A History of Karse

by Jörg Baumgartner

The city of Karse is ancient, but it hasn't always been the same.

The Karse, the wet lowland on both sides of the river mouth between the Shadow Plateau and the white cliffs of Heortland, site of the city, became important after the implosion of the Spike, when Sky River Titan reversed his course and ran through Choralinthor's basin to answer Magasta's call for assistance to seal off the Void. The site of his meeting the child of Esrola and Faralinthor became an important place of communication. The stretch of low-lying land along the lower River¹ gave its name both to the land and to the settlement that grew from the survivors of the Unity Battle who gathered here. They traded the little surplus they had against dearly needed assistance from others.

The earliest settlement lay on a hillock above the western bank, actually some distance from the actual river, opposite a side bay fed by a stream dropping from the white cliff through a narrow chasm. It was a typical Vingkotling Caer (hillfort). The surrounding farming land and pasture was enclosed by two parallel ditches and low ramparts running from the cliffside to the waterfront. On the opposite bank of the river, on Watchtower hill, hidden in a copse, a second, cruder hill-fort served as a hide-out for the settlers.

The forts proved valuable during the Grey or Silver Age. After the events described in the Sword and Helm saga, during the bitter time of the Hidden Kings, the fortress at Karse offered a safe refuge to its inhabitants. It was assaulted often, but never taken. Through the bad harvests of that era the people still managed to remain fed, mostly by hunting the scarce beasts around and beyond the shores of the Mirrorsea. The fisherfolk became highly regarded in this time when most people just lived of roots and barely digestible weeds.

When King Heort had returned with tidings from I Fought We Won, and had undertaken the Lawstaff quest, the hardships of the Darkness lessened. What followed was termed the Silver Age by later scholars. The people of Karse definitely fared quite well in this time, when the first Waertagi ships reached Kethaela, and dropped some of the Malkioni people around its coasts where the drydocks and the supporting colonies were founded (like Sog Harbour in southern Prax, supported by the God Forgot people who followed the Malkioni lords and wizards after they had been left by their gods, or Nochet at the mouth of the Lysos River, on the far side of the Shadow Plateau). The harbour of Karse was deep and wide enough to accomodate even city-ships, thanks to the rich waters of Lorion's river (and his brothers') pouring down from the Sky River. The temple to Esrola was built right next to the old fortress, and an Aldryami grove was planted right next to it by the wisewomen of the Esrolvuli who knew the best ways to keep the goddess as awake as possible throughout this age.

At this time, the settlement of Karse consisted out of several clusters of buildings forming almost separate villages, but too close to each other to be reckoned as such. The fisherfolk lived closest to the River, and their homes were sometimes flooded when tidal waves ran into the river mouth. A few matriarchs of Esrolvuli stock with their teeming families lived right beside the temple to Esrola, which they tended. Other Heortlings - mostly of the Ogorvaltes - settled around the steads of their thanes, on both banks of the river, or directly below the Caer. Around the market no real nationalities were discernible, and people of different background mingled freely here. A cave under the cliffside of the Shadow Plateau, connected to the Obsidian Palace by tunnels, served as home to a few troll traders, and as a hostel to other trolls visiting. Quite close to it some of the farmers worshipping dark gods had their steads.

The Princes of Karse ruled over all these people from their hillfort. They organized the law meetings, made their hirdmen protect the market peace, and collected the tribute due to the Only Old One. They mustered the host of Karse when the king of the Ogorvaltes called for war, or when there were raiders to hold off.

When the Lightbringers returned at the Dawn, the Heortlings received them and the sun with joy. The tribes left their hide-outs and reclaimed the lands of Kerofinela, and began once again to grow the sacred grains of the goddesses. Karse sat at the crossroads of the two major centres of the Theyalan lands, and profited much from the traffic flowing through it up and down the River.

The Waertagi and the Only Old One differed about certain rights, but finally they settled their differences and divided the outer islands between their interests, swearing allegiance and alliance instead. Karse grew out of its ramparts, and many times the kings of the Ogorvaltes held court and justice here. Traders from all over Esrola's scattered lands moved here, and even Aldryami, Mostali and Uz set up habitats or at least hostels, as did the lesser council peoples, too. Old Karse finally covered all the land between the River and the cliffs, and was protected only by the (meanwhile reinforced and heightened) ramparts running from the cliffs to the river.

After the defection of Kethaela from the Second Council, Nysalor's birth and the military takeover, Palangio the Iron Vrok set up some strong Council controlled garrison of Dara Happans in Karse. The garrison was a typical Polaris/Shargash compromise: a rectangular structure inland from the temple to Esrola, next to the ruined site of the original hillfort which had been stormed and destroyed in the conquest, with the commander's house in the centre and barracks symmetrically filling the space within the walls. This structure attracted many of the farm houses which had to be rebuilt after the conquest as well, and formed the main core of the city during the following age. The last of the princes of Karse had fallen defending against the Iron Vrok and his army, and instead some officer from distant Alkoth ruled heavy-handedly over the settlement which grew, with dwarf aid, into a regular city. Karse was one of the main garrisons and depots supplying what was needed to keep up the siege of the Obsidian castle during Palangio's reign.

When Arkat landed, most of the garrison had been accompanying the Iron Vrok on his siege of the Obsidian Castle, though, so the structure remained mostly undamaged from the assault. Arkat reinstated the Only Old One as the supreme ruler of the land. Karse became a tribal seat for the lower River Valley, and controlled the land north of the Hendriki plateau all the way up to Smithstone.

After the Gbaji wars had moved away from Choralinthor Bay and finally ended in distant Dorastor, the people of Karse remained tribute-paying vassals of the Hendriki king and the Only Old One.

The Karse tribe (i.e. the tribe living along the mouth of the Creek-Stream River) did well during the early Second Age. The city thrived with the Waertagi trade flowing in from Slontos and further off, and other goods coming down from Dragon Pass. Argan Argar caravans came and went with valuable goods, and also human merchants made fortunes through their trade.

The everyday life of the city was ruled by a council of thanes and priests who also sat on the ring of the tribal king. They oversaw the market and port, set up and collected tolls (to pay the tribute to the Hendriki king and the Only Old One), and they sat in justice over minor offenses. The kings of Karse ruled wisely most of the time, although some did not. Several of these were claimed by the earth priestesses in their rites.

The kings and people of Karse did not take an active part in the tax revolts of their northern brethren, and neither did they embrace the Wyrms Mind Collective wholeheartedly, although they were friendly with the EWF and allowed draconic magicians into their city.

Throughout this period the Karse tribe was a rival of the Kitori tribe to its north. The city of Anjoralini saw several battles fought between the Karsites and the Kitori.

The presence of quite a strong draconic Orlanthi cult in Karse made the Jrusteli traders and scholars, who had developed an increased interest in the area after the explorer Hrestol Arganitis had voyaged into Dragon Pass, take a land grant from the Only Old One in the Tangle, the bushland right below the plateau, where they built the city of Lylket. Lylket became an exemplary Jrusteli port city, built in geometrical and runic patterns, and densely crowded compared to its sister on the river shore, which was surprised by the sudden absence of the Waertagi traders. Karse still controlled all of the River trade, but Lylket became a major port for the Jrusteli, and especially for those following the Zistorite cult. Once it was clear that the Waertagi would not return, the boat-builders of Karse started their own shipyards, and produced some of the finest vessels of that age.

However, little over 200 years after the foundation of Lylket, the Machine Wars destroyed the city, leaving only ruins haunted by shades and worse darkness spirits lurking around the tunnel exits leading there from the Shadow Plateau. Karse returned to its former all-importance for a short while, then the Closing struck, moving even into Choralinthor bay, and destroying most of the fleet in the harbour. The surviving vessels were barely sufficient to keep in contact with Nochet on the far side of the Bay. The thriving port of Karse was cut from its trade way, and as a result a large portion of the populace previously living off the sea trade left the city to find their luck elsewhere. 90 years later the Empire of the Wyrms' Friends collapsed when its leaders were killed, and yet 80 years later the Dragonkill War closed Dragon Pass for generations. Karse had lost any strategical importance for trade, being too far from the Hendriki plateau to serve as a port for that land. The city fell into ruins, and only a fishing community and a few farmers remained in the land between the unkempt ramparts. The temple barely survived, thanks to its grove, tended mainly by runners and their dryad.

About fifty years after the Dragonkill War, the Heortland plateau experienced the outbreak of religious and cultural turmoil. Traders had arrived on overland roads from Ralios, and they had found ready acceptance with the Hendriki nobility, who remembered their good relations with Arkat and his Ralian companions 750 years ago. Through this contact, a formerly obscure subcult of the Hendriki tribal pantheon, the Aeolian Church, aquired supremacy and began to clash with the tribal Alakoring sect which had become dominant with the refugee waves after the collapse of the EWF continuing up to the Dragonkill War aftermath. Strengthened with Western armour and magics, the Hendriki pushed back the minor tribes of Alakoring's design, until these too united in three super-tribes. Karse inherited only a few settlers out of this conflict, though.

The situation changed when Belintar the Stranger swam ashore in 1313 and challenged the Only Old One. A civil war shook all of the Shadowlands, the rifts going even through the Hendriki families. Finally, the supporters of Belintar won over in Heortland. Those who had been opposing the king and his ultra-zealous Aeolian policy emigrated, and built a Ralian style castle right next to the bay where the two creeks entered the remnants of the River, additionally obscured by Belintar's slaying of the beast of Darknes leaving behind the Lead Hills. The Hendriki king was content for a while to let his enemies gather in this unimportant border mark as a buffer against the trolls and concentrated his conquests on the inner and southern plateau instead.

When Belintar learned of the human resettlement in Dragon Pass, he chose at first to bide his time. He recognized the potential of the Karse settlement, though, and when approached by a Hendriki noble fallen out of favour with his king he granted him that land as an independent barony subject only to the Godking of the City of Wonders. The Godking did this to balance the power of his subject kingdoms, shortly after the Hendriki King had conquered Refuge from its God Forgot overlords, as a means to keep the peace within his Holy Country.

The newly installed baron of Karse, swelled by numerous refugees from the ongoing civil disorder in Heortland, began to build a maginificent castle around his small fortress on the shore, and also a walled city. He imported master builders from Nochet, who constructed a fortress and city wall in the same style as the great metropolis' walls.

The Godking sponsored much of the building efforts, which resulted in a city inhabited by citizens originating from more than one of his Sixths.

The neutrality of the Barony of Karse made it the centre of financial trades all over Heortland, and parts of the Holy Country. An annual fair made debtors pay up their debts, or at least interest, all within one week, or suffer debtors' prison.

Then, with the formation of the Principality of Sartar, trade began to flow through Dragon Pass again, and the Sartar route became interesting, even though the Godking sabotaged free exchange of goods for a while by sponsoring Kitori raids upon caravans to and from Sartar. Still, this did not disencourage intrepid merchants, and trade volume grew. Later, when Tarkalor had suppressed the (meanwhile no longer supported) Kitori tribe, the trade flowed fully via the good highways between Heortland and Sartar. While the Volsaxi Confederation as the new caretaker of the upper Marzeel Valley neglected the road upkeep a bit, it proved effective in holding the route free from troll or Kitori raids most of the time.

The increased trade had lured many members of the royal tribe of Sartar into the luxury of the Holy Country. Jotisan of Karse was a grandson of King Sartar who settled here in 1555, the year Palashee Long-Axe was killed by Phargentes. His example was soon followed by other, less important, relatives of the princes. Some people claim that this emigration weakened the Sartar dynasty so much that its fall in 1602 became inevitable.

The Lunar conquest of Sartar brought new merchants in addition to the old connections e.g. with the Jonstown guild, like the Hazara sable clan from Kostaddi, and while during the 1605 invasion there was a Lunar strike force at the gates of Karse, there never had been a real danger of conquest by the Empire. As long as the Godking defended the country, Karse was safe. But in 1616, the Godking disappeared without providing a successor, and three years after this Karse fell in a dramatic assault (described in KoS) to the Lunars.

(Karse: scotch: "carse" means exactly that, a stretch of low-lying land along a river)