Martin Tyepni: Prologue

Last edited 02-05-2017

The biography of the great warrior, and leader among all races. The chosen by divinity. The wielder of wrath, light, and vengeance, Martin Tyepni.

The singly testicled. The sometimes sober. The conquerer of women…

a book by Martin Tyepni

So you want to learn about me? Well, you are going to regret that decision my friend. Prepare your body, I know mine is ;)

This copy is annotated with some color commentary done by yours truly. You’re welcome.

I would like to start this biography by providing a small introduction to my city. I think this is needed to provide some context for my story. The rest of the book will be written from a narrators perspective.

Probably best to let the voices in my head out this way.

A Brief History of The Great City of Tandor

Far in the north across the sea, in the icy continent of Tan, in the middle of an almost straight edge between the sea to the south and icy wastes to the north lies the great city of Tandor. It is said that once long ago, perhaps when the old empire still reigned, Tandor was a simple fishing village. Over the centuries since the fall of the empire, Tandor would grow into one of two major strongholds in the north. In this chapter, I will try to give a brief summary of Tandoran history. Wherever necessary, I have citations to other sources of information.

Didn’t expect me to be so eloquent in my writing did you? I’ll have you know that my education was, according to my father, “paramount to the future function, safety, and economy of the great city of Tandor”. I had to stuff my head with words and facts. My mediocre writing is the only thing I choose to remember.

The fishing village mostly housed five or six families of peasants that were forced there due to struggles within the empire. It isn’t apparent whether the village was named Tandor during those times. Recorded Tandoran history goes only as far back as one name: Bolard Jadr the founder of the Jadr fishing company. Historians still debate if Bolard is the one to have named the village Tandor. All that can be proved is that Tandor was the only settlement in Tan at the time. So it is not unreasonable for the locals to have simply named it after the continent Tan.

Jadr had once been a soldier in a great army, or so he claimed. It is unclear what wars he fought or which lord he served. He was, most likely, a middling soldier in the armies of one of the lords vying for power after the fall of the old empire. Given the lack of records of his service, it is very probably that he fought for one of the lords that lost. Victors decide historical truth afterall. Jadr was not known to have been well educated or particularly intelligent. There isn’t any evidence that he knew anything about fishing either. What he did have was a large sum of gold that he had acquired in “an inheritance from a distant relative”. Running a fishing business can be quite simple especially when labor is cheap and competition non-existent—as was the case in Tandor. The Tanian coast is home to a particular sort of crab that only grows there. The delicious flesh inside the icy crab shells were highly sought after over the whole world, but none would brave the cold to catch them. Jadr had no problem paying some starving peasants to catch them and then paying other starving peasants to ship them. The peasants, for their part, were happy to work for fair wages. The Jadr fishing company became the sole mass supplier of the crab-meat to the whole world. And Bolard became mayor of Tandor. Later the same kind of crab was named the Tandoran frost crab. The baked delicacy made of the crabs flesh, simply called “Jadr’s bake”, can be found only at the most lavish tables. Named after the brand on the barrels that the meat was shipped in. Jadr took all the gold that he made selling crab and placed into a number of highly lucrative business ventures. Somehow, Jadr proved to be a shrewd businessman. Most soldiers spent what little money they made on drinking, gambling, and women. And Jadr indulged in all three heavily, yet he seemed to always be making much more gold than he spent. Whatever his vices, he had one quality that most definitely made Tandor into the city that it is today. He was not particularly selfish. Jadr was perfectly content with letting others get rich as long as they made him richer. Thanks to this attitude, many traders from around the rest of the world traveled to Tandor to trade. And some even stayed permanently. The first few years of Jadr’s time as mayor saw a huge growth in Tandor. Those that were once peasants became as rich as nobility essentially overnight.

Why the fuck would traders leave their warm marble houses filled with wine, food, and whores? And why would they bury themselves into the icy butt crack of the world? Well, even though Jadr didn’t know much about history, geography, trade, or anything. He did know one thing: Traders don’t like to pay tax. So he made Tandor the only tax free town in the world. No king was stupid enough to try and conquer the north. And when the traders did go back to their fancy houses, they brought back plenty of lining for the royal coffers. Tandor was mostly left alone. The tax free markets in Tandor didn’t last that long though. At some point tax became mandatory, but that was after Tandor had already become a major center of trade and the Tandoran council was established. The tax was still the lowest back then. It still is now.

One may wonder why the powerful kings of the south never tried to conquer Tan after the dust of the fall of the empire had settled. The Tanian climate is probably the most hostile known. The winters are brutally cold and dry, the summers only slightly less so. There is very little land amenable to farming. Before Tandor, no settlement had lasted very long in the icy wastes. The inhospitable nature of Tan was not the only thing that kept it unsettled by the noble races¹. Many of the ancient, almost forgotten beasts of the world moved north to avoid the explosion of civilization in the temperate continents during the past two or three millenia. A cursory reading of imperial history will reveal many reports of early Tanian settlements completely disappearing and entire armies being driven mad before starving, then freezing. The trick, it seems, was to hug the coast as Tandor does today. Another theory is that the time of the ancient monstrous beings ended at roughly the same time the empire fell.

Who knows? Tandor and Jadr were probably just founded in the right place at the right time. Nothing has gone wrong yet. My mother would tell me stories about the ancient beings that lived far in the north. That was probably just to make me read my books though.

Whatever the fate of the ancient ones, there has always been a presence of semi-intelligent ice giants, frost wolves, the occasional ice dragon, and an uncountable amount of other beasts that roamed the frost planes. The large numbers, and uncommon ferocity of the Tanian native beasts combined with the relative lack of natural resources effectively kept any plans of settling Tan or conquering Tandor at bay. The rich kings and emperors of the other continents were content to fight over land that could actually be fought on. While this kept the little town of Tandor safe from conquest, there was still the constant threat of the beasts that roamed the frost planes, piracy that plagued the trade ships that sailed to and from Tandor, and the rise of crime in the town itself. The Jadr company recognized these threats as particularly harmful to its commercial activities but it struggled to stop them for many years. The mercenaries that Bolard Jadr hired to protect Tandor were unreliable. The lives of all Tandorans were at near constant risk. This was one of the few periods of Tandoran history when trade declined. The other major ones were the decades long Tanian war², and the frost famine³.

Tandor had just turned into a shiny jewel, and all kinds of riff-raff came around to steal it away from Old Bolard Jadr. He had no idea how to fight all the giants, wolves, and criminals invading Tandor. He could swing a sword only about as well as he could swing his dick. He was no leader of soldiers. He needed help to protect his town. That’s where my family comes in.

To combat these problems, Jadr made a crucial decision that would shape the future of Tandor for generations to come. He formed the Tandoran city guard. The new guard would as much part of Tandor as Bolard Jadr himself, and the Tandoran people. Thus far the Jadr fishing company relied on mercenaries to guard Tandor. This quickly proved to be short sighted. The mercenaries were more interested in making gold than protecting Tandor. Jadr needed someone with a deep sense of honor and justice to keep watch over Tandor. In what at the time seemed as a surprising lack of creativity on Jadr’s part, Jadr turned to his old captain, a man by the name of Simon Tyepni. Not much of Simon Tyepni’s, later entitled the leviathan of Tandor⁴, history is known. Tyepni was a captain of the small company of soldiers that Jadr served in. Like Bolard Jadr, no records of Captain Tyepni that predate his time in Tandor exist. What little information known about him is from the biography of Bolard Jadr himself.

“During all my time in battle, Captain Tyepni was the only person would cared about my well being. His extraordinary skills in battle and his ability to form unbeatable strategies even in the heat of a losing war instilled in me a sense of loyalty that I did not know I was capable of. Whatever the outcome of that war, I would follow him anywhere.” Excerpt from “Force of Will and a Small Amount of Luck”, by Bolard Jadr.

While the Jadr company was still making a name for itself, Tyepni had formed a group of mercenaries the like of which never existed before and will probably never exist again. One that never betrayed its patrons. Tyepni’s mercenaries were known as the only group that would always serve their charge until the end of their contracts no matter what price they were offered to break it or how many lives they lost for it. Furthermore, they had yet to fail a contract. This was precisely the kind of soldiers that Jadr was looking for. Luckily, Simon Tyepni was getting tired of fighting for the sake of gold alone. He was looking for a home to fight for.

Along with him, Tyepni brought a group of elite soldiers trained by Tyepni himself. These soldiers proved to be exactly what Tandor needed. Resolved to follow Tyepni to the death and determined to protect Tandor. Some attribute this extreme sense of loyalty and duty to the extraordinary leadership skills of Simon Tyepni. Many landless warriors from around the world moved to Tandor to serve under him after hearing about his extraordinary battle prowess, tactical acumen, and the promise of a home.

Yup, Tyepnis are badass.

Jadr and Tyepni made an agreement that included land and housing for the Tandoran guard to be. This effectively made the mercenaries citizens of Tandor, who quickly began to settle down and start families. Under the watchful gaze of Simon Tyepni and his city guard. Tandor quickly became relatively safe. Once reassured, the skittish traders that had earlier fled returned in droves. And many new ones came to stay. In some of the greatest sea battles of the time, Tyepni and his Tandoran guard almost eliminated the threat of piracy that plagued the northern trade routes. Tyepni himself slew the fearsome pirate simply known as The Yellow Woman. After their legendary combat, the Tandorans gave Simon Tyepni the title of The Leviathan of Tandor. Leviathan became the title of the general of the Tandoran guard.

Now secure from threats to its safety, Tandor boomed once again. The little town that Jadr oversaw was quickly becoming too much for him to handle on his own. No official form of government was needed to rule the tiny Tandoran populace so far. It had now become too large to be managed by a single person. Jadr himself was not that interested in political power, all he wanted to was to make more gold and do so while getting fat in his palace. Together with the first Leviathan, Jadr formed the first Tandoran council. This council would be made of representatives of the three pillars of Tandor. The Jadr fishing company⁵, the Tandoran guard, and the Tandoran people. The three council members were (and still are to this day) named, Master of the Jadr fishing company, The Leviathan of Tandor, and the high councilor of Tandor, selected by the people. These three leaders represented the economic, military, and social interests of Tandor.

A new city was born. The first one without a king! The councilor was “chosen by the people”. This basically meant the richest in Tandor got to choose who led the city. The poor are basically fucked over. They aren’t educated well enough to realize what is going on. Luckily, the Leviathans were normally looking out for the poor. Where else would they find new recruits for the guard?

Hundreds of years later we come to modern Tandor. The Tandoran military is unrivaled in skill, but relatively small since it only guards one city. What they lack in size they more than make up for in quality. Thankfully the large amount of trade links that Tandor maintains with the rest of the world keeps it in good diplomatic relationships with most kingdoms. People of all races are welcome in Tandor. Modern Tandor is one of the most diverse cities in the world. All Leviathans have been human, however. The fact that Leviathan is only chosen from a pool of candidates keeps any concerns of nepotism at bay. Despite this, all leviathans have been descendants of Simon Tyepni who seem to have some elvish in them. The most lacking aspect of Tandor is its relatively small contribution to the arcane arts. And most of the kingdoms in the south are dismissive of its military strength. In effect, the harsh environment is a significant part of security against threats to the sovereignty of the Tandoran council.

A lot of half and half people live there. One of two half-orcs that I have ever known lived there.

Tandor remains neutral in all wars that do not threaten its own security. Even the elven enclave that was on the other side in the great Tanian war is now one of the greatest trade partners of Tandor. In fact, every year there is an exchange of dignitaries between Tandor and the elves to commemorate the meeting between the 3rd Leviathan of Tandor and the then elven general that ended the bloody war between the two cities. Now, both cites enjoy a robust diplomatic relationship, even though the elves seem to only engage with Tandor begrudgingly.

One of these meetings would change my life forever. I probably would never lost my right testicle if it wasn’t for that damned woman.

I, Martin Tyepni, was born to Garlan Tyepni the 7th Leviathan, 67 years ago in the city of Tandor. I was the eldest son to the 7th Leviathan and was educated and trained to become the next one. Though, as fate would have it, the divine had other plans for me. Now that the roots of my city have been described, we can move on to my own story, in later chapters.

Other Sources and Notes

Well what did you expect? Learn something for a change.