Stoneguard

Stoneguard is a city located towards the East within the continent of Phoros.

Ancient History
Thousands of years before the discovery and colonization of Eldham, the second continent, a great underground city was built. The city of Stoneguard was built into the face of the mountains to protect the people who inhabited the land there against natural disasters. The city had great fortifications used to protect against other people in the nearby lands and had a just, legal system to protect the inhabitants of Stoneguard from themselves. Despite preceding even the Towny Period in the continents of Rathnir, for unknown reasons the grand city of Stoneguard fell.

Sometime after the fall of the city of Stoneguard, new settlements appeared in the lands surrounding the mountain range the Stoneguardians had called home. These settlers were peaceful and chose to live their lives quietly and unceremoniously, never venturing near the lost halls of Stoneguard. Many years passed and the peaceful, new inhabitants in the nearby lands grew their numbers and came to form Provinces with their many settlements. So much time passed from the fall of Stoneguard that the story of the fall was lost to all.

The first people to enter the lost halls of Stoneguard after the fall of the city were those same inhabitants of the nearby Provinces. Colonists from other young nations and from the long-settled and war-beaten continents of Rathnir had arrived in Phoros and had begun raiding and ransacking the settlements of those in the Provinces surrounding the old city of Stoneguard. This began the Period of Discovery in Rathnir and the Colonization Period in Eldham. Due to the appearance of these invading forces, the inhabitants of the nearby Provinces joined together in arms and began rebuilding the ruined Stoneguardian buildings and fortifications in an effort to defend themselves from invasion. These people became the new Stoneguardians and, after surviving the invading colonists, they began to live in the halls of Stoneguard as their predecessors once had.

In these halls, they created their own trading and currency system and formed their own government with the goal of bringing people from all of the Provinces together as one. The new Stoneguardian government included ministers who hailed from each of the Provinces and were placed in charge of different State aspects. These new Stoneguardians called themselves the United Provinces of Stoneguard.

Though they had settled in to the old halls of Stoneguard, one minister was still determined to learn how Stoneguard fell and so he traveled into the depths below the city and was never heard from again.