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| Type | Port City |
|---|---|
| Government | Constitutional Democracy |
| Location | Isonhound |
| Inhabiting Race | Various, mostly non-humans |
Inergos was a port city and major trade hub on a small island between the southern tip of Isonhound and the northern tip of Pteris. It was destroyed in 80 BR by the ten newly created Mutated Chimeras.
History[edit | edit source]
Inergos was founded at some point in Prehistory, though its initially small size and the lack of written record make it nigh-impossible to say when exactly. For a time, it was a small and simple maritime trade port, with not much other than a group of docks and utilitarian accommodations for travelers and traders passing through.
However, in the infancy of their appearance, humans had just begun to draw their quills across parchment to bring the concept of time and record to the Quelmar Realm, creating history as we know it. In light of this invention, many races came together to have a voice in this new tangible concept of history, not to mention keeping an eye on this curious new race of humans. Soon, this confluence of races and cultures led to the flourishing of one of Quelmar’s first great cities: the port city of Inergos.
It was a somewhat tenuous union between the races, but one that proved to be quite prolific, with an explosion of growth over the years to transform a glorified shipyard into a de facto global capital city. Its location proved to be crucial to this growth: easy access by ocean, as well as some degree of political and climate neutrality as an island between the cold of Isonhound and the heat of Pteris.
Through this new centralized power at Inergos, trade prospered, alliances were forced, cultures mingled, political power changed hands at the slightest provocation, and above all, new explorations and discoveries were rampant regarding magic – still wild, untamed, and fickle from its infusion by the Gods into the planar Weave. For the most part, the races were able to pool their strength and powers together to create great works: to protect, elevate, and advance the mortal races of the world. To help achieve this, the Inergosian Council was formed, with one representative each from the nine most populous and/or politically influential races present in Inergos.
Notable Events[edit | edit source]
On The Precipice Of History (Tales of Quelmar)[edit | edit source]
In the year 80BR, an Inergosian scouting party was patrolling in the Astral Sea when they came across a tiny crack in the plane. Through this rift that lasted only moments, they were able to see a demiplane containing a bone-chilling sight: the three elven Capella Brothers, previously exiled from Inergos for dangerous magical experimentation, had amassed an army of dozens of titans that resembled the World Breaker, albeit as undead abominations with unpredictable mutations. Furthermore, this terrifying scene was bathed in the glow of an enormous, writhing violet flame burning in a brazier atop a huge stone tower, illuminating the brothers as they worked on some sort of teleportation magic.
The scouting party immediately returned to Inergos, and the leader of the scouts, a brass dragon called Zaana'narimi, made haste to report to the Inergosian Council. She concluded that the presence of the teleportation magic implied that this army was an invasion force against Inergos. There was hesitation from some Councilmembers regarding a response to the report; disbelief, fear, and denial stemmed from the implausibility of such an overwhelmingly powerful threat emerging so suddenly. But with help from the six Champions of Inergos, the Council was convinced to act swiftly and decisively.
The Champions were authorized to marshal the city's forces, moving quickly to shore up defenses against an imminent monstrous invasion. By far the most extreme measure taken was the Council's decision to bestow upon the Champions a divine blessing of power. Inergos' most powerful secret weapon was a significant fraction of a Divine Spark, its constituent parts pooled together by the various races of the Council as both a show of good faith and as a last resort in the face of a true threat. Since it was not a Spark in whole, this power would not have been enough to enable true apotheosis in any one being, but even divided among the six Champions it resulted in a surge of energy and strength akin to a Demigod.
No sooner were preparations completed than a deep and disturbing vibration rippled through the city, and a gigantic portal was torn in space within the city limits, resembling the intense flames from the vision of the brazier. Emerging from the portal were two of the titanic undead Tarrasque aberrations, one with extra legs and the other with a wicked gleam in its eyes. The former charged forward with unnatural speed to the far side of the city, confronted by the majority of the city's forces and an animated Colossus statue, and the six Champions were left to focus on the latter.
An epic battle ensued, complicated by the ongoing destruction of the city around them, the monster's maddeningly tough hide and overwhelming strength, and its mutated ability to petrify other creatures with its terrible gaze. Overcoming being swallowed and subsequently regurgitated, Darya Storm, the Triton paladin, struck the final blow with a Banishing Smite. With its corrupt reanimating energies being banished back toward the portal, and its stolen physical form still tied to the Material plane, the already unstable abomination was completely ripped apart.
The Champions had only a brief respite after the battle. The two monsters were defeated, yes, but the sinister portal was still open, and the threat of a continued assault from the dozens of remaining False World Breakers was too dire to ignore. The six Champions stepped through the portal to stop the invasion at its source, as they hurtled on the current of twisted energies through to the other side of unknown space.
Emerging into the corrupted demiplane, the Champions saw the horror with their own eyes: the dark stone tower, the brazier at its crown containing the living purple flame being fueled by bursts of fire, ice, lightning, and other elemental energies from below, and the faint silhouettes of the Capella Brothers in a ring around it. Shortly afterward, the portal deactivated, and the Brothers' voices echoed out in tandem, revealing that they were expecting the arrival of the Champions, but offering a place at the side of their "Master" if they surrendered their divine power; the invasion had been a trap all along. After the Champions' refusal, the Brothers combined their magical energy to create and inhabit a large elven figure, an aberration known as the Triumvirate. This powerful Triumvirate then mounted a winged World Breaker mutant that suddenly descended from the darkness overhead, which had eyes crackling with disintegrating energies in addition to its wings, and launched an attack on the Champions.
The battle was harrowing, as summoned meteors plummeted from above, disintegrating beams fired from the eyes of the winged undead titan, and a flurry of powerful weapons and spells flew at their foes, as life and death hung in the balance. But finally, the champions were able to vanquish the Triumvirate and emerge victorious... or so they thought. Unfortunately, it was in this moment that the true trap was sprung.
Crying out to their master in the flame, the bodies of the Brothers were drawn into it and disappeared from sight, their arcane energy absorbed. The roaring flame then took the form of a gigantic hand with an eye at its core - the aspect of Vecna. Hundreds of tendrils launched from the hand, sapping both the necrotic energy from the unstable undead Tarrasques, as well as ripping away the Divine Spark energy gifted to the six Champions. The army of aberrations crumbled into dust, but the Champions could only witness in horror as Vecna, with an evil and rattling laughter, combined the accumulated energies and unleashed them straight down into the tower. For an instant, they could see traces of the energies spiderwebbed across the exterior tower, just before it erupted in a cataclysmic shockwave that launched them off their feet and shook the very foundations of the demiplane itself.
Exhausted, drained, collapsed on the ground, and teetering on the brink of unconsciousness, the six Champions saw nightmarish creatures emerge from the dust and rubble. Ten chimeras that had been contained within were roaring and writhing in the ruins of the tower. Surging energies - arcane, necrotic, and divine combined - arced across their bodies and transformed them into hulking, multi-headed horrors right before the Champions' eyes. Finally they stood, these ten living calamities - ruinous, uncontrollable, stable. The Mutated Chimeras were born.
The Champions were powerless to stop the Mutated Chimeras as they raced past toward a newly reactivated portal. The demiplane was rapidly collapsing, the reality around them fraying at the edges and tumbling into nothingness. They were unable to all make it over to the shrinking portal in their weakened state, so the Rock Gnome wizard, Holly Willowsteel, desperately attempted to Plane Shift them all back home. Unfortunately, between her exhaustion and the dissolving reality of space around them, the spell instead shunted them through pathways unknown and unexpected into... the Astral Sea.
Time meandered by unmeasured as the Champions floated in the void of the Astral Sea. Bereft of direction and the gift of divine power, they could do nothing but remain living flotsam, the grief of their failure at odds with the otherworldly beauty of the Astral Sea. Eventually, they were discovered and rescued by Zaana'narimi, who had been searching for them using astral projection. She guided them through a silver Color Pool and at long last returned home.
However, the home they returned to was a far cry from the one they had left. Indeed, it took them a while to recognize that they were in fact looking at Inergos, or what was left of it. Lanes of ruin lay before them, carved and blasted by fire, acid, lightning, and frost from the Chimeras' wrath, and punctuated by the craterous footsteps of the Tarrasque aberrations. The city they once knew was gone, replaced by rubble, ash, and death.
Selena the Silver, Speaker of the Council, emerged from a nearby tent, who had apparently been awaiting and hoping for their return for an entire month. She listened to the Champions' account of what transpired in the demiplane, shaken to her core from the news of Vecna's involvement. She reassured them, admitting that everyone in Inergos was tricked by Vecna's and the Capellas' machinations, and reminding them there was still a great accomplishment in stopping the utter ruin the undead World Breakers would have brought to all of Quelmar.
With a renewed fire in her eyes, Selena swore to the Champions that neither the ones responsible for this evil, nor their monstrous creations, would get away with this, and she teleported them all away from the ruins of Inergos. The Hunt was on.
Notable Figures[edit | edit source]
- The Champions of Inergos: A group of six people chosen by the Inergosian Council as an experimental endeavor to have a peacekeeping force for the city and the council's will. These Champions were empowered to combat the False World Breaker invasion in 80BR. The Champions were:
- The Inergosian Council: A council of nine, chosen to represent the interests of their respective races and work for the common good of all, with a Speaker of the Council to facilitate meetings and communicate their decisions to the public. The Speaker and Councilmembers were:
- Zaana'narimi: A powerful brass dragon who served as the captain of the primary Inergosian Scout team. She was the one who initially discovered the impending threat of the False Worldbreaker invasion.
- The Capella Brothers: The three elven Capella brothers - Asaug, Hygewald, and Durmundri - were originally involved in the efforts toward magical research in the earlier BR years of Inergos' expansion. They were exiled after certain unsavory experiments and research regarding evil and forbidden magics, but returned with an army of undead mutant Tarrasque abominations to invade the city in 80BR.
- Other Races: The other races that were present in varying numbers in or around Inergos by the time of its destruction, but not directly represented on the Council, were:
