There has been peace in Arishamal since the defeat of the Ürgod and the Scarlet Brotherhood. The Wizard, Robbia Veritus has been tasked by the Mother-Goddess Arisha, the Golden Spider, to find magically gifted beasts to fill the vacant seats of the...
Manaheim sits nestled between the deep blue of the Northern Sea and the lush greenery which covers the mighty mountain known as Fuerish Peak. From a distance the city appears to be sculpted from a giant block of ice. Every building and street is carved from or covered in the blue-white marble for which the quarries surrounding the capitol are renowned.
The royal palace, home of the hereditary ruler of the Aesirie, King Lodur the Invincible, overlooks the magnificent city from its perch hundreds of feet up the face of Fuerish Peak. Below it, the senate building shares the slope, reminded by its inferior position that in all matters, it was the King and the King only who was supreme in this land.
Manaheim was the largest of the seven great cities which encircled Lyonisia and like its brethren, it was surrounded by thick walls, separating it from farmlands, mines, local villages, and most importantly, the interior of the land, the Forbidden Wild.
The cities of Lyonisia shared another characteristic, they were cities of men. Humans alone were permitted free access to these centers of trade and industry. The only beasts permitted within their walls were bonded servants and slaves. By royal decrees dating back centuries, beasts could never hold office or own property. They were serfs, bound to the small farms they worked for the entirety of their lives just as their children were bound after them. To leave the land to which they were bound meant imprisonment, enslavement, or death.
Beasts not associated with a farm or master, those who wandered to the coast from the Wild, however innocently, were quickly enslaved to work the mines and quarries or were simply killed. No beast was permitted to learn to read or write and doing so ensured a swift and certain death.
Lyonisia was a rich land, but an isolated one. It did not seek to trade or explore. The only other peoples with whom they dealt were the inhabitants of the Borogovian Isles, a archipelago of some three hundred small islands to the south, from whom they purchased silks, wines, and spices. Even in this limited trade, they dealt only with those islands whose leaders were human.
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Agrid Lodur had no illusions concerning his subjects. He knew that the majority of his senators, four of whom were elected in each of the great cities, were in favor of reforms he would never allow. The governor of each province around those cities was appointed by the King and owed him everything, insuring their support of all the king decreed.
The senators were a different matter. They felt that unless they began to ease the suppression of the beasts, an uprising was imminent. Lodur didn't care. There had been uprisings before and he had crushed them all, sinking their leaders into the bay. He would never show weakness, especially to a group he believed inferior and created for the single purpose of service to man.
King Lodur himself was the image of a warrior-king. Standing well over six feet tall, he was well-muscled and sported a braided blonde beard, speckled with gray. His body and face were criss-crossed with scars acquired during a lifetime of battle, putting down revolts and conquering the nearby islands visible from his palace. His eyes were almost black and set deeply in a harshly lined face that looked as though it had never smiled and never would.
