Legendary founders, both gods and mortal, anchor the Sordaneon dynasty. First of those founders was, of course, Derlon, one of the Three—the children/sons of the creator god Leur and the mortal Amynas. The Three possess in full the immortality and magic of Leur, embodying creative and transformative power.
The Three—Ergeiron, Derlon, and Amarantos—were conceived in the Second Creation and born fully adult. They accompanied their fathers to Olympos in the First Creation, where the Aryati Diadem-Wielders had established a stronghold. Olympos, however, was an archived World, unable to progress beyond the moment of Devastation, Each archived World was a bubble from which the Aryati could not fully progress. World after World they would find themselves repeating, and repeating again, their history there—often destroying these Worlds in their struggle. The Vllyr malignancy of the Undying Crown—then known as the Diadem of the Devaryati (god nobles)—pursued destruction of the Creation and so perpetuated this Aryati destruction.
Though Amynas and his Sons slew the Aryati Hegemon and Diadem Wearer, the Deus’Aryati, the Leur was also slain in the effort. Following the defeat of the Aryati and destruction of Olympos and its gates, the Three took possession of the Diadem; though none of them were yet strong enough to destroy it, they vowed each to his brothers to keep it harmless. Because the First Creation was too dangerous a place to leave the Diadem or the surviving Aryati, they took these with them into the Second Creation. Amynas claimed the body of Leur and vanished from history.
The Three laid claim to the remaining Leur Cities and set about finishing the work of Leur. They poured their godhoods into the Second Creation, rebuilding the great work.
Derlon and Neryllia
While Ergeiron and Amarantos worked primarily in the northlands where the incomparable Leur City of Permephedon shone bright, Derlon traveled to their birthplace of Sordan and took possession of that City. Among Sordan’s treasures was that it housed the core of the Rill, the last creation of Leur and the Aryati before the Devastation. Derlon hoped to re-vivify the Leur remnants of the vast system and use the Rill’s generative powers to help complete the Second Creation.
A human tribe ofAegeans arrived on Sordan Island and established a town on its shore. They were ruled by a king named Ianeus; he and his sons tried several times to find ways into Sordan’s high places, but they were thwarted each time by Derlon’s magic. Though Derlon was often absent, when he was on the island he would walk among the townsfolk and give guidance to their endeavors.
One day at dusk as Derlon walked along the shore of Sarkuan Lake he saw a maiden dancing in the waves that lapped at the shore, shining fish leaping about her legs and the last light of the sun gilding her skin. Silver water splashed about her feet and her black hair spread about her as she twirled. Enraptured by her grace and beauty, Derlon swept up an armful of red lilies from the bog in which he was standing, thinking to offer them to her—but his advance caused the maiden to take fright and flee. She eluded him and reached her father’s house, that of Ianeus the king.
Derlon pursued her, bearing the lilies in his arms. These flowers he offered to the maiden along with his stated wish to woo and wed her. He made his wish known also to Ianeus and her brothers. Her name was Neryllia and when she saw that Derlon was honorable and pleasing in looks and manner she agreed he could woo her. Not many months after, they wed upon the shore at sunset, the hour at which he had first seen her. Derlon never took another wife.
Upon Neryllia, Derlon sired seven sons—the first Sordaneons, for he proclaimed them so. Deben was the firstborn of these, followed by Peleor, Tolemnos, Tros, Domos, and the twins Akellus and Aktron. The birth of the twins weakened Neryllia so greatly she perished and Derlon mourned her greatly. He created the Dancing Waters monument from his tears and placed it at the site of the Conception.
Deben I Sordaneon
The First Deben inherited a great portion of his father’s Leur ability but was not immortal. As with all offspring of the Three—later to be called Highborn—he took his appearance from his mother. Deben was tall, of solid build, dark-haired, and green-eyed, as were his brothers. He most took after his father in being strong-willed and intense; he was also powerfully attuned to the World of the Second Creation. Even as a child he could penetrate Derlon’s magic and on one occasion entered Sordan’s Citadel with two of his brothers... while leaving behind his human uncles who had hoped to enter with them.
Deben was an adult when Derlon underwent his Transformation. Deben and all his brothers were on hand to witness the event, as were Ianeus and the population of the human town. They witnessed the god give the Sordan Coronal and the great Armor he had created to Deben, bestowing Sordan’s Citadel to Deben’s line, naming them Sordaneon. Derlon also fashioned the Rill Stone and placed it on Deben’s hand to create the first Rillbinding. Upon Derlon’s Transformation, the Rill Stone blazed green. Deben later erected the Temple of the Inception to commemorate Derlon’s Transformation.
At the time of Derlon’s Transformation, Deben was thirty years of age. In the Gweroyen War against the Aryati, who had settled in Iddolea and sought to thwart the Highborn from becoming the rulers of Essera, Deben fought alongside his brothers and cousins. When Peleor was poisoned and slaughtered by the Aryati at Simelon, the intent being to kill the newly transformed Derlon, Deben recovered Peleor’s body and interred it in Permephedon’s Vault of Incorruption—the first Highborn corpse to be so laid to rest.
After the massacre of King Telarion and his sons at what is now known as Bynum, Deben rescued Telarion’s granddaughter Palame from the Aryati. He and his brothers fought alongside Telarion’s brother Laakon, the first Wall Lord, to defeat the Aryati stormhost. After this, Deben and Tros cast down Iddolea by pulling energy from its core and casting it against the city’s many towers, sending both city and mountainside sliding into a chasm.
Things in Sordan were not peaceful, however. Ianeus died and kingship of Sordan’s human folk passed to his son Ashu. Ashu coveted possession of the Citadel and other structures that survived from pre-Devastation Sordan—including the Rill Temple and lordship over the crippled but clearly powerful god-machine. Ashu threw a feast to which he invited Akellus, who held the City in Deben’s absence and held court there, and it was during this feast that Ashu turned on Akellus and slew him. He then removed the son of Derlon’s skin. Wearing the skin he was able to disrupt and negate Derlon’s remaining magic, and so took the City for himself. He also sorely wounded and took captive the youngest Sordaneon brother, Aktron.
Deben and the three remaining brothers felt Akellus death—kin knowledge being one of the gifts of Leur—and vowed to wrest back both the City and their Father, the Rill. They also feared the fate of their brother. At Permephedon Deben appealed to the Rill directly to transport them to Sordan. The Rill, which had been weakened by the Aryati poison, at that point had only raised pylons and hill crowns. The Rill responded to Deben’s plea by creating a charys. This Deben and his brothers boarded and it took them instantly to Sordan. Filled with vengeance, the sons of Derlon descended upon Ashu. Deben, wearing Derlon’s Armor and device-crown, single-handedly killed his uncles and all others who stood in his path. Tolemnos, Tros, and Domos released Aktron from captivity. Upon the steps of the Dekkora, bathed by the light of the Three Sisters and with the Rill Temple behind him, Deben declared himself ruler of all Sordan Island and Hierarch of the people of all lands within his reach.
Deben was not a conqueror but acquired suzerainty over territory through treaties and the marriages of his brothers and Sordaneon descendants. For much of his life the vast lands of the Second Creation were uninhabited by humans. As human settlements spread throughout the lands, most of the inhabitants' original allegiances followed. As a son of Neryllia, Deben was a legitimate heir of Ashu—and most of the people who settled Sordan Island and the lands surrounding Lake Sarkuan were of that tribe. They followed him as their king.
Deben communed with his transformed father Derlon to open two new Rill mounts apart from the primary nodes at Sordan and Permephedon. First was the great Mount at Heb, now Dazunor-Rannuli, granting Essera greater access to its territory; second was the smaller mount at Leseos, which opened the interior south of the Dazun. Deben also traveled to Mormantalorus with his cousin Cienorr, son of Laakon Malyrdeon, and with Wall guidance found a way to enter that City’s protective shell by unshielding the Rill node within its perimeter, signaling the City that its services were needed; Cienorr and Deben were, however, unsuccessful at prompting Derlon to awaken the node.
Deben took as his wife the fierce warrior-princess Palame Malyrdeon, niece of Essera’s King Laakon. Following her rescue after her family’s slaughter, Palame—although lame—had claimed the god Amynas’s sword and insisted on riding with her cousins and uncles against the Aryati. Her body count was nearly as high as Deben’s. Though Palame possessed a powerful lineage and a legendary weapon, and was highly sought as a bride, she rejected suitor after suitor. Only when Deben asked for her hand did she relent.
Palame gave Deben only one child, a son, Deben II.
Deben II Sordaneon
At the time of Deben II’s ascension to Sordan’s throne the Sordaneons were already numerous. The first Deben had lived for nearly two hundred years and ruled for one hundred and seventy. Deben I’s four surviving brothers had produced ten children, all sons. They had claimed lands throughout the Telarkan and sub-Telarkan regions, and established new young domains in Tollech, Myrmidos, Ildurria, Suddekar, Ilmar, and Teremar. Under Deben I these domains became the second empire of the Triempery, the Hierarchate of Sordan.
It was understood from the moment of Deben II’s birth that he would inherit and rule the island of Sordan, its god-built City, a vast adjoining—if rather arid—territory called Sansordan... and the Rill. Even so, young Deben grew into adulthood in the shadow of his famous father and even more famous grandfather. Tall and well-favored, with his mother’s silver hair and amber eyes, Deben II resembled his Malyrdeon uncles and cousins more than he did his father, Sordaneon uncles, or the people he ruled. He attended school at Permephedon where he studied lore, poetry, and mathematics. He also studied, as his father had, physical and metaphysical arts under Rhaemos, a protégé of Hesphed. He deeply studied High Aryati cyphers and Leur tonals, and by that means could perform Rill song as adeptly as the first Epoptes.
While still a young man Deben set out to establish new territory and founded the city of Gignastha, becoming its first ruler. Because the city sat above a poisoned lake and nearby fresh water streams soon ceased to provide sufficient water for industry and a growing population, Deben used godborn gifts to summon forth the Vermillion Aqueduct, causing the nearby mountain to bleed stone into three massive channels to carry large amounts of mountain water to power and sustain the city. Rhaemos, it is said, devised the immense and strong mechanisms that locked the great gate that controlled access to Deben’s city.
Deben sought a bride in Essera, winning the hand of Pelagia, daughter of the Prince of Merrydn. Together they had two sons, though only one—the future Deben III—lived to adulthood.
Upon the passing of Deben I, Deben the younger yielded his place as Prince of Gignastha to his cousin Panos Tollecheon, a grandson of Tolemnos Sordaneon. Deben returned to Sordan and was crowned the 2nd Hierarch. He continued to be one of the new Triempery’s great architects and engineers. As Deben II he expanded and made more magnificent the Sordaneon Serat, personally creating the Gate of Wings and Viridian River. He also raised the Crescent Palace in Merath and used his gifts to dredge the original footprint of Dazunor-Rannuli’s (formerly Heb’s) impressive canals in service to the Rill Mount.
After ruling as Hierarch for seventy-four years, Deben II died and his son Deben III succeeded him.
Deben III Sordaneon
Like his father before him, Deben III ascended a secure throne when a grown man. He owned in full the proud looks of the Aryati-Staubaun aristocrats who ruled in Essera and the greater portion of Sordan’s nobles—including the now stable number of Sordaneons ruling its several domains—carried those same genetics. As had his father and grandfather, Deben studied in his youth at Permephedon, though with a lesser focus on Rill mechanics and a greater concentration on art, culture and history that presaged his reign’s establishment of Sordan’s importance as a cultural as well as commercial center.
Berengia. Like many Highborn, Deben was indifferent to social norms. He thrived in military pursuits, personal friendships, and the building of cities. Though pressed by his father and subjects to take a wife, he did so only upon ascending to Sordan’s throne. As Deben III he wed Berengia, daughter of Meneleas of Illduria, a Sordaneon of Tolemnos’s line.
As Hierarchessa, Berengia took residence in the Serat and established her own court, which included her uncle Lambros Sordaneon, brother to Meneleas and Heir to Illduria. She did not accompany Deben on his journeys, of which there were many, and after consummating the marriage let her husband know she would not provide him—or Sordan—with an heir. “You shall not share my bed again, not if I am willing, nor will you ever have a legitimate heir.”
To this declaration, Deben pointed to a young ucaja and replied, “I shall have as many sons as there are leaves on that tree.”
Berengia took a knife and stripped the bark around the young tree’s trunk so that it died and it lost all its leaves; she then left the naked stalk standing in the garden, surrounded at the base by fine paving, as testimony.
Deben understood her purpose was to advance her uncle, Lambros, to be Hierarch after him. Until Deben sired a son, Lambros—who was of Tolemnos’s line and whom Berengia loved—was next in line of succession. Deben banished Berengia and Lambros from Sordan but kept her as wife; he kept too the naked stick of the dead ucaja, the trunk and branches of which he covered with gold.
After nine decades Berengia—being mortal—failed and died. Deben did not allow her to be entombed in Sordan and so her grave lies in Illduria. Deben, by now a century and thirty years old but still hale in the way of Highborn kind, took a new wife, Theagenea, a princess of Mormantalorus and great-granddaughter of Cienorr. A year later she gave him a son, Dares, and four more sons after that. Upon the birth of each son Deben affixed a leaf of gold and emeralds to the gilded tree standing in the garden. The tree—now known as Deben’s Rejoinder—still stands, now at the center of a marble pavilion.
Reign. Under Deben III, the Triempery of which the Sordaneon Hierarchate was an important part proved vital and growing, a thriving confederation of which Mormantalorus was an active member. Because Deben I’s contribution to founding Mormantalorus was revered, Sordan’s ties with that City were strong—even more so than they were with Essera. Mormantalorus and Sordan both regretted that the Rill had not yet recovered sufficiently to link them; even so they established viable alternatives by land and sea.
During his reign, Deben III built Sordan into a naval power that vied for dominance with the non-Highborn ruled nation of Ardaen, which had been founded by a pre-Devastation ethnic group that had resettled their survivors on their original homeland (or rather, that land’s much changed and merely probable location). By controlling the Kolpos, Deben succeeded in securing the Sansordan mainland and the Sordaneon colony of Ilmar from both Ardaen and Ilmar’s neighbor across the Sorand’ruil River, Lahgael.
Deben built the majestic cities of Batraz and Ivernesse. He also raised the Stairs of Tulamanta at Askorras in Teremar. He added extensively to the Sordaneon Serat and designed and contributed to construction of the palatial Sordaneon residential tower at the Aesa Eranos in Stauberg and the Rillhome palace in Dazunor-Rannuli. Deben III’s influence on architecture, art, and music throughout the Triempery resonates still.
The Three Debens have become legendary in Sordan and throughout the Triempery and persist as part of the mythos that paints Sordaneons as being not merely godborn, but powerful, gifted, and resolute.
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