History of the South-East, Part 3: A Consolidation of Power (1 to 98 CY)

“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.”
― Homer, The Iliad

A Beacon of All That is Good and Just

The Flanaess had passed into the hands of the Oeridians, or should I say the Aerdi, for it was they who conquered the land, they who ruled it. And it would be their triumphs and tragedies that would set the stage for what would come. It is said that theirs' was a Good and Just empire, a shining beacon of what may be, but that history was written by the Aerdi; for in truth, empires are built upon the backs of the conquered, and that cruelty and suppression are their bricks and mortar. Building an empire is hard; retaining one is harder still. Luckily for the Aerdi, they had tools at their disposal.

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

The ruling house of Aerdy became the Rax-Nyrond House after the death of Nasran's grandson, Tenmeris, in CY 75. Tenmeris's Queen, Yalranda, was a formidable diplomat and mediator who had done much to support her husband and was the true power behind the throne. Tenmeris, it was said, had a brain as small as his flatulent belly was vast.

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

The Great Kingdom was vast and powerful. As powerful as the Suel Imperium? Not likely. As vast? That is debateable. It was certainly not as long lived. But it did conquer and consolidate the lands east of the Nyr Dyv, and at its height it stretched from the Solnor to the Yatels, from the Barrens to the Azure. Neither the Flan nor the Suel could stand against its expansion, for it had artifacts of power at its disposal: Lum the Mad’s Machine, Leuk-O’s Mighty Servant, and the Crown, the Orb and the Scepter of Might. It wielded the Iron Flask of Tuerny the Merciless. But did the Aerdi create these artifacts? No. Surely not. The Suel did. And if the Suel did not, the Oeridians surely took with them the means of their creation with them when they took flight. For the Suel had centuries to delve the mysteries of power and the art of artifice, and the Aerdi had but centuries since their flight from bondage.

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

Oerth, it is well known, has its own Orbs of Dragonkind, but their oral and written history is poorly known even to the learned. Sages have long suspected a connection between these orbs and the long-lost Suel Imperium […]), dead just over ten centuries. [Dragon #230 - 9]

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, the least of the eight orbs, is three inches across and easily fits into a pouch or pocket. As this orb was used in public by the early Aerdy Overkings upon small captive dragons, its powers are clearly established for anyone who researches the matter.

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

Nine inches across, this orb was the largest one in the Suel Imperium at the time of its fall, and it had a black reputation. Though it had great powers by all accounts, and could kill any beast with but a word from the user, tales have filtered down that the orb was alive in some way and demanded blood for its favors. This is very possible, as I have seen notes that convicted criminals were attached to the army unit to which this orb was assigned, but no provisions were sent along for the prisoners beyond food for a few days. Were they executed by the orb or its user? It is possible. Even the commanders were loathe to use this device in the face of attacks by dragons, so its evil nature must have been great.

Orb of the Eternal Grand Dragon

I would love to say that I know something about this orb, but oddly even the Suloise records are sparse about it, and the Suloise loved to brag when they had something worth bragging about. There is a note or two to the effect that this largest of all orbs, ten inches across, was kept securely locked away most of the time, but this is understandable if it was terribly powerful. It is curious, however, that there is no mention of its use during any battle.

[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:

Whispers by danteobliviate

Beauty-Beneath by justingedak

The-Dragon-market by jermilex

Otto, by Sam Wood, Living Greyhawk Journal #0, 2001

The Orbs of Dragonkind, by Larry Smith, Dragon Magazine #230, 1996

Wings-of-Black by sinistereternity

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