narrow realm of Enheim. For many centuries, the people of Enheim lived a marginal life, scratching out an existence either as pastoralists along the Milvius River valley, herding various animals or, more often, as fisherfolk along the shores of Lake Enoria.
One day, many hundreds of years ago, a boy named Mor was born in a small fishing village in the foothills of the Enorian Mountains. It is said that Mor's mother died in child birth and his father was a cruel man who sold his son to Derro slavers.
Raised as a glorified draft animal under the capricious and cruel yolk of the Derro, Mor nonetheless realized he had a great destiny. As one of the mining slaves, he quickly learned many of the Derro secrets of mining, smithing and masonry and came to be respected by his fellow slaves who included men, giants, gnomes, goblinoids and dwarves from Dvoriathroglim.
In particular, Mor befriended Erekh, a barbarian of the Enorian Mountain tribes; where Mor was prized by the Derro for his stone cunning and artisanal skill, Erekh was prized for his extraordinary strength and endurance which rivaled that of the hill giants who served as expensive and slothful occasional workers when feats of great strength were required.
One day, while working in the mines, there was a great cave-in in which Mor was believed to have been killed, under thousands of tons of stone. But somehow, by luck, great strength or magic art, Mor and Erekh escaped and travelled through long-forgotten passages to the surface.
Mor and Erekh thanked the gods for their great fortune in allowing them to escape and set off home. But when Mor arrived in Enheim, he found the whole land laid waste by the Derro's mercenaries and his own village reduced to ash. Mor was filled with grief and inconsolable; nevertheless, Erekh would not abandon him and instead brought him home to his tribe.
After grieving for seven weeks, Mor was visited in his sleep by a vision of Erekh leading a great army to smash the Derro kingdom. When he awoke he told his dream to the wise man of the village who told Mor that he had himself been visited by the very same dream that night; so it was with everyone in the tribe. And so it was decreed that Erekh would lead the tribe to war. Over the next seven years, he traveled to all the divers lands from which his fellow slaves had been taken and raised a great army of many races and lands including many dwarves from the kingdom of Irkulngoravrom who were eager to strike a decisive blow against their ancient enemies.
After seven years of marching, the army arrived at the gates of Dvoriathroglim and fought a great field against cunning and bloodthirsty mercenaries of the Derro. But after a seven year siege, the army smashed through the stone gates of the kingdom and met the evil dwarf kin in battle. But even as he surrendered, the Derro king pierced Erekh with a poisoned dagger and the great warrior died even as victory had been won. But the general's sacrifice was not in vain. Kin long sundered were reunited and Mor took from Derro a great horde they had collected through tribute as well as the treasures from their mines.
Even as he mourned for his longtime companion the night after the final battle, Mor was again visited by a prophetic dream -- a dream that he would build a great city wherever three eagles alighted on a cypress tree. While most of the slaves and the army returned to their homes, many like Mor had no home to which to return. It is said that following his dream, Mor and his followers marched for seven long years until they came to an island in the Milvius River across from the tiny fishing village of Vollita. On this island stood a single cypress; as Mor looked out upon the isle, three eagles alighted on the tree before his eyes.
It is on the precise site that Mor and his followers built their city (of course the cypress tree still remains at the centre of the city in the courtyard of Mor's citadel), aided by gnomes, giants and dwarves whose knowledge and strength allowed the construction of the many wondrous structures in the city and, of course, its nigh-impenetrable walls. But when the city was completed, instead of setting himself on its new bronze throne, he sent to the hill tribes of the Enorian Mountains for Erekh's son whom he placed on the ducal throne in honour of his father. And for the years that remained to him, Mor served as the castellan of Erekh, son of Erekh.
After his death, Mor was granted a place amongst the gods from whence he used, on occasion, to advise the city's first thirty-one dukes before their line came to an end.
The Clay Years
Year of Mor 71-169
Shortly after Mor's End was built, the dwarvish masons who had served Mor discovered that the soil west of the city was made of the richest, finest clays ranging in colour from a deep ochre to a strange violet clay whose like they had never before seen. The claybed rich, pure and spanned a great area. And so the dwarves traveled north with merchants and court officials to Irkulngoravrom with samples of the clay. After a time, Mor's End concluded a rich trade agreement with the dwarves of the Enorian Mountains who even added a trading post to Kul Moren (the human contraction of a much longer dwarven name), their mine located closest to human lands.
The combination of the clay trade, the new city's impressive guard and the defeat of the Derro led to a period of great prosperity and growth for Enoria and Mor's End. Forests were cleared, swamps were drained and the fishermen and herders were joined by farmers, many of whom were fleeing men called the Sand Barbarians far to the south.
But after a time, the scattered and defeated orcs, bugbears, gnolls and other evil creatures also returned to Enoria. Lacking the resources and direction of their former masters they nonetheless made fearsome raiders who again and again harried the fledgling town and surrounding countryside. They burned crops and smashed fishing boats; three times, the city had to pay them a ransom to be spared. Often, also, the city paid tribute to the dwarves of Kul Moren or the barbarian mountain tribes to defend it against the ravages of orcs and their allies.
Yet despite all the city's efforts, a great hobgoblin chieftan Zomb, who had united many of the tribes, breached the walls one summer and his host poured into the city. Many citizens fled downstream in fishing boats and makeshift rafts while others fled across the plain; still others were taken away in chains by the raiders while many dwarves secreted themselves in the underground dwellings they had been carving out beneath the city. But most of the city's population were put to the sword. It is in this battle that the last Erekhson duke died without a male heir.
It was in this flight that a party of gnomes was rescued by a fleet of perch fishers. Their fear of orcish spears and hobgoblin swords overwhelmed their historic fear of water. During their three weeks on Lake Enoria, they first saw the water silk and conceived of its value.
The Silk Years
The Year of Mor 170-322
Fortunately, whatever unity Zomb instilled in the disparate humanoids who fought under his red skull banner quickly evaporated as they sacked the city, burning, raping and murdering. And when winter came, many returned to their homelands in the mountains while others set upon eachother in petty squabbles over loot.
Thus, when the Castellan Bruch who had escaped the sack returned with many of the scattered inhabitants and a disciplined force of dwarves from Kul Moren, the invaders were soon driven away.
Bruch then oversaw the reconstruction of the city, a long labour of repairing the breached walls and building new ones; most of the wooden buildings had been destroyed by the invaders and the stone structures damaged. But the work was made easier by the discovery of the dwarves who had discovered a store of ancient quarried stone in the natural caverns they had found beneath the city. The stone was of a kind not found in the Enorian Mountains and proved sturdy enough to fashion new walls. Word also quickly spread of the discovery of the gnomish water silk and soon, new merchants appeared in the city, eager to buy a place in the city's hierarchy by aiding in the reconstruction.
The Silk Years were a prosperous time. No longer did the merchants of Mor's End have to travel to Kul Moren to sell their wares (though many still did); now, merchants came from far off lands to buy water silk and violet clay and carried them off in their caravans. Still other merchants with only a passing interest in the clay and silk set up a brisk transit trade now that Enoria was safe enough for their caravans. These new merchants came not only from the North but from the East and West as well, making Mor's End a favoured crossing of the River Milvius. Some loremasters claim that in fact the isle on which the cypress tree stands had in ages past been a great crossroads of ancient caravan routes in the days before Enoria became a wilderness shunned by civilized men.
It is in these years that the south walls of the city were built and the fishing village of Vollita incorporated. Although not built with the great craft of Mor's original walls or the extraordinary stone discovered beneath the city, the southern walls were nonetheless very strong and more beautiful and ornate than the original walls.
During the Silk Years, a new line of dukes (from the house Kelvin) ruled, aided by a castellan. So prosperous was the city that it again grew beyond its walls and a southeastern section was added. Its great wealth also allowed the duke to pay tribute levied by the various mountain tribes and ransoms to hostile armies; so proficient was the castellan at manipulating the tribes that after a time, the castellans began paying tribes to attack one another and thus prevent any of them accumulating sufficient strength to assail the city.
It was in these early years of the Kelvins that the dwarves abandoned their subterranean dwellings beneath the city and instead built a dwarvish quarter of heavy windowless stone houses. They gave no explanation of their abandonment of their former homes and those gnomes and impoverished humans who sought to take up residence in their abandoned dwellings found that the entrances to the undercity had been sealed.
But the duke and castellan were too cunning for one year, an especially ambitious and cunning barbarian leader spent his tribute on hiring a team of assassins to kill the castellan, the duke and their heirs.
In what is called the Night of Invisible Blades, a group of magic-wielding assassins stole into the palace one night and killed all those inside, save for one person, the grandmother (and former regent) of the duke; she is the second ruling Lady Kelvin since the beginning of the Silk Years.
The Present Day
The Year of Mor 323-
The Cult of Mor
Domains: Earth, War, Protection
Alignment: Neutral Good
Clerics: Knowledge - Architecture & Engineering, Craft - Stonemasonry, Profession - Miner are available as class skills; also Clerics with sufficient intelligence can gain Dwarvish as a bonus language if appropriate.
The Cult of Enoria
Domains: Water, Animal, Trickery
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Clerics: Swim, Craft - Net, Profession - Fisher available as class skills; also Clerics with sufficient intelligence can gain Aquan as a bonus language if appropriate.
