Valdamar - Rising from the Deep

[wheezing_kobold]

Valdamar - Rising from the Deep

These pages will possibly explain to you who Valdamar might be and what obstacles he had to overcome to get where he is today.

An introduction

Name: Valdamar
Initial Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Deity: Gond (no longer godless after the destruction of their empire, Valdamar adopted Gond as a deity to aid him with his crafting and gathering of knowledge)
Languages: Abyssal, Arcane, Common, Draconic, Illuskan, Imaskar, Infernal, Mulhorandi

Profession: Crafter, trader, collector

Personality: Valdamar is guarded and detached, keeping an unconscious watchful eye in all his interactions. He is always looking for more behind a deal, trying to extend his network of informants. Being a collector he will be very excited and grateful if someone brings him something new. He would rather avoid armed conflict, either through diplomacy or magical means, than to fight.

Habits/Hobbies: Valdamar has a habit of writing things down in a little black book he carries. He likes to use his magic to transport himself (and others) to different locations.

Physical description: Tall and thin, his skin is smooth and soft despite it's stone-like appearance.

Goals: Establishing a small but profitable tradepost on the surface, and in the long term find any surviving artifacts of his ancestors, preferably finding the Imaskarcana. Locate the portals of old and establish a means of magical travel across Faerun, Abeir-Toril and beyond, having absolute mastery over extradimensional space and instant teleportation magic.

Possible Plot-Hook Ideas and Misc Facts:
- Finding pieces of the planar gates that disappeared with the abolishing of the protectorate.
- Rumors of the lost imaskara.
- Interactions with the Red Wizards as they have knowledge of portal magic.
- Help setting up trade with the surface (which some factions might not like)

[wheezing_kobold]

Every journey starts with the first step

Before setting off on his mission, Valdamar recounts the history of the god-kings, the fall of the great empire of Imaskar and founding of Deep Imaskar.


In the year -8350 DR Imaskari tribes began to settle the then-fertile plain of the Raurin Desert. About 230 years later the Imaskari Artificers created the first permanent extradimensional space. Their fascination with such magics soon transformed Imaskari city design.

The following years saw the rise of many grand cities, among them the capital city of Inupras around -7975 DR. About this time the first Emperor, Umyatin, rose to assume the title of Lord Artificer.

Under orders from Lord Artificer Omanond in -7891 DR, that Imaskari artificers created the Imaskarcana – seven items in which the empire's immense magical lore is recorded for all eternity.

In -6422 DR the great city of Solon was founded east of the Raurinshield Mountains.

Sometime around -4370 DR a suspicious plague decimated Imaskari cities. In answer to the plague, four years later the wizard-rulers of the Raurin brought hundreds of thousands of people from another world to be their slaves. The prisoners in turn brought their faith, and their deities - the Mulhorandi and Untheric pantheons - with them. Although they came from the same plane, the prisoners came from different regions as well as different times. They soon intermarried with each other and the surviving Imaskari citizens to form the race now known as Mulan humans. The slaves prayed hard for salvation, but the prayers went unheard since the wizards had closed all portals and created a barrier preventing divine intervention. This barrier banned the gods from the sphere and made them effectively nonexistent as long as the barrier held.

As time passed, the slaves divided into two distinct cultural factions in service in the Imaskar Empire, which scholars name "Proto-Untheric" and "Proto-Mulhorandi". The Proto-Untheric culture was a more aggressive culture; it believed in achieving absolute supremacy over its dominions. The gods of Unther have, since their beginnings, been uncaring entities, as opposed to the gods of Mulhorand, who are merely neglectful. The philosophy of the Untherites has always been that life is hard and cruel (perhaps because of the hardships they suffered as slaves), and only through hard work and submission to one's deity can one survive.

About seven hundred years later in -3234 DR, the Imaskari created the outpost known as Metos in Methwood as its westernmost outpost.

By -2488 DR, the Imaskar Empire was tottering, its cities engulfed in flames.
The current Lord Artificer, Yuvaraj, fell in battle with Horus in Inupras.
The rest of its armies had been defeated by the incarnate gods of the rebellious Mulhorandi and Untheric slaves.

Many of the greatest wizard-lords of the realm battled to the last. When the ancient wizard rulers were defeated by the manifestations who would later become the god-kings of Mulhorand and Unther, the manifestations summoned spirits of retribution that destroyed all that had not been slain in the war. When the god-kings fled Raurin, these spirits took the land as their own domain, with each pack stirring from slumber every century to wreak havoc on all that oppose them.

A powerful lord named Ilphemon chose to abandon the falling empire. Leading a small number of his family members, apprentices and retainers, and taking with him the Third Imaskarcana,
he descended into a wild and uncharted corner of the Underdark, hoping to escape the wrathful former slaves.

Ilphemon and his retinue sought out a large cave imbued with powerful faerzress and discovered the vault that would become Deep Imaskar.
After driving out the monsters that lived there, Ilphemon sealed the passage behind his people. The wizard-lord and his apprentices labored for many long years to lay the groundwork of the Great Seal and make their cavern home into a living garden, illuminated by the brilliantly radiant light. Ilphemon's descendants ruled Deep Imaskar for many centuries as kings and queens.

In the Year of Dwindling Darkness (-634 DR), a cabal of arrogant, evil necromancers overthrew Ilphemon's heir and slaughtered his family, bringing an end to the line of the ancient Imaskari lord.

For more than a century, Deep Imaskar suffered at the hands of these ruthless necromancers, but in the Year of Dangerous Icicles (-511 DR) a charismatic champion by the name of Chaschara led a revolt against the necromancer-lords and freed Deep Imaskar.
Chaschara refused to claim the throne, instead declaring herself Lady Protector of the Realm. She selected officers for the new posts of Planner, Apprehender and Enactor,
and those offices have continued to the present day, despite the eventual abolition of the protectorate.

Deep Imaskar has flirted with expansion on several occasions, most notably into the more hospitable reaches of the Elemental Planes. The city's protectors conquered several small regions of the Elemental Planes of Air and Water and bound their empire together with great planar gates.

However, in the Year of the Laughing Gull (799 DR) the Imaskari lost their holdings in the Plane of Air to an assault of chichimecs. These terrible abominations invaded Deep Imaskar itself through the planar portals and caused great destruction before they where driven off.
In the aftermath of that conflict, the city's Lord Protector Stilofyr was exiled and the protectorate abolished, and the planar gates were dismantled.

For many years after, in secret, Valdamar's father and uncle have worked to restore the great planar gates with little success. The idea of using other portals to restore the glory of the empire was born unto Valdamar.

Traveling the underdark at first seemed like an impossible task, but after the many books he read and the experiments he had done and seen in the city of the great seal Valdamar was sure it could be done. There were only few that were venturing out of the city at the best of times, into the world so few had seen ever since the protectorate was abolished.

and with the lights fading behind him the gate closed...