Var Bandor

The Free State of Var Bandor is an independent city-state located between the Arien Plains and Qilarn. The former heart of the Republic of Earendam, it was conquered by the Arhakhla during the War of Night, becoming an independent city-state after overthrowing the shuddeni and asserting independence. Now an open plutarchy, it is ruled by matched councils comprised of the city's merchants and scholars and overseen by a Lord-Mayor.

Geography & Weather

Var Bandor is located in the former heart of the old Republic at the fork of the Dantaron and Aragol rivers, built on rich loam. It is southeast of Qilarn and north of Nendor, and the main road through Arien leads east through the plains to Earendam. Its climate is temperate and humid, making much of its outlying territory ideal for farming.

History

The region Var Bandor presently occupies was settled originally by the ethron of clan Yonmi, who held it along with the entirety of Nendor and current-day Lithling Valley. After the founding of the Republic of Earendam post-War of Fire, the primarily human and aelin Earendamians began to spread west. The Yonmi ethron remaining in the region put up little resistance to Earendamian settlement, their numbers decimated by the war, and new Earendamian settlements were established all along the Dantaron and Aragol rivers in the most fertile parts of the region. During this period of expansion, Var Bandor was founded at the crux of the rivers Dantaron and Aragol to serve as a centralized location for transporting cargo from Harrud or the region's many farms back to the capitol.

Var Bandor became a booming trade hub, the city's economy nearly as valuable as Earendam city's at its peak. Being the nexus point between Earendam, Gaald, the western Brintors, Gogoth, and the dangerous but profitable routes to Harrud, it also became a mixing pot of different lineages, though humans were and are still the dominant lineage in the region.

Near the end of the War of Night, the Arhakhla took Var Bandor as part of their campaign against the Republic, using it as a staging ground for an assault against the capitol and denying Earendam its precious resources. Their rule was marked by brutality and chaos, with repeated incidents of mass unrest and breakouts of renewed fighting leading to the destruction of a full half of the city's buildings and infrastructure before the end of the war. Conditions in the city continued to deteriorate under the chaotic fist of the Arhakhla until Rveyelhi, then an immortal divine of Iandir, arrived in the city. Rveyelhi was ostensibly there to aid the shuddeni forces in stabilizing and re-asserting control, which he technically did before conspiring with another sigiled follower of Iandir to overthrow the Arhakhla and chase them out of the city shortly after the Day of Two Dawns had broken the shuddeni's other forces. Though Var Bandor became formally independent of shuddeni rule at this time, many shuddeni post-war chose to remain in Var Bandor rather than return to Kutlaset, leading to a robust minority population of shuddeni to this day.

Shortly after the collapse of Gogoth, the School of Heroes formally reopened its doors and Var Bandor became the epicenter of adventurer life, prompting Iandir to place the headquarters of the Guardians of Law there in an attempt to stem the constant adventurer-fueled violence of the post-Collapse era.