Tondo Talestro (The City of the Fallen Star)
Tondo Talestro is a lun'Aeldvaren city-state in the Shattered Isles. It was founded shortly after the Shattering, hidden away by a city-sized arcane barrier, and only in the past 135 years has it re-emerged into the wider awareness of the rest of the Shattered Isles.
The following recounting of Tondo Talestro's significant history is courtesy T. Melostral, who lived through the most recent two thousand years of it.
The Founding
“Twelve thousand years ago, our island Lorti Buolco was untamed wilderness, home only to powerful and arcane beasts. It is too distant from the rest of the Isles to have even housed wild elf tribes or orcs. Eleven thousand years ago, the Isles… Shattered. It is unclear what precisely caused the Shattering, but it catalyzed a chain reaction across the Isles that destroyed many of the latent arcana pockets that had pooled along leyline intersections. The many magical creatures of the Isles were either killed, un-magicked, or distorted and deformed. “Shortly after the Shattering, a small group of moon elves broke away from the Isles and retreated to this island here. We do not know the fullness of their reasoning, only that they fundamentally disagreed with the rest of the moon elves in the Isles about who or what caused the Shattering. “I suspect blame, or at least partial responsibility, was placed on the elves who settled here, but the only records we have are of their side of the disagreement. They intended to formally break away, politically and socially, from the rest of the Isles. Some of them hoped to study the island’s wildlife to perhaps reverse some of the damage and changes that the Shattering caused. “From what history we retain, no one from the Isles ever came after the elves who began living here. They built a modest city for themselves, which would later grow into Tondo Talestro. Ten thousand years ago, when they were firmly established as their own self-sustained population, they cast a barrier around the city that no unauthorized creature could cross. Eventually, not even the denizens of the city crossed the barrier. The city was invisible to the rest of the Isles, and its people… forgotten.”K. Nightbell: Is that why you don’t speak High Aeldvaren? T. Melostral: We only retained the Language of the Moon. Everything else was left behind.
Ilysandra's Reign
“The city was led by a line of Prime Arcanists, all descended directly from the few specific elves who led the group to the island, and eventually, they gave themselves noble titles as rulers. Our third queen was Ilysandra. She was the ideal that all moon elves would aspire to. She was perfect.
“...perfection, as the moon itself teaches us, is impossible. No face is without its scars. No soul is without its shadow.
“Ilysandra grew discontent with the amount of power she possessed as one of the most skilled sorcerers in the entire city. She experimented with magical energies beyond just arcana. She toyed with anima for a while and learned to heal--and to rip the life essence from a body in one fell swoop. She tried to use Abyssal energy, but she could not master it to her satisfaction.
Eldritch Magic
“The only other type of magical energy is Eldritch. A virulent cancer that would consume and convert everything arcane it could reach. But Ilysandra was so powerful, so skilled… she thought she could avoid its contagion with a labyrinth of arcane shields, wards, traps, and decoys. “We… the denizens of the city, nearly all of whom used magic to some degree, for some purpose either scholarly or mundane… we used arcana. Many of those who had mastered their chosen fields worked solely with the most pure form of arcana--aether. Relatively few of us worked with anima, as it was seen as a… lesser magic, albeit a necessary one. We maintained a bare minimum of witches to ensure that sicknesses and injuries could be treated. “None of us, really, bothered with Abyssal magic. None of us wanted our beautiful, carefully-constructed arcane masterpieces to be eroded and washed away with its touch. Arcana has always been the most malleable magical energy, the one that can accept and retain the most nuance and most delicate of details. That is our aesthetic. Therein lies our magical prowess. Not in brute force or overwhelming amounts of arcana. “Eldritch energy is like a spark landing upon a maze drawn with saltpeter. No matter how long the wick, nor how many twists and turns it takes on its way to a candle, the fire will reach the wax eventually. It is only a matter of time. Ilysandra was overconfident about her abilities to control and isolate her Eldritch experiments. Because she was cocksure, she did not take every available precaution.”K. Nightbell: Did [Eldritch] take down the city’s barrier? T. Melostral: It would have, if it did not first catch the attention of demons.
by Ty Barbary via Midjourney
Timeline of TT History
Type
Large city
Included Locations
Enter Demons
“Eldritch entities with Eldritch souls, devoid of anima. Walking, talking sources of magical miasma and pestilence, infecting every iota of arcana they touched. “Ilysandra’s confidence allowed the demons an audience with her, instead of an immediate extermination. They offered to share the secrets of Eldritch magic with her, in exchange for a place in the city. For a while, she refused, using them instead for minor gain in her experiments. Eventually, though…”K. Nightbell: Your queen let demons into the city? T. Melostral: Unbelievable, isn’t it?“She kept them out of sight, lurking in her palace and private gardens. Any glimpse a noble or worker caught was greeted with as much disbelief as if they had said Ilysandra had grown a second head on her shoulders. The demons fawned over her, more devoted and heel-licking than even the most obsequious of elves. They taught her Eldritch magic that, for a time, did not contaminate any of the myriad arcane structures and spells around her. They let her grow to trust them. And then they demanded more.
by Ty Barbary via DALL-E 2
Mana Rationing
“Like many deadly diseases, the demons spread slowly and thoroughly, entrenching themselves in small aspects of the city’s function with Ilysandra’s blessing. But… being entities not native to our physical world, the demons needed food. Fuel. Ilysandra fed them arcana from her own power, but they became too numerous to sustain alone. She was… fond of them, by then. They were her truest supporters, her most trusted aides. She felt immune to Eldritch energy. She… knew… that she could control every demon, every iota of Eldritch energy in the city. “All of us are manabound. Every elf. We cannot live without intaking mana, along with food and water and breath. But the demons only need mana, and a demon consumes much more mana per day than an elf. “The city has always had enough mana, in many forms, for its denizens. Excess mana was converted back to arcana, and the rare times when mana fell short, we had many sorcerers who could create mana from sufficiently dense arcana. “But when enough demons grew hungry, the balance tipped. Ilysandra told no one that she was feeding the demons from our mana supplies, but simply imposed a rationing system. It was strange, at first, but the effect was barely felt by those wealthier or higher-ranking. “The rationing tightened. Common people were mana-starved. And I do not use that term lightly.“Many, many people were on the brink of losing their minds to the hunger. They received only enough mana from their rations to stay alive, but not enough to survive anything more than the bare minimum of activities. It was a crime for anyone to create mana of their own arcana and distribute it to those in need."
Resistance and Starvation
“There began a resistance among the people, an effort to distribute mana to those who were suffering, even if it meant taking mana from those who were not suffering. Some said that Ilysandra was engineering the shortage, that it was deliberate to keep certain groups from being healthy enough to openly protest her pet demons roaming the city freely. Many thought it far-fetched. We still believed our queen was doing all that she could to keep her people safe and healthy, even though we could not fathom the larger picture in which she was doing the right thing. “The demons grew more numerous. They became part of, then all of, the queensguard. Those who were caught sharing mana or publicly opposing Ilysandra were vanished. They did not return, and no bodies surfaced. It all felt like a dream, a haze of uncertainty. “But the situation continued to worsen. I saw elves kill and eat any animal with even a trace of mana in its body in order to survive just one more day… which is not as shocking an occurrence outside of the city, but here, the only creatures we had were domesticated citystock or personal pets. I saw elves finally consumed by mana-starvation go mad and mindless and violent. I saw families have to subdue, or kill, their own who were lost to the hunger…"
A Manifesting Demon by Ty Barbary via Midjourney
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