The Streets of Arnas Oran

Dear Queen and Cousin Aellin Arlathol,
As requested, I am enclosing my latest observations on the streets of our great city. I hope that these won't cause you more stress, you have so much to deal with as it is, but as always I feel compelled to offer my most honest views. You have said this is the quality of mine you most admire, hopefully that remains true considering what I have included.
I will visit soon and then we can catch up on more pleasant news.
Always Yours

Llendiir Arlathol

Arnas Oran remains arguably the greatest city on Jannath, as it has been for several millennia. In general it's streets are clean and in serviceable shape, buildings are are in decent repair, and the people are healthy and strong.

The shadows that have begun to grow in the alleys and hidden places of the city in the last decade have continued to grow, however. It is unclear where these intrigues and corruptions originate, but it is certain that they are as much internal as external. As it has been throughout history, the powerful always seek more power, stamping out the will and hope of the weak.

The state was right, I think, in requiring construction and civil projects to be undertaken by guild-approved businesses and pass inspection from city officials. These laws have been in place, however, for more than a century, and have helped to build solid buildings and keep the city in good repair. In the last decade, however, it has become more noticeable that alleys are being neglected, as are sewer connections, with backups in some areas causing persistent smell and disease, and buildings which were once solid, but now in need of repair. Some of these are so bad that accidental deaths and injuries are occurring where portions of walls or roofs are collapsing. More disturbing are the newer buildings which are not surviving long, some only lasting a few years before they are in need of repairs. I have made a few investigations of my own, inspecting construction sites and supply yards, and can see that there is a practice of using poor materials to cut costs in construction. There is also a newer practice of reusing damaged materials in new construction. While this would seem economical, the materials being reused include broken boards, rusted plating, bent or rusted nails and rotted insulating bundles. These things were present in the poorer areas for long years, but have more recently crept toward the major thoroughfares. Much of these things seem to come from within the guilds and businesses themselves. Clearly, city inspection has grown lax to let this pass the regulators.

More disheartening than these trends is the fact that the populace has sensed this general erosion. There is almost a gray palor in the faces of the labor workers. Probably more telling than the escalating number of thefts and brawls, though, is the lack of the amount of children in the streets and around the city. Parents are not letting children out on their own anymore.

Day-time traffic moves as normal, the main roads are safe, and as long as merchant hours persist there are few stragglers and plenty of crowds. After sunset, however, there is a lingering sense of panic among the people on the street. Even when there are no thieves to strike, people are as likely to attack a fellow traveler out of fear as they are to defend against a real mugger. The markets still stay open reasonably late, but that has started to change as well. None of this bodes well for the merchants of the city, who may begin to move out toward the outer areas of the city if the inner wards grow too dangerous.

With all that said, it is not too late to turn the trends around. a traveler still sees window-boxes with flowers and herbs. Trees still stand in places and remain healthy. All the roads are either paved or cobbled and are useable by horses and carts without trouble. With the wealth of the city, it isn't surprising that the number of automotives have exploded in the last few centuries, but especially in the last few decades. It was good that limits and regulations were put on these objects near their inception, or we would have monumental traffic problems as the moving palaces of the self-important would have competed for space on roads clogged with merchants and workers. Still, it might be prudent to limit the airspace usage otherwise the street-level could become so polluted that the air would cause too many illnesses to the working-class. They have a right to be healthy and happy as well, despite the insistences of the rich.

The Great Concordance of the Seven Races, in Brief

As with most worlds and most peoples, the world of Kerithar has had great civilizations and great catastrophes. The rise and fall of powerful nations and powerful individuals often dictates the course of history and affects most life on the planet. The Great Concordance of the Seven Races was the beginning of the modern calendar, and the mark of the end of the Age of Strife. The Seven Races were the humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, metallic dragons, and good-aligned giants. Each sent representatives to the Moors of Shalla to develop a treaty of peace that would bind all seven races. The Concordance came after the Dark Lords of the Arug Empire conquered the lands of Cardush and Starratherii and made war on the whole of the people of Jannath. The Dark Lords were sorcerers and warriors of fell power who were bound to the Demon Lord Urlag’gokul, who was a greater power of primordial evil. The gods of the people of Jannath rebelled against the dread god and his minions, in order to stop his conquest of the Kerithar. The result was the destruction of the Demon Lord, his Dark Lords, and the whole land of Arug.
The alliance of the seven races developed the Great Concordance in hopes that such evil would never rise again. The dark armies of orcs and goblins and their kin were slaughter and thrown back, fleeing to the southeast. Time passed quickly and the Darkness was forgotten, with the exception of periodic raids or invasions.
Peace brought prosperity, and the modern civilizations that are known are the height of achievement for all but the elves in the lands of Jannath. The ancient human kingdoms of Cardush and Starraatherii lay in ruins or buried. These kingdoms were ruled by wise kings and fought bravely against their own dark powers, but were lost to plague and famine. These kingdoms lived for two thousand years before the Great Concordance, and now, five thousand years after it, they seem only myths.
The year is 5041YC, Year of the Concordance, the month of Phalfellow, in the time of summer, and season of flowers. The Concordance recognized each races right to rule itself as it saw fit, as well as establishing respective areas where the races may settle. This recognized the boundaries of several of the surviving nations and settled land disputes that had raged for generations. It established trade rights, common currency exchanges, trade routes not infringing on any of the nations, and individual freedoms.

Magic as Technology in Kerithar

The great lands of the different races are the most settled and successful and thus have experienced the greatest advancements in technology and industry. For some, like the elves, these traditions extend into the vague and distant past. For others, such as the tribes of southern humans or nomad peoples, this is a much more recent occurrence. Rather than use the crude coal and wood burning engines of some gnome and dwarf communities, the greater civilized lands have developed advanced public works using magical aid, built magnificent machines powered by magic, or even built on the steam engines of the gnomes by using magical techniques to produce heat or alchemical substances to boil the water.

This has generally been to the betterment of the various races. While there will always be those who shun magic as evil or technology because of mistrust, in large cities most people have access to clean running water due to sewers and filtration systems and pumps. While general society still uses horses, carts and hard labor, in the greatest cities many often float down streets on flying sedans, carriages that move without a horse, and disks of force allowing passengers to float a dozen feet from the ground as they travel.

The dissemination of magical technology is so great that in the largest and most powerful cities, rulers have come to realize that a healthy and educated population is far more capable than the poor downtrodden of less advanced cities. A population where disease is less common means more young men and women to serve in the army, greater numbers of laborers, and more successful merchants. All of this means money for the state and less crime to deal with. On the other hand, not all nations have benevolent or enlightened rulers. Some city-states capable of feeding and caring for their population through magical technologies instead use their power to increase their control of their people. They force their will and objectives on the populace and crush dissenters. Governments that treat their people this way do so far from the great centers of human learning and power because the threat is always there that a ruler of a powerful and enlightened nation will deem it time to liberate the destitute population from their ruler and take control of the city.

In the largest cities merchant-wizards use golems or other automotans as hired laborers for special projects that require strength far beyond an adult human. They use spells to lift and move large piles of material, send messages between patrons, and even to whisk merchandise instantly to far off locations at the behest of those willing to pay. Sealed or hidden messages can be delivered by magic or via enchanted animals while beasts summoned from other planes can be used as body-guards, investigators or even for more sensual delights.

Magic has even grown to allow the image of famed bards to be transmitted through small objects such as mirrors, to be enjoyed by those a mile away from the performer, reaching hundreds or thousands instead of a handful. Such devices have been used to deliver news to the populace, broadcast proclamations or great speeches, and to allow clerics to bring the teaching of great scholars into poor neighborhoods.

All of this has come from harnessing the primal force of magic in ways that ancient shamans and sorcerers wouldn't have dreamed. Beyond crude fireballs and lightning bolts, these ways of improving the health and well-being, and therefore the happiness and spirit, of a people are more powerful than any one archmage could ever be.

Magic and the Primal Kerithar

The force of magic is very present in Kerithar. It is like a force, a natural element just as fire, air, earth and water are elements, and as a druid might manipulate those energies, an arcane spellcaster would manipulate the energy fields of magic and shape it to his will.

It is known that magic is highly tied to the health of the land and the natural elements, just as the world is a balance of the four primal elements, so too is magic part of the balance. The presence of concentrations of magic, if not carefully structured and channeled causes perversions of natural plantlife, of creatures and of the land itself. These concentrations can cause storms of arcane power where the elements attempt to balance out and the magic to drain away and leaving destruction in their path.

Some races have grown to be able to manage this balance through generations of practice and observation. Elves are the most adept at this as magic runs in their veins and fills their being. Dragons, the most magical creatures of all, are sensitive to this but rarely make the effort to control the force. Some humans are adept at it, having learned through long and hard research. Other humans are the cause of the concentrations and disturbances. Gnomes are adept at creating vast illusions, though they have a more difficult time sensing the disturbances. Dwarves sense the concentrations of magic, although their perception of it is vastly different than others, but their working of great rune carvings and channeling into magical formulas is as powerful as any human magic.

Among all the races are those who are touches by the force in such a fundamental way that they are able to channel it from the inherent power and connection in their blood. In some cultures these people are embraced and celebrated while in others they are seen as anathema and thrown from their community or even killed. These sorcerers stand apart from the more tradition bound ranks of wizards who must learn over musty tomes and grimoires to access the arcane forces. Mistrust and misunderstanding between these two groups is common, especially in cities with strong traditions of magic, but the gods of magic embrace and encourage all expressions of magic.

The Beginning

No one really knows how the world was created. Even the elves and dragons, who are the longest lived of the races and have the oldest memories, can't account for how things came to be. All anyone knows is that at some point the cycles of the great empires began. First came the ancient Jannaar people, and it is their name that has been applied to the continent that they had conquered. No Jannaar are known to survive, their race died out before the rise of the elves, but they were first challenged in the north by giants and in the east and south by dragons. From that and internal struggles their power waned and with that diminution more and more of the land came under the control of others.

Now, giants and dragons by and large had no use for forests and the clearings that had broken the tree line in places or where land had been cleared by the Jannaar for their cities and farmlands. Humans were not much more than grunting brutes living in caves, but a few had been taken in and kept by jannaari and taught knowledge that would let them climb from their caves. These gathered in tribes and began to spread. In the meantime, giants and dragons clashed. The great giant kingdom which had taken hold of most of the north, and the dragons, who had spread from the south up to the farthest ice reaches of the north, fought fierce battles that then would open up vast areas of the trees. During the centuries of their battles, the human tribes around the twin lakes at the center of the continent and to the west along the sea, and the elven clans who had grown strong and powerful after the arrival of other cousin races of elves brought profound arcane magic to compliment their nature magic, formed kingdoms of their own.

These great empires stretched across the northern ares of the continent, sending satellite groups to colonize southern forests, which resulted in several kingdoms that were cut off during later years. Great cities were crafted and amazing works of magic were wrought until lies led to betrayal and then to murder. It seemed as the the entire elven race would fall apart when as suddenly as a falling star, it ended and when those other races living in the shadows of the great empires looked on the elven race, they had disappeared, retreated deep into their hidden forest homes.

It was not long after when the dwarves appeared, having been hidden away in mountain fastnesses and cut off from the outside world, they revealed themselves at last and claimed their own nations in the mountains and hill lands. Their presence came just before the awareness of humans to the presence of the small gnome people who, like dwarves, preferred mining, though in lower hills and with surface communities and friendships with neighbors. After the elven powers disappeared, their most powerful protectors were gone as well. It was this time which was known as one of the dark ages of the gnomes, and they adapted quickly to the use of the illusion magic they'd learned from the elves, and to defend their homes. These appearances were followed by the even more strange migration of the hin people, the halfling races which wandered in tribes and clans from somewhere else. Neither the already established races nor the hin could say which land they'd come from and most scholars decided that they must have come from another world or plane as they didn't resemble any other group in the known world.

Of all the peoples large and small, though, the human peoples showed the most natural adaptation. They moved quickly between surroundings, spreading in a generation to control pieces of lands that had once been the refuge of mythic people. Their magic and technology progressed too and sored to great heights as those deemed worthy learned at the hands of elf masters. Some, however turned to darker ways. These are the ones who would cause one of the single most defining moments in the eons.