History Of Stormreach

Stormreach is relatively small—its population could live in a single ward within Sharn—but it is a free city; for all intents and purposes, it is an independent nation with its own customs and traditions. The Code of Galifar does not apply here, and the rulers of Stormreach consider themselves the equals of any king in Khorvaire. To understand the culture of Stormreach, one must look to its history. Stormreach is haunted by its past. Born in the modern age, the city is a human creation, but the region’s history stretches back long before the rise of human civilization. The giants of Rushemé say that the region is cursed and point to the ruins of a half-dozen civilizations as proof. Scholars from the Library of Korranberg and Morgrave University have studied these ruins for decades and have created a simple map of the region. But many of the greatest secrets remain. Uncovering the truth is a challenge for adventurers—and a task that has already claimed the lives of hundreds.

The Age of Demons
Much about this age eludes modern scholars. The dominion of the demon overlords stretched across the face of Eberron. There’s no question that rakshasa rajahs ruled domains in Xen’drik and that the dragons and couatls opposed them and might have drawn the titans, the giants’ mythic ancestors, into the struggle. But where were those battles fought? What remains of that epic conflict? Explorers have occasionally found traces of the past: the magic blade of a rakshasa warrior or a brass spire in the style of Ashtakala, citadel of the Lords of Dust. According to the storytellers of Rushemé, it was in this age that a curse was placed upon the land near the northern ocean. Some scholars believe
that a terrible secret is hidden deep beneath Stormreach, below the most ancient ruins of the giants.

The Age of Giants
Although some believe this land to be cursed, others have always been drawn to it. The titan Cul’sir made this region the center of his empire. Many sages believe that the Emperor, the statue towering over the harbor, is a representation of Cul’sir himself, set to guard the city against the demons of the past.

Researchers are still struggling to reconstruct the events leading up to the devastation of the primal giant cultures. It’s clear that elves lived among the Cul’sir giants, most likely as slaves; many tools and structures from this period are designed for use by the smaller elves. What records have been recovered emphasize that the city played a critical role during the quori incursion and was a focal point for mystical research. The historical records are obscure about what the city’s wizards were researching but hint at a tremendous power source beneath the city. Whether it was a creation of the giants or a force they were trying to tap into is unknown.

The defeat of the quori set the stage for the elf rebellion. Relics found in the jungles around Stormreach suggest a campaign of guerilla warfare lasting for centuries. This quiet struggle was punctuated by pitched battles. According to Tairnadal tales, the great hero Dyrael Morain led an attack on Stormreach in an effort to “destroy the greatest evil in this dark land.” Dyrael and his forces, the largest elf army ever seen, were annihilated, but the Tairnadal still honor his bravery and sacrifice. Many Valenar have searched for Dyrael’s bones and his legendary blade in the fields south of Stormreach.

The Age of Giants came to an end in a wave of epic magic and dragonfire. Compared to much of Xen’drik, the ruins of Stormreach are well preserved; the colossal watchman is almost untouched. Other sections of the city were partially buried but otherwise left intact.
The giant inhabitants were slaughtered, but some sages believe the dragons held back in dealing with Stormreach itself—that for some reason they were afraid to unleash their full power against the city.

This period can be the source of many adventures. The Cul’sir giants were master wizards and artificers, capable of producing artifacts and eldritch machines. Many wonders are hidden beneath the city, along with terrible tools that must be kept out of villains’ hands.
Valenar warriors can search for ancestral relics, while kalashtar hunt for the defenses crafted during the quori incursion.

The Shifting City
The devastation of Xen’drik left a continent in chaos. The archaeological record suggests that a number of cultures found footholds in the region around Stormreach. But each of these settlements collapsed, and by the time humans came to the area, all that was left were ghosts and shattered stone. Scholars have confirmed that the following groups inhabited Stormreach in the past thirty thousand years.

The first group to return to Stormreach was the giants, the ancestors of the modern giants of Rushemé. The loremasters of Rushemé say that their ancestors were gripped by the
Du’rashka Tul, a homicidal madness that forced them to turn on one another and destroyed their nation.

Thousands of years later, the sahuagin of the Thunder Sea came to Stormreach. The sea devils constructed an amphibious community in the flooded sewers of theoriginal city. Modern sahuagin will not speak of this fallen culture. Some scholars believe this silence is due to shame—that the old sahuagin were corrupted by a dark force below the city. Others assert that the sahuagin civilization was destroyed so long ago that the modern sahuagin simply know nothing about it.

The sahuagin were ultimately driven from the city by a group of giants called the Fallen Stone. Evidence suggests they were either storm giants or some sort of amphibious stone giant—a missing link between the two species. The Fallen Stone was short-lived; following
their victory over the sahuagin, they apparently fell prey to a plague that resisted all forms of magical treatment. Within a century, the region was abandoned again.

The next society that left a clear mark on the region was the thri-kreen. In the modern age, the mantis folk are few in number and largely avoid human contact. But there was a time when tens of thousands of thri-kreen inhabited the region, carving twisting tunnels into the giants’ foundations and sculpting strange monuments beneath the city. The fate of the thri-kreen remains one of the region’s greatest mysteries. The other cultures fell to battle or plague. As far as researchers have been able to tell, the thri-kreen culture came to an end instantaneously, as if the bulk of the thri-kreen population simply vanished. The thri-kreen refuse to discuss their history with humans, but the answer might be found in Stormreach’s depths.

These four cultures left clear marks on Stormreach, while others passed through with barely a trace. The Library of Korranberg has records of a gnome effort to build an outpost in Stormreach sixteen hundred years ago. After mere months, a handful of survivors returned to Zilargo. They blamed their failure on hostile giants, but in recent years the scholar Hegan Del Dorian has advanced the theory that this was a cover story hiding what really happened; he points to the written testimony of a sailor who speaks of a “darkness that gripped both body and soul.”

The Age of Piracy
The first Khorvairian humans to make landfall were pirates. They wanted an outpost to repair and resupply their ships, and the crumbling docks of Stormreach seemed a good foundation for such a hideout. They found a city in ruins, marked by the civilizations that had come before. The pirates clashed with giants, drow, and sahuagin, but they were mysteriously spared the horrors that befell previous settlers. A century passed without plague or warfare, and the pirates prospered. They began searching for opportunities on the continent and discovered both relics in the interior and the power of kuryeva.

Over the years, piracy became an increasing problem in the Thunder Sea. Both this and opportunities in Xen’drik caught the attention of the dragonmarked houses. House Tharashk saw the shiploads of dragonshards the pirates were capturing from the Riedrans and wanted to establish their own prospecting operations in the shattered land. Scholars and artificers seized the relics retrieved from the interior and wanted more. But between harsh weather, the sahuagin, and the constant threat of piracy, travel was simply too dangerous. In 800 YK, representatives of the Twelve appealed to Galifar to bring an end to the pirates’ depredations and establish a port in Xen’drik. As Galifar turned its power toward the south, five of the pirate lords, now called Storm Lords, chose to work with the kingdom in exchange for amnesty and authority within the new city. Though it pained the king to work with pirates, the Storm Lords had invaluable knowledge and infl uence, and defeating the pirates would have been a costly campaign. The king agreed to the offer, and the Stormreach Compact paved the way for Stormreach as it is today.

The City Is Born
By the terms of the Stormreach Compact, Galifar recognized the pirate lords’ right to hold their current lands. As a result, the dragonmarked houses had to work with the Storm Lords to establish a foothold in Xen'drik. Over time, these forces worked together to transform the pirate haven into the city of today. By and large, the city has been stable, with two notable exceptions.

The Omaren Revolt: In 890 YK, the Storm Lord Castal Omaren attempted to eliminate the other Storm Lords and seize control of the city. The coup failed. The Omaren family was allowed to retain its lordship but was forced to make reparations and to operate under
strict penalties, which remain in effect to this day.

The Fire Storm: In 946 YK, the city came under attack by the Battalion of the Basalt Towers, an alliance of fire giants. In addition to physical force, the giants employed an artifact that called down meteor swarms upon the city; some of the craters from this conflict can still be seen today. In a curious turn of events, the giants of Rushemé joined with the Stormreach Guard and the dragonmarked houses to turn back this assault,
not out of a desire to protect the city’s inhabitants but to keep the city out of the battalion’s hands. The power of the Basalt Towers was broken, but some of the giants survived and recent reports from the interior suggest that they have rebuilt their forces. Today Stormreach is more prosperous than ever. The dragonmarked houses are increasing their operations, and tariffs on trade bring gold into the Storm Lords’ coffers. Scholars and adventurers are coming to Xen'drik in ever-increasing numbers, and new settlers are working to establish communities beyond Stormreach. The Last War brought new violence and trouble to the city, but Stormreach continues to grow with each passing year.

Stormreach and the Last War
The population of Stormreach has always included immigrants from the Five Nations, many of whom retain fond memories of their distant homelands. The city has never been subject to the Five Nations, but the Storm Lords gave their fealty to Galifar, by virtue of its strength, and feared a day would come when the kingdom across the ocean would send its fleets to bring their city under its rule. When word reached Stormreach that King Jarot was dead and Galifar had collapsed in civil war, the Lassite Storm Lord at the time gave a shot of kuryeva to anyone who would drink a toast to the kingdom’s fall.

Stormreach remained neutral throughout the Last War and became a haven for dissidents and defectors. The city is an imperfect sanctuary due to the relative lawlessness of the streets, but those who have sufficient funds can turn to House Deneith or House Kundarak for security. Less affluent defectors can always find sanctuary by joining the Stormreach
Guard. Whatever their f laws in protecting the common people, the guards look after their own, and the Stormreach Recruiters ask no questions; when a man picks up a guard’s sword, he leaves his past behind.

Despite Stormreach’s neutrality, echoes of the Last War resonate through the city, where militias and gangs have arisen based on national themes. An adventurer who thinks the war is over might change his mind after clashing with Dannel’s Wrath or the Ninth Wands of Aundair (as long as the Storm Lords are not threatened, the Stormreach Guard ignores sectarian violence between immigrants). The Last War continues in Stormreach in ways unseen in Khorvaire, ways that surprise visitors who were involved in the war. A former soldier could be pressured to help a militia that has ties to his nation. Cyran refugees could hold a player character responsible for crimes she committed while serving in the war. An old companion could show up with a scheme to recover a treasure cache lost in the war—but the soldier has been exiled, and he needs his old war buddies to help. Vengeance, bigotry, and hope are all aspects of Stormreach. Even in this land of new opportunities, adventurers should come face to face with the consequences of the war.

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