the founder of the Dynastic system. When marauding brigands
attempted to sack the fledgling city’ the work-gangs, under the
direction of Ran Honeth, dropped their tools, took up their weapons, and,
because of their superior discipline, easily drove them off. Thus the
idea of Empire was born. Once the work-gangs had tasted victory’
the rest was simple. In a series of lightning moves, Ran Honeth
consolidated his control over the entire Tolnedran people and
established order, peace and security throughout the entire central plain.
THE FIRST HONETHITE DYNASTY 815-1373
(558 years, 23 Emperors)*
* The dynasties provided a convenient, methodical way to establish the chronology. That
was their main purpose, but the frictions between the great families also proved very
useful.
iII
The major efforts of the FIRST HONETHITE DYNASTY were directed
at the extension of the northern boundary of Tolnedra to the River
Arend, the establishment of the port-fortresses at Tol Vordue and Tol
Horb, and, of course, the building of the north dike on the Nedrane
River. When the last Emperor, Ran Honeth XXHI, died without issue,
the Empire was thrown into consternation.
THE FIRST VORDUVIAN DYNASTY 1373-1692
(319 years, 16 Emperors)
By the sheerest good fortune, the commander of the Imperial
garrison at Tol Vordue – and, incidentally, the primary civil official as
well – was a strong-minded, talented man who, less from ambition
than from a powerful sense of personal responsibility’ marched to
Tol Honeth at the head of his legions to assume the Throne. It was at
that time that the procedure for orderly Dynastic succession was
established, thus saving the Empire from disintegration.
The Council of Advisors, a broad-based group of representatives
from all districts of the Empire, gathered in emergency session and
concluded that the commander of the Tol Vordue garrison was going
to be the next Emperor with or without their consent, and they
therefore carried his name to the Temple of Nedra where the priests
consulted with the God himself.
Note Popular superstition has it that in the early years of the Empire Nedra
was physically present in the temple, sustained and served by the
priesthood. Modern theologians, however, have discounted this and
hold the more rational view that, while Nedra has always been with
us in Spirit, his physical presence at any time in our long history is
incapable of substantiation.
When the priests emerged from the temple with the blessings of
Nedra upon Ran Vordue I, the FIRST VORDUVIAN DYNASTY was
established, and the orderly succession was preserved.
The Vorduvians were vigorous and energetic Emperors, and they
soon turned their attention to the lands south of Nedrane. Early in
the Dynasty’ our southern border was pushed to the banks of the
River of the Woods, and the essential part of the Empire was
complete.
Tol Borune was constructed in the center of the southern plain,
and the remainder of the Dynasty devoted its efforts to the
construction of the south dike on the Nedrane River.
THE SECOND HONETHITE DYNASTY
1692-2112 (420 years, 19 Emperors)
The years of this Dynasty were a period of consolidation and
development. It was also a period of our first significant contacts with
other nations. As so frequently is the case in Tolnedran history’ it
was the merchants who led the way. The initial contacts with the
Arends and Nyissans were peaceful and profitable, but the Marags
steadfastly refused to permit the entry of strangers into Maragor.
The Emperor Ran Honeth XVII attempted to solve this problem by
the construction of Tol Rane on Maragor’s western border. The
purpose of Tol Rane was to provide a commercial center where the
Marags could come to trade, but it soon had another, grannmer
purpose. It quickly became evident that the Marags had
considerable quantities of fine gold, and the accidental discovery of free gold
in the streams of the border region set off a stampede of
fortune hunters to Tol Rane.
Creeping across the border into Maragor by night, these
adventurers sought gold in every stream-bed until the Marags became
aware of their presence. It was only then that we learned the horrid
truth about our eastern neighbors.
It was in 2115 that a survivor of one of those groups of
goldseekers stumbled back to Tol Rane with his tale of horror. His
companions had been taken by a band of Marags and, one by one,
they had been ritualistically killed and then eaten.
While human sacrifice in one form or another was not uncommon
in certain religions, the cult of Mara was the only one we have ever
encountered which practiced ritual cannibalism. The news spread
throughout Tolnedra like a grassfire, growing with each telling, until
the entire nation was aflame with it. Speeches by officials fanned the
fury of the populace, and there were soon deputations in Tol Honeth
demanding war.
The Emperor, Ran Vordue I of the SECOND VORDUVIAN
DYNASTY, still only three years from the investiture of his reign and
the beginning of his Dynasty, submitted finally to the impor’gs
of the people and began preparations for war.
THE SECOND VORDUVIAN DYNASTY
2112-2537 (425 years, 20 Emperors)
it is to the eternal shame of the Vorduvians that it was during
one of their Dynasties that the exffipation of the Marags occurred.
Although the fact that the Marags were cannibals was undeniably
true, that fact might well have been ignored had it not been for the
presence of gold in Maragor. The border could easily have been
sealed and other means taken to persuade the Marags to abandon
their revolting practice; but the war party in Tolnedra, thinking only
of the gold, pushed the inexperienced Emperor into the ultimate
sanction of war.
The campaign in Maragor lasted for four years and was marked
with the kind of savagery seldom seen in the west. Tolnedran
legions operating out of Tol Rane quickly encircled the relatively
small nation, then turned and struck inward at the heart of Maragor.
The Marags, still weakened after their disastrous expedition in
Nyissa, were no match for the might of the legions. The
commanders of those legions, imbued with a kind of religious fervor,
systematically slaughtered the entire populace as they went, and
only at the last when the remnants of the Marags had been harried
into a single valley in central Maragor were they persuaded to
relent. Unfortunately, it was not humanity which moved the
Tolnedrans to mercy’ but once again our national vice – greed. The
surviving Marags were spared in order that they might be sold to
Nyissan slavers, who, like vultures, hovered on the outskirts of the
battle.
. Thus perished Maragor and with it no small measure of
Tolnedran pride.
The horde of Tolnedran gold-seekers and commoners greedy for
land which had hovered on the border awaiting the conclusion of
the war swept into Maragor like a wave, frantic lest some other find
more gold or take more land. But, as we learned to our sorrow, the
grief-stricken spirit of Mara, God of the Marags, still abode in the
land. The wave which had descended broke and recoiled back as
Mara took his vengeance upon the adventurers. The tales which
returned from that haunted land have fed nightmares in Tolnedra
for over three millennia. The wailing of Mara is heard from one end
of Maragor to the other by day, and by night, the fearful shades of
slaughtered Marags stalk the land shrieking, their blood-smeared
faces glowing with a ghastly light.
The weaker among the treasure-seekers soon went mad and
cast themselves into rivers or hurled themselves off precipices; the
stronger returned, shaken and ashen-faced to Tolnedra without
gold, without land, and often only marginally with their sanity’
It was one of these survivors who devoted his fortune and the
remainder of his life to the establishment of the great monastery at
Mar-Terin where the monks for three thousand years have sought to
propitiate Mara and to comfort the spirits of the slain Marags. The
simple courage of the monks of Mar-Terin in the face of unspeakable
horror is a testament to all that is best in the Tolnedran character.
The remainder of the Dynasty was uneventful until the reigns of
the last four emperors. Trade was expanded with the Arends to the
north and to a lesser degree with the Nyissans to the south, and the
great ship-yards at Tol Vordue and Tol Horb were erected. Tolnedran
vessels began to ply coastal waters in search of trade, and by 2400
had reached as far north as the Sea of the Winds off the northwest
coast of what is now Sendaria.
It was at that point that we first encountered the Chereks. In 2411
a Tolnedran commercial flotilla was set upon by a Cherek fleet
which emerged from the Cherek Bore. Tolnedran vessels, slow and
wide, are built to carry cargo, and have never been a match for the
swift, narrow war-boats of the Chereks. The battle was short, and
the loss of lives and goods appalling.