Cities of Fantasy: Baldur's Gate

The Western Heartlands of Faerun form an extensive area of wilderness, hundreds of miles of open countryside dominated by several large city-states.  The most famous and storied of these is the great port city of Baldur’s Gate. From its position on the River Chionthar, Baldur’s Gate is the largest beacon of civilisation between Waterdeep and the kingdom of Amn and acts as a vital trading post. Everything is for sale in Baldur’s Gate, including adventure, trouble and morality.

Note: Baldur’s Gate’s fortunes differ significantly at different points in the history of the Forgotten Realms. This description explores the city during the “classic” era of Forgotten Realms history, just prior to the highly ill-conceived event known as the Spellplague, regarded as non-fanon by many fans and players in the setting.

Location

Baldur’s Gate is located close to the north-western coast of the continent of Faerûn. It is located on the wide and deep River Chionthar, approximately twenty miles upriver from where it flows into the Sea of Swords. Technically the city is not on the Sword Coast itself, but its position as a major port and one of the few waystops north of Amn makes the difficulty of beating upriver to the city generally worthwhile.

The city is also located on the Coast Way, a vital trade artery along the west coast of the continent. The Coast Way extends south through the towns of Beregost and Nashkel into the Kingdom of Amn and thence to the rich southern kingdoms of Tethyr and Calimshan. The Coast Way eventually terminates at Calimport, the largest city in Faerûn, some 1,000 miles to the south, and continues to Waterdeep, the City of Splendours, located about 480 miles to the north-west. The Coast Way takes a massive detour to the east to avoid the Troll Hills and Trollbark Forest north of the Winding Water, an area infested with monsters. The Coast Way runs a dangerous gauntlet between the Troll Hills and High Moor to the north on its way to Waterdeep, so trade caravans usually travel well-armed.

Physical Description

Baldur’s Gate surrounds a significant inlet of the River Chionthar. With tall hills to the east hemming in the city’s walls, the city resembles a crescent moon with the bay forming the gap in the circle. Districts within the city include Bloomridge, Twin Songs and the Port District.

The most notable feature of the city is arguably Black Dragon Gate, built by Balduran himself, a formidable gateway and mini-fortress which has never fallen in battle. The city core contains the High Hall (or Palace of the Grand Dukes), the High House of Wonders (a huge temple to Gond, God of Artifice and Invention), the Water Queen’s House (a rare temple to Umberlee, the capricious Goddess of the Sea) and the Lady’s Hall (a temple to Tymora, Goddess of Good Fortune). Temples to Ilmater, Helm, Lathander and Oghma can also be found within the city centre.

The city’s primary defensive bastion is the Seatower of Balduran, located on an island in the harbour.

Population

The population of Baldur’s Gate varied according to the season. In 1372 DR the city’s permanent population was approximately 42,100, but at the height of the summer trading rush this could more than double to around 86,000. During the height of the trading season, it’s not unusual to see extensive tent cities and ad hoc markets springing up outside the walls.

Government

Baldur’s Gate is ruled by the Council of Four, also known as the Four Grand Dukes. As of 1372, the Four Grand Dukes are Eltan, the leader of the Flaming Fist Mercenary Company; Belt, a poweful warrior-priest; Liia Jannath, a wizardess; and Entar Silvershield, the city’s richest merchant. The Council works closely together to keep trade flowing through the city and to ensure threats are dealt with quietly and efficiently.

Baldur’s Gate is also part of the Lords’ Alliance, an alliance of city-states in north-western Faerun designed to resist the corrupting influence of the Black Network of the Zhentarim, the rulers of Amn, the Red Wizards of Thay and other potential enemies. Although the Alliance is a powerful force in resisting such enemies, it has no say over the internal running of the city. Other members of the Alliance include Waterdeep, Daggerford, Neverwinter, Mirabar, Gundarlun and the newly-founded Kingdom of Luruar in the Silver Marches, centered on the great city of Silverymoon.

History

The history of Baldur’s Gate dates back to the adventurer Orluth Tshahvur. In 227 DR he founded the short-lived kingdom of Shavinar at the mouth of the River Chionthar. He built a crude keep near the site of what is now Baldur’s Gate and attracted settlers to the town with a promise of freedom and mutual defence against marauding monsters and bandits. He gained a boon when a skilled Calishite shipwright arrived in the settlement, leading to a shipbuilding and repair yard springing up. The village became known as Gaeth (the local Thorass word for “rivermouth”) but, despite its good fortune, it was slow to grow. By Orluth’s death in 242 DR, the population was only 120 but the wider realm of Shinvar extended almost 100 miles upriver and as far north as the Troll Hills, where Orluth had built watchtowers to keep an eye out for trolls. Orluth’s son Arlsar, neglected his father’s achievements and was murdered in 256 DR by merchants angered by his incompetence.

There were several attempts to hold Shavinar together, the most notable being Arlsar’s youngest son Kondarar who had magical backing. Under his rule Shavinar began to grow again…but it was swept away by a troll horde in 277 DR. Gaeth was destroyed along with the rest of the realm.

Still, the realm’s existence did confirm that the location was a viable one for a port and over the next eight centuries several attempts were made to establish another settlement in the region. However, this always failed because the cost of building a wall around the port – which due to the geography required a very large one – was ruinous.

This situation was finally broken circa 1050. A great sailor hailing from the region, Balduran, took his ship, the Wandering Eye, across the Trackless Sea in search of new lands. Against the odds, beyond Evermeet he found a rich new continent, Anchorome, and found many riches there. He returned home, laden with gold, and paid for massive stone walls to be built around the nascent settlement on the site of ancient Gaeth. The port was named Baldur’s Gate in his honour and Balduran briefly stayed to rule and help the city become more established. However, he eventually could not resist the call of the sea and returned to Anchorome. He was killed there by the natives circa 1068, although some conflicting rumours suggest he actually returned to Faerûn but his ship was smashed to pieces on the coast south of the city. This rumour is considered fanciful.

Despite Balduran’s death, the city he left behind prospered. This was helped by the rise of Waterdeep to the north, and the presence of two new rich trade ports to the north saw trade start to flow up the Sword Coast from the rich southern kingdoms of Amn, Tethyr and Calimshan. The growing city was threatened in 1235 when the Black Horde, the largest orc horde in recorded history, rampaged down the Sword Coast. Both Waterdeep and Baldur’s Gate were besieged, but their walls held and the ports remained open, preventing either from being starved out. The Black Horde itself fragmented due to a lack of food and supplies and eventually dispersed.

Circa 1350, the fighter Eltan founded the Flaming Fist, a mercenary company rooted in honour and order. The mercenary army, noted for its discipline and its success in resisting border incursions from Amn to the south and repelling monsters and trolls to the north, soon became the de facto police force of Baldur’s Gate and Eltan ascended to the rank of Grand Duke.

In 1358 the Time of Troubles (or Avatar Wars) wracked Faerûn. Bhaal, God of Murder and Patron of Assassins, did battle with the nascent demigod Cyric on Boareskyr Bridge a couple of hundred miles north-east of Baldur’s Gate. Bhaal was defeated and slain, but upon his death his essence was split between several mortals, the so-called “Bhaalspawn”. Ten years later, in 1368, one of these offspring, Sarevok, instigated a plan to kill the other Bhaalspawn and reunite Bhaal’s power in himself. To this end he allied with the Iron Throne criminal organisation and a band of doppelgangers to topple the Four Grand Dukes and seize control of the region. However, another Bhaalspawn thwarted his plans and killed Sarevok, preventing Bhaal’s return and restoring peace to the region.

In 1361 word arrived in the city that Captain Cordell and the Golden Legion of Amn had discovered a new continent far to the west, across the Trackless Sea. They had named this continent Maztica and toppled the evil empire that had dominated the land, as well as founding the new town of Helmsport to help exploit this new continent. The Council of Four realised that Maztica was likely associated with Anchorome and dispatched an expedition to stake out their own claim to the land. This expedition confirmed that Anchorome is the continent to the north of Maztica (with Maztica as a subcontinent or region of Anchorome rather than a geologically separate landmass) and founded Fort Flame on the coast of the continent in 1364. The local jungle elf tribes attacked Fort Flame several times but were repulsed.

In 1369 the Fifth Serôs War, also called the Sea War, raged when the sahuagin minions of Iakhovas the Taker attacked the city (and most of the coast of Faerûn). They were defeated and forced out of the city thanks to the Flaming Fist and the city’s wizards and priests.

As of 1372 Baldur’s Gate appears secure, having averted the threat of war with Amn to the south and increased its dominance on Sword Coast trade. Baldur’s Gate’s ambition seems to be to surpass Waterdeep to the north as the greatest city on the coast. Some have speculated that the Gate may try to expand into a nation or at least a more formal alliance, comprising all the lands between the Troll Hills and Cloud Peaks and incorporating settlements as Ulgoth’s Beard, Candlekeep, the Friendly Arm Inn (located inside a massive fortress) and Beregost, but if so this ambition has not been realised so far.

Origins and Influences

Baldur’s Gate is part of the Forgotten Realms fantasy world, originally created by Ed Greenwood in 1968 and then developed as the setting for his home Dungeons and Dragons campaign from 1976 onwards. The world became better-known when Greenwood began writing for Dragon Magazine in 1978, often referencing his home campaign in his articles. In 1987 TSR, Inc. released the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, marking the first appearance of Baldur’s Gate in print. The city first appeared in a novel in 1990, when R.A. Salvatore set part of The Halfling’s Gem (the concluding novel in The Icewind Dale Trilogy) in the city.

Baldur’s Gate received little more attention in the second edition of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting (1993) but it was expanded greatly by Ed Greenwood in Volo’s Guide to the Sword Coast (1994), a sourcebook which provided the first canonical map of the city itself. He detailed much more of the city’s history, geography and power groups.

In 1995 the video game company Interplay bought a licence to release games set in the Forgotten Realms setting and using the Dungeons and Dragons rules from TSR. After a couple of disappointing titles, Interplay partnered with a new Canadian game development studio called BioWare to develop a D&D game. They considered several settings, including better-known Realms locations such as the Dalelands and Waterdeep, but ultimately settled on Baldur’s Gate as the city had just enough background to be interesting but enough blank spaces they could fill in with new information.

The resulting video game, Baldur’s Gate, was released in 1998 and was a smash hit, setting BioWare on the path that would eventually lead them to the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises. This game began a series which continued with Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast (1999), Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000) and its expansion Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal (2001) (although only Baldur’s Gate itself was set in the titular city). It also inspired a spin-off console game series, comprising Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance (2001) and Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II (2004). In 2012 Beamdog released Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition which updated the game for modern PCs and added a new expansion, Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, in 2015 (although this expansion is not set in the city itself).

Baldur’s Gate III: The Black Hound was in development at Interplay when the company went bust in 2004. Despite the name, the game would have been set in the Dalelands with no connection to the earlier series by plot.

More recently, Baldur’s Gate was explored in both the 4^th and 5^th edition campaign settings for Dungeons and Dragons. The former saw the Forgotten Realms destroyed in an event known as the Spellplague, with Baldur’s Gate emerging as one of the few settlements to flourish following the cataclysm, becoming larger and more powerful than Waterdeep (a move motivated, it was believed, to cash in on the name recognition of the video games). 5^th Edition has undone many of the impacts of the Spellplague, but Baldur’s Gate retains its place as one of the most prominent cities in the setting.

Most recently, the city is the focus for the Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate board game (2017), a variant of the classic Betrayal at House on the Hill board game.

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Cities of Fantasy: Asshai

Located in the furthest east of the known world, beyond the Jade Sea, Asshai is one of the most storied and fabled cities known to man. Sailors and merchants sail there seeking riches and arcane knowledge. Sometimes they find it, and are haunted by what they have seen all their lives. Sometimes they return changed for the experience. To visit Asshai is to risk passing under the Shadow, and not all who do so return whole.

The City of Shadows by René Aigner, from The World of Ice and Fire.

Location

Asshai is located at the mouth of the River Ash, at the tip of an enormous peninsula on the south coast of the continent of Essos. Asshai is located almost exactly six thousand miles south-east of the city of King's Landing in Westeros, and is located very close to the equator. It is one of the southernmost cities known to exist; only Ebonhead in the Summer Islands is further south. It is also one of the easternmost cities known to exist, with only Carcosa in the Mountains of the Morn believed to lie further east.

Asshai is often called Asshai-by-the-Shadow. This is because Asshai is located at the edge of a region known as the Shadow Lands, a land of towering, jagged mountains that plunge the valleys between and the lands around them into near-perpetual shadow.

There are no good roads linking Asshai to other cities, only a single track leading up into the mountains, stretching for 300 miles before terminating at the corpse-city Stygai, where only the shadowbinders are allowed to tread, and a rough caravan track leading north along the coast towards the border of Yi Ti. The only other way in or out of the city is by sea. Asshai is the eastern-most port on the so-called "Traders Circle" around the shores of the Jade Sea, with ships typically stopping off at the city before bearing west for Marahai and other islands on their way back west to the Cinnamon Straits and the Summer Sea.

Asshai also guards the entrance to the Saffron Straits, which link the Jade Sea to as-yet unknown oceans to the east and divide Essos from the island-continent of Ulthos to the south. No ship has ever sailed more than a few hundred miles up the straits and returned to report their findings. For these reasons, Asshai is believed to lie right on the very edge of the known world.

Physical Description

Asshai is the largest city known to exist. It sprawls on either side of the Ash for miles upon miles, consisting of thousands of buildings, mostly built of a curiously, oily black stone. The city is walled, but with the nearest neighbours being thousands of miles away, it is unclear what the walls are designed to defend against. According to some cartographers, the walls of Asshai could comfortably hold Volantis, Qarth, Oldtown and King's Landing combined. However, less than one-in-ten of the buildings in the city are inhabited. Most of the city is abandoned and dead.

Known buildings in the city include markets, taverns, bazaars, temples and palaces. The port is the busiest part of the city, with numerous ships from across the known world usually in port at any one time. It's also the area of the city which feels most alive, where laughter can be heard. The city has an oppressive atmosphere, and is often shrouded in gloom and shadow, with mists rising from the Ash and storms brewing over the mountains. Visitors to Asshai prefer not to spend too much time there.

History

The origins of Asshai are unknown. According to the Asshai'i, their forefathers in the Dawn of Days simply found the city standing as it appears now. Whoever built the city and for what purpose is unknown. Some imaginative maesters draw a link between the oily black stone of Asshai and similar stones found as far afield as the Basilisk Isles, Yeen in Sothoryos, Battle Isle in Oldtown and Lorath, suggesting that a pre-human (and perhaps even pre-Children of the Forest) civilisation once existed and flourished before being destroyed in an unknown cataclysm, long before even the migration of the First Men to Westeros twelve thousand years ago.

This story is not widely accepted, but it remains unclear who could have built Asshai. It was not the YiTish or their forefathers in the Great Empire of the Dawn, nor was is the Ghiscari, Valyrians or Sarnori. No other candidate civilisation is known to exist. This is a mystery, and may remain one forever.

What is known is that Asshai was an inhabited sea port during the time of Old Ghis and the Great Empire of the Dawn. According to myth, the Great Empire forced Asshai to pay tribute for a time but overextended itself and had to withdraw from the region. According to the Asshai'i, it was their emissaries who taught the nascent Valyrians how to tame and train the dragons they had found nesting in the Fourteen Fires of their peninsula, and it was their fire magic that helped save the world from the oblivion of the Long Night.

Asshai's history is remarkable for how lacking in incident it appears to be: the city and its curious people have simply existed at the edge of the world for millennia uncounted, trading knowledge and riches with outsiders in return for food, never suffering attack and rarely facing an external threat. 

Origin and Influences

Asshai is a city frequently mentioned in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels and, occasionally, in the HBO TV adaptation, Game of Thrones. It is a place of mystery and foreboding, mentioned with awe and dread by characters who have heard of it.

Only one of Martin's POV characters, Melisandre, has seen Asshai with her own eyes and even she is not a native of that city. We have met Quaithe, who is from the Shadow Lands (not Asshai itself), but she is not a POV character and has only appeared very briefly.

Much of the information given about Asshai has been very general: it is a place of mystery and strangeness, it is located in the far south-east of the world and it is a great port on the Jade Sea. It was later revealed to be a centre of R'hllor worship and dragons may live in the Shadow Lands beyond the city. Much more than was not known until A Dance with Dragons (2011), when Melisandre was promoted to a POV character and we got very brief flashbacks and mentions of the city as a place of great power (Melisandre notes that the Wall is the only place in the world where her powers are greater than in Asshai). Lands of Ice and Fire (2012) shows the city for the first time on a map, with the mysterious city of Stygai located beyond it. Finally, The World of Ice and Fire (2014) answered many questions about the city, but introduced more. In particular, Martin used the power of the unreliable narrator in the world book to make statements that are not necessarily true (such as there being no children in the city).

For fictional inspiration, Martin was inspired heavily by the works of Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. The city of Stygai was almost certainly inspired by Stygia, a forbidding city in Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "Shadows in the Moonlight". The notion of Asshai as a city built by a mysterious pre-human civilisation at the dawn of time and the current human inhabitants are merely confused primitives playing in the ruins is positively Lovecraftian.

Will we learn more about Asshai? Melisandre will presumably remain a POV character in The Winds of Winter and we may see more of the city through her eyes and flashbacks. A direct visit to the city in the series itself has been explicitly ruled out, but it's possible that Martin will one day write more about it, maybe in a short story or prequel expanding more on characters from there. Disappointingly, the city seems to have been virtually ignored by Game of Thrones after the second season, and the chances it will show up in the six remaining episodes of the series are pretty much non-existent. But it may be better and more fascinating for the city to remain an enigma.

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Cities of Fantasy: Dunwall

Dunwall is a sprawling, industrial city located on the south coast of the island of Gristol. Dunwall has existed for centuries, dominating the whale oil trade around the Isles, but in recent decades it has grown in importance and become the capital city of the Empire of the Isles, spanning the major islands of Tyvia, Morley, Gristol and Serkonos. It is a city riven by internal strife between the aristocratic class and the workers, which has led to violence and, occasionally, outright rebellions.

Location
Dunwall is located on the south coast of Gristol, at the mouth of the enormous River Wrenhaven as it twists and turns before meeting the Ocean. The city commands the head of a wide bay opening out into a gulf formed by Gristol to the north and the island of Serkonos to the south. Regular ferry services run across to the city of Bastillan a few dozen miles to the south-west on the north coast of Serkonos.

Physical Description
Dunwall sprawls across approximately twenty square miles. The city is cut in two by the Wrenhaven. There are three significant bridges in the western part of the city, but in the east there is only Kaldwin's Bridge, which is tall enough to allow large ships to pass underneath it. Frequent ferry services run between the north and south sides of the river in the eastern part of the city.

Draper's Ward, the Clock Tower, the Boyle Mansion, the Estate District, the Old Waterfront, Tower District, Dunwall Tower and Coldridge Prison are located in the northern part of the city. The High Overseer's Office, Slaughterhouse Row, the Legal District, the Golden Cat, the Distillery District, the Hound Pits Pub, the Old Port District, the Chamber of Commerce and the Rudshore Financial District (aka the "Flooded District") are located in the southern. Also significant is Kingsparrow Island, topped by an enormous lighthouse, located several miles out into the bay.

Other locations include the Civil Service District, Tailors' District, Dunwall Water District, the Rust District,

The Mutcherhaven District is located to the north of the city, outside the old city walls on the river. The infamous Brigmore Manor is located here. The New Mercantile District is also located in this region.

History

An ancient civilisation once existed on Gristol, more than four thousand years ago. The fate of this civilisation is unknown (but may be linked to the Great Burning, an ancient cataclysm which marked the beginning of the modern calendar), although it is known to have practiced black magic. One of the consequences of this magic was the apotheosis of a young man to become the Outsider, a trickster being of formidable power. Three thousand years later another kingdom or empire arose on Gristol which worshipped the Outsider as a god and created numerous magical trinkets or artifacts. The destruction of this empire saw many of these artifacts thrown into the sea. Over centuries, many of these totemic items have washed back up in Dunwall.

Modern Dunwall began as a small whaling village. It rapidly grew in size and prestige, it's strategic location seeing it attract huge amounts of traffic from passing ships. The town's centralised location behind sturdy walls and located on bluffs towering some 125 feet above the surrounding territory meant it was very difficult to attack, and it slowly began to expand in military power and prestige.

Within a few centuries Dunwall had come to conquer all of the island of Gristol. Its economic power became indomitable and it came to command all trade on the southern seas, to the irritation of some of the other cities. The sea lanes to the north are harder to traverse and downright dangerous in winter, when icebergs can threaten ships, so Dunwall's dominance of the southern sealanes became a major problem. Finally, approximately 1,620 years after the Great Burning, the four islands fell into warfare. Gristol's economic and military might, not to mention its huge population, saw it win the War of the Four Crowns in 1625; Tyvia, Morley and Serkonos surrendered and accepted Gristol's rule. Finlay Morgengaard I was duly crowned Emperor of the Empire of the Isles in 1626.

The Empire's power was further consolidated by the rise of a state religon, the Abbey of the Everyman, which was founded in Dunwall in 1701. Dunwall had formerly been a religiously tolerant city, but the Abbey brooked no opposition, deeming all followers of other gods and creeds as heretics (and reserving a special hatred for the Outsider). Under the leadership of the first High Overseer, John Clavering, the Abbey led the Rectification War, cleansing the cities of Gristol of heresy. The war ended in 1708 with the Siege of Whitecliff. In 1711 Emperor Yefim Olaskir decreed that the Abbey was now the State Religion of the Empire.

By the end of the century the Empire had further consolidated its power and began the widespread exploitation of Morley, particularly its mines and its fertile fields. The people of Morley came to feel mistreated by the Gristolians, and were particularly resentful of the Abbey forcing their beliefs on them. In 1801, enraged by religious strife, famine and oppression, the people of Morley rose up in rebellion. They launched a military uprising which caught the imperial forces by surprise and secured territory on Morley before launching attacks on Gristol. Rebels from Morley managed to infiltrate Dunwall and assassinated Empress Larisa Olaskir in a surprise attack; the reprisals by the Empire were swift and terrifying.

The rebellion ended after two years, the Empire proving victorious due to its superior navy and vastly superior resources. Several cities in Morley were destroyed and there were widespread atrocities. Famine swept the island and thousands died, hundreds of thousands more fleeing to other islands. It would be generations before Morley would begin recovering from the rebellion, and the lesson of what happened to those who defied the Empire was not lost on the other islands and cities.

By 1810 the Empire had begun explorations of the vast Pandyssian supercontinent located several months' travel to the east of the Empire of the Isles. Exploitation of that landmass proved impractical due to both the vast travel times and also to the continent's own hostility, particularly down to the plagues which seemed widespread there. In addition, the Outsider, relatively quiet for centuries, took a sudden interest in those who had travelled to Pandyssia and returned.

In 1825 Jessamine Kaldwin became Empress of the Isles. A trusting and honourable ruler, Jessamine was concerned with justice, fairness and ruling for all of the citizens of the Isles, not just the aristocracy and merchants. Her willingness to stand up for the poor and to try to improve their lot, as well as an apparent coolness to the ruthlessness of the Abbey of the Everyman, soon won her a lot of enemies in the Empire. Kaldwin was protected by a bodyguard, Corvo Attano, a warrior without compare, and advised by Hiram Burrows, the Royal Spymaster, whose ability to root out plots against her was legendary.

Eventually, Burrows turned against the Empress, apparently distraught by her trusting nature, her refusal to take a husband, and the fact that the Empire seemed destined to pass to Jessamine's daughter Emily, a bastard born of unknown parentage. In 1835 the Rat Plague struck Dunwall, killing thousands, and Jessamine's response to the crisis was insufficient; in 1837 Burrows commissioned the assassin Daud to kill the Empress and frame her Royal Protector, Corvo Attano for the deed. Attano was imprisoned in Coldridge Prison whilst Burrows assumed the mantle of Lord Regent and imprisoned Emily Kaldwin.

In events that are now well-known, there was a popular uprising against the Lord Regent, Burrows was killed (betrayed, in part by Daud, who came to bitterly resent what he had done) and Corvo Attano, aided by the Outsider, rescued Emily and restored her to the rule of the Empire. Fifteen years later, in 1852, the now-adult Emily was deposed by the Brigmore Witches. Aided by Corvo Attano, now confirmed to be her father, Emily escaped to the southern city of Karnaca, gathered resources and allies and then retook her throne.

Origin and Influences
Dunwall is the primary location of the 2012 video game Dishonored and its expansions, The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches (both 2013). It also appears at the start and end of Dishonored 2 (2016) and in its stand-alone expansion Dishonored: The Death of the Outsider(2017)

Arkane Studios created the Dishonored franchise for their new owners Bethesda, wanting to create and develop a new video game series in which players were given objectives but also total freedom on how to achieve those objectives, either with blood and violence or stealth. They were heavily inspired in structure by both the Deus Ex and Thief video game series, which had been dormant for many years when development began. New instalments in both series surprisingly arrived during and after development of Dishonored.

The visual design of the city of Dunwall was led by Viktor Antonov, who had created the starkly beautiful City 17 for the classic 2004 video game Half-Life 2. Whilst City 17 was inspired by crumbling post-Soviet Eastern European and Russian cities, Dunwall was inspired by Victorian London. Indeed, the first design document for Dishonored had it set in the real London of 1666, the last year of the plague and on the eve of the Great Fire. This shifted when the designers decided to incorporate elements of magic and steampunk design, but not before Antonov had visited London and Edinburgh and taken substantial amounts of photographs to help inform the later design of the game.

During development, the city of New Crobuzon (from China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels, most notably Perdido Street Station) was cited as a strong inspiration. The City, the steampunk setting for the Thief trilogy of video games, was also an influence on both the design of Dunwall and the gameplay. Although the game originally had a historical setting, the decision to move to a fictional one resulted in the designers creating a substantial amount of lore and worldbuilding for the game.

Dishonored was released in 2012 to immense critical acclaim, which only continued with its expansions and sequel, the latter set in the more Mediterranean-influenced city of Karnaca. It is assumed that Arkane will return to the setting with more games.

See also: Dunwall at Dishonored Wiki.

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Cities of Fantasy: Midgar

Gaia is a vast and exotic world, ranging from the freezing arctic north to the lush forests and burning deserts of the Western Continent. Many interesting races and people inhabit this world, and the greatest and most famous of its cities can be found on the Eastern Continent: Midgar, capital of the lands dominated by the Shinra Corporation.

Midgar as it will appear in the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Location

Midgar is located near the north-western coast of the Eastern Continent, north of Junon and south-west of Kalm. It is located close to the Western Ocean, which is dominated by Shinra’s warships and cargo vessels, which constantly keep Midgar supplied from the mines on the Western Continent. Cost del Sol, a beautiful port city due west of Midgar across the ocean, is a popular getaway and retreat for senior Shinra officials.

Midgar as depicted in the original 1997 release of Final Fantasy VII.

Physical Description

Midgar was originally a network of villages and towns of wooden and stone buildings, linked together by roads and surrounding relatively fertile farmland. After Shinra ascended to power and rapidly developed high technology, by pursuing a mix of scientific research and magical exploitation of materia (magical crystals), they constructed a new city directly over the old towns. The “new” Midgar consists of a massive circular dish with many buildings built on top, suspected directly above the “old” city below (which is now left in perpetual gloom). The surface-dwelling inhabitants of Midgar disparagingly refer to the new city above them as a “pizza”.

The new city of Midgar is suspended by a single, massive pillar and other supports located around the edge of the dish. The dish is divided into nine sectors, with massive Mako Reactors located between each sector. The Reactors fuel the enormous, power-hungry city, but the area around Midgar has gradually become more barren and lifeless as a result. According to the freedom fighters known as AVALANCHE (dismissed as terrorists by Shinra), the Reactors are draining the life force of the very planet itself and will eventually turn all of Gaia into a desert, but Shinra dismisses this claim.

Sectors 1-8 run around the dish, whilst Sector 0 is located at the very centre. Shinra Headquarters, a massive skyscraper and Mako Reactor, is located in the middle of the dish.

The slums below the “pizza” are where poorer residents of the city live. Climbing from the slums to the main city is possible via the central pillar or the city’s train system, which carries workers from below the city to their work places on top. There is an elevated freeway which runs around the city and then descends to ground level outside.

A subterranean city, Deepground, is located in the bedrock below even the slums. Its existence is relatively little-known.

The total size of Midgar is unclear, but it appears to be several miles across.

Population

The population of Midgar, at least prior to the Meteor/Jenova incident and the downfall of the Shinra Corporation, appears to be comfortably in the tens of thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands. Midgar is the largest and most technologically-advanced city on the planet.

Midgar as depicted in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

History

The Shinra Corporation evolved out of Shinra Manufacturing Works, a company specialising in weapons manufacturing. When Shinra discovered how to convent the planet’s Lifestream into Mako energy, they began building Mako Reactors all over the globe. This further propelled both their scientific research and technological advancement, resulting in the development of many powerful weapons, advanced vehicles and other wonders…and terrors.

The town of Wutai rejected Shinra’s proposal to build a Mako Reactor near their settlement, resulting in a nine-year war. During this time Midgar was constructed by Shinra over several pre-existing towns in a relatively defensible part of the eastern continent, becoming both Shinra’s capital and also its greatest achievement. The Wutai War ended in a Shinra victory, but survivors of the Wutai forces and other groups opposed to Shinra’s ultra-capitalist ideology – and horrified by the growing evidence that the Mako Reactors were sapping the Lifestream of the planet – joined forces to form AVALANCHE, a rebel organisation dedicated to destroying the Mako Reactors.

The first incarnation of AVALANCHE operated out in the countryside, hitting isolated reactors (such as the one at Corel). This group become more hardline and ruthless until one member, a scientist named Fuhito, considered the sacrifice of humanity itself to be a worthwhile consequence of destroying the Mako Reactors and saving the Planet. He tried to summon a powerful magical force named Zirconiade to wipe out Shinra forever, but was stopped and killed by the Turks, Shinra’s special operations combat team.

Barret Wallace, a native of Corel, worked with the Turks to defeat AVALANCHE, but was horrified when Shinra laid waste to Corel in retaliation, killing his wife and (apparently) his best friend. Swearing vengeance, Barret moved to Midgar and restarted AVALANCHE as a freedom-fighting organisation. This second version of the rebel group avoided civilian casualties where possible, but sometimes they were incurred. During this period Barret allied with a young, canny fighter named Tifa and her childhood friend, a former Shinra soldier named Cloud Strife.

The conflict between Shinra and AVALANCHE became quite intense, to the point where Shinra destroyed the Sector 7 pillar and dropped the entire sector onto the slums below, including the districts where AVALANCHE’s headquarters were located. Most of AVALANCHE was wiped out in this attack and AVALANCHE were blamed for the cataclysm, which caused thousands of casualties. Barret, Cloud and others launched a retaliatory strike on Shinra Headquarters. During these events AVALANCHE learned of a much more sinister series of experiments going on behind the scenes, involving the Ancients, the mysterious progenitor race who nearly destroyed the world two thousand years earlier. Sephiroth, the former Shinra military commander (and Cloud’s mentor), liberates the team after they are captured and kills President Shinra before escaping with the remnants of one of the Ancients, Jenova. 

Eventually it was revealed that Sephiroth (sometimes possessed by Jenova, sometimes acting on his own) planned to use the fabled Black Materia to summon a massive Meteor to devastate Gaia. The planet’s Lifestream would respond to heal the wound and Sephiroth would seize the resulting flow of power for himself. Working together, the former members of AVALANCHE (helped, if unwittingly by Shinra) defeated Sephiroth and destroyed the Meteor; unfortunately, in the final battle Midgar was partially destroyed.

After the final battle, Midgar was repopulated. The overhanging main plate had mostly been obliterated, opening the city up to the sky once again. The governance of the city was disputed between the surviving remnants of Shinra and other factions, but eventually the World Regenesis Organisation was formed by several groups to take over governance (in a fairer, more democratic form and help the planet heal from the immense damage wreaked upon it).

Hengsha in Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Origins and Influences
The city of Midgar first appeared in the iconic, classic video game Final Fantasy VII (1997). During the writing and planning of the game, the team at Squaresoft briefly considered setting the game in the real world, with New York City being the main city. This was a significant shift from the previous six games, which were each set in a new, original fantasy world. Ultimately, the team decided to continue in this vein and created a new planet, Gaia, for the game, although some of the original ideas for a New York game did resurface in Parasite Eve.

However, the team did like the idea of starting the game in a large metropolis, not dissimilar to modern-day cities. This would continue upping the technological level of the series (which had previously moved from a traditional, medieval setting to steampunk) and give fans something new to experience. As the first game designed for the original PlayStation, it had a much more ambitious design than the previous games, with lots of complex, dazzling CGI cut scenes.

Art director Yuusuke Naora was given the task of design Midgar and early on moved it away from the New York concept. He hit on the idea of making the city look like a “pizza” early on and this went down well with the rest of the creative team. Nods to this inspiration can be found throughout the game, with Mayor “Domino” and his deputy Hart (Hut) being named after pizza chains.

Final Fantasy VII was an enormous success on its first release, selling millions of copies. Midgar was the main setting for the entire first quarter or so of the game, with several return visits later on. This made Midgar a highly iconic location. Originally, Midgar was destroyed at the end of the game and this is seemingly confirmed by a cut scene showing the city completely in ruins and given back over to nature. The prequel games Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII (2004) and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (2007) are both partially set in Midgar before the events of FF7 itself, whilst the sequel film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (2005) and action game Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII (2006) both show the city recovering from the events of FF7 and inhabited once more.

Some fans interpret this to mean that Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus take place before the final abandonment of Midgar (hence the last FF7 cut scene); others suggest that the ending of FF7 itself has simply been retconned out of existence.

Although these are the only canonical appearances of Midgar, various other games feature “cameos” from the city, such as the FF7-themed battle arenas in the various Super Smash Bros. games.

In 2018 or (more likely) 2019, Midgar will return in Final Fantasy VII Remake, an ambitious, modern remake of the original game with all-new graphics, gameplay and technology.

Midgar is important as a fantasy city that eschews many traditional fantasy elements altogether, instead appearing primarily as a modern city of skyscrapers and towers (albeit suspended in the air above more traditional, medieval fantasy structures), with characters driving cars, taking trains and riding bikes into battle. This moves on even from “steampunk” into a more contemporary form of fantasy, little-explored by fantasy novelists. Square would go on to explore this theme of “contemporary fantasy” even further in Final Fantasy XIII and XV.

In terms of cities most directly influenced by Midgar, the most obvious is Hengsha in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In this game – created by Western studio Eidos Montreal but published by Squaresoft’s successor company, Square Enix – the Chinese have built an entire utopian sky city above Hengsha Island (just off the coast around Shanghai), suspended over the city below by immense towers. The undercity has become a place of crime, squalor and corruption, whilst the city above is far more beautiful and seemingly perfect.

Midgar is an idea ahead of its time, a city of literal and geographic divisions and levels which reflect the ideological and political divisions riven through its society and through the story. It remains, twenty years on, one of the most iconic video game fantasy cities ever created.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs. The Cities of Fantasy series is debuting on my Patreon feed and you can read it there one month before being published on the Wertzone.

Cities of Fantasy: Golgotterath

Many of the cities of fantasy are places which are, at worst, dystopias: places which might not be great places to live but at least people can survive there on a day-to-day level. The bastions of true evil – the Barad-dûrs and Skull Kingdoms and Shayol Ghuls – generally go unexplored in fantasy, being relegated to vague descriptions of off-screen badness.

In Canadian fantasy author R. Scott Bakker’s Second Apocalypse series, comprising the Prince of Nothing, Aspect-Emperor and No-God sub-series, the primary bastion of evil goes by many names – Incû-Holoinas, Min-Uroikas, the Pit – but one stands out more than any other: Golgotterath, stronghold of the Unholy Consult.

A map of Golgotterath's exterior, by R. Scott Bakker.

Location

Golgotterath is located in the far north-west of the continent of Eärwa. It is located in the midst of an arid landscape known as the Black Furnace Plain, contained with a vast impact crater known as the Occlusion, surrounded by the Ring Mountains. These are not true mountains, but massive heaps of rock and dirt thrown into the sky and then down again by the cataclysmic event known as Arkfall, the crash-landing of a multi-million-ton vessel which took place many thousands of years ago. To the north and west lies the colossal Yimaleti Mountains, whilst the south lies the Neleöst, the Misty Sea. Extending east from the Ring Mountains for several hundred miles to the River Sursa is a massive area of wasteland known as the Field Appalling, Agongorea. This land is desolate, with nothing growing at all. The ground won’t even accept footprints.

In ancient times the region was bordered by Cûnuroi (whom humans call Nonmen) Mansions, with Viri lying to the east and Ishoriöl to the south, beyond the sea. After the arrival of the Four Tribes of Men in Eärwa, human nations arose to the south (Kûniüri) and east (Aörsi). These nations were destroyed two thousand years ago in the savage war known as the Apocalypse. Since this time Golgotterath has stood alone, the nearest settlements being Ishterebinth (the modern name for the much-reduced Mansion of Ishoriöl), the secret Dûnyain redoubt of Ishuäl, and the human cities of Atrithau and Sakarpus, both more than a thousand miles distant. The densely-populated kingdoms of the Three Seas lie almost two thousand miles away to the south. The lands between, including the vast Istyuli Plains, are crawling with millions of Sranc, the foul and abominable servants of Golgotterath. Anasûrimbor Kellhus, the Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas, has led the 300,000-strong army known as the Great Ordeal onto the plains with the goal of destroying Golgotterath, but the outcome of this expedition remains in question.

The Golden Horns of Golgotterath. Artwork by Jason Deem.

Physical Description

Golgotterath defies easy exposition. The area consists of a series of fortresses, a city (of sorts) extending above and below ground, and the most titanic walls ever built, extending for dozens of miles. But these complexes, which outshine anything in the Three Seas, are utterly dwarfed into insignificance by the Golden Horns of the Incû-Holoinas.

The Incû-Holoinas is a space-faring vessel. At some point in the past – claimed by some Nonmen to be eight thousand years ago, others maybe six thousand – the vessel crashed into Eärwa in a titanic roar which was heard as far away as the shores of the Three Seas. Defying rationality, the vessel was not destroyed but instead survived mostly intact, with more than two-thirds of its length buried underground. Only the rear-most projections of the vessel – the Horns themselves – extend above ground.

The two horns are gold in colour and covered in what appears to be a script written in the Cincûlic language, the ancient and indecipherable language of the Inchoroi species. One of the Horns was damaged in the crash and lists slightly to one side, thus their frequent depiction as the “Canted Horn” (the western-most of the two) and the “Upright Horn”. The Horns are titanic: during the Great Investiture, the siege by the combined armies of Kûniüri, Aörsi and Ishterebinth during the First Apocalypse, the mages of the Sohonc School spent years conducting exacting measurements of Horns by measuring their shadows and the occlusion of the Sun. They concluded that the Upright Horn measures over 13,000 feet – or over two-and-a-half miles – in height from its base to its tip. Nonmen records, curiously, suggest a height of almost twice this amount, suggesting either that the Ark is slowly sinking over the passage of time or that one or both of the two counts are highly erroneous. The function of the Horns is unclear, but the Inchoroi used to refer to them as the “Oars of the Ark”, suggesting they were involved in its propulsion through the void.

The two Horns meet the ground in a massive mound of stone and slag, known as the Scab. When the Golden Ark slowed to a stop, the heat of its arrival melted the surrounding rock down to lava. This came rushing in above the vessel and then slowly cooled and hardened. The Scab prevents access from the surface directly to the hull of the Incû-Holoinas; the vessel is only accessible via the Horns themselves. The Scab is rocky, hard to cross and drops away to the surrounding plain via a massive escarpment on all sides bar the south-western. Although the escarpment is effectively unclimbable, the Consult have raised tall walls (some rearing 90 feet above even the escarpment edge) above it, punctuated by watch-towers. On the south-western side, the toil of Inchoroi, Nonmen and men over millennia has cleared a path from the base of the Upright Horn, where the only accessible portal to the vessel is located, down to the plain. This stretch of land, modest in overall size, has seen more blood spilled than anywhere else in the history of the World. It is the grave of heroes.

This stretch of land begins outside the walls of Golgotterath, on the plain-within-a-plain known as Ûgorrior. This is the dead field that lies immediately before the gates of the fortress and is a kill-zone within easy missile range of the walls and fortresses. Titanic walls, taller than the walls of great cities like Momemn, Carythusal or Domyot, rise from the floor to seal the gap in the escarpment. These walls are hinged on the twin fortresses of Domathuz (in the south) and Corrunc (in the north). In the middle of the two is Gwergiruh, a pentagon-shaped gatehouse of huge size. Between the arms of the fortress lies the Ûbil Maw, the Extrinsic Gate of Golgotterath itself.

Beyond, the escarpment has been smoothed down into a series of tiered terraces, known as the Oblitus. Nine large terraces rise from ground level. The ninth and tallest terrace lies before another fortress, the High Cwol, which stares down at the plain below. Within the High Cwol is a bridge leading over an abyss at the base of the Upright Horn. The final portal into the Golden Horn, and into the Incû-Holoinas itself, lies at the far end of the bridge, the famed Intrinsic Gate of myth.

Golgotterath is a city as well as a fortress, with heaps of buildings, shacks and structures located on the terraces. Most of these lie in the so-called Canal, the ground level inside the walls beneath the First Terrace. Sranc, Nonmen and men in the service of the Consult dwell in these rude dwellings.

The Incû-Holoinas itself is allegedly inhabited. During the First Apocalypse, Anasûrimbor Nau-Cayûti and Seswatha, founder of the Mandate, stole into the Ark to rescue Nau-Cayûti’s concubine and retrieve the fabled Heron Spear. During their descent into the bowels of the vessel, they reported finding a cavernous hold (one of many, if Nonmen records are to be believed) in which a miserable and decrepit city of Sranc, Bashrags, men and other piteous servants of the Consult could be found.

The environs around Golgotterath, cartography by Jason Deem.

Population

The population of Golgotterath is unknown.

It is known that only two Inchoroi have survived the passage of ages since Arkfall: Aurang, the Warlord, and his brother Aurax, master of the Tekne. Cet’ingira, the Man-Traitor, has brought many Nonmen into the fold, mostly Erratics driven insane by the passage of ages, but many of them were lost in the Apocalypse and, much more recently, the four-year assault on Ishuäl. Men, followers of Shaeönanra, the ancient Grandvizier of the Mangaecca who went over to the foe three thousand years ago, also serve the Consult, but in numbers unknown.

The foul creations of the Inchoroi are far more numerous. Largest of all is the population of Sranc, ancient and foul perversions of the Nonmen into ravenous and lustful savages. A tall, powerful breed known as the Ursranc are found within the walls of Golgotterath, whilst many thousands more can be found breeding in the Yimaleti Mountains. Far more still can be found to the west, on the Istyuli Plains, in hordes hundreds of thousands strong. Rarer and more formidable are the Bashrags, tall and broad doubled-headed monsters. Rarest of all are the Wracu, called dragons by men, sorcerous creatures of formidable power. Most of the Wracu were annihilated during the ancient Cûno-Inchoroi Wars, and several of the survivors were slain in the Apocalypse thousands of years later. It is unknown how many Wracu survive.

Arkfall, by Jason Deem.

History

Over six thousand years ago (and maybe closer to eight), the Incû-Holoinas came to the World. Within, it carried the Inchoroi, an ancient, foul and obscene race. The Inchoroi believed that they were damned, that upon death they would roil and burn for eternity in flames. They could only avoid this fate by reducing the population of their homeworld to 144,000. But, this achieved, they found they were still damned. Using their vast vessel, they travelled from world to world, raining death down on each on, reducing the populations to the same level. But still they found themselves condemned to the hells.

Finally, they stumbled across the Chosen World, the world on which the continent of Eärwa rests. Why this world was different is unknown. They prepared to cleanse it, but an accident took place (the details of which remain unclear). The Ark of the Heavens instead fell to the ground. The Inchoroi triggered the Inertial Inversion Field, a blast of energy which created a landing field for the Ark as well as dramatically slowing its descent. But this force was not as effective as it should have been. The Ark’s impact blasted millions of tons of rock, earth and rubble into the skies, sending a reverberating crack around the world. A firestorm scoured the land in all directions for hundreds of miles. The storm lashed even the walls of Viri, the nearest Nonman Mansion, killing thousands whilst earthquakes killed tens of thousands more in the deeps.

Inside the Ark, the impact was calamitous. The vessel survived, but many inside were killed instantly, more still being heavily injured. One of the two Horns, the great Oars of the Ark, became unhinged and canted, robbing the vessel of the motive power to take off again. Most of the Arsenal, the dread cache of weapons which had near-extinguished life on dozens or hundreds of worlds, was destroyed or rendered inoperable. It is unknown how many died inside the Ark, save that the Inchoroi put the combined death-toll of Arkfall (inside and outside the vessel) at over ten million. Eventually, it fell to one of the Inchoroi, Sil, to rouse his battered fellows. He loosed Wutteät, the Father-of-Dragons, the Wracu template and his greatest weapon, and flew from a portal high on the Upright Horn to observe the World. Inchoroi scouts left the vessel (borne from the high portal to the ground by Wracu, as the boiling cauldron of what was to become the Scab was fatal to even approach) and in time two of these were captured by the Cûnuroi scout and fabled warrior Ingalira. Unable to approach the vessel, Ingalira took the creatures back to Viri, now a conquest of the bold High King Cû’jara Cinmoi of Siöl. Cû’jara Cinmoi bid the creatures explain themselves, but the noises they made were without meaning. Dubbing the creatures Inchoroi, or “People of Emptiness”, Cû’jara Cinmoi put them to death (their ugly appearance offended him) and set a Watch on the Fallen Ark whilst he made war on the other Mansions.

The Inchoroi were masters of the Tekne, the art of machines and science. Discovering their lacked the biological ability to communicate with the Nonmen, they grafted Nonmen-like faces onto their own bodies and learned the Nonman language. A delegation of Inchoroi then slipped past the watchers and infiltrated Viri. There they contacted Nin’janjin, the former King of Viri, and offered him a deal: they would offer military support to him in ejecting the Siölan invaders in return for his help in achieving their goals. Nin’janjin agreed. Viri rebelled and a great host of Inchoroi and Viri troops gathered on the field of Pir Pahal, beyond the Neleost, to confront the armies of Cû’jara Cinmoi. However, many of the Viri objected to the Inchoroi’s obscene appearance and their practice of wearing festering bodies as garments of war. They rejected Nin’janjin’s command and declared common cause with Cû’jara Cinmoi against the creatures.

The Inchoroi took the Nonmen too lightly, trusting in their weapons – particularly their spears of light which could inflict horrific damage from heat over vast distances – too much. They had no knowledge of sorcery and were unprepared for the power of the Gnosis. Although they inflicted hideous casualties on the Nonmen, they were swept from the field and Sil, High King of the Inchoroi, was slain, his Heron Spear taken up by Cû’jara Cinmoi. Cinmoi was unable to complete his victory, instead having to confront rebellions in distant corners of his empire. A renewed Watch was placed on the Ark.

A century or more later, the Inchoroi sued for peace through their representative, the Traitor-King Nin’janjin. Cû’jara Cinmoi, by now aged and approached death, was amazed to see his once-vassal was untouched by the passage of time. Nin’janjin begged for peace and asked what boon the Inchoroi could provide to win their freedom. Cinmoi replied that he wanted the same gift that Nin’janjin had received, to be able to live forever and have the threat of death removed. The Inchoroi agreed, and administered the Inoculation, the treatment that rendered the Nonmen immortal.

Over one hundred years later, the depth of the Inchoroi plan was revealed. The Nonmen were immortal, but then the entire female half of their species fell ill, sickened and died. The Womb Plague killed over half of the entire Nonman species, millions upon millions of them. In utter fury, Cû’jara Cinmoi raised the forces of all nine High Mansions against the Inchoroi and fought them on the Black Furnace Plain before the Ark, which was now called Min-Uroikas, the Pit of Obscenities. The Battle of Pir Minginnial was long, hard-fought and filled with victories for both sides. But ultimately the battle was won by the Inchoroi, the Traitor-King Nin’janjin striking down and beheading Cû’jara Cinmoi himself. The Nonmen fled and for five centuries suffered setbacks and defeats. Great Scaldings blasted the walls of Mansions large and small, Wracu and newly-forged Sranc and Bashrags unleashed in their thousands and Tekne trinkets known as Chorae defying the Gnosis itself.

The Cûno-Inchoroi Wars ended, however, in defeat for the Inchoroi. Nil’giccas, High King of Nihrimsûl and Ishoriöl, raised a great host and defeated the Inchoroi at the Battle of Isal’imial, throwing down the gates of Min-Uroikas and finally storming the Golden Ark itself. The Inchoroi were massacred, the Sranc destroyed in such numbers that for centuries they were reduced to mere inconveniences scrabbling at the margins of Eärwa, and apparently the endless war was won. Though it took twenty years, the Ark was cleansed, passage-by-passage, room-by-room and chamber-by-chamber. All aside one.

Deep in the Ark lay the Golden Court of Sil, the throne-room of the Inchoroi King. In this chamber, there was also an artifact of unknown capability and origin: the Inverse Fire. Every Nonman who beheld this object went insane on the instant, declaring that the Inchoroi were right and that the Nonmen were damned to an eternity of fire and hell as well. This was the room which had turned Nin’janjin and countless Nonmen Qûya mages to the foe, convincing them to create the Chorae and betray their people. Nil’giccas sent his three greatest heroes, the warriors Misariccas and Rûnidil and the mage Cet’ingira, to investigate further. Misariccas and Rûnidil returned gibbering and raving, but Cet’ingira was silent. Nil’giccas demanded his report and Cet’ingira replied that his comrades had gone over to the foe and needed to be put to death, immediately. Nil’giccas complied. He then ordered that the Ark be evacuated and a sorcerous barrier, the Barricades, be placed over the remaining portal to prevent entry. The Ark could not be destroyed, so instead it was abandoned, sealed off and forgotten.

Thousands of years passed. The Four Tribes of Men invaded Eärwa through the Great Kayarsus Mountains, throwing down Siöl itself in the Breaking of the Gates. The Nonman Mansions fell, only Ishoriöl and Cil-Aujas surviving. The Norsirai, proudest of the Tribes, settled the North, raising towns and then cities along the Aumris River Valley and later the first kingdoms and empires. Peace was forged between Man and Nonman, Nil’giccas sending his greatest Qûya and warriors among the humans to teach them the ways of the Gnosis and bind them as allies. So began the Nonman Tutelage, and for the first time the words Incû-Holoinas and Min-Uroikas became known to men, albeit at first as legends and myths.

Cet’ingira was one of these teachers, a Siqû, and he found himself willing students and allies among the Mangaecca, a newly-founded Gnostic school of sorcery. He had lied when he had said he had resisted the Fire. Instead, he had been struck by its power but also retained his instinct for self-preservation. Now he told the Mangaecca of the location of the Golden Horns and soon they had located it. Basing themselves in the ruins of Viri and pretending to scour its depths for secrets, instead they put themselves to work on the Golden Ark. They raised the walls around the fallen vessel and rebuilt the fallen Extrinsic Gate. They then put themselves to the task of removing the Barricades, the construction of the fabled Artisan Emilidis, but could not succeed. The Barricades defied every attempt to remove them for almost four hundred years.

Then Shaeönanra, Grandvizier of the Mangaecca, and Cet’ingira combined their powers. They found a weakness and unravelled it. In the Year-of-the-Tusk 1111 the Barricades fell and they entered the Golden Ark. They found the last two surviving Inchoroi, Aurax and Aurang, and thus the Unholy Consult, the pact of damnation which would echo through eternity, was forged. Barely eight years later the Consult claimed their first victim. Shaeönanra and Aurang slew Titirga, Grandmaster of the Sohonc and the greatest sorcerer in history, and the greatest threat to their plans. A few years later Shaeönanra declared the Mangaecca’s discovering, claiming that within the Ark he had found a way of negating the threat of damnation that was the lot of every sorcerer. He was reviled and his school outlawed, its few remaining practitioners fleeing to the Incû-Holoinas, or as the entire complex was now known, Golgotterath. Shaeönanra survived, kept alive by a fusion of the Tekne and the Gnosis.

One thousand years later, the Unholy Consult finally achieved their goal. The Nonmen had an inkling of what was happening – an Apocalypse in the waiting – and warned their greatest ally, Seswatha of the Sohonc. Seswatha in turn raised the alarm to his friend Anasûrimbor Celmomas II, High King of Kûniüri. Celmomas assembled the greatest army in history, the First Ordeal, backed by the power of Aörsi and Ishterebinth, and marched on the Golden Ark. Two sieges of the vessel proved ineffectual. At one stage Seswatha and Celmomas’s son Nau-Cayûti stole inside the Ark to recover the Heron Spear, but the Consult allegedly slew Nau-Cayûti in response, defiling his grave afterwards. Furious, the armies of Kûniüri re-invested the Ark but just a few months later suffered the event known as Initiation: the birth of the No-God. The ferocious Whirlwind of the No-God, directing a horde of Sranc numbering in the hundreds of thousands, destroyed armies of Kûniüri on the Black Furnace Plain and then obliterated what was left on the Fields of Eleneöt. The Horde of the No-God ravaged Earwa, destroying the Meörn Empire, Akksersia, the Shiradi Empire and even fabled Kyraneas, the jewel of the Three Seas.

It fell to the remnants of shattered Kyraneas to engage the Horde of the No-God at the Battle of Mengedda. As the Whirlwind raged above, King Anaxophus V raised the Heron Spear he had salvaged from the Eleneöt Field and cast a beam of light into its heart. The No-God was killed, its horde scattered to the winds and the Consult forced to withdraw to Golgotterath.

For two thousand years since, the Ancient North has been covered in Sranc, preventing any expedition from striking out for Golgotterath and finally destroying it. The kingdoms of the Three Seas soon feel to internal bickering, religious strife and political chaos. It was only during the Holy War, the attempt by the Men of the Tusk to reclaim the Holy City of Shimeh from the heathen Fanim, that the Consult’s existence again made itself known, through the revelation of skin-spies and the arrival of Anasûrimbor Kellhus, first the Prince of Nothing, then the Warrior-Prophet and then the Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas. Kellhus subdued the Three Seas and ordered the assembly of the greatest army in history. Their goal would be to cross the Istyuli Plains, circle the Misty Sea, cross the River Sursa and finally cast down the Horns of Golgotterath in ruin.

Thus began the Great Ordeal.

Origins and Influences

R. Scott Bakker conceived of The Second Apocalypse series whilst running Dungeons and Dragons campaigns for his brother and his friends in the mid-1980s. Initially he conceived the series as a trilogy, ending on a bold (but likely controversial) ending. This is the story that was eventually to make up the first seven books of the series, culminating in the soon-to-be-released Unholy Consult (July 2017). Later he decided this ending might not be entirely satisfactory, so expanded the series to include a revised ending and conceptualised the whole thing as a trilogy.

 He developed the world and the story over a period of about fifteen years before he started writing The Darkness That Came Before, which was published in 2003. It was followed by The Warrior-Prophet (2004) and The Thousandfold Thought (2005), the three books collectively known as The Prince of Nothing. Bakker had conceived the entire story as a trilogy, but the three books only covered the first third of the story. His original “middle volume” of the series became its own series, The Aspect-Emperor, expanding (after several unforeseen delays) to four volumes: The Judging Eye (2009), The White-Luck Warrior (2011), The Great Ordeal (2016) and The Unholy Consult (2017). A further series, The No-God, currently planned to be a duology, will conclude the entire saga.

The Second Apocalypse fuses real-life history, particularly that of the Crusades and Alexander the Great, to religious imagery and mythology, as well as drawing in a strong science fiction focus, with side-stories exploring everything from quantum physics to genetic engineering to Biblical numerology. But Bakker was also inspired by more obvious sources: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Frank Herbert’s Dune and (much later in the developmental process), George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. In particular, Tolkien resonated strongly with Bakker, whose own creation myths, immortal Nonmen and horrible monsters echo many elements found in the earlier work.

Bakker was also impressed by the idea in Dune of a messiah (Paul Atreides) arising and it initially appearing that he was the good guy, but later on it being revealed that he had inadvertently killed billions of people. Anasûrimbor Kellhus, the protagonist of the series, can be seen as a mixture of Paul Atreides, Jesus and the Mentats of Dune, human computers capable of computing the outcome of almost any circumstance. However, Bakker felt that Herbert had later sold out on the thematic ideas of the series as he added numerous and unnecessary sequels, and was determined not to do the same thing.

For the bad guys of the series, he settled on the Inchoroi: space aliens who didn’t just kill people, but used technology and pheromones to make them love them first, a horrible perversion of human emotion and spirit. And every race of Dark Lords needs it Dark Tower. The Inchoroi do things on a stupendous scale, so their base of operations similarly became huge and towering in scope: a crashed biotech spacecraft called the Ark of the Skies and the dark city that grew up around it, Golgotterath. For six novels our hero, the wizard Achamian, has dreamed of the Ark and its towering Golden Horns, using his sorcery-imbued visions of the First Apocalypse to explore it. But in The Unholy Consult, Achamian and the Great Ordeal will finally reach Golgotterath and discover the revelations that wait within.

Websites of interest: Golgotterath at Prince of Nothing Wiki.

A History of Earwa (web articles).

A History of Earwa (expanded and downloadable PDF).

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