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Eldoran Empire

Theocratic Empire • Worshippers of Eldora • Violescence Technology

Overview​

The Eldoran Empire, also called the Golden Empire, is a militarised, technologically advanced empire built around the worship of the ascended goddess Eldora. Its knights and paladins wear armour and weapons set with violescence crystals. It forces conquered people to give up their old gods, and it has a space station whose weapon shot down the moon goddess Luna. It rules from its capital, Eldoran. Greyport, capital of the Free Republic, is one of the last places still holding out against it.

Status as of Session 63: Taco Cat, working for the Twilight Company, has just hit three targets in the capital at once. The university research tower collapsed across the city wall, charges went off at the barracks concert hall and the spaceport factory, and Bru stole the factory's power core, a miniature sun. The party is fleeing the city. The space station and its weapon are untouched.

Eldora and the Two Moons​

  • Eldora is a goddess who ascended, and the Empire's second moon is an artificial satellite created when she did (Sessions 13–14). Luna later described that moon as a temple, a generator and a weapon (Session 46).
  • Imperial soldiers demand that people swear allegiance to "Empress Eldora" and abandon their gods (Session 8). The knight Eric spoke of extinguishing all other gods (Session 16). Bafael later summarised the goal: kill the gods so that Eldora grows stronger (Session 41).
  • In Session 16 the party saw the real moon crack apart and a vast female figure fall from the sky. This was the moon goddess the party now knows as Luna, and they took it as Eldora wiping out a rival god (Session 17). Luna herself describes a massive white beam fired from a giant dish on the side of the space station, which the party named the "space bowl" (Session 46). It shattered her "in the weave", beyond her physical form.
  • A demon, Velz'eth, told the party that the fae Crowley was working with the "Moon Queen", Eldora, toward a world of "cold steel and blind salvation" (Interlude X).

Military​

  • Knights and paladins: Glowing, crystal-armoured knights patrol the roads between cities (Session 24). They staff checkpoints like the one that warned travellers away from Milstrom (Session 10). The Session 16 knight represented the Order of Eldora, and the Razlemania faction called themselves the Knights of Eldora (Session 51).
  • Crystal shields: Golden-armoured soldiers linked crystal shields into a dome that protected thousands of civilians during the dragon attack on High Forge (Session 7). The DM later confirmed these were Eldoran arcane shields (Session 38 transcript).
  • Violescence gear: The knights at Luna's remains each wore six crystals and their captain wore fifteen. The crystals glow when their power is used (Session 52). At Razlemania the Eldoran wrestlers used theirs telekinetically to cheat (Session 51).
  • Ascension: In the barracks concert hall, entranced musicians and shackled foreign prisoners were used in a harmonic ritual. An ordinary soldier grew white-gold wings and a blazing greatsword in front of the crowd (Session 61).
  • Magic detection: Soldiers wear laser-scanning helmets that flag magic items, components and unregistered spellcasters (Session 58). White-armoured patrols with antennae tally magical purchases shop by shop (Session 60).
  • Clones: Six sleeping copies of Elspeth were found in flight simulators in the research tower, being trained as shock troopers for the Empire's war with the dragons (Session 63).
  • Space: Radio broadcasts came from a space station near the moon (Session 14) and advertised recruitment for an "Eldoran Space Force" (Session 16). Victor has tracked the station's resupply teleport sites (Session 45).

Harmonic Resonance and Violescence​

The research tower's acoustics floor explained how the Empire works (Session 61). Its researchers use sound and music as a model of how the physical, astral and divine planes connect. Violescence makes that harmonic resonance possible, drawing power from belief into the material world. Belief feeds the god and the god feeds the believer, a loop that grows without limit if left unchecked. Their notes cite studies of Y'chek, "a god of passion and music" and Helisanna's patron, as the original template, and flag dragon orbs as a possible way to disrupt the system. The top floor held experiments on living subjects.

  • The moon weapon grew out of research by Lieutenant Steven Goldspring, Leliana's brother. He refused to hand over his "harmonic alignment" work, and Captain Steel killed him for it. The weapon turned his research from containing uncontainable energy to aiming it (Session 57, a memory Leliana relived).
  • Harmonic engines bundle crystals together to multiply a weapon's output tenfold, according to Fredo Boggins (Session 62).
  • The party has come to believe the Empire is stockpiling violescence toward something catastrophic, and that another universe was already destroyed this way (Session 48).

The Capital​

Eldoran is carved into two facing cliffsides and built out across the top, and it is reached by elevator from the valley floor (Session 55). Inside are hovercraft, drones, a harbour spaceport launching shuttles, and citizens with red-glowing cybernetic eyes. Five giant floating crystals arranged in a pentagon, one of them at the spaceport, beam power down to pylons across the city. The inner ring is affluent and mostly human. In the outer rings dwarves run shops, halflings, gnomes and orcs work as labour, and goblins are absent from every work crew (Session 57). In the capital the god Tony is followed only as a philosophy, there being "no god but Eldora" (Session 60).

Neighbouring Bradicus is an independent state whose status the Empire contests. The Bradicus family made the guns "that built the Golden Empire" (Session 55).

Agents, Allies and Enemies​

  • Captain Steel: Gaunt, half-machine officer who murdered Steven Goldspring. He is stationed at the university research centre (Session 58) and was seen at the spaceport factory (Sessions 60 and 63).
  • Eric: A female Eldoran knight whose crystals had gone dull and black. She helped the party against a Shadowfell incursion (Session 16), then led the attack on the Skyhammer village and was killed by Helisanna's Eldritch Blast (Session 22). A "Captain Sir Eric" later led Lady Corwin's mercenaries through High Forge (Session 37). The recaps do not say whether this is the same person.
  • Zeke: An Eldoran spy who poisoned the well of Red's adoptive parents and fled toward Eldoran (Session 13).
  • Order of St. George: Dragon hunters working with the Empire from its moon base to turn the moon weapon on Noraxis, the dragon god and Luna's partner (Sessions 40–41).
  • Lady Corwin and the Blackstone family: High Forge nobles with Eldoran ties. Corwin planned to hand High Forge and its violescence to the Empire (Session 31). Her mercenary army arrived a month after her death, looked the city over and reported it "sacked and nothing worth saving" (Session 37).
  • Skyhammer Clan: According to the clan, Eldoran knights attacked their village when Red was an infant and took their scientists and technology (Session 17). Eldoran soldiers were later found dismantling the abandoned village with a teleport "threshold" device (Session 38).
  • Jasper Gaines: A former Eldoran soldier who turned on Eric to defend the Goliaths (Session 22). He now runs a brewery in Greyport and says the Empire "lost their way" once it started killing gods (Session 48).
  • Opponents: The Twilight Company, whose founder Lady Viper lost her family to the Empire about fifty years ago (Session 47), and Taco Cat.

Conflict with Taco Cat​

  • Luna: The party freed Luna's remains from an Eldoran chain-and-portal rig, killed its captain, and brought her back to life (Session 52). The next night Leliana's concert raised a new moon over Greyport, and the crowd began talking about resistance (Session 53).
  • The infiltration: Lady Viper briefed the party on the capital's magic detection (Session 54). They crossed an Eldoran checkpoint as the mercenary company Pupusa Possum (Session 54), competed in Lord Bradicus's contest (Sessions 55–56), and surfaced in the capital through a World Tree (Session 57).
  • The strike: George, the Twilight Company's plant in the city guard, named three targets: the spaceport factory, the university research centre and the barracks (Session 58). The party scouted all three (Sessions 59–61), planted the charges (Sessions 62–63) and set them off together (Session 63).

Session History​

  • Session 7 — Golden-armoured soldiers link crystal shields into a dome protecting High Forge's civilians from the dragon attack.
  • Session 8 — Eldoran paladins with violescence-set gear force refugees to swear allegiance to Empress Eldora; the party talks down a knight menacing a monk of Tyr.
  • Session 10 — Eldoran Knights at a crossroads checkpoint warn the party away from Milstrom and give them a brooch to report back with.
  • Session 13 — Zeke's journal reveals he is an Eldoran spy who poisoned Red's adoptive parents; the artificial Eldoran moon complicates a werewolf cure.
  • Session 14 — A radio transmission from a space station near the Eldoran moon reports void dragons; the second moon is revealed to be an artificial satellite made when Eldora ascended.
  • Session 16 — The Eldoran knight Eric fights beside the party at a Shadowfell rift and speaks of extinguishing other gods; radio recruits for an Eldoran Space Force; the real moon explodes.
  • Session 17 — The moon's destruction is read as Eldora eliminating a rival god; the Skyhammers describe Eldoran knights massacring their village years before.
  • Interlude 10 — Velz'eth claims Crowley is working with the "Moon Queen", Eldora.
  • Session 22 — Eric and Eldoran soldiers attack the Skyhammer village; Jasper turns on her, and Helisanna kills her.
  • Session 31 — The Blackstone family's Eldoran ties come to light, and Silas works out that Lady Corwin means to hand High Forge to the Empire.
  • Session 37 — A month after the battle, Lady Corwin's mercenary army under Captain Sir Eric marches through High Forge and reports it sacked.
  • Session 38 — Two Eldoran soldiers are found at the abandoned Skyhammer village building a teleport threshold; the party takes the reality stones.
  • Session 40 — Bafael reveals the Order of St. George is working with Eldoran to turn the moon weapon on Noraxis.
  • Session 46 — Luna describes the white beam fired from the space station's "space bowl".
  • Session 47 — Lady Viper lays out her plan to strike the Empire's worship sites, spaceport and violescence caches.
  • Session 51 — The Knights of Eldora descend on Razlemania as a third faction and lose to Taco Cat.
  • Session 52 — Eldoran Knights chaining a portal rig to Luna's skull are routed; the party kills their captain and revives Luna.
  • Session 54 — Lady Viper briefs the party on the capital's magic detection, and they pass an Eldoran checkpoint on the road to Little Cradle.
  • Session 55 — Lord Bradicus's contest brings the party to the capital's cliffs; the Bradicus guns "built the Golden Empire".
  • Session 57 — Leliana relives Captain Steel murdering her brother over the moon-laser research; the party emerges in the Eldoran capital.
  • Session 58 — Soldiers in magic-detection helmets sweep the Sexy Peacock; George names the three sabotage targets.
  • Session 60 — The spaceport factory's furnace proves to be a contained power plant, and Captain Steel is spotted on the floor.
  • Session 61 — A soldier ascends with wings in the barracks concert hall; the research tower's notes lay out harmonic resonance and violescence.
  • Session 62 — A bomb is armed in the barracks concert hall, and Fredo Boggins describes harmonic engines.
  • Session 63 — Bru steals the factory's miniature sun, six Elspeth clones are found in the research tower, and three bombs go off across the capital.
  • Session 64 — Silas hijacked broadcast drones used by the Eldoran Empire to declare that Eldora is a false god, broadcasting this message across every screen in the empire.