“Achilles
glared at him and answered, "Fool, prate not to me about covenants. There
can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one
mind, but hate each other out and out and through. Therefore there can be no
understanding between you and me, nor may there be any covenants between us,
till one or other shall fall.”
― The Iliad
― The Iliad
 |
| A Beacon of All That is Good and Just |
1 CY
With his Declaration of Universal Peace, the first Overking was crowned
in Rauxes.
The Aerdy calendar dates from the crowning of the first
overking, Nasran of the House of Cranden, in Rauxes in
CY 1. Proclaiming universal peace, Nasran saw defeated
Suloise and Flan—rebellious humanoid rabbles of no
consequence and no threat to the vast might of Aerdy. [Ivid - 3]
But for all his well-meaning words, all power
was to be his, and all Houses were to bend the knee to his magnificence.
However, it quickly
became clear to all the noble houses of the Aerdi that power in the Great
Kingdom was being centralized in the hands of the rulers of Rauxes, and that
the fortunes of the Great Kingdom would now rest with them. The needs and intrigues
of the Celestial Houses would soon become subordinate to the politics of the
Malachite Throne. [LGG - 23]
Frontiers of Great Kingdom
reach Greyhawk City. The writ of the Overking of Imperial Aerdi extended to
Furyon and Voll (now Veluna), across the northern prairies as far as
Perrenland. For three centuries the Aerdy held a vast empire which fluctuated
in extent but little, until after the third Celestial House (dynasty) when the
borders began to close in upon the original territory of the Aerdi. [Folio - 5]
11 CY
The Flan continued to be pacified. Theirs
was a futile struggle, as the lands of their dominion shrank and shrank, they
retreated into high valleys and the northern barrens. But still they fought
where such resistance could be gathered. Until they threw all their remaining
might into one last stand at Arrowstrand against the ever waxing Aerdian
Kingdom. They were brave. They were valiant. But fate was against them that
day, and they fell. But their fall was glorious. [Ivid]
12 CY
Onnwal under heel, the Kingdom needed a
port from which it could secure the Gearnat Strait, Relmor Bay to the east, and
the Sea of Gearnat and Woolly Bay to the west, and thus lend safety and
security to all who might sail with so it set about constructing Scant.
The peninsula was awarded as
a fief to the herzog of South Province, who constructed the port of Scant in 12
CY to facilitate its colonization by the Aerdi. The port also served as a means
by which to share Onnwal's resources, particularly the silver and platinum
being drawn out the hills, with the markets of Prymp and Chathold. The szeks of
Onnwal who administered the land were originally appointed by the herzog in
Zelradton and were usually favored members of his court. [LGG - 80]
75 CY
Great Houses wax and wane. Sometimes they
even cease to exist, as is the case if there is no heir left to carry on its
name. House Crandon suffered such a fate.
 |
| Formidable Beauty |
Yalranda was accepted as the
only overqueen in Aerdy history because of her prowess in establishing dynastic
marriages between the royal houses of Aerdy and her uncanny gift for forging
alliances (and because of her strange, magical allure and ability to calm angry
or confused nobles). That she died young, at age 40, is one of Aerdy's great
tragedies. [Ivid - 3]
Her eldest son, Manshen,
broke with tradition and took the name of the [Rax-Nyrond] Royal House. This
house was to rule for nearly 400 years. [Ivid - 3]
Historians consider that the
relative peace which existed between Aerdi royal houses for centuries is largely
due to his wisdom building upon the informal understandings developed by
Yalranda. [Ivid - 7]
Why would they think so? One
would imagine the credit for the centuries of peace that followed should have
been laid at the feet of Manshen; but Manshen, for all his diplomatic skill,
and marshal success, was not one of Johydee’s Children.
In the history of Aerdy, a
handful of these gifted and strange people have played crucial roles. Queen
Yalranda is said to have possessed precognitive powers which marked her as one
of the Children. [Ivid - 7]
Johydee's Children
is the name bestowed upon very, very rare Aerdi individuals of exceptional
magical gifts. The name is given for two reasons, not because the individuals
concerned are literally descended from Johydee. First, Queen Johydee of
pre-Devastation history was a priestess of great magical prowess, favored by
the gods themselves. Second, Johydee is known for her famed artifact, the mask,
which allowed her to resist many forms of magic and to take on the appearance
of anyone she chose.[…]
Johydee's Children are
strange, otherworldly people. Either they are wholly aloof, without any
apparent emotion, or else they seem to live in a spiritual world which raises
them far above the cares and feelings of ordinary folk. Either way, those who
know them come to think of them as masked, inscrutable, impossible to
"read." The Children are loners, never understood by others. [Ivid - 7]
98 CY
 |
| The Great Hall of The Great Kingdom |
What
else did the Aerdi wield? Dragons. Against which the nomadic and agrarian Flan,
and the unestablished refugees of the Suel, had little hope of defending
against.
How
do I know this? Because they are known to have at least one of the Orbs of Dragonkind. It
was the least of them, for sure, and there is no record of their having another
in their possession, but is was far more than either the Flan or the Suel had
in theirs.
The Orbs of Dragonkind
Excerpts from a letter from Otto to Johanna:
 |
| Otto |
In the ancient days of the maturing Suloise Empire, starting about
-2400 CY, a great series of wars was fought between the emperor’s forces and
the various monsters that populated the southern Crystalmist Mountains, what we
now call the Hellfurnaces. The emperor, Inzhilem II of the House of
Neheli-Arztin, […] the fifth such among the Suloise to be known as a Mage of
Power […], wished to establish mines deep within the Crystalmists to harvest
rare minerals and crystals for his personal research, though he also [wished to
throw] back some of the humanoid and draconic monsters that periodically raided
the eastern provinces of his empire and reduced their taxable resources.
Imperial armies, even supported by military wizardry, found themselves
hard pressed by their opposition. The great families of red dragons throughout
the southern Crystalmists had enslaved Iimitless numbers of brutish humanoids
for use as sword-fodder, originally to attack one another’s territories or
bring in additional treasures. These armies of orcs and goblinkind were now
turned upon the empire’s soldiers, hurling themselves into battle with great ferocity
and in numbers that well made up for their lack of skill or foresight.
In addition, these dragons were exceedingly skilled at magic; baneful
extraplanar powers supplied them with secret knowledge of spellcasting in
return for great sacrifices of wealth. Worse yet, certain of those red dragons
had undergone sorcerous rituals that infused their living bodies with
shadowstuff from the Demiplane of Shadow, granting them new and devastating powers.
These were the first of the accursed shadow dragons, and they and their
servants built a vast network of caverns, halls, and tunnels beneath the
Crystalmists that exists even to this day. Even the great Vault of the Drow is
said by some sources once to have been the cavern-hall of an elder shadow
dragon of this bygone age, some treasures of which may still lie hidden
thereabouts. (The gods grant us that these treasures yet remain undiscovered by
the drow! [...]
Facing such evil strength, the army commanders sent word to lnzhilem
that the issue was in doubt, and they asked for his personal intervention.
Angered at first that his armies could do no more than hold their own against
mere dragons and orcs, lnzhilem quickly became intrigued by the difficult
problem posed by the Fiery Kings, as the troublesome dragons were known in the
eastern lands. He returned to the capital to remedy the situation.[…]
Inzhilem called upon and gained the direct assistance of the Suel
deity Wee Jas herself, [and] lnzhilem gained sufficient knowledge to produce a
solution.
The emperor elected to construct a limited number of identical
artifacts that would give his forces the ability to confront and destroy the
Fiery Kings. Knowing the great importance that dragons attach to direct eye
contact, which among the most paranoid and wicked of them is regarded as a
challenge resulting in an immediate fight to the death, lnzhilem set upon the
orb as the ideal form for these surpassing devices. Each orb would be carried
into battle by a war-trained wizard and used to subdue, assault, or defend
against all dragons present, while a group of elite soldiers and battle-priests
who accompanied the wizard would move swiftly to finish off the draconic foes;
this group would accompany a regular army, which would carry the battle to the
dragon’s humanoid supporters. […]
Furthermore, lnzhilem planned that each orb would be useful against
every sort of evil dragon known, not merely against the red and shadow
varieties. To accomplish this, lnzhilem was forced to have his entire
collection of caged and charmed dragons in the capital gardens slain by
sorcerous means. A portion of the blood, bone, brain, and spirit of each dragon
was captured and imprisoned in each orb, though the orbs themselves were not
meant to contain true intelligence as such. So strong were the enchantments
with which lnzhilem hoped to fill the orbs that rumors flew that every cruel
dragon on Oerth would fall prey to them, and the evil races of dragonkind would
be wholly exterminated and cast into myth.
It was calculated that eight orbs would be enough to deal with matters
in the east. […] lnzhilem secretly directed the Imperial Congress about the
year -2360 CY to produce such wizards as would be necessary to assist him in
the mighty enchantments that would have to be cast. [History] fails to reveal
all that followed, but one major event in the following years has survived for
the telling. A smoldering feud within the House of Neheli-Arztin flared into
violence in -2354 CY, and lnzhilem II was slain and destroyed beyond recovery
before the struggle had ended. The partial house of Arztin ceased to exist as a
result of retaliation, and the victorious partial house of Neheli kept the
throne. Ubrond Thrideen (“Third-Eye”) became emperor.
A devoted but unremarkable ruler, Ubrond apparently continued the
project to produce the orbs and saw it through to its finish, but considerable
interference took place and the original plan for the project went inexplicably
awry. Eight orbs were still made (the date of their completion has been lost, but
it was after -2350 CY), but the orbs were now of differing sizes and powers,
each oriented toward the control of dragons of differing ages. The reason for
this alteration has never been made clear, as it certainly reduced the
effectiveness of these orbs when used in battle against dragons of ages older
than allowed for by any one orb.
This alteration was not the only one made, and certainly some of these
alterations were performed without the knowledge or approval of the emperor or
his staff. [The] Fiery Kings were able to insinuate agents among the wizards
involved in the project, and without Inzhilem’s ability to grasp the full scope
of the work and oversee the critical details, errors and even curses were
worked into many of the final products. It is clearly known, for instance, that
each Orb of Dragonkind possesses a malign, innate intelligence that attempts to
overwhelm and destroy any user. Furthermore, each orb was given the power to
affect good and neutral dragons as well as evil ones — an obvious addition by
the fiery kings.
Once finished, the eight orbs were given names corresponding to the age
level of the dragons they were meant to fight. In order from the smallest orb
up, they were the Orb of the Hatchling, the Orb of the Wyrmkin, the Orb of the
Dragonette, the Orb of the Dragon, the Orb of the Great Serpent, the Orb of the
Firedrake, the Orb of the Elder Wyrm, and the Orb of the Eternal Grand Dragon.
When not activated, each orb was a light, solid sphere of purest white jade,
completely and elaborately carved with the entwined figures of dragons in
battle with one another. None of these orbs could be damaged in the least by
mundane forces, nor could any beast or animated construct bring them harm. If
there were any means developed for their destruction, they have long been lost.
[These] orbs were delivered to the Suloise armies and brought into
combat with the Fiery Kings, but there is a break in the historical record
here. A curious fragment exists that appears to be a message from a provincial
lord to the emperor — whose name is not given — asking for the latter’s
intervention to “deliver us from those who hold the stolen Globe.” Considerable
strife between army commanders is also noted in some dispatches from the eastern
provinces, with several references to a renegade officer, apparently mad, who
called himself the King of the Fire Kings. It is apparent that one or more of
the orbs either fell into enemy hands, was seized as part of a coup, or
possessed a power or curse that led its user into insanity or rebellion.
[Only] five of the orbs remained in the hands of the Suel until the
time just before the Rain of Colorless Fire [:] the Orb of the Hatchling, the
Orb of the Dragonette, the Orb of the Dragon, the Great Firedrake’s Orb, and
the Orb of the Elder Worm. [Three] had been lost or fallen into the hands of
the enemies of the Suel in the empire’s last days. [...] Despite the slight
renaming of some of the orbs in late-empire records, […] the missing original
orbs [were] the Orb of the Wyrmkin, the Orb of the Great Serpent, and the most
powerful of them all, the Orb of the Eternal Grand Dragon.
After the Rain of Colorless Fire, the historical record is dotted with
appearances of these orbs, but very rarely is the exact identity of each orb
known for certain. Obviously, most or all of the orbs were transported out of
the empire before it was burnt into ashes. One orb, a small one said to be the
size of a man’s fist, was held in Rauxes by the Overkings in the youthful days
of Aerdy, until it was stolen after two centuries by unknown thieves.
Orb of the
Hatchling
This orb, like ail of its kind, confers upon the one who holds it the
ability to converse openly with any dragons within hearing, both understanding
the dragons and being understood by them. Further, the orb upon command casts a
charm that affects a single young dragon aged five years or less, of any type
or scale color, the spell being so potent that the beast finds it difficult, if
not impossible, to resist. Thus the dragon may be led into captivity or slain
from surprise, if action is swift.
This orb has a mind of its own whose thoughts are devoted to wickedness
and revenge. This is the weakest of all the orbs, and its mind is weak as well.
Still, the user must have above-average intelligence and insight to maintain
control over the globe, or else disaster results. This was sufficiently and
tragically proven when Overking Erhart I allowed his eldest son to handle the
Orb of the Hatchling in 98 CY; the orb proved too much for the youth, who
evaded his father and threw himself over a parapet, dying of his injuries that
evening. The orb was recovered in an undamaged state, of course, though it had
fallen eighty feet to a stone-paved courtyard. After this, the orb was locked
away beneath the castle until its theft only fifteen years later.
Beyond its ability to charm young dragons, this orb appears to confer a
low degree of magical protection on the one using it. It also grants the user
the ability to see heat sources in darkness out to forty yards, and it bestows
the spell clairvoyance at least six times a day, at the user’s will. It is thus
useful, but hardly a grand artifact.
Orb of the
Wyrmkin
This remains one of the least known of the eight artifacts of its
family. It likely confers the same communication powers of the next smaller orb
but can charm dragons of slightly older ages. I would guess that it is four
inches across. One of my sources refers to this orb as cursed but does not say
in what way; the Suel hated to give away any secrets that an enemy might use
against them, and they hated to admit to failure. We must pass this one by for
now and move on.
Orb of the
Dragonette
Interestingly, this orb is unmistakably mentioned several times in
ancient Suloise literature. One wizard was said to have used the orb to fly
over the countryside and scout for monsters and other enemies of the Suel
Imperium, which the orb was capable of stunning. This five-inch orb vanished
after the Rain of Colorless Fire and may still lie beneath the ash of the Sea
of Dust.
Orb of the
Dragon
This, like the previous orb, vanished without a trace after the fall of
the Suel Imperium and probably still lies buried there. I discovered little
about It, except that it was rarely used thanks to a flaw in its construction
that killed one commander who used it. It is six inches in diameter.
Orb of the Great
Serpent
Ah! This might have been the orb that Zagig himself used in that great
battle in which he won his own dragon’s hoard. Several legends and tales about
the Orbs of Dragonkind refer to one the size of a man’s head (this one would be
seven inches, so its about right) that could blast enemies with waves of cold
and ice, or turn aside the largest red dragon’s breath. A useful item to the
Suloise long ago, no doubt! This orb is probably still at large somewhere in
the Flanaess, but where, I cannot say.
Orb of the
Firedrake
All the comments I made about the previous orb apply to this one, too.
This one would be eight inches across, but I have found no records to
distinguish it from the other. I assume from the title that it is effective
against red dragons, but who can say?
Orb of the Elder
Wyrm
Orb of the
Eternal Grand Dragon
[From “The Orbs of Dragonkind," by Roger E. Moore. Dragon #230 8-16]
Explain to me again how the Great Kingdom was a beacon of all that was and is Good and Just.
 |
| A Beacon of All That is Good and Just |
One must always give credit where credit is due. This History is made possible primarily by the Imaginings of Gary Gygax and his Old Guard, Lenard Lakofka among them, and the new old guards, Carl Sargant, James Ward, Roger E. Moore. And Erik Mona, Gary Holian, Sean Reynolds, Frederick Weining. The list is interminable. Thanks to Steven Wilson for his GREYCHRONDEX and to Keith Horsfield for his “Chronological History of Eastern Oerik.”
Special thanks to Jason Zavoda for his compiled index, “Greyhawkania,” an invaluable research tool.
The Art:
Otto, by Sam Wood, Living Greyhawk Journal #0, 2001
The Orbs of Dragonkind, by Larry Smith, Dragon Magazine #230, 1996
Sources:
1015 World of Greyhawk Boxed Set, 1983
1064 From the Ashes Boxed Set, 1992
1068 Greyhawk Wars Boxed Set, 1991
2011A Dungeon Masters Guide, 1st Ed., 1979
2023 Greyhawk Adventures Hardback, 1988
9025 World of Greyhawk Folio, 1980
9253 WG8, Fate of Istus, 1989
9399 WGR 5, Iuz the Evil, 1993
9577 The Adventure Begins, 1998
9578 Player’s Guide to Greyhawk, 1998
11374 The Scarlet Brotherhood, 1999
11621 Slavers. 2000
11742 Gazetteer, 2000
11743 Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, 2000
Ivid the Undying, 1998
Dragon Magazine
OJ Oerth Journal, appearing on Greyhawk Online
LGJ et. al.
Greychrondex, Wilson, Steven B.
Greyhawkania, Jason Zavoda
The map of Anna B. Meyer
The map of Anna B. Meyer
