Escape to Belynar

On the war-torn continent of Anias, an empire arose from the ashes of one much older. The old Empire of Tarahir was a literate and civilized society, but in its sprawling, bloated corruption, it grew complacent. The Empire of the Orsai is a younger, hungrier breed, still learning how to stretch its muscles and grow. Governed by a sect of politician-priests, the Theocracy of Asut guided the empire according to the will of their desert god, Memra. The Orsai Empire is a warrior culture dominated by powerful nomadic tribes. They have claimed the territory of the Tarahiri Empire from their former masters. But Tarahir still stood; a rich subject state which had never fully bowed to the Orsai. In an attempt to possibly recapture some of their former glories, the Tarahiri rebelled, denying the authority of the Orsai over them. The old successor kingdoms to the north marched in support of the uprising, but to no avail. The Orsai defeated them all, and laid waste to the city of Tarahir.

As Tarahir burned, a motley band of refugees, soldiers, and mercenaries fled into the mountains. Attempting to find shelter and protection, they fled into a cavern complex that was the remains of ancient dwarvish city. They hoped to hold their Orsai pursuers off long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Instead, they stumbled onto a magical portal. A young mage remembered a tale written on a crumbling parchment. The Cyrads had built magical roads across the world, from city to city... If this was an ancient Cyrad portal, the mage reasoned, it most likely led to a Cyrad city or perhaps another dwarvish city…But where?...How to activate it?...Perhaps a prayer was answered, for as the Orsai closed in on the caverns, the portal sprang to life, offering the refugees an uncertain future. The refugees took the escape offered to them. When the Orsai swept through the caverns their scouts found only a few traces of the survivors. The portal had closed. The whereabouts of the refugees remained a mystery.

The portal led to Belynar, once the greatest city on the island-continent of Cyradon and half a world away from anything they ever knew.

Several thousand people, human, Gryx, and Sithi, scared, tired, and hungry, emerge into the great square on the largest of the plateaus of the great city. In the peaks overlooking the city, a tiny community of Gryphons – creatures of myth and fear in Anias – stood watch over the desert, holding ancient enemies at bay.

Any other race in Cyradon would have killed the human refugees where they stood, but the Gryphons understood that the coming of the humans meant a time of great change was here.

#4300 Cyradon, page 09