Pathfinder Chronicles - Gazetteer - Asamnet

Pathfinder Chronicles
54
Ruler: Grand Prince Stavian III, Emperor of Taldor, Scion
of Aroden, Doge of Andoran, Defender of Galt, Eternal
Monarch of Cheliax, Primarch-in-Waiting of Absalom, etc.
Government: Decayed bureaucratic empire
Languages: Common, Kelish
Religion: Abadar, Aroden, Cayden Cailean, Shelyn,
Sarenrae, Norgorber, Calistria
Shortly after the Pharaohs of Ascension ruled Osirion,
Azlanti survivors of the Age of Darkness founded the
kingdom of Taldor along the east coast of the Inner Sea.
The oldest Taldorian legends hold that Aroden himself
walked among the kingdom’s earliest settlers, a claim
strengthened by the presence in Taldor of the oldest known
temples to the Last Azlanti. Certainly the seat of Aroden’s
worship centered in Taldor for millennia, and in all that
time it seemed that the rise of both nation and immortal
hero were inexorably linked.
When Taldor’s pioneering Armies of Exploration
pacified the native tribes of central Avistan in the first
half of the Age of Enthronement, clerics of Aroden stood
at their side to bring the spiritual treasure of civilization
to a barbaric people. When the Taldorian navy successfully
defended the port capital of Oppara from the tentacled
terror of the Entropic Kraken, it did so under the blessing
and omnipresent will of Aroden.
As the years passed by, colonial operations in Avistan
brought Taldor unparalleled wealth. Many towers and
villas in the capital shone with gold plating, granting
the Gilded City a title that persists to this day. Over the
centuries, the jaded folk of Taldor became increasingly
obsessed with ceremony, social fads, and elaborate
costuming. Taldor’s culture grew more decadent and
detached from the outside world.
Old enemies in Qadira sought to take advantage of Taldor’s
decadence by engaging in a series of escalating conflicts
over the course of centuries. The warring culminated in a
massive invasion of Taldor by Qadira in 4079, triggering the
Even-Tongued Conquest only a few days later. By then, even
the church of Aroden had abandoned Taldor to its mercurial
obsessions and unwholesome appetites, moving the center
of the religion to Cheliax, further bolstering the power of
Taldor’s one-time vassal.
The gold plating of Oppara is a distant memory today,
having been chipped away by vandals and salvagers
centuries ago. With its surface now stripped away, Taldor
stands exposed beneath the crumbled veneer of its pretense
toward high society and avant garde culture. What lies
beneath is myopic, ailing, and terminal.
Thousands of noble houses claiming heritage dating back
to Taldor’s earliest days squabble for control of the nation’s
overtaxed, moribund bureaucracy. Avarice and betrayal
is the rule of the day, and no one trusts anyone for long.
When everyone looks out only for his own interest, crosspurposes
often lead to assassination. Among the nobility,
everyone always looks for an opportunity to increase one’s
station. Taldor’s spoiled sovereign protects himself from
the treachery of his peers by employing mercenaries from
the Land of the Linnorm Kings as his personal guardians, a
role they have played since ancient days.
As no emperor can trust the vicious factions of Oppara,
the fierce northern barbarians make fearsome and effective
guards. They are paid with whatever treasure they can carry
from Taldor’s gleaming treasure vaults at the culmination
of an agreed-upon term of service. The Vikings protect the
office of Taldor’s grand prince rather than the grand prince
himself, a fact made clear when the Red Mantis assassinated
the sitting Emperor Jalrune in 3129. The guards immediately
swore fealty to the assassins’ employer—while Jalrune lived
they would defend the emperor with their lives, but a dead
patron cannot pay.
Taldor’s inf luence is on the wane, and has been for some
time. Yet its culture spawned many of the nations that now
control Avistan’s fate, and what was once among the most
powerful human kingdoms in the world will continue its
slow slide into oblivion for centuries to come.
Thuvia
DESERT LAND OF ETERNAL YOUTH
Alignment: LN
Capital: Merab (56,870)
Notable Settlements: Aspenthar (25,680), Duwwor (8,300),
Lamasara (11,450), Pashow (4,320)
Ruler: Ilepodus, Patron of Merab; Prince Zinlo of
Aspenthar; Zamere, Queen of Lamasara; Kharane,
Defender of Duwwor; Guldis, Emir of Pashow
Government: Loose association of independent city-states
bound by treaties of trade and mutual defense
Languages: Osirian, Polyglot
Religion: Nethys, Sarenrae, Pharasma, Gozreh
During the height of the God-Kings of Osirion, the vast
deserts of Thuvia belonged to humanity’s first great
empire. As the power of the pharaohs waned, however,
much of their outlying territories fell to lawlessness.
So it was with Thuvia. When the last Osirian governor
of the area was murdered in –841, Sothis dispatched no
one to replace him. While the regional government held
on for a few more years, without support from Sothis it
was quickly overthrown. Over the next 2,000 years, the
entire area lacked any sort of stable government, with
most of the settled areas reduced to warring city-states
with few interests beyond their own immediate needs.
With limited natural resources and little in the way of
arable land, most other civilized nations saw no reason to
conquer the area.