Oloraan
A Maze of Gorges and Subterranean Cities on the Far East Reaches of the Skylands
Oloraan is a region spanning a maze-like series of gorges at the foot of Mount Oloraan, inside of which is a massive subterranean city of the same name, whose dwarven builders are now either dead or exiled. The mountain is located in the far eastern reaches of the Skylands, in a range known as the Crags of Kol'ghan. Scattered about the maze of gorges are fantastic geological formations the Skylands Arakh call pah qut ("Starseeds"): astounding monoliths shaped like cones, standing on their narrow ends.
Oloraan is currently occupied by a loosely-federated horde of drow, wayangs, svirfneblin, estrié and Near-Umbral demons. This population is roughly divided into farmers, miners, hunters, merchants, smugglers and cultists of a cthonic deity commonly called the End or the Upside-Down God.
Only two diasporas of dwarves, representing perhaps a dozen cladhs, now survive: those who joined the Skylands Arakh in the near west and those who cross Asura's Wall to the farther west, to join the human-elven Commonwealth of Marai.Geography
See also: Imagery of the Oloro & Oloraan (External)Oloraan
Prior to its abandonment, Oloraan was the third largest dwarven civilization on Materia, after Nibelheim and Túúr. It contains several major dwarven-built cities, including Pellucidar, Avaricum, Ninokritar and Blarathon.Pellucidar
The deepest of Oloraan's dwarven-built metropoli is known as Pellucidar. Like all known dwarven cities, it is now controlled by the deeper races, many of whom answer to demons and estrié of the Yawning Spiral. About evenly spaced between the Spiral and the surface, Pellucidar acts as their primary surfaceward base of operations. Traveling surfaceward between major settlements, one then reaches Blarathon, then Ninokritar, then Avaricum.K'rat Jaa
The dwarves were not the only victims of the deeper races. An ancient civilization of chelicerans once occupied a region below Oloraan, centred around a city they called K'rat Jaa. Like the drow and wayangs before them, the demonic powers of the Yawning Spiral sought to assimilate the scorpion-folk into their ranks. Fiercely isolationist, the chelicerans grew irate with the spying, threats and political manipulations of the cult powers, culminating in a series of brutal wars that ended in the scorpion-folk's defeat. The quiet ruins of K'rat Jaa are still littered with arcane and alchemical traps, making them too dangerous for the deeper races to bother settling.The Yawning Spiral
Beneath even the deepest dwarven and cheliceran settlements is an enormous, conical, subterannean pit known as the Yawning Spiral. Built into the inner walls of this massive, sloping hole are flat walkways and dwellings of dozens of different architectural styles, all completely alien. This is the result of near-constant historical warfare for control of the Yawning Spiral by various cultures over the past millennia, from ancient duergar to wayangs to svirfneblin to some entirely unknown species. In the Third Age, demons and estrié now rule the great pit-city, exploiting easy travel from the Near Umbra due to a near absence of the Veil. To put it differently, the Yawning Spiral is essentially on Waking Materia and the Near Umbra simultaneously.
It some of these demons that are slowly chipping away at Elir-Otrinax's spacially anomalous "cage", however they must do so with great caution as they do not wish to invoke the wrath of his gaoler, the Sphinx God Tallari, or their elitemost task force. Otrinax's imprisonment is the result of a series of major First Age conflicts known as The Dragon Wars.The Starseeds
The true identity of the enormous Starseeds (a direct translation of the Skylands Arakh "pah qut") is that they are a sort of "land stromatolite", sedimented slowly, layer by layer, by the activities of the tiny, infant drones of an ancient, non-humanoid people known as the Hecath. Only a few remaining scholars of the First Age Lichlord and xenobiologist Vierix Clymenikari are aware of this.
Essentially each disc-like layer of these formations represents a generation of larval drones. Each subsequent generation created a disc of sediments slightly larger than the previous, resulting in the upside-down funnel shape.History
The history of the Yawning Spiral is one of the deepest, both literally and figuratively, on Waking Materia.Prehistory
Due to the absence of the Veil separating the Waking and Umbral realms, the Yawning Spiral has been populated by umbral species for a vast, perhaps unknowable expanse of time. The presence of such species certainly predates the arrival of the First Empires of Man and perhaps predates the arrival of the first dwarven "Wanderers of Nod".First & Second Ages
The First Age was an era of irregular warfare between the dwarves of Oloraan and the chelicerans of K'rat Jaa, survivors of the New Rozsan culls who sought to create their own society. This was until the Upwell (what the surface races call, less accurately, The Deluge) drowned most of the deeper Cheliceran civilizations in fiend-haunted brine. The survivors abandoned their wars with the dwarves, leaving Oloraan above to a prosperous and peaceful Second Age.Third Age
Though trapped deep beneath the earth by another draconic god, the Duskscape Regent of glyphs and secrets, Tallari-Anaviri-Irallat, the sheer tangibility of Elir-Otrinax's rage and avarice has drawn attention to the Yawning Spiral from beyond the Veil, drawing estrié and demons who rapidly dominated the local wayangs, drow and surviving chelicerans.
After quietly accumulating sufficient power, the demonic hordes executed a sudden and overwhelming attack against the dwarven cities above. Caught off guard, complacent from centuries of relative peace and fighting against bizarre, unfamiliar magicks, the dwarves of Oloraan were decimated. Most families stayed and fought, preferring glorious death to exile. While most survivors traveled west of Asura’s Wall to join the Commonwealth of Marai, a few families stayed closer to home, allying instead with the arakh tribes of the Skylands.Banner: The Yawning Spiral (Left), a drow-dhampir Charok'du'rek ("Foedevourer", an anti-paladin) of Elir-Otrinax (Centre), The Starseeds (Right)
Banner art credit: Ricky Ho
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