Initial Blurb
From Tourmaline
The Cradle of the World is bounded on the north by ice, on the south by jungle and then desert, on the east by mountains, and on the west by the sea. Even those farther reaches are not wholly uninhabited, though they tend to be peopled by barbarians rather than the civilized. The five-hundred-mile Cradle itself is a more fertile land, with rolling hills and thick forests, and dotted with the great city-states, the greatest among them Tourmaline.
One month ago, the Cradle was the dominion of the the Empire of Steel, and the sorceror-king Vytarus Scave, and had been for centuries. Things were Oppressed and Bad; a rebellion was unthinkable, and dissident (or being too poor to pay your taxes) was brutally crushed.
One month ago, a party of heroes, led by Gaeric Cooper, finished their quest to follow the prophecies and overthrow the Empire. They found the undying heart of Vytarus Scave in the dark caverns deep below the eastern Vespers. They defeated the Frostwyrm for its razor scales, and sailed the Sunsdeath Ocean to the Twilight Isle and riddled for the Words of Opening. Then they journeyed far to the south, where the heart of the desert ceaselessly burns. They cut the heart of Vytarus Scave with the scale, opened the Fire, and threw it in. And then, many miles to the north, the sorcerer-king died.
That was one month ago. Today, Gaeric Cooper is crowned King Gaeric the First in Tourmaline.
Tomorrow, all of the other city-states will politely but firmly point out that they are Independent. The farmers will begin to mutter about the warehouses full of grain taken by the taxmen. The merchants will point out that there are already bandits on the roads. The first of the alfae will begin to be seen in the markets, while the cityfolk start to realize that several neighbors have been grimfae all along. And the bureacracy of the Empire will try to churn on all the while, even as its underpinnings slowly dissolve.
A few of the more notable features of Tourmaline are the Steel Palace (built on the ruins of the old seat of power by Vytarus Scave), the Grand Library, the Faithmarket (the quarter where most of the churches are), and the Acadystra (once a legendary mage's school, but it suffered from Vytarus Scave's depradations). The city is also studded with less notable, but still interesting, landmarks such as the Locked Tower, the Underwarrens, and the Slaves' Parade.
