The Decline, Vol. I

[DangerousDan]

The Decline
A History of the Old City
Harembard Grey


“O, chivalry. That such fleeting grace should die amongst the corpses of noble men. Take me, o lady, to lands undiscovered and shores calm, happy respite from sorrow and pain.”

Foreword

 To embark upon a history such as this is no insignificant task for a scholar such as I. Concerns of propriety aside, the nature of our city lends itself to the traditional mires that a scholar is often wont to fall into. Over reliance upon anecdotal evidence, misinformation spread by some of the more unsavoury regimes to rule the city, and the almost complete destruction of primary sources dating before 1292 DR during the War of Succession. These factors have lead to the scant histories of our city being little more than propaganda documents for whomever wished to have their rule legitimized at the time, and the lesser still texts which were published independently invariably were anecdotal pieces of little practical use if they were not destroyed outright. Nevertheless, the pages which follow are as best of an account of the history of the Port that I can give, and that I sincerely hope will convey to the reader the calamity that the death of chivalry afflicted upon our people.

Sir Harembard A. Grey
The Old Port
Eleint 4, 1368 DR

Prologue

To be mortal is to decline. From the moment of conception our death lies before us, and whatever scant grace can be afforded before we fade will invariably crumble after we depart. This is not to say, as has been speculated by certain nefarious sects, that life itself is without meaning. No, the existence of life in the realm beyond gives us purpose upon this Toril of ours. To strive to master the decline that lies before us, to create harmony amidst turmoil is the force that drives us: for what purpose has humanity without mandate from the divine? The Nation of Ilythiir built refuge upon the Isles, only to crumble when its builders fled deep below the world. Survivors from old Netheril discovered those selfsame ruins and built their homes upon them, only themselves to fade and disappear in turn. Twice the cycle has run its course and begun anew, and there is little doubt that long after our ships no longer sail and our rulers lie silent amongst their ancestors, some strange people will discover the broken remains of our civilization and build anew upon the foundations. By my reckoning, we near the closing years of our existence; the decadence that becomes only a people in the raptures of hubris affects our nobility and populace to degrees that I have never yet seen, and our rulers have become isolated from the people they govern. Yet, this record is meant primarily as a narrative, and it is in that vein that I shall begin.

 
It is widely believed that the city has its beginnings amongst the trappers, fortune hunters and other assorted naer do wells that were discovered by the Four when they first came to the Isle. However, alternate theories have been proposed by a number of scholars. Whilst the academic background of these men is questionable at best, the sheer multitude of claims makes the possibility more likely. The tale begins that the Port has its true origins in the fall of Netheril. Tales of the Deluge are rife, even today. The tale goes that as the old empire crumbled, a great tide arose from the waters and swept the island whole, leaving only the higher northern isles above the waves. Upon one of these northern isles were the survivors of a Netherese watchpost- built upon the foundations of an even older outpost of Ilythiir. For forty days the survivors are said to have watched in vain, hoping for some times that the flood was at an end. Upon the forty first, the waters cleared and the watchmen saw their great cities and enclaves ruined. Of the waters, there was nothing to mark its passing save for a thick and cloying mist which gave the Isles their name, and remains a bane of travel and dream unto this very day.The settlement of the watchmen largely continued to grow at a slow pace over the next decade, free from the troubles which beset the world around it. Eventually, it gained renown as a haven for thrill seekers and smugglers, but remained of little note. Records from this time are scattered, incomplete and damaged at best. However, it is possible to ascertain one significant event several years after outsiders began settling upon the Isle, pertaining to the apparently emerging phenomenon of the Mists. Although such a tale appears to discount earlier tales, it is important to bring into account that the Mists has its ebbs and flows that is seemingly beholden to the comings and goings of man, becoming more oppressive still as the masses of people making their homes upon the isle increases in number. And so a conclave was called: a meeting of scoundrels, scum and villainy to decide on how to proceed with their problem. Although I have heard rumour of a complete account of what followed, I have yet to encounter such a text. However, a fragment of an account of the meeting still survives in the records.

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"Hither came Luther, tall, severe; the best of men. When he spoke, the hall hushed in silence and every man would heed his word. With mighty roar he told what must be done, and every man agreed it must be so."

 
It continues that following a long speech, it was agreed that the men must strike inland to discover the source of this strange threat which assailed them in their dreams. As to the fate of this expedition, one can only guess. No further mention of 'Luther' or his men can be found, so it is safe to say that whether they survived or disappeared, they achieved little more of note. Apart from this interlude, the early years were marked with little else of note: a staid, dull existence eking out a living by scavenging what relicts of Netheril remained upon Ymph, and selling the furs of the myriad exotic beasts native to the Isle. Such small and backwards a settlement would barely be worth mention, were it not for the prodigious arrival of the Four Houses.


Fleeting Grace
I. Founding of the Port

 
At the opening years of the tenth century by the reckoning of the Dales, Tethyr continued much as it always had. The rolling hills of the King’s country enjoyed a largely quiet time, untroubled by the Calishite hordes to the south and the mercantile expansionism of Amn was not yet as pronounced as it is today and the people enjoyed happy years. But there was one who was not satisfied. His name now is forgotten to the annals of history, and there are some who say that he was not a man at all, rather a movement of nobles. Whatever the truth about his identity, the message remains clear. Foreseeing the calamity and decadence that would befall the House of Kings and thus counselled exodus from Tethyr into countries yet undiscovered. Throughout the land he roved, speaking his message to any who would hear it. Such is the case with men of foresight; he was oft scorned and spat upon. A tale common in the Port goes that as the man went to speak at the Fountain Square of Mosstone, he was slain by angry commoners, but there were four men in attendance who heeded his call. Lord Andrew Blackhearth, Lord James Greywood, Sir Richard Martel and Count Malcolm Senuspur departed in exodus with their people in the 1042nd Year of the Dales, wandering the seas in unhappy exile, seeing the wonders of the world over before finally coming to rest upon the Isles Shrouded.

 
The years of exile were fraught, and are enough to themselves make hefty volume- and indeed they do, in Sroproeth’s lost Exodus. The wanderings lasted ten years and one, and many were lost to the waves before the Houses happened upon the Isles, hidden behind a thick and nigh impenetrable veil of fog. It is said when the exiles finally made shore, James Greywood stood and looked upon the few squat houses that made up ‘The Port’ as it was simply known then, and said:

 

“Ah, savage and unhappy people. Let us make them mild, and bend their labour to godly and noble ends.”

 
And so the Four Houses came to rest from their long wanderings, and set about constructing their paradise upon the Isles. Their rule was just and fair, and rumours of a noble ‘Council of Four’ swept across the Shining Sea, leading many Knights from foreign lands to embark upon quest to discover its location, although few were sucessful. To this day rumour persists of a forgotten fifth House who ruled as King-upon-the-Isle in the early days, although there is no written record of any such family, or of the mythical Crown of the Isles- a relic from old Netheril that was said to have been lost when the last King died. Whether with a King or without, the first years of the Port were as any new frontier- filled with hardship and strife. But it was an honest time, free from the political bickering or serpentine threats from within that was to prove the doom of the Council. The Port grew and flourished alone as a bastion of just rule in the Shining Sea, and was not to be seriously threatened for another fourty years when the matter of succession to the Blackhearth title flared tempers in the fledgling city.  One of the few chronicles of the early years of the city that survive in tact is the episode of the Blackhearth Revolt. By 1085 Lord Andrew Blackhearth was an old and sickly man, with a wife widely believed to be barren and no heir. By late Eleasis, it was clear the old Lord was nearing his deathbed without an heir, with his younger brother Aelfwine looking set to assume the Lordship, despite fears that he was a drunkard and ungodly man. The venerable Lord clasped to life until the 2nd of Marpenoth, where he left a Blackhearth family deeply uncertain about the succession. Upon opening the will of the departed Lord, record speaks of the revalation of a bastard-born son- Gregor, to whom he bequeathed all title and holdings of the Blackhearth Family.  The next few months were fraught and characterised by political instability. As Gregor- the son of the wife of a minor Knight of House Blackhearth continued to isolate himself politically, the Council was filled with more and more disquiet. The young wife of Lord Andrew had taken to her private rooms in grief, and had refused entry to all but trusted counsel. Eventually, after Lord Gregor publically struck the wife of a lesser Knight in his employ, the Council deigned to act. Gregor was publically declared outlaw and his claim to the Blackhearth family null. He responded immidiately. Taking his loyal retainers, he immidiately attacked the Greywood Family Estate, slaying James Greywood whilst he slept. Rousing the citizenry to riot, Gregor fortified himself at Castle Blackhearth and setting himself up as King upon the Isle, the families prepared themselves grimly for a long siege but for the intervention of Lord Andrew’s widow, who emerged from Castle Blackhearth with an infant at her brest. Claiming the child a legitimate heir of Lord Blackhearth, the message was soon spread to members of the House who supported Gregor, and he was slain by the Houses’ rebellious Master of Arms. The son, named Thomas, was declared the rightful successor the the Blackhearth name and estates, and went on to become a noble lord in and of himself. The usurper’s headless corpse was thrown into the waters, where it will have drifted until it was wholly rotten, fit only to feed the carrion.
 

II. The Shrouding and the Ironjaw


Save for a few minor dynastical disputes, the first century of the rule of the Council were peaceful, owing to the mindful governance of the and the fact that word of the Isles had not yet reached the more degenerate hives of villainy and sin that would eventually find their way to our shores. Indeed, the greatest threat to the continuing survival of our people was to arise from the Isle itself, and the strange climate that so afflicts the minds of man.

 
It was in Tarsakh of the Year 1137 that the Mists came. Unbidden, and with no signs or portents to forbode its arrival, a thick fog settled upon the Isles Shrouded. Such ebbs and flows are not unnusual upon our Isles- indeed, the Mists had been known to settle for weeks upon end. However, this settling was different. Thick, cloying- indeed, it was known to afflict men with dream even in waking hours and made stellar navigation all but impossible. Men were taken by madness, and abandoned the worship of the gods in favour of this new Giver-of-Dreams. Alexander Martel fell into deep sleep and could not be woken, the Council remained limp and indecisive in the face of an invisible threat that could not be met with words or steel. And so the city degenerated, strange Cults each offering promise of absolution from this affliction. For five years they endured due to the prudent governance of the Council, who had granted Thomas Blackhearth title of Steward for the duration of the troubles. However, dissent against the Steward grew by way of insidoious worshippers of the ‘Shroud’ as it had by then became known, that faction of apostates known as ‘The Dreamers’. Arming their supporters to open revolt at the height of famine, the rioters took control of the streets and began to hold ‘citizens trials’ for those who were percieved to have displeased the Giver-of-Dreams. For two years the madness continued, the Dreamers all but controlling the city whilst the Steward desperately attempted to keep order admist universal fear and apostaphy bred by this ungodly Mist. Nevertheless, accord was finally reached by the intervention of Isengrim Greywood, and the Dreamers surrendered the streets to the rule of just governance. Whilst such a peace was doubtlessly wrought by dubious morality, it was nessecary in the face of the disorder that would have arisen had compact not been made.


It was ten years and one until the mist lifted itself, revealing Ymph much changed. The exact cause for the end of the Shrouding of much debate. The first school of thought- that is, that which puts the most stock in rational and academic observation claim that the change could have been the result of myriad factors- the rapid increase of population that resulted from Amnian discovery of the Isles, an increase of use of the herbal intoxicants commonly used by the ‘Stargazer’ Halflings native to Ymph, or any other factors unknowable to the human mind. The other, regrettably more significent faction states that the Shrouding ended because of the direct intervention of the ‘Dreamers’ and the ritual sleep that many of their members sacrificed themselves to. Such faux mysticism must remain what it is- refuted by thoughtful academics, and cast to the obscure sidelines of history. The days following the lifting of the Shroud proved joyous, and filled with the kind of outpouring of joy and relief that only happens when a great conflict is concluded, or the son of a deceased monarch is crowned anew. Indeed, such celebrations had not been seen upon the Isles in living memory. Smallfolk were married in their hundreds, children played in the street once more and all danced and made merry amidst the fading relief that had been bought with the passing of the mists unaware of the dire threat which was marshalling its strength in the wilderness beyond the gaze of the Four. His name was Mok’garn, the Ironjaw, and he would bend the disperate races of the Isle to his will, and forge them into a host that would cleft the Port in twain before Isengrim Greywood put an end to the matter. To give account of Ymph during the long years of the Shrouding is impossible, for what scant accounts given by those who visited the Isle in its midst have been lost, yet it is agreed that whilst the Port languished under famine and strife, the Orcs gathered in concord and subjugated the disperate races of Ymph to their will. They struck whilst the Port slept, having gorged itself upon wine and luxaries amidst the celebrations.


 The desperate, mad fighting that followed when the soldiers awoke has entered memory as simply ‘The Terror’, the scars of which remain set into the very mortar of the Old City to this day. To tell tale of such a battle is to commit a thousand names to the record of heroes, and still a thousand more will lie forgotten after they are commited to the earth by their children. Yet memory of their sacrifice remains, even if the heroes themselves hast be lost to the annals of history. The fighting continued for hours, with the beleagured armsmen of the Port desperately holding against the tide of hardened Orcish guerillas as the Grand Plaza burned. And yet endure they did, due to the able leadership of Lord Isengrim Greywood. Breaking the Orcish lines with a massed charge of horsemen, the Four surveyed the ashes. Hundreds of citizens had been put to the sword by the savages, and the host of the Port was much reduced. No sooner had the Council met to discuss what course of action to take, than a missive from the Wyrm Watchers arrived to inform the Port that the force that had been destroyed was but one tribe of the great multitude of Orcs that awaited our ancestors upon Ymph. And so it was decided: the Port was to isolate itself, and Lord Blackhearth was to take to sea with the assembled ships of the Houses to prevent further attack until mercenaries from Calimport could be drafted to end the threat once and for all. The hour grew late, and Alexander Martel moved to end the meeting and make preperation for the long leaguer that was to follow. But the Council's work was not yet done- for an interloper arrived in the company of Wyrm Watchers, and begged the assembled Lords of the Four to heed his call. Garbed in a surcoat of deepest black, his name was Roland de Marsse. What follows is a surviving transcription of his eloquent plea to the Council to march to war with the Orcs.

 

"It is reckoned by mothers that the measure of their babes is the content of their character as men. Great deeds of youth lie forgotten when the man is aged if his mind has dulled and his sword hand weak. My noble Lords, your fathers built haven in this outremer, and for a generation it has lain unchallenged by plague or foe, their deeds ill-remembered and foreign to our ears. And now the hour grows late, and you counsel leaguer and isolation in place of steel and fire. This foe which assails you thus is not of sentient mind- indeed, it is beholden to primal lusts and desires that will brook no parlay. Upon the shores of Ymph my Order oppose this host that has assembled to see this Port burn and its crops salted, but it cannot do so alone. Pray thee, Lords, gather thy sworn men and march for Ymph anon, lest the tides that are lapping at your feet arise to consume you.."

The great Lords of the Four were greatly moved, and the hosts of the city were mustered to sail to war. Lord Greywood and de Marsse's most Numinous Order thrice met the hosts of the Warlord Mok'garn in battle- and thrice did the ravening horde elude defeat. And yet ever did they retreat, making for the peaks which divide east and west. It was at the foot of these great Mountains of Mist that our final victory was to be wrought. Swords glistened and spears were shaken as Greywood and his men fell upon the savages amidst the scorching heat of summertide. It was then that Mok'garn reveal himself. Greywood and the viscous warchief did battle for an hour, the finely honed swordcraft of nobility matched with savage, mad rage which lends strength to such base creatures. Yet the beast did tire, and Lord Isengrim struck him a perilous blow to the jaw. Carried by his retinue towards the mountains howling in pain, even the fall of their warchief was not enough to carry the day for the men of the Four. The Orcs entrenched themselves, and seemed resigned to fighting until the blood of their race had been extinguished from these Isles Shrouded. As dawn crested over the horizon, Lord Isengrim spoke to his men upon the eve of what was thought to be the final, bloody salient to end the war. His words have been lost with the ages, yet an account written by one Ewald Redcrest, a man-at-arms within the host speaks of men reduced to tears as he spoke. No sooner had the sun risen to the sky, than horns of warning were heard to resound from the mount. Thus did the beasts sally from their nests and advance towards the hosts of the Four in one final, desperate charge- one word upon their lips as they fell upon the unprepared soldierly.

"Ironjaw! Ironjaw! Ironjaw!"

And lo! First of the was Mok'garn himself, his cleft jaw wrought together with pure iron. Falling upon our number with renewed vigour, the beast sought for Greywood for a final confrontation. Twice he had thought to have found Isengrim, twice to slay a lesser lordling upon the field- for Greywood was said to have cried out with affliction as the horns of warning resounded. And so it was that Mok'garn found the Lord much diminished, and slew him upon the field. At the death of their Lord, the host broke into flight, crying for their fallen leader. It was now that Roland de Marsse and the Numinous Order arrived to the field, greeted by the cries of rout and word of the death of Lord Isengrim. It was then that de Marsse resolved to put an end to the matter, spurring his men towards the heat of the mêlée, crying to the fleeing men-at-arms as he went.

"Stay thy course, brethren! The blood of brave Isengrim demands vengeance, and it is we who shall deliver it! Into the breach, men of the old city! For Isengrim, the King and the Three!*"

And so de Marsse met the Ironjaw along with the rallied men, and lopped the head of the much weakened Orc from his shoulders. Upon the death of their leader to the black-garbed knight, they turned to flee but were turned by Knights from the most Numinous Order who had waited in ambush. The great host were destroy, and their bodies burned in a great pyre which bought news of their victory to the Old City, a blow from which the Orcan tribes of Ymph have yet to recover. This scholar doubts they ever shall. Returning to the Council along with the fallen body of Lord Isengrim, it was sworn that his sacrifice should ne'er be forgotten for as long as the Port stands upon Ymph. Indeed, even in these dark days mothers are wont to name their sons for him if they desire him to be a stout and fearless swordsman. Lord de Marsse and his brothers withdrew to Ymph and seclusion, no word having been heard from their Order unto this very day. Lord Greywood's son assumed his title, and ruled their ancient and noble house indfully, and the Port settled happily into the waning years of its fleeting grace. It was no foreign foe which would bring the base practice of slavery to our shores, no orcan axe which would debase our young and damn them to barbarism. Nay, it would be treachery from our very founders would deliver us into the arms of degeneracy and sin.

Thus ends the first volume of the Decline.

Author's Notes:
*It is unknown to me why Lord de Marsse would use such a queer cry in the midst battle, although I would venture that it is relating to thier curious mode of worship, which there is little to no documentation upon.
 

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[DangerousDan]

Archivist's Note-

That the Library has been able to gain even a fragment of this text (which has been banned within the Old Port itself) is nigh extraordinary. It is believed that due to the subject matter of the latter two volumes- that is, the ascendancy of the House of Senuspur to rulership that discerning an unfragmented copy is near impossible. Of Harembard Grey himself, it is my understanding that he has since been interred in the Count's 'Healing Touch' hospital for the mentally deranged, leading me to question the validity of his historical research. Nevertheless, this remains an interesting tome regarding the history of our Colonial Benefactors.

- E. Dwrurrowroot
The Ymphian Colony
Ches 11, 1376 D.R
(The 154th Year by the reckoning of our Sanctuary)