A History of Blue and its Circle of Mages

The foundation of Blue harkens back to a time before the rise of Obsidian Bay in the southeastern Pomarj, when the city was a pirate haven. To understand the nature of the Circle of Blue, one must first understand the city in which it was founded and developed.

Geography:
The city of Blue is situated on the eastern tip of the Pomarj peninsula within a group of crescent-shaped granite hills facing the sea. At either end of the crescent, slightly higher promontories that level out as small plateaus dominate the semi-circle of hills. A fine sheltered bay is contained within this crescent, and the city has been built on the land of the low-lying waterfront and upon the seaward slopes of the surrounding hills. Two waterways flow near the base of the hills, a smaller stream to the north end of the city called the Bloodwater (a corruption of Blue-wood-water), and a more substantial river, the Drachenwasser, to the south end. These two waterways form a sort of natural moat around the city, with a narrow gap between their headwaters to the northwest of the city being the sole route to approach Blue exclusively by land. This slender sector is a plain of farmland, which rises abruptly from the valley of the Drachenwasser River, features a few small woodlands, cultivated fields, and midway between the trees and the city wall lays the small village of Bordton. The largest of these woodlands contains the headwaters of the Bloodwater. A few smaller hills which are riddled with caves lay outside the crescent, but development upon them is all but absent as most have sought the safety within the city walls.

The dual lighthouses that became Blue’s trademark were built upon each of the terminal plateaus. These feature stark cliffs that drop almost straight down to the waters below; they are the Southlight and Northlight Heights respectively. Small but stout forts were eventually constructed around each lighthouse for protection. Later, a wall around the city’s edge running along the ridgelines and windward sides of the crescent hills was built, complete with guard towers and fortified gates. Through the years, the walls have been in various states of repair, the humanoid armies of the Pomarj have tested them more than once. The quality of the districts of Blue generally follows a simple rule: the closer to the water, the poorer the neighborhood, and conversely, the higher up upon the hill, the wealthier the neighborhood. The main thoroughfares of Blue spread outward from the waterfront like spokes. They are paved with cobblestones and lead from dockside all the way to the gatehouse portals that they are named after, such as Southgate Avenue, Captains Gate Avenue, etc. The cross-streets bend around the city’s contours, as they proceed successively higher up the incline that Blue is built on in a terraced fashion, thus each level can easily be seen from anywhere in the city similar to being in an amphitheater.

A History of Blue:

The original founding of the city of Blue has been lost to antiquity, but there certainly was human settlement here by Flannae tribesmen before the time of the great migrations of the Suel and Oeridians following the Twin Cataclysms over a thousand years ago. Settlement of the Pomarj by the Suel was swift, and they established many small fiefdoms and made the local Flannae their subjects. These holdings were ostensibly vassal states to the Prince of Ulek, who was himself a vassal to the Kingdom of Keoland. When the Ulek states broke away from Keoland, the Suel nobles wasted no time in declaring their own independence from the Prince of Ulek. By the time Baron Erkin declared himself King of the Drachensgrabs in the early-400's CY, Blue was a small but growing port town which had been a power center for the strongly independent Suel nobility of the eastern reaches of the peninsula. The Hateful Wars of 498-510 CY, in which the combined forces of the men, dwarves, elves and gnomes drove the evil humanoids from the Lortmil Mountains was the impetus behind the Pomarj later being conquered. The masses of goblins, orcs, gnolls and worse had nowhere else to go, and the petty Suel presented no united front to stop them.

Following the fall of the Pomarj to the humanoid armies in 513 CY, Blue was able to maintain its existence due to the strength of the various mercenary companies and privateers who inhabited the city. It is true that many left for safer locales, but many also stayed and made Blue a refuge free from the laws of more decent nations. Thus, Blue remained a safe port for pirates engaged in commerce raiding and the thriving black market and slave trafficking throughout the early to mid-500's CY.

During this period, a handful of families were able to pull themselves up from being minor cartels to something of a landed and wealthy gentry, mostly because no one was strong or organized enough to oppose and enforce on them trade laws, levies or taxes. These families vied with each other for wealth and power, but never actually came to actual hostile conflict because there was plenty to be had for all. It became more of a competition of which family could display the most wealth and finery, or which could boast of having spent the most on lavish parties and celebrations.

From all of this, one family rose to the top... the House of Vonderzee. Sammel Vonderzee, a notorious privateer and free-booter, was the scion of this family, and it was he who was elected to start a sort of minor nobility in Blue by the other leading families. Since most of these families had earned their wealth and reputation through piracy or related endeavors, Sammel based Blue's so-called government on Council of Captains where the heads of each family were elevated to the title of Lord, while Sammel himself took the title of Baron of Blue in 523 CY.

At the same time as Sammel was founding Blue's first real government since the Hateful Wars, what was left of the old Suel nobility, a few petty Suel barons who remained in the area, were also absorbed into this Council of Captains. The Council was based on the premise that as long as Blue maintained its harbor, the wealth would keep flowing in on the tide. Thus, the sole responsibility of the Council was the oversight, defense and repair of Blue's docks, waterfront, and lighthouses. It later took on the role of a legal body to resolve matters of commerce and certain matters of "land-law" as they arose, but all decisions were arbitrary and were based on the circumstances of each individual incident, as no set laws were ever enacted.

The heirs of Sammel had varying degrees of success in maintaining their authority as the title of Baron passed from one generation to the next within the Vonderzee family. As is common in politics, control of the Council passed from one faction to the next as the powers of these groups waned or waxed in slow succession as more influential, devious, or charismatic leaders emerged. Blue was even overrun and held by one of the more powerful humanoid armies for a short time until an adequate mercenary army could be raised to drive them out.

Origins of the Circle of Blue:

It was in the environment of one-ups-manship between the leading families that the Circle of Blue has its origins. As the Houses sought to become more like the noble families of other nations, they sought out arcane spellcasters to serve on their staffs as mere status symbols. These Houses gained their wealth and power through mostly devious means during Blue's glory days as a pirate haven, so the mages that these newly made upper-class families attracted were of similar disposition. Not surprisingly, the majority of these mages were from the Great Kingdom, where debauchery in magecraft had flourished. Since the mages had little utility to those they served other than providing occasional magical advice or parlor tricks for their benefactor's amusement, the mages had a great deal of free time for which they could conduct the arcane arts at their leisure. The mages formed a kind of social club among themselves, where they would exchange what dark lore they had uncovered, and generally harassed the general population with their experiments. Some of these experiments were rumored take place within laboratories built in caves or abandoned mines just outside of town. It is said that the mages even went so far as to secretly kidnap persons to use as test subjects, and there was little anyone could do about it, especially during the reign of the Slave Lords, which began in 576 CY.

In the years that followed, the Despot Mak started uniting the humanoid tribes of the Pomarj, and during the Greyhawk Wars threatened to overwhelm Blue itself after years of having allowing the evil humans who had aided the Slave Lords to have their city of refuge. Mak felt that the city of Blue could one day be a rallying point for the humans to leverage his goblinoid kindred from the Pomarj, as they had once been driven from the Lortmil Mountains during the Hateful Wars of almost a century earlier, so he decided to move against Blue and its good aligned upstart neighbor, Obsidian Bay.

During this conflict, the mages, now united formally as the Circle of Blue, proved their worth to their masters and prevented Blue from completely falling to the armies of Mak, and Blue was able to negotiate a truce in 585 CY. However, many of the Circle's mages lost their lives during the battle, along with many of the mercenaries who had remained and hired on to defend the city. The Circle of Blue was all but eliminated, and those few who remained sought refuge in the caves within the large hill just outside of Blue's south gate. The families whom the mages had served had lost their fortunes in the war, so the now masterless mages of the Circle were left to fend for themselves and brood their return to positions of power and respect. The city owed them its survival, and the thanks they received was to be relegated to the drudgery of freelance dweomercraft. Half of Blue became a slum, and what little order existed broke down as rival factions vied for control of the government while rival gangs ruled the streets. The glory days of Blue were over.

Mak Strikes Back:

During the second short war initiated by Mak in 587 CY, it was to Obsidian Bay and Blue that Mak once again directed his army's attention. Now, however, the forces of Blue and Obsidian Bay were united against the orcish onslaught. This condition of mutual security between the two independent and greatly diverse cities developed as a necessity after the first war, which left Blue especially weakened. In a short time, Obsidian Bay, with its highly organized and effectual government, was able to influence and then dominate its eastern neighbor. By this time, the Baron of Blue himself, Johann Vonderzee, had lost or squandered much of his power as a few elite members of the military, namely Lord Umberleige, dominated his city. He was the self appointed Lord Protector of Blue, a highly controversial figure with many followers who worshipped the evil god Hextor, but an adequate battlefield commander none the less. The combined forces of Obsidian Bay and Blue were eventually triumphant in beating back the forces of Mak at the Battle of Blue, but again at great cost in lives and wealth to both cities.

It was then that an unexpected turn of events occurred. Obsidian Bay fell suddenly to an invasion force from the Scarlet Brotherhood who had secretly infiltrated the city aided by sahaugin shock troops from the sea, an underground organization within Obsidian Bay itself, and various monstrous beasts. The Obsidian Tower itself came under direct siege by powerful ancient Suel archmagi who had been freed by taking over the bodies of unsuspecting members of one of the city’s guilds. The order was given to evacuate the city and many refugees fled towards Blue. It was at this point that Johann saw an opportunity. He allowed the remaining exiled government of Obsidian Bay to come to Blue and essential take over. He saw this as the only way in which he could regain control of his city from his own military commanders, and as a way to secure the good graces of the government of his more powerful neighbor.

The rulership of Blue was basically handed over by Baron Johann Vonderzee, and General Stefan Warrick, a hero of the recent war with the orcs, was appointed as military governor of the city. The Lord Mayor of Obsidian Bay became the ruler of the new nation that would shortly be formed, the Domain of Obsidian Bay. The forces of Obsidian Bay established some semblance of law and order by occupying the forts around Blue's dual lighthouses, the naval yard, and started patrolling what remained of the salvageable parts of the city.

Obsidian Bay would later be liberated in Goodmonth of 588 CY, and Blue became essentially a vassal city to the Domain. This was not what Baron Vonderzee had intended, but he was powerless to prevent it. General Warrick keeps what portions of Blue that he can under a kind of martial law, but he has written off the so-called “Bottom Half”. This area of the city is utterly chaotic, and is kept isolated from the rest of the city by large and frequent patrols of guardsmen. Street gangs rule by might here, and the Cutters seem to have dominated the rest.

The Circle Today:

The current incarnation of the Circle of Blue has returned to its roots as a loose organization of a few dozen mages, but who now conspire to rid the city of Blue from the influence of Obsidian Bay. The various mages of Blue enjoyed a certain level of respect and prestige prior to the occupation by Obsidian Bay's forces, and these mages wish to regain their former glory. The leaders of the current members are the remnants of the House mages of Blue's wealthier families who survived the wars, but now the majority are young mages who were apprenticed to those who perished, or adventuring mages from elsewhere. Some of these seek to learn of the secrets gleaned by the Circle Mages of old in their hidden and forgotten laboratories, and others scheme and work with the underground crime networks of the city. All of them, however, resent Obsidian Bay’s dominance of Blue and enforcement of the new laws. The mages blame Baron Johann Vonderzee for this blunder, as it was his invitation to the exiled Obsidian Bay government that allowed Blue to be annexed into the Domain. Morkai, the Baron’s House mage himself, is one of those most critical of his master. Baron Vonderzee seems distracted by other matters, and pays little attention to the situation. The occupation government under General Warrick is more concerned with maintaining order in the streets, and eventually rebuilding the Bottom Half once the opposing forces there eradicate each other.