Capital: Verbobonc City [map]

Major cities: None

Ruler: His Lordship, the Viscount Wilfrick of Verbobonc

Racial make-up: Major strains: Oeridian; minor strains: Flanaess, Suloise

Major resources: Foodstuffs, copper, gems, lumber


Long before the coming of humanity, Verbobonc was an elven settlement set on a wooded hilltop overlooking a spot where a minor tributary, Gillendyl's Run, enters the Velverdyva River's wide expanse. The small river town featured an impressive elven tower fortress surrounded by yet more tall, thin towers, narrow walkways, lofty ipt-houses, and parkways filled with delicate wood and ceramic statuary. Considered a safe haven on the great river, a market place developed along the riverbank attracting goods from near and far.

The local elves shared a truce and trade agreement with the gnomes of the Kron Hills to the south, who mined copper and gems for their art and weapons. Over the centuries, the races become allies, banding together to battle off threats of marauding humans and humanoids from the north and east. Verbobonc, then, was a military fortress, vassal to the ancient elf lords of Enstad. Her elven reign ranged into the deep Gnarley Forest to the east, the Kron Hills to the south, and through the Iron Wood to the west. The surrounding hillocks still hold relics of those ancient days, slowly crumbling towers of unsurpassed beauty, troves of buried weapons, tombs to lost elven frontier warriors, and cracked monuments of lost meaning. It is even said there even remain elven Old Places, sacred refuges hidden in the magical folds of wood and hill, where perhaps generations of ancient elves still inhabit, having lost contact with the world hundreds of years ago.

As humans entered the Flanaess, most elves receded into the woodlands, avoiding contact with this unpredictable, stormy, and often violent race. They determined to watch this new race from afar before deciding to ally with them or purge them.

Verbobonc was slowly taken over by humans as elves left for the wild lands. The humans' enemies were oftentimes the elves' enemies, although the humans tended to war amongst themselves almost as much as with the humanoids and beasts of the land. Some elves stayed to help guide the humans, hoping they could gain wisdom through the generations (and, perhaps to keep a close eye on them as well). Verbobonc City gained more importance as a trade port on the Velverdyva River. The humans liked the copper and gems as much as the elves, and trade between the races shifted from the gnome and fey to gnome and human. Thus began a new period in the history of the region, in which two majority races (human and gnome) worked together to improve and grow Verbobonc into a state of its own, not beholden to any greater power.

At the dawn of the first century CY, the two primary races of Verbobonc encircled their growing town with walls. They constructed hundreds of new buildings, mixing a distinctly gnome architecture with the existing elven structures, and more human styles. In this spirit was the slogan "Earth and Stone, Man and Gnome" carved above the city's east gate.

The viscounty was formally incorporated into Veluna and the viceroyalty of Ferrond in 119 CY. Verbobonc became the primary river port for Veluna, a fact that made it a primary target of Keoish aggression in the 350s CY. By 355 CY the Second Keoland Expeditionary Force had taken Devarnish and fanned out into the lands south all the way to the Lortmils and east past the Iron Wood and into the Kron
Hills. Only Canon Turgen IV of Mitrik's negotiation of the Treaty of Devarnish saved the remainder of Verbobonc territory from annexation. However, much of the western lands of the viscounty were occupied. The looming Castle Estival, just east of the Iron Wood, housed the furthest eastward Keoish garrison. From there the forces of Keoland controlled all trade traveling on the Great Western Road and controlled the western and southern approaches to Verbobonc Town itself. Despite the uneasy peace, portions of the Kron Hills were under control of the Keoish conquerors. During the occupation, coveting the copper and gems the gnomes knew well how to mine, the Keoish conquerors engaged in a policy of gnome-enslavement. Many gnomes were slain and resentment toward this period has existed to the present, even against the humans of Verbobonc, most of whom refused to aid the gnome resistance for fear of violating the Treaty of Devarnish.

In 415 CY, however, a new governor for the northern Keoland provinces arrived, Commander Berlikyn of Gran March. In 436 CY, he publicly threatened to violate the Treaty of Devarnish and annex the whole of Veluna, including Verbobonc, in the name of the Keoish crown. Whether the king of Furyondy decided to act due to the agents dispatched by the Velunese canon in that year, or because the looming threat of Keoland had simply become too large to ignore, he acted. The armies of Furyondy surged into Veluna, battling south of the Velverdyva in a ferocious series of actions soon known as the Short War. Several volunteer companies from Verbobonc assisted a small Furyondian force in isolating the Keoland garrison in Castle Estival, rendering them helpless. The bulk of the Furyondy armies battled to the west through
Veluna, the Fals Gap, and capturing all of Bissel in the process by 438 CY. Gnomes in the Kron Hills were freed.

Following the Short War, Verbobonc grew distant from Mitrik. Its viscount still sent a delegate to sit on the Celestial Order of the Moons, but never again would the people of the Viscounty be considered completely willing vassals. The Velunese College of Bishops, rallied by a contingent of orthodox Cuthbertine Overseers, voted overwhelmingly to break from Furyondy in 446 CY signing an agreement known as the Concordat of Eademer. In these years, the church of St. Cuthbert came into great prominence in Verbobonc, inspired in no small part by the actions of the Cuthbertine Overseers in the College of Bishops. To many in the Viscounty it was taken as a sign of autonomy. Gradually, over time, clerics of St. Cuthbert displaced Raoan clerics in important government roles throughout Verbobonc.

In the year 560 CY additional troubles began to crop up between the Viscounty and the Kron Hill gnomes, who had all but withdrawn from the environs of Verbobonc City. Trade goods disappeared on their trek from the Kron Hills to Verbobonc City, gnome merchants reported being harassed by Verbobonc patrols, Verbobonc patrols reported defeating humanoid raiding parties paid by gnomish coin, and gnome claims of human raids on their caravans. Worst of all was an attempted assassination of Prince Jimm of the Gnomes of the Kron Hills. All of these troubles proved to be the doings of an agent from the Temple of Elemental Evil (also known as the Temple of Elemental Purity, or the Temple of the Elder Elemental Eye).

By 568 CY, it became clear that the Temple villains had established an army, and that humans and humanoids were flocking to the gruesome standards being raised. Attacks were staged against villages, caravans, and even fortified locations. The evil that had drawn the villainous being from all over the land could only be defeated by an army.

The following year saw a banding together of the forces to clear the Verbobonc lands of its evil scourge. Contingents of men-at-arms and cavalry from Verbobonc, Furyondy, and Veluna, together with a force of dwarves from the Lortmils, and even gnomes from the Kron Hills, gathered together against the vast horde of twisted men and humanoids based at the Temple. At the last moment, even an army of elven
archers and spearmen appeared from the depths of the forests to lend support.

When the great slaughter was finished, the allies went on to besiege the Temple of Elemental Evil itself. It fell after a fortnight. Powerful archmages and holy men sealed the temple ruins with arcane bindings, claiming to have trapped a powerful demon within its golden doors.