Tholos
"Humans and elves are pretty strong with our magic and technology. Silver Age artificers made singularity bombs that can level a city, which is powerful, but that doesn't come anywhere near what a nature is capable of... (as long as we don't count the Silver Age Cataclysm, that was still us.)"
Tholos is an island barony located in Dorias and is part of the Kingdom of North Cassel. To the south are the baronies of Lycuria and Esurian and to the west and north are the baronies of Kythira and Levitha. The Barony is part of the Boiling Islands chain, which is named for the massive volcano at the center of Tholos, The Boiling Mountain.
The capital city Seriz is located on the southwest side of the island, and the majority of the barony's population is in this city. It is also a major producer of pearls, which can be a powerful type of aethercite. Nearly half of Cassel's supply of pearls come from this one city.
Most of Tholos is difficult for humans to inhabit. If the frequent volcanic explosions from the caldera of the boiling mountain and the sweltering corruption of Xiralgus wasn't enough, there are a number of species of Drakes that call this land home. Most are small, pesky creatures. Some are venomous and others are gigantic wyrms that are difficult to deal with.
The hides of these creatures and their bones and organs can create powerful potions, weapons, armors, and more. Their populations are also quite large and need to be controlled. Drake Hunters come here to hunt these creatures, using Seriz as their base of operations. Many warriors come here to prove themselves, as bad of an idea as that is for most of them...
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1350, Iron Age
Seriz
Baroness Cora Spiritos
1,476 km2
Oceanic
107,821
89% Human
8% Elf
3% Lamia
Seriz
Baroness Cora Spiritos
1,476 km2
Oceanic
107,821
89% Human
8% Elf
3% Lamia
The Boiling Mountain
Setup
Also known as Fervenentis, this volcano is massive, with a caldera that is 226 km2 in size. The rim of the caldera is between 500 meters and 1000 meters above sea level and the depth inside the caldera is close to 1800 meters. the largest volcanic eruption in Cassel's history took place here, in the year 1340 I.A.. There is a legendary component to the eruption, but that will be gone over later.
The eruption
On August 15th, 1340, the skies darkened over Northeast Cassel. This volcano which had long been known to cause earthquakes and smaller scale eruptions, completely blew itself apart. the eruption ejected 1200 cubic kilometers of ash, rock, lava, and more into the atmosphere, most of which fell back to ground over the rest of the boiling islands. the ash cloud spread as far away as the Shining City of Tesiadem in the Barony of Mataro far to the southwest.
The northeast side of the vilcano collapsed into the sea, sending a large wave of water in the direction of Yurrimkil. As Yurrimkil is mostly cliffs on the southern side of the country, it wasn't affected much from this or the eruption as a whole because the ashfield moved to the southwest of the eruption site.
Effects on Cassel
The ashfall was significant all over Cassel. The boiling islands recieved as much as a meter of ash, and large boulders as large as 10 meters in diameter came crashing into the earth. Buildings collapsed and cities were destroyed. The City of Wrethilin in central South Cassel recieved about 10 centimeters of ash and Tesiadem recieved about a centimeter. The Island of Rosika even recieved a dusting of ash.
This ash darkened a large portion of Cassel, cauing an early winter. Crops failed and famine spread across the country. The chaos caused by this gave several neighboring countries a chance to attack and take land for themselves. The Kingdom of Marsan, which no longer exists, spread from its lands near the present day barony of Marsan to take control over the entire northwestern region from Orthez to the Valley of Kings, to the present day Barony of Zubiri. They held most of these lands only temporarily, but without this fertile land to provide food, it made the famine worse.
The Kingdom of Arreken invaded Cassel from the South, starting in the present day barony of Almeria. They took over all of the present day counties of Largon, Mursiria, and Antabria. These lands were held by Arreken for nearly a thousand years until Cassel finally kicked them out in the year 2296.
Cassel might very well have collapsed and stopped existing as a kingdom if it weren't for Cassel's allies, the Elf-Kingdoms of Lyone and Ledo, both of which were completely unaffected by the eruption. the threat of an invasion from Lyonne to the north caused Marsan to pull their troops back after a few months, and the threat of an invasion from Ledo caused Arreken to stop their advance once they got to the borders of the Diamond Duchy and the County of Niverden. The two elf-kingdoms also provided Cassel with much needed food to get through the winter.
Summerless Years
By the spring of 1342, all seemed well and it seemed like things would go back to normal... only it didn't. The Boiling Mountain had several smaller scale eruptions throughout the winter months. It's latest eruption affected Ledo, fouling their winter crops. The mountain seemed to finally quiet down but the summer didn't bring any relief. The summer of 1342 was as cold as winter the previous year was, if not colder. Areas of the Sea of Wrethas were frozen in July, in an area that commonly reaches 35°C at the hight of the Summer. The climate around Cassel and the rest of the world of Vreathe was colder for several years after this. Things didn't fully return to normal until the year 1346.
Why the Mountain Erupted
Modern Iron Age Humans and Elves have some understanding of volcanism. Their calculations of the island don't line up with what the area can naturally produce when it comes to volcanoes. The largest possible eruption that could have occured would eject only around 500 km3 of tephra. Still catastrophic, but less than half the size. The Corruption of Xiralgus, created in the Silver Age by the death of the Dragon Lord of the same name, likely contributed to the eruption, which naturally makes the planet much warmer around this area, especially the closer you get to his body, which is said to be under the boiling islands somewhere in the earth.
For what actually caused the eruption, the Scholar Salika is the most trusted authority on the matter and has a history of this incident written. The fairy Xana also has a rather... ludicrous explanation for why the mountain blew apart.
"Back during these times in the Iron Age, the Seven Doric Kingdoms were fiercly independent of Cassel, despite Cassel defeating them several times. the reason for this was the religion the Doric people had, which surrounded a series of sea and fire gods. These gods were actually just Sengar and Infernas, both of which are spawn of different dragon lords, one water, the other of fire."
"By the year 1200 though, the Doric people were starting to convert to The Church of Saint Nora and were warming up to the idea of Cassel's allies instead. This angered the dragonspawn, who waged war against the Doric People, and later, Cassel and the elven Kingdoms. The only other kingdoms in the area, Marsan and Yurrimkil, actually joined the war on the side of the dragonspawn, wanting to antagonize Cassel just a little bit more. the Sea Elves were on the side of the Sengar, complicating the war further."
"
"Cassel eventually won that war by the year 1250. Most of the boiling Islands were to be given over to Cassel to rule. The Sengar went back into the oceans like they always do, ready to cause trouble some other time. the Infernas however, laid claim to any volcano and forced the humans to stay away for quite some time. They vowed that their god and father Xiralgus would take vengeance on them."
"Allegedly Xiralgus heard the prayers of the Infernas, and the resulting volcanic eruption 90 years later nearly destroyed Cassel. No doubt the corruption of Xiralgus was involved, but it is just dumb aetheric energy with no mind of its own. Nature did what it wanted to and the corruption only helped that."
- Salika
"I know this explanation is going to sound absurd to some, but hear me out. I was alive during the Silver Age afterall so I know about things that you Iron Age humans don't! So, Way back in those times, the Olimians built these massive sky fortresses to deal with the Dragon Lords. Salika knows about them, and the one I'm talking about actually sits under Casselian capital city of Wrethilin!"
"Anyways, after the Skyfortress Aquarius killed Xiralgus, the dragon's body came crashing down into the ocean, his aetheric energies interacted with the heat of the world of Vreathe and created several volcanic hotspots, creating these volcanic islands, the boiling islands and the Xiral islands."
"What happened to Xiralgus's body after he died? It fell apart and slowly converted itself into aetheric heat. some of his body was converted into aethercite crystals instead. This process is ongoing and will likely not stop for several tens of thousands of year. There was a large part of his body, his heart, that the Olimians recovered to perform experiments on. Several of the islands here were created as a result of manipulating that heart and causing volcanic eruptions!"
"Xiralgus's heart was too powerful of a tool and weapon, so the Olimian Queen at the time, Queen Lapis I, ordered it to be contained and then be buried. The Silver Race are excellent craftsmen, better than anyone who has ever walked on Vreathe. They've been able to imprison gods, and they did almost destroy reality on several occasions. So they used their skills to create a box that could contain the heart's great power. They then dug into the Boiling Mountain (Called Akum-Hursag at the time) and sealed the heart away."
"Okay, great! It's contained... for now! Let's fast forward a few hundred thousand years to the Silver Age Cataclysm. I'm sure you've heard about it before! The apocalyptic aetheric energies of this explosion reached even inside the earth and touched the container keeping the heart of Xiralgus safe. This caused the energy of Xiralgus to slowly escape over time, which caused a good deal of volcanism and built up the Boiling Mountain. I think it was called Fervenentis back then during the early Iron Age."
"Anyways, This heat of Xiralgus attracted a lot of Infernas to it. The Infernas are the human-like spawn of Xiralgus. They wanted to be closer to the heart, so they started chipping away at the protective container, until one day, they breached it and accidentally pierced the heart. This caused the heart to release all of its energy at once, which vaporized the city they built up around it, obliterated the Fervenentis mountain, and caused several chains of catastrophes that nearly broke Cassel!"
"Yes, the largest volcanic eruption in cassel's history was caused by the heart of a dragon lord. It was not natural at all! this should give you an idea of just how absurdly powerful these things were back in the day and why you really shouldn't be messing around with their remains!"
- Xana
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