Urizen history

Revision as of 09:08, 26 July 2012

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Centuries ago, humans ascended the mountains of Morrow to move away from the orcs that where beginning to dominate the fertile plains. When they reached the peaks, they found ruins that were clearly not of human origin. They discovered no remnants of the original inhabitants, nor any suggestion that they had been destroyed in a catastrophe. There were simply great, empty halls carved into several of the most magically attractive peaks.

These echoing galleries formed the heart of the first half-dozen Urizen spires, and remain an enduring mystery that is still debated by scholars. The people who made these galleries were probably humanoid, albeit slightly larger than humans, and spent a lot of time studying the night sky. These forerunners had an advanced grasp of the lore of the Realms of Day and Night, but no apparent concept of the other four Realms.

Initially the main appeal of their mountainous home was their defensibility, but the mountains were also places with a strong natural aura of magical power. In addition to many locations where mana could be harvested, the mountains were rich in mineral wealth that helped their wizards and smiths create numerous wonders. They used the magic to ameliorate the problems of creating dwellings and producing food on the inhospitable mountains. As the decades passed, the people developed to become the Urizen.

The Urizen Spring rituals for increasing fertility and food were taken to the Navarr by an Urizen mage called Thorn. The assumption was that Thorn and the Navarr would use the magic in the same way the Urizen did. Instead the Navarr attempted the ritual on an enormous scale, using the help of Spring Eternals they had previously considered friendly to their cause. When the Eternals betrayed the Navarr, Thorn’s ritual failed disastrously, creating or summoning entities called the Vallorn that quickly occupied every Navarr city. At the time, many Urizen blamed themselves for the disaster, believing that it might have been averted if they had not left the Navarr to attempt the spell without their guidance. The belief that if you begin something then you must see it through to completion remains potent to this day; to abdicate responsibility to others is to court disaster.

When the Empire was formed, the Urizen refused the Empress’ entreaties to join. The First Empress was a powerful warrior and an inspirational general, but the Urizen mages predicted disaster if their nation joined an Empire led by a conqueror. After the death of the Empress, her successor renewed negotiations with the Urizen who were impressed by his commitment to a rational, ordered society. They agreed to join, and helped to create the Conclave as a body of representation for every magician, a body that could share magical learning and ensure that it was used to the benefit of the Empire rather than its detriment.

Urizen benefited strongly from joining the Empire. Food imported from the Marches allowed the spires to grow and freed people to devote more time to training and study allowing Urizen to grow into the nation of magicians and scholars it is today.

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-The Urizen are contemporaries of the Navarr, the Ssuaq and Kallavesi of Wintermark and the Ushka of Varushka. As with the other early human inhabitants of the land that is now the Empire, they occupied out-of-the way locations that were unappealing to the orcs who ruled the fertile lowlands. While the Navarr retreated into dense forests, the Urizen chose to live in the mountains.
+Centuries ago, humans ascended the mountains of Morrow to move away from the orcs that where beginning to dominate the fertile plains. When they reached the peaks, they found ruins that were clearly not of human origin. They discovered no remnants of the original inhabitants, nor any suggestion that they had been destroyed in a catastrophe. There were simply great, empty halls carved into several of the most magically attractive peaks.
-Initially the main appeal of their mountainous home was their defensibility, but they also chose this home because the mountains were places with a strong natural aura of magical power. In addition to many locations where mana could be harvested, the mountains were rich in mineral wealth that helped their wizards and smiths create numerous wonders.
+These echoing galleries formed the heart of the first half-dozen Urizen spires, and remain an enduring mystery that is still debated by scholars. The people who made these galleries were probably humanoid, albeit slightly larger than humans, and spent a lot of time studying the night sky. These forerunners had an advanced grasp of the lore of the Realms of Day and Night, but no apparent concept of the other four Realms.
-Mountains are generally not hospitable environments; the Urizen wizards helped to shape the mountains to be more friendly. They improved food supplies, helped to carve the early Citadels out of the stone of the mountains, and generally helped their communities survive in the dangerous peaks. It seemed natural that the wizards became the leaders of their communities.
+Initially the main appeal of their mountainous home was their defensibility, but the mountains were also places with a strong natural aura of magical power. In addition to many locations where mana could be harvested, the mountains were rich in mineral wealth that helped their wizards and smiths create numerous wonders. They used the magic to ameliorate the problems of creating dwellings and producing food on the inhospitable mountains. As the decades passed, the people developed to become the Urizen.
-When they reached the peaks, the first Urizen settlers reported ruins that were clearly not of human origin. They discovered no remnants of the original inhabitants, nor any suggestion that they had been destroyed in a catastrophe. There were simply great, empty halls carved into several of the most magically attractive peaks. These echoing galleries formed the heart of the first half-dozen Urizen citadels, and remain an enduring mystery that is still debated by scholars.
+The Urizen Spring rituals for increasing fertility and food were taken to the Navarr by an Urizen mage called Thorn. The assumption was that Thorn and the Navarr would use the magic in the same way the Urizen did. Instead the Navarr attempted the ritual on an enormous scale, using the help of Spring Eternals they had previously considered friendly to their cause. When the Eternals betrayed the Navarr, Thorn’s ritual failed disastrously, creating or summoning entities called the Vallorn that quickly occupied every Navarr city. At the time, many Urizen blamed themselves for the disaster, believing that it might have been averted if they had not left the Navarr to attempt the spell without their guidance. The belief that if you begin something then you must see it through to completion remains potent to this day; to abdicate responsibility to others is to court disaster.
-The Urizen have estimated that the people who made these galleries were probably humanoid, built on a larger scale than humans, and spent a lot of time studying the night sky. These forerunners had an advanced grasp of the lore of the Realms of Day and Night, but no apparent concept of the other four Realms.
+When the Empire was formed, the Urizen refused the Empress’ entreaties to join. The First Empress was a powerful warrior and an inspirational general, but the Urizen mages predicted disaster if their nation joined an Empire led by a conqueror. After the death of the Empress, her successor renewed negotiations with the Urizen who were impressed by his commitment to a rational, ordered society. They agreed to join, and helped to create the Conclave as a body of representation for every magician, a body that could share magical learning and ensure that it was used to the benefit of the Empire rather than its detriment.
-According to history, a magician called Thorn developed a ritual that would greatly improve food production by creating a permanent link to the Realm of Spring. The Urizen were intrigued, but following a great deal of discussion agreed that it would be more effective to offer the ritual to the forest-dwelling Navarr. It was reasoned that if the Navarr had more food they would be able to greatly increase their population, making them effective weapons against the orcs that occupied the lowlands and occasionally troubled the Urizen Citadels. The result of this strategy was the destruction of the Navarr people. Thorn’s ritual failed disastrously, creating or summoning entities called the Vallorn that quickly occupied every Navarr city.
-The general consensus among the Urizen is that either the Navarr wizards missed some intricate subtlety of the magic, or that the ritual was fundamentally flawed in some way. The Urizen still feel some measure of cultural responsibility for this magical disaster.
-<label type="warning">We discussed the idea that the Urizen built the beacon that attracted the Highborn, and that one of them was there to meet them when they arrived. At the same time the Navarr are sending out “dreams” to attract people to fight the orcs. This may be too pat, it might be secret history plot to discuss later, or it might be something we include in the three briefs.</label>
-When the first wave of human invaders arrived to fight the orcs, the Urizen made tentative contact with them and worked cautiously to shape them. They were treated with some suspicion, and there were both successes and failures. The human settlers seemed as interested in squabbling among themselves as in fighting the orcs. Several historical leaders had Urizen advisors or teachers, but they tended to stay in the background rather than seek adulation for themselves.
-Urizen joined the Empire late. They quickly identified the First Empress as a powerful and influential figure, but they were cautious about joining the other Nations. They predicted that the entire enterprise would be a disaster, and that the nascent Empire would dissolve into bitter infighting and revolution as soon as the First Empress died. Instead, the Empress left a strong Empire behind, and her politically savvy successor helped to consolidate and cement the structures that keep the Nations united.
+Urizen benefited strongly from joining the Empire. Food imported from the Marches allowed the spires to grow and freed people to devote more time to training and study allowing Urizen to grow into the nation of magicians and scholars it is today.
-One area where the Empire was lacking, however, was in the proper use of magical resources. While there were magicians in the various Nations they were generally too concerned with personal projects or conflicts to form an effective support to the Empire. In some cases they were even exploited by their mundane neighbours, or treated with great suspicion and blamed for every misfortune. Worse there was a very real chance that some ritual group could accidentally or intentionally touch off a magical cataclysm that would result in massive loss of life. Even if the Empire avoided that, another movement in Urizen society became concerned that the warlike Nations would never tolerate an independent yet powerful Nation such as Urizen on its southern border, and that conflict – terrible, destructive conflict – would become inevitable.
-<label type="warning">This seems weak – but I’m not sure about creating a magical calamity to threaten the empire that the Urizen save it from. Perhaps we could work the volodny into this?</label>
-After extensive debate a delegation of the Urizen Spires approached the First Emperor and asked to be allowed to join the Empire. In return for acceptance, they would help to set up a body of representation for every magician, a body that could ensure that magic were used to the benefit of the Empire rather than its detriment – the Conclave.
-Within a few decades it became clear that the advantages of being an Imperial Nation went far beyond what had been predicted. Food from the Marches allowed the Urizen population to expand dramatically, and freed their peasent class from the dreadful tedium of herding goats and wrestling with their crops. Some of the farming classes moved to more hospitable environments, but most simply abandoned their farms and focused on studies that had been denied them by the need to produce food.
-Within a few generations, the Urizen had become a specialised Nation of scholars and magicians.
 [[Category:Nations]]
 [[Category:Urizen]]

Urizen history

Revision as of 09:08, 26 July 2012

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