The Setting - Illanon, the High Gate

Campaign
   Geography
   Races
   Religion
   Classes
   Politics
   History
      Correllendor
      Dwarves
      Elves
      Illendi
      Rokanoi
   Magic
   Characters
   NPCs

Adventures

Resources
   Open Game Content
   Feats
   Skills
   Spells

 Links
   Excellent Settings
   Gaming Tips
   Tools I use
   Other Resources

Overview

Illanon is a fortress-city perched on the edge of the Ilper basin. It's a rough city, set deep in the Northern Forests at the mouth of the pass to the dangerous Ilrathur Plateau. Illanon is the primary point of trade between Correllendor and the Dwarven Mountain near Ilrathur. See the 'History' below for what further details exist at present.

Contents:


History

The question posed by Illanon's hard living is "why is Illanon even there, if this is such a wilderness?" The easy and main answer is: Dwarven trade. There is a Dwarven Mountain north and/or east of Illanon, on one side of the pass and the Ilrathur Plateau. Illanon is the community that serves (among other things) as a meeting ground for the Dwarves of the Mountain and the humans of Correllendor.

That was the seed that set Illanon's physical location. A keep, essentially a fortified market, was established by a leader of one of the 'pioneer' communities upon striking the first official trade pacts between the dwarves and the (then) Pas Ilrath district of the (then) Seraken gov't. The name "Illanon", or "High Gate" was set as the community was seen as a trade 'gate'way to the dwarves and to the distant communities of the high plateau. Illanon grew quickly as the lone homesteaders (and even entire small communities) gravitated to the protection of the city's fortifications and organizations. There were wars with the orcs... and the goblins, who would at times swarm from the peaks, valleys, and the very sewers of the city itself. Leaders were made and broken against the stone visages of the peaks and the claws, teeth, and steel of their denizens. Illanon gained another wave of settlers as refugees from Seraken and Midrao fled the wars that joined Correllendor as a political entity.

In this tumultuous environment, the city could not stand alone, could not face alone the sieges that would eventually have cut it off from the other distant cities; during one particularly protracted siege, a man named Garrenon Rathken ran the siege lines and over the course of a week gathered the fighting strength of the surrounding forests into a small force of skilled mountain men and women known as the Rangers - people too wild to comfortably join in the urbanization of the valley's populace; people known in the remaining 'frontier' communities for their knowledge and love of the wilderness and the people who live within it. The Rangers cut the enemies' supply lines, and wore away the beseiging force from the shadows of the forest itself. When the battle was done, the leaders of Illanon asked the Rangers to stay on as a sort of elite (and unusual) militia, "The Strength of the Forest"; they asked Garrenon to stay on as the representative of the Rangers in Illanon.


Unless stated otherwise, all content © 2004 Scott Price. All rights reserved.