WIP: Khonaar

Calibre

Hey all,

Working on this map. Thanks to Quenten! I couldn't have done it without his great work. This is a city in Voltaavia on Estonisch.

Thanks again, Quenten 😁

Calibre

Here's a little background story from the game. Hope it's not too long.

In Aeons past, long before the Final Battle, there came to be an exclusive order: The Firebird Knights, the Faerean Guardsmen, or merely the Fireriders of Voltaavia. Each was of any gender, but elitely trained and accepted to this order only after ordeals, challenges that encompassed physical brutality and mental fortitude. Thousands applied; only a few hundred ever accepted. In the beginning, it is said ten thousand Faerean Guardsmen flew the skies. They died like birds in a hurricane during the Final Battle. Before this tale, only two-hundred and ninety-nine men and women made up this special force. This is the tale of how their numbers increased by one...

The hugeness of the Crucible is almost impossible to believe, even seeing it with my own eyes. So Vosaan thought as he stood motionless, yet trembling, in the vast darkness. The chamber was recorded in the FireTomes as being no less than 300 feet long, 150 feet wide and precisely 500 feet high. Set into the black, obsidian walls at grown-man height, were 10,000 niches, each containing a dormant, amber firestone. A torch of similar height and low flame stood before each, forming a wide, but dim ellipse of light. In ancient times, the Firestones provided this illumination---but they had been dead since the Final Battle.

Every slightest sound of Vosaan's nervous movements, echoed forever into the dark vastness. He knew the others, the true Fireriders waited in that darkness, as well. They waited for him to complete the Rite and join them, the culmination of a decade of intense training. Commander Elandaar, especially, was waiting, Vosaan's own uncle.

Vosaan tried to swallow his apprehension, his fear, though his muscles trembled with the exertion of the Sacred Trials he had endured the last three days. He waited, deep in the meditations he was supposed to be focused on. He waited for the Old Man, like hundreds of candidates had before him. Yet, curiosity compelled him to study the Creche.

There was enough faint light from the torches to reveal it to his exhausted eyes. It was egg-shaped as was the Crucible chamber that housed it and placed in the exact center of the black marble floor. Part of the rite he was waiting to enact required him to try and open it---to do something that had not been done for thousands of years. It rested, perhaps, four feet high on it's pedestal and was no larger than a young child in girth and breadth. It was made of polished obsidian and absolutely seemless. No light touched it's ebon outerness. It's innerness had not been seen for Aeons.

It would be required of him to try and open it. But that, in itself, was not a requirement to join the cadre of Fireriders. It was an adjunct part of the sacred rite, but not it's true goal. The Rite of the Creche, was merely a forlorn hope made manifest: could someone, after all the centuries, finally awaken the Master Firestone within and restore the Fireriders to what they were in ancient times? No man or woman had done so in all the long years since the Final Battle.

There came the sound of a thumping and a shuffling walk, the swishing of silk robes dragging the floor and Vosaan knew the time had come. Master Calixar, First Virton of the House of Fire, was approaching. The Old Man. Dread, fear of failure, fear of death, seized his heart and mind. In the glimmering light, Vosaan regarded the well known, awesome figure. Virton Calixar was not short, nor yet tall, barely reaching six feet. His hair was long and flowed down to his waist and was bleached grey. He wore no beard. His robes were ceremonial: all black, red and white, of expensive silk, and absurdly ornamented. His staff was of black nebethron (or so it was said), extremely rare, and at its apex, a living firestone.

"Where are you, boy?", the Old Man demanded. "Are you lurking in the shadows, perhaps hoping to avoid the unavoidable?". His grumbling voice laughed scornfully. "It's not that easy...no, not that easy. Come forth!"

Vosaan moved closer, to stand directly before the Creche. "I am here, Master Calixar, First Virton of Fire. I am prepared to test my life in the Rite of the Fireriders. As my ancestors before me...", he began to chant proudly.

The Old Man cut him off. "Yes, yes...I've heard it all before. The ashes of those who failed are kept in that box, the Cask of Falseness...hmm where is it? Well it was over there.", he muttered, looking around for it. " I expect your ashes will soon mingle with the other failures. Unless, of course, you take this one opportunity to withdraw from this madness, get yourself out of this useless, defunct Order, find a nice young lady or gentleman, get a real occupation somewhere out of Voltaavia, preferably, and make a useful life for yourself and your future children...".

Vosaan had been warned about this. Master Calixar was one of a growing number of Virtons in the House of Fire who disapproved of the Order of Fireriders. That is to say, disapproved of their continued existence. His own father, Auxaar, was a prominent dissident, calling for the immediate disbanding of the Fireriders. Vosaan had defied his own father and family to stand here, to take the Trials. The firestones were dead, never to be re-ignited, so these revolutionists said; the Order was nothing more than an expensive, useless tradition. The Fireleeches , they were called in public forums across the Empire. An Order which could be easily disbanded, it's resources spent on other, more efficacious projects. The world was gripped by rennovation and restoration. The Old Powers were returning at last, though apparently not to the firestones. Only the will of the current Emperor, Aliuxas Magnificant, sustained the Fireriders---though it was rumored the Crown Prince, Malukaar, favored the alternate, radical view.

Vosaan did not care. He had spent his life's youth to be where he was this night. His eyes flicked to the nearest niche containing one of the Firestones. It was as dead as a river rock. It was the size of a hen's egg, translucent amber---the only light emmanting from it was from the meager torch standing before it, faint reflections of fire on it's cabochon surface, glistening like a flicker of desparate hope. Gathering his will, he finally spoke, in accusatory tones. "Master Calixar, you are the First Virton of the House of Fire not the High Commander of the Fireriders. You will recall your place." These were not his own words, but, rather, words he had been ordered to utter, thrust upon him by his Uncle, Elandaar. A political ploy, the ramifications of which, he didn't bother to try and understand. He would've spoken them regardless of the Old Man's speech.

Nevertheless, the effect was immediate. More scornful laughter erupted from the Old Man. "So young, so foolish. Very well, boy. We will proceed. Begin to summon the inner essences of Fire. Let it fill your vessels where flows your life's blood. If you can...if you dare...", came Calixar's dissonant response.

It is time. I must succeed or die trying, Vosaan thought. His mind was blank, but his emotions surged recklessly. Sparks, radiant particles of fire, straight away swam before his focused gaze. There was no thought of failure. Fear of ignoble death. His ashes would never rest in the Cask of Falseness as Master Calixar had sneeringly predicted. No! He delved into the deepness of his blood and life, calling forth the Sacred Fire of his birthright as he had done thousands of times before.

And, it responded with unexpected force. He staggered forward, hands outreaching for balance from anything, his sight suddenly gone. Blindness took him. All was darkness and flame. Eventually, his hands touched something cold, slick, unyielding. He could not grasp it properly, only lean on to its frigid surface. As he did so, everything changed as significantly as the snuffing of light to dark, dark to light. He was dizzy with disorientation, sight reft, breath ragged, nausea surmounting. He wanted to vomit, but could not. He tried to open his eyes, but also could not. Instead, he leaned sightlessly against a surface he found behind him and panted with fear and horror. He must have turned round in his delerium, though had no memory of doing so.

Vosaan had to asked himself : Am I dead? Frantically, he slapped himself all over---or, was that merely a fantasy, a figment of his exhausted mind? He still felt his own body, he hoped. He chose to believe he was not dead---yet. He sighed in relief. He groped his hands before him and encountered nothing.

Then, there came forth a voice such as he had never heard before. It felt as if it came into his mind, yet he fancied he heard it through his ears as well. Melodious, cacophonic, layered as if many voices spoke at once. "You are younger than I expected, First Rider..." (The fullness of this conversation, First Rider Lord Vosaan, refuses to divulge---Storysinger's Note.) At last, Vosaan succumbed to unconsciousness. He did not know it, but he slid to the floor and lay as if dead. Within him, the Essence of Fire subsided, sleeping in his blood once more.

Outside, in the Crucible Chamber, Lord Elandaar and his Fireriders surged forward from the shadows as they saw Vosaan, his beloved nephew, the newest candidate, sprawl upon the Creche. Then to slump senseless before it, unmoving on the cold, hard floor. He watched as the Creche opened, and the Master Firestone within ignited with samite flames. The fireform of Emberyck the Great, an elemental phoenix of the First Rank, flared to life, its vast wings stretching across the gaping chamber. Simultaneously, ten-thousand firestones in their ancient niches, every single one, caught fire. Amber radiance pulsed outwards, lighting the Crucible from end-to-end and side-to-side.

Turning his eyes downwards again, he watched as Master Calixar, First Virton of the House of Fire, bowed his head, either in reverence, condemnation, or rejection, he did not care to know. The firestones were alive! The Fireriders were whole once more.

And so, this tale ends. The Fireriders gained their 300th rider and Vosaan became the First Rider, though he was the youngest of them all.

EdE

Appreciate the background. I create for a homebrew world and cities are a challenge. This is excellent

Calibre

Thanks, guys.

The FireRiders, as noted, are an ancient, elite order. I consider them as the vanguard of the forces of Voltaavia. They ride fire elementals in the form of huge birds of flame of varying colors. The firestones used to summon them are on belts of gold metal (name of this metal yet to be created by me heh) except for 2: the First Rider's belt is of white metal and the Lord Marshal's is black. The former rides a firebird of white flame, and yeah, the latter, one of ebon flame. Thousands of them died in the final battle and the Order has barely kept members since then. You get the idea 😁

Cal