THE YEAR OF THE AMBER MOON (<BMY 438)
It is the custom of Blue Mountain that, on New Years Eve of every year, the College of Bards give a name to the previous year that most appropriately describes it. The name given is usually based on some maJor event that took place during the year that was significant to Blue Mountain. Blue Mountain Year 438 was given the name The Year of the Amber Moon for JUst such an occurance. In the year 426 <BMY> a military coup was attempted against the Overlord of the City-State of Herigund. The coup failed and its instigators were killed in a series of bloody public executions. Those few survivors of the coup fled to the west and Tunlind Drop. The leader of these refugees was a powerful warrior named Derek Parderaan. Derek and his band remained in hiding for twelve years, slowly gaining support and building a mighty army to invade the city-state. His actions, however, did not go unnoticed by the evil overlord. Before Derek's army was complete, a mighty host of humans and orcs departed Herigund to lay waste to Derek's army and bring back the head of Parderaan himself to decorate the gates of Herigund. The two armies met at Tunlind Drop on the 13th day of the month of Eleasias. That night the two armies clashed and the full moon reflected the bloody battle below as it turned from bright white to amber red in the course of but a few minutes.
For thirteen days Derek's army suceeded in holding the only passage up Tunlind Drop against the mighty host of the overlord.
Then, on the fourteenth day, five demons from the lowest pits of hell rose amid the evil force and led them against their enemy, the diminishing army of Derek Parderaan. Nothing the defenders had would slay the evil hell-spawn. With cheers of victory, the army of Herigund gained the top of Tunlind Drop and began the massacre of the forces of good. The end seemed near.
At the bottom of Tunlind Drop lay the body of a young man who would have seen his sixteenth year had he but survived another two days. The main body of the evil host had long since passed and there remained only the looters and spoilers who went from body to body stealing the wealth of the dead and torturing those who still had some life in them. The young lad had been felled by an arrow that left him paralyzed. Yet he did not die immediately. It was to be his lot to witness the cruelty of the evil host as they slowly approached, leaving in their wake the mangled bodies of the their tortured victims. His anger and horror grew with each passing second. He comtemplated his own failure and cursed his inability to aid the helpless. His mind retreated inward in an attempt to escape the horror without. He searched deep within himself for a brief flicker of hope, a chance to accomplish one more deed to aid his fallen friends before his own life left him.
He stood. He questioned not the miracle of his rising. At hes feet lie a simple wooden club. His knife was swift and sure as he scribed five names into the cudgel. He queried not as the torturers stopped their grisly task and fled in fear. His purpose did not waver as he gained the top of Tunlind Drop and confronted the demon-spawn aberrations of hell. To the loathsome beasts he seemed but a simple peasant with a crude club. Yet to all those of mortal stamp, he appeared cloaked in divine aura that captured attention to the exclusion of all else. Laughing did the fell creatures of the abyss approach the lad. A David. Confronted by, not one, but five Goliaths. Around him they circled, slowly closing until the tiny body of the lad was invisible amid the towering lords of Hades. Then, like a chain of bursting dominos, the demons exploded into thousands of grisly pieces.
In the middle of the ghastly mounds of demon flesh lie the body of a young lad, dead from an arrow wound to the neck; a young man recognized by some as Cuthbert, a peasant farmer's lad. Near him lie his simple wooden club. The invaders fled in terror seeking escape from the ultimate powers of diefic origin. So ended the Battle of Tunlind Drop and thus was established the Baronry of Parderaan which later <under King Sagramour> became the Kingdom of Parderaan.
With the obvious display of divinity associated with Cuthbert's slaying of the five demons, many of the survivors of the battle grew to look upon Cuthbert as a diety. They called him St. Cuthbert of the Cudgel and, in time, clerics of the religion gained real powers when invoked in His name. The wooden cudgel, still inscribed with the names of the five demons, became a holy relic of the church of St. Cuthbert and has been passed down over the centuries from high priest to high priest.
Although the moon turned amber on the night of the first battle and cleared up after the slaying of the five demons, the reason for the amber moon was not associated with the conflict at Tunlind Drop. The origin and reason for the bloody moon, though appropriate for the Battle of Tunlind Drop, lie on another plane of existence, a parallel prime material plane in a land known as Averoigne.
In the land of Averoigne lived the very powerful family of the d'Ambervilles. This family was viewed with distrust and fear by the residents of Averoigne for two reasons; one, the family openly used magic, a practice that was considered an evil pagan ritual, and two, the family had a history of insanity. These two reasons led eventually to an uprising amoung the people, fueled by the fire and brimstone preaching of the clerics of Averoigne. The uprising turned quickly into a riot that led to a march on the Chateau d'Amberville. The family's magic was not powerful enough to save them from the might of the huge mob and so they were destroyed, or so the rioters thought. In truth, the family used its magic to cast their castle into another prime material plane.
Though the plan worked the end obJective was not realized. The Chateau d'Amberville appeared in an alternate prime material plane in the land that would soon be known and Parderaan. The inhabitants of the castle, however, were not so fortunate. They became but shadows of their mortal selves doomed to walk forever through the halls of a shadow of their former home. Only one escaped this fate and appeared with the real chateau in Parderaan. He was Stephen d'Amberville, a lad of but sixteen summers who was somehow immune to the hereditary insanity of the family.
It is the appearance of the Chateau d'Amberville that caused the moon to change color. It started with the invocation of the spell by the family members in Averoigne and ended when the castle appeared on the banks of the River Enorien.
Even in Averoigne the d'Amberville family was known for long lifespans and in Parderaan the same holds true. Stephen d'Amberville (now known as Stephen Amber) still resides in his castle. He pays tribute to the King of Parderaan and, in turn, was awarded the title of Duke of Amberville with comensurate lands and wealth.
Unknown to the residents of the Duchy of Amberville, the shadow Chateau d'Amberville, with its shadow inhabitants, still exists and some of these not-dead d'Ambervilles plot to return to the prime material plane and the true Chateau d'Amberville.
NOTE: No one ever questioned the strange and mysterious arrival of the huge chateau in the land of Parderaan for the simple reason that no one witnessed the event. When the location of the castle, with its single occupant, became known some months later, it was assumed to have always been there. The single inhabitant, though only sixteen years of age so impressed Derek Parderaan that he knighted him a defender of the new realm and later put him in charge of the lands around the castle as the Duke of Amberville. |