Chapter 280 Extra: History of Netheril (Part 2)
Floating Cities
In 886, Ioulaum proved his worth again when he built the first floating city. Tired of fighting orcs, goblins, and others who coveted Netherese gains, he took a Mysera core to the southern section of the Raging Peak and cut off the top with an 11th-level spell. Using a combination of Yturn’s levitation and Chronomancer’s gravity reversal, he turned the broken peak upside down, placed the Mysera core at the center of the surface, and prepared to build a city on the wide, flat circular surface. He called this new fortress Ioulaum’s Enclave. People came from all over Netheril to gather under Ioulaum’s command. They longed to live among the blue sky and white clouds, high above, far away from the races who feared and knew nothing about magic. It soon became a true flying city.
The Archmage, the ruler and creator of Iolumflying, held absolute power. He allowed his people to speak freely—and sometimes listened carefully to their suggestions and requests—but Iolumflying handled all major matters.
As the Netherese worked to build more floating cities (1048NY), the orcs felt increasingly that they were in danger of being exterminated by the Netherese. They felt that the only way for their people to survive was to drive the Netherese away. That year, they launched a powerful offensive against Jenis and Conch; their threat began to approach the Seventon region.
The Seventon Cities sent their best troops west to fight the orcs, but they were quickly called back when the Seventons learned that the orcs would attack from the east. The Seven Cities had never experienced the hardship of fighting on two fronts, and without the reinforcements from Iolumflying, the region might become a spoil of war for orc bandits.
The Silver Age
Due to the urgent need for resources, Netheril began to send people to explore for minerals all over the country. Their main mine was discovered by miner Dekentel in 1101. He found a huge vein of gold, silver, iron ore, mercury and platinum ore. For a thousand years, it supplied Netheril with more minerals than all other places combined.
The prospecting movement, driven by the Netheril, lasted for 550 years. At the same time, the Netheril also established a number of small colonies and outposts. They were scattered throughout the later "Savage Frontier". For those who came to this frontier from thousands of miles away, those outposts were very safe havens. Caravans and explorers could get food, horses for transfers, and other supplies from there.
As Netheril's rule expanded, the native Netheril also set off a wave of inventions. The endless flow of magic from the core of Mysera enables relatively low-level arcanists to make magic items themselves, and these people all want to create an invention that can make them successful, famous, and retired. Most new magic items are designed by these mediocre people (at the middle level). This group is overwhelming in number, and they engage in this business and regard it as their greatest hope for making a quick fortune. This group of shallow arcanists generally holds the idea that their inventions should be cheap and easy to operate, but look expensive - which means that they must at least have an elegant and beautiful appearance.
The first product to be put on the market was a simple roomlight, a sphere used to illuminate the room. It was later eliminated because the second generation of products had been improved to the point where it could be controlled by various commands and voices (of course, according to the preferences of the customer). Soon, every household in the floating city had installed this light in their house.
Then came running water, an invention that opened a permanent pipe to the Elemental Plane of Water. A simple valve controlled the flow of water. Once it was completed and put into use, laying pipelines to deliver water directly to the interior and building water storage facilities became the next goal.
Outposts
The archmages of Netheril began to feel a little worried. As more and more cities rose into the clouds, they worried that one day, there would be so many of them that they would completely cover the land and block every ray of sunlight. So they thought it was time to expand their territory. They used the sphere of divination to explore in both the east and west directions, and found that the land in the west was more suitable for the needs of the Netherese. In the east, there were some powerful countries that were thriving, although they were taking a different path from Netheril.
Some archmages still debated whether to conquer the eastern kingdoms. But in the end, all plans to attack and infiltrate the eastern kingdoms came to a halt. Because the Netherese officially chose the easier target of the West. At that time, the West was loosely ruled by barbarian tribesmen, who were the product of the combination of Earthmother and a wolf. The reason why Netherese's invasion of the East did not take place was probably because of the key role played by Terraseer, a mysterious wise man. Together with a group of powerful arcanists, he led an expedition to the Frontier. They investigated the open-pit mines here and the problem of large-scale reclamation.
After 22 months of travel, Terraseer returned to Netheril with a shocking conclusion. "If we allow this land to be dominated by savages who are so incompetent that they cannot even understand the most basic concept of collective imagecraft, it would be a crime. It would hinder our progress and would not be tolerated by the word 'rich and powerful'."
In 1491, Tirasil found an ideal location. He planned to build a bridgehead there, where caravans and scouts heading to the mineral-rich mountains could replenish their drinking water. But this meant that he had to drive out the owlbears who originally lived here. This would of course cause conflict. Soon after, in the so-called Caravan War, Netherese scouts and light cavalry guards wiped out as many as 3,000 owlbears - creatures created by the Creator Race thousands of years ago. Once Netherese warriors restored order in the area, the arcanists entered the owlbear towns and built a water pipeline network there. The system was one of the most sophisticated in the country. Through this project, which was five miles deep into Toril's crust, the arcanists provided an inexhaustible source of water to the outpost called Old Owl Well.
The outpost was stationed with a company of warriors and several diviners. The diviners' job was to use magic and crystal balls to monitor the movements of the Elfaen elves, because the elves had already regarded Netheril as a potential enemy. Despite the tension between the elves and the elves, Old Owl Well became an important transit point in just five years, welcoming and sending off tired caravans day after day.
There were two other outposts in this border area, which were used for water supply and espionage. The first was built in the forest northwest of what would become Southkrypt. However, since they settled here, they have been forced to leave frequently because it is far away from the force field of Mysera's core, making quasi-magical items completely ineffective. To this end, the Netherese began a new round of difficult attempts. They tried to use the quasi-magic items made with the core of Mysera to create truly magical items that could function independently. But this was not an easy task. After several generations of efforts, they finally succeeded. Let's talk about another outpost. It is close to the northern edge of Westwood and hidden in the southern foothills of the Sword Coast Spires (now the Sword Mountains).
The Golden Age
1652, the year when Kronomanthor was born, marked the beginning of the Golden Age of Netheril, and its national power reached its peak. People began large-scale construction, and a floating city was completed every year. In a blink of an eye, countless magnificent magical cities appeared in the sky, suspended between the wind and the clouds. Some of them stood still, while others slowly flew along the changing borders of the empire. Each Archmage who built a private floating city followed the precedent set by Iolum, issued his own laws in the city, and made them strictly abided by. As time went by, the people gradually lost their voice. Their voices, whether for changes in the political system or adjustments in tax rates, were all swallowed up by the Archmage's power-hungry ambitions. Flying cities soon became tools for Archmages to squeeze funds for magic research and bases for fighting against other Archmages. At the same time, they are also flying bases for traveling quasiplanes and paraelemental planes. Archmage Kronomanthor once paid attention to another human civilization, which was in Fedin. He was worried about them. Because the Netherese were snobbish, they were very contemptuous of countries with underdeveloped magic. He knew this was wrong, and the Netherese Empire would one day suffer the consequences. While he shares the same flaws as the other Arch-Masters (such as his shared belief that the gods are merely exceptionally powerful Arch-Masters who can be defeated and replaced), Kronomanthor does care about the interests of the empire's neighbors, the elves, dwarves, and barbarian tribes.
In 1756, Kronomanthor learned that Illusk was being plundered by orc tribes. So he intervened in the war and helped the local human colonies resist the invasion. But unfortunately, even a man as powerful as Kronomanthor could not save the country. Even more unfortunately, he himself became a victim of the war - he was seriously injured and his body became weaker and weaker, and he died eight years later. Originally, he could have relied on healing magic to recover his health. But he refused. This is because like all archmasters, he also believed that gods are just archmasters like him. The only difference is that they have learned the so-called "ultimate magic". And this pride caused the archmasters to be unwilling to believe in any god, fearing that if they were willing to be under these "ultimate archmasters" (including accepting treatment from priests), it would deprive them of the opportunity to ascend to godhood.
Netheril has never been free of various threats, some of which have even become increasingly serious. This forced the archmasters to spend a lot of effort to quell internal and external troubles. This included the destruction caused by the people of Netheril, which was no less destructive than the inhumans that had wreaked havoc within and beyond the empire. In 1963, Netheril saw another civil uprising: it was started by a group of commoners who had little knowledge of magic and little respect for magic.
It went something like this. Nine men broke into the Most Holy and Magical Chamber of Ioulaum the Demidivine. They killed nine guards, seven of them themselves, and the survivors took the twenty-four Netherese scrolls. After their escape, a manhunt was launched across Netheril. The two thieves, fearing the horrific punishment they would face if caught by the Archmage, destroyed the evidence in a panic, chopped the priceless treasure into countless pieces, and exchanged the precious metal for 260 gold pieces.
In 2201, the Dekentel mine was exhausted due to over-mining. Since there was no more money to be made from it, the place was soon abandoned by the Netherese. However, three years later, the Dekentel mines were reused as a testing ground for the development of various dangerous spells. The reason for this arrangement was a lesson learned from a disaster: the destruction of a floating city.
The First Falling
The first floating city crash occurred in 2202. A failed spell experiment led to the collapse of the floating city, Sunrest. On that day, people in the city were testing a nearly completed spell called "Sunrest sunshock" (an early attempt at an extremely effective meteor shower spell, meteor swarm). But something unexpected happened. At first, the spell seemed to have succeeded. Especially when witnesses in the City of Remembrance said that they saw a brilliant light shining in the western sky. But then, within a few minutes, there were deafening noises roaring in people's ears. Then, everyone who saw this scene was terrified: under the huge explosion force, the entire city was torn into pieces of broken bricks and tiles, falling to the vast earth. There is no doubt that no one survived. (End of this chapter)