Technology: Moderately Technological, combined with Magic
Life-Style: Early Modern Agrarian Socialist Democracy
Population: 73, 000
Description
Confined to a number of small valleys linked by paved-brick Roads, tunnels, and bridges, and the Great Fissure where a majority of the Population live between the sheer walls of the great Mountains. Originally many of these valleys were huge lakes that simply filled with rain water and flowed over falls one into the next down into the Fissure and fed the bogs that dominated that corridor all the way out into the Jungle to the East. Now the valleys are drained, the reclaimed lands are farmed; even some of the Lakes are retained for fishing and Boating.
The Great Fissure runs from the Eastern edge of these Mountains and extends just over two hundred mile to the west though in some places it is as wide as fifty miles and in others (like the narrow gap dominated by Ilsundyl’s Gate) a few thousand feet. The Fissure has a constant wind that blows down the length of it at over a hundred miles an hour.
Idyllic farming villages are scattered throughout the Republic, but there is only one City-The Capital of Ilsundyl’s Gate. A few miles west of the techno-magical power station known as Ilsundyl’s Gate is the Great brick plaza trade-market where foreigners come to trade with the elves beyond these sprawling markets is the Parliament – a great dome with seating for a hundred thousand members.
THE SOONDYR ELVES
Oddly enough the Dyr are tall. Averaging between 5’9” and 6’4” and tanned from their many years of outdoors living. Most could drink a Dwarf under a table (if the ever meet one) and enjoy a beer after a hard day’s work. Every Village has a Pub frequented by adults. Children are often told to bugger off and do their chores.
Hard working folk with some descent Magic talent, they like their lives and have embraced Agrarianism blended with some Blackmoor technology and magic quite happily. They know there is a bigger world out there but after so long, their only contact being primitive peoples; they don’t really think much of the old world of Blackmoor has survived the many thousand years of upheaval. It concerns many of them. The Soondyr have concluded that they are it. And they are doing their hardest to educate the generations that follow and retain every scrap of knowledge.
Also attempting to revitalize interest in technology amongst the Barbaric world beyond their lands, they trade some of their technology and knowledge with the still nomadic Hin exporting their only real weapon – a compressed air rifle (referred to as the SOONDYR CARBYNE) that fires small metal pellets easily manufactured by the Hin.
They also like to sell other items of a basic technological nature that they figure will one day inspire some primitive peoples to achieve some level of technological greatness that will allow them to rise to at least the knowledge of the Soondyr. This might be something as simple as a bag of Bolts and nuts with a Spanner.
CUSTOMS
They enjoy a bit of a punch up, and Villages hold an annual fair where they hold Fights, Competitions for growing the biggest and tastiest Vegetables, or foot Races. Some Villages that sit on lakes hold Boat Racing Competitions.
Villages are linked by a network of Brick Roads and Bridges, though the only means of travel other than foot is the Auto-bus Network – A Techno-magical Transport carrying up to twenty passengers or Farm produce/Cargo between Villages and the Capital.
The Autobus network, like the Streetlamps and house lighting of the Capital and Villages, are all powered by the Ilsundyl’s Gate Power station.
The Power station generates a field of a two hundred mile radius which allows magical tech to function within that radius. It would also allow them to expand out into Hin territories if they so desired.
The Capital is dominated by a Parliament where every adult Soondyr Elf has a Seat and is expected to spend one day a month in Parliamentary Service. Even then there are whole weeks when the Parliament is empty – especially during planting, festival, and harvest times.
Because their Knowledge is so precious to them, Public Schooling is of great importance to the Elves. There is also a significant library and archive of technology and techno-magic stored in the Parliament.
Magical Engineering and Engineering are both compulsory Skills for Soondyr Elves. Boat Building is popular in the Lakes District although small four person paddle boats seem as popular as light sailing and rowboats.
History
2795: The Dyr Clan, concluding that Ilsundyl the Zealot (and the Dyl Clans that follow him/her) desires that elves abandon all knowledge and go live in the wild feeding on game, and nuts and berries. The Dyr led by Soondyr the Wise depart this insane Exodus Taking what remnants of Blacklore Science they have with them.
The Dyr eventually establish in the Mountains, hidden in a Great Fissure away from the nomadic Hin and the Giants.
Ilsundyl's Gate: From a Distance it looks like a City, but it is only under inspection that you realize it is a huge power station combining Technology with Magic on which the Elemental Boiler found in Inventions is based. Made using Steelform and Stoneform magic, It is guarded by 1000 feet high, 500 feet thick, steel walls which block access to the Great Fissure where the elves of Soondyr live.
The only access is at the base of the Wall - Taking Travellers below the Great Reactor where a Gate from the Plain of Fire superheats Air forced into the 2000 feet diameter chamber from the three thousand feet high Airscoops which are topped by Rotating Wind Catchers.
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