Back to Rohan Life or Index
In order to tell the history of Del Roh completely, one must go back to the First Age and the annuals of the Old Realm as they still exist. In that lost and glorious time, the Rohani ruled over their fate with the aid of the Exalted. A Grand Council marked the instrument of government, and was divided in a Greater and a Lesser Council. The Lesser Council was called the Hall of Man, and was given over to the mortal folk of Del Roh. It was filled with the best and brightest of men, and led by the wealthy leaders of the Dragon-Blooded families, so that the subjects of the Realm could have say in how they were governed. The Greater Council, or the Celestial Council, was that of the Celestial Exalted that ruled over the land.
This was the norm of the Old Realm, though it was a practice that was hardly universal in all of the protectorates and prefectures under the rule of the Solar Deliberative. Yet those places that were civilized and cultured, that were brought fully into the society of the Old Realm, were ruled in this way and thus it was that Venlo built his organ of Government in like fashion.
Day to day activities and matters of law are left to the Lower Council, given over to the mortal men and the Dragon-Blooded Councilors and Bureaucrats that saw to it that the lands under the Sun prospered and was kept safe. When it became necessary or when their own interests required it, the Celestial Exalts of the Greater Council would interfere in these matters. When matters of great importance needed to be resolved, the entire Greater Council would be called to meeting and the Chosen of the Celestines would deal with whatever threatened their mandate.
So it was in old Del Roh, at least for a time.
Venlo, Asringh, and the other Exalted of the Region raised Del Roh and its Undercity of Kindi up as a glorious center of life and government in the West. The city was a center of trade, served as a meeting point for the various Kingdoms and Prefectures of the Far West, and eventually came to be considered the Western Capital of the Old Realm.
Only Oral History remains of much of what happened after this system slowly started to dissolve. The stories go, that the Celestial Exalted, most particularly the Solar Exalted, began to bicker amongst themselves and engage in all manner of petty status games and infighting. The Greater Councils of the Old Realm, and of Del Roh, grew quarrelous and ineffective. This often spread to the Lower Councils in turn, and from here the results varied. In Del Roh, so say the stories, the old King Venlo dissolved the Greater and Lower Councils and named himself Lord and King of Del Roh.
The excesses and monstrous acts of Venlo have grown into Legend among the Rohani, even to the point where it is hard to tell where reality ends and shared myth begns. It is certain that Venlo kept a harem of young Rohani daughters, breeding a number of bloodlines of children touched with his own power, whom he installed as governers and leaders. These, most claim, were the template that Siash eventually took when he created his Immortal Guard (hunting down and killing the last of the Golden Children in Del Roh in the process, of course). It is also certain that many citizens of Del Roh were taken away to secret workshops, and perished in various horrible ways. The Neomah, in particular, knew many such tales. As Balthasar begins to hear more and more tales of his last incarnation, he begins to suspect that some of the others have the seed of truth to them as well. The stories of Demons chained and harnessed throughout the city, of experiments of sorcery that commited innumerable horrors upon the people, and of things even worse that all to often haunt his dreams.
Eventually, however, the reign of the Last King ended. He survived the Usurpation in his vast golden fort for over three centuries, slaughtering the families of Dragon-Blooded in the city and their every descendent, layering the City and it's surrounding lands in so many paranoid layers of sorcerous defense that it was as if Del Roh was no longer part of Creation but something else. He eventually perished, dying of old age as the last years of his ancient life were utterly spent, hidden in the darkened recesses of his sorcerous bolthole in the underworkings of the city.
Little record exists of Del Roh between the death of the Last King and the coming of the Great Contagion at the end of the First Age. In truth, no one knows what happened during that time. Some suggest a time of freedom and unity, others suggest yet more horror at the hands of Venlo's children and Demons. All anyone knows for sure is that, in the dark days after the Contagion claimed so many souls (leaving only 2 men in 10 alive), the Celestial Lion, Siash, rose up and claimed the city as his own. Most know that the Great Lion had dwelled in the city long before then, guarding the Golden Manse where legend said a Great Holy Artifact of their Faith lay, but only a few knew the entire story before the Circle came and claimed the Spear of Light.
Regardless, when Siash declared himself Protector of Del Roh, it was known that the Golden City was in particularly dark straights. The Fair Folk that invaded Creation had largely ignored the Golden City in favor of heading further into the heart of Creation; though it had not been their intended purpose, the potent Defenses that Venlo had erected proved sound against the Wyld and the Host of the Fae as well as the various forces his mind seeked to repel. Much of the land that Del Roh had depended upon were ravished by the Raksha, however, and bled away into the Wyld. The food stores of Del Roh were vast indeed, especially with so many dead from the Contagion, but Siash saw that order and strong rule were necessary.
The Golden Lion took numerous actions to help safeguard the city and it's proud people. He founded the Immortal Guard, setting them as leaders and rulers of the city. The Immortals were not picked at whim, but instead each was a mortal with a given talent that Siash knew the City would need in the long years to come. Zintoba and Morovan were warriors, Isisia was a fisherman, Kalx a peasant farmer. The original Immortals numbered seven, and their children came to be the Casted Nobility of the city. More Immortals came in time, though usually these were placed under the authority of one of their elders, or were picked to replace a battlefield casuality. Most important of all the Immortals, however, was Chikee.
Chikee was a charming, quick and intelligent man who was chosen because he was a compliment to Siash's own presence. The Golden Lion was glorious, brilliant, and commanding. Chikee was given power with the understanding that he was to be shadowy, cunning, and underhanded. He was the left hand of the Lion, and the family he gathered under him served a similar purpose. So cunning was Chikee, that the others did not even realize his role until much later, and by that time they had all accepted the Chikee servants into their homes and could feel the dim impression of their knives on their necks whenever they thought of betrayal...
Life under Siash was safe, orderly, and secure. It was not always easy, however. On several occasions the Fair Folk laid siege to the wards and defenses of Venlo, and on two occasions they did substantial damage to them before being forced back through the Golden Lions power. Indeed it was this very battle damage that likely enabled the Realm to so easily hew through defenses specfically designed to prevent such a thing from being so easily accomplished.
However, it was not the Fair Folk that the Immortals feared most. Del Roh had been a city of some twenty million people during it's height. It was supported by the vibrant economy of the Old Realm and the largess of it's region, having food shipped in by boat and airship from across the West and even as far away as the East during the height of the First Age. The city had massive storehouses of food sufficient to keep it fed for over a century, in the event of siege. Yet it wasn't a siege that tested those granaries, but instead the utter dissolution of first the economy and later the neighboring lands.
The solutions to this problem were many. First, the entire lower island of Kindi was converted into a massive farm and using the height of First Age agricultural lore the people of Del Roh were able to minimize their drain on the stores of food. Later, those not related to one of the Noble families of the Immortals were placed on a strict rationing of food. Then, those rations were cut, and then later cut again. The slave caste of Del Roh was only barely eating enough to survive when the Circle discovered the city, and there were plans in place to reduce the rations even further. Some other solutions were discussed: cutting down the forest and farming it as well, arranging trade agreements with the Fae, planning a great migration to a fertile wyld region. Other plans that were sometimes discussed were even more absurd.
None of it would have worked. The Immortals knew what their ultimate fate would be. At pre-Exodus consumption rates and farm yields, Del Roh had about 25 years worth of food left in its stores. Through the sacrifice of most of the cities non-essential population, the Immortals thought they could double that timeline before the yields from the lands below simply collapsed totally.
Then everyone who remained would starve.
Stryck Wiki