Rueside, now a decaying monument to its dark past, has a history spanning over a millennium on the Chichingia coast. Beneath its cobblestones lie the "Weeping Caverns," a network of limestone caves where thousands of slaves perished. The profound psychic stain left by this suffering is said to have weakened the veil between worlds, allowing the dark magic of the sorceress Ursula to fester long after her defeat.
13 September 17 (Ancient Calendar Year) The city known as Rueside was formally founded, quickly earning the moniker "Jewel of Chains." It rapidly rose to prominence as the primary hub for the horrific slave trade orchestrated by the powerful House of Silk. For centuries, untold gold flowed up into the marble mansions of the affluent Silk District, while blood and misery washed down into the city's harbor.
Approx. 700 Years Ago The city's fortunes shattered with the Great Abolition, a violent upheaval that broke the legal backbone of the slave trade. Stripped of its primary economy, Rueside began a slow, agonizing descent into decay, effectively "abandoned" by its original purpose and prosperity. The entrenched aristocracy, unwilling to relinquish power, pivoted to illicit smuggling, extortion, and the hoarding of ancient, dark artifacts.
Current Era (Leading up to Year 310) Rueside transformed into a bifurcated corpse. The upper crust maintained a veneer of opulence in the Silk District, while the lower city, the "Streets of Low," became a lawless warren. The city's dark history began to be weaponized with the awakening of the Dead Wyrm, which triggered the "Gloom." This supernatural fog draws power from Rueside's ancestral guilt, turning its ancient ghosts into tangible threats.
07 June 310 – The Schism of Memory The legendary Dragonbone Vanguard's consciousnesses merged into mercenary bodies, awakening to a brutal goblin ambush. A blue tiefling's sacrifice fueled their counter-attack, yet they soon discovered their victims were unarmed innocents. Haunted by this first, tainted act and fragmented memories, these now-merged heroes—identified by Meklen Tiammen as Rollo's operatives—grappled with their shattered identities, their heroic legacy dissolving into guilt as they embarked on a dark, morally ambiguous journey.
05 September 310 – Head of the Order of Sea and Stone Assassinated A group of adventurers, operating under the direction of the Unchained, uncovered a critical connection between an individual named Andre, the Bukhara Spire gates, and a mysterious artifact known as the Bukhara Shard. This strange stone glowed with a golden light, carrying an ominous weight, hinting at forgotten power. They tracked Andre to the ruined Hidden Relic Chapel in Rueside's Low District, a crumbling monument adorned with faded carvings.
Within the chapel, a broken Bukhara Spire Gateway, a semi-circular obsidian structure covered in runes, pulsed erratically. Andre stood in its flickering glow, gripping the Shard and murmuring words in an ancient language, attempting to manipulate the unstable gate. The air hummed with energy as the statues lining the cavernous room groaned and shifted, resonating with the deep thrum of the Gateway.
Borin, ever the diplomat, approached Andre with cautious words, probing his intentions. Andre's sharp, weary eyes betrayed the burden he carried as he attempted to reason with the party. He revealed the history of the shard, explaining Redevus’s plan to destroy the Stone Gates, sever the Weave, and leave Coia utterly defenseless by destroying magic itself.
Andre disclosed that the Bukhara Shard was a fragment of the original Spires, entrusted to the Meklen family after the Awakening and the second fall of Whisperwind, but subsequently lost. He recounted how the first settlers had misused the Spires, inadvertently connecting Coia to the Shadowfell and plunging it into a decade of bloodshed. In desperation, they reshaped the Spires, creating instant travel gates by severing their connection to the Shadowfell, but ignoring what was lost in the process. Andre claimed his actions, despite past mistakes, were to protect Coia.
As Andre concluded his plea, Rooster, hidden in the shadows, loosed an arrow with deadly precision, aiming to end both the ritual and Andre's life. However, before the arrow found its mark, the chapel shuddered violently; walls groaned, cracked, and dust rained down from the ceiling. Tiammen's panicked shout, "The whole place is coming down!", spurred the party to lunge forward, grabbing Andre just as the ceiling collapsed in a roar of stone and splintering wood.
Outside, a coughing and beaten Andre found himself an unwilling guest of the party’s further questioning. They pressed him for information about the gates, the Bukhara Shard, and Redevus’s plans, and though his answers were evasive, the pieces slowly fell into place. When the adventurers had wrung him dry of every useful scrap of information, they made a final, grim decision, ending his life with two daggers to the neck. Through this brutal infiltration, the Unchained operatives successfully assassinated Andre, presumed to be the head of the Order of Sea and Stone, and acquired the vital Bukhara Shard.
Current Status Rueside continues to endure a relentless supernatural siege alongside pervasive economic stagnation. Unbeknownst to most, the forgotten bloodline of Meklen remains the sole force standing between the city and total spectral annihilation, battling against the Gloom and its legion of tangible ancient ghosts.
