Karameikos - Vaults of Pandius
Karameikos - Vaults of Pandius
Karameikos - Vaults of Pandius
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The History <strong>of</strong> <strong>Karameikos</strong>THE TIME BEFORE THECATACLYSMIn the millennia before the Great Rain <strong>of</strong>Fire, the land today known as <strong>Karameikos</strong> satnear the pre-cataclysmic North Pole, in a coldand inhospitable land 1 . Some sparseremnants <strong>of</strong> the Brutemen race still dwelledin this northern land, where the expansion<strong>of</strong> human civilization had pushed them inthe course <strong>of</strong> the last thousands years 2 ; theircountry was only travelled, from time totime, by the occasional Oltec or Azcanpioneer, or by Blackmoorian explorers. Thetrue masters <strong>of</strong> this region were the frostgiants, who lived here in great number, anda few dragons – <strong>of</strong> which the redYealeletherveri (active around BC 5000) isremembered as one <strong>of</strong> the most powerfuland fearsome wyrms <strong>of</strong> history 3 .1TheHISTORY<strong>of</strong>This article uses the version <strong>of</strong> Mystara’s history according towhich the Known World (Ethengar, in particular) was the NorthPole before the Great Rain <strong>of</strong> Fire (BC 3000); after the cataclysm,Blackmoor becomes the North Pole and the elven homeland <strong>of</strong>Evergrun the South Pole. This version is found in mostsupplements <strong>of</strong> the Gazetteer series, as well as in the “Timeline <strong>of</strong>History” featured in the Dungeon Master’s Sourcebook part <strong>of</strong> theHollow World campaign set; the latter’s poster Outer-World,Precataclysmic Map features instead a differently-rotated globe(with the Known World at about 30°N latitude), and is not used asa source for this article.2Brutemen, also called Neanderthals or Cavemen in the D&DBasic Set and Rules Cyclopedia, go extinct in the outer worldaround BC 10,000 (see Hollow World campaign set) and arepreserved by the Immortals in the Hollow World; however, someremnants <strong>of</strong> their race may well survive to these days, as they arefeatured in some <strong>of</strong> the adventure modules (like B5: Horror on theHill).3The tale <strong>of</strong> Yealeletherveri is told in the Son <strong>of</strong> Dawn novel (setaround AC 1010), where it is narrated by an ancient female bluedragon living in the Altan Tepes mountains, Blethinferelth;according to the story, Yealeletherveri had his lair in the AltanTepes mountains when the Blackmoor civilization was still young.I’ve further expanded the setting <strong>of</strong> Yealeletherveri’s andby Simone Neri (Zendrolion)The Great Rain <strong>of</strong> Fire changed all this,pushing the Known World from the arcticlatitude into the temperate one. Glaciersbegan to melt, frost giants started a retreattoward the highest mountains <strong>of</strong> the newarctic lands, and the country was slowlycarpeted with forests, springs, and rivers. Inthis age, the land known today as<strong>Karameikos</strong> did not border the Sea <strong>of</strong>Dread; now-submerged lands extendedmany miles to the south, well beyond thepresent day archipelagos <strong>of</strong> Ierendi andMinrothad.RISE AND FALL OF THETAYMORAN CIVILIZATIONThe first people to set foot in postcataclysmic<strong>Karameikos</strong> were humans fromcentral Brun; they crossed modern Darokinand arrived in BC 2500 from the north intothe southern Known World. They were theTaymora, who rapidly built an agriculturalcivilization <strong>of</strong> bronze-age city-states, mostlylocated along the southern coast <strong>of</strong> theKnown World (many miles south <strong>of</strong> modern<strong>Karameikos</strong>), and <strong>of</strong> which little is knowntoday 4 .Blethinferelth’s stories in my MGAZ1: The Central Altan Tepes atThe <strong>Vaults</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Pandius</strong>.4The Taymora were first introduced in PC3: The Sea People,according to which they “moved south” and arrived in the “fertileplains surrounding the southern sea”, where they “establishedsettlements along the cliffs and on the plains”. From sparseelements found in the adventure “Voyage to the Bottom <strong>of</strong> theSea” (included within PC3), we may argue that - at least at thebeginning - the Taymora were a bronze-age civilization with a lovefor pastoral life. Likely they had not an empire, as canon sources37THRESHOLD: The Mystara Magazine Issue #1