Over 75% funded — Gateways of Moltania lore
10 months ago
– Mon, Oct 27, 2025 at 11:18:53 AM
Hey all! Jumping in with another quick update: we’re over 75% funded! With about two and a half weeks left, we’re going into overdrive to get as many eyes on ESSENCE as possible to keep up momentum. Our team is traversing New York City, Chicago, Maine, Nebraska, and more at an Isa-like pace with fliers and playtests as we explore every nook and cranny of our neighborhood gaming communities. If you know someone—a friend, family member, coworker, enemy, politician—who might be interested in a fantasy RPG board game, now’s the time to spread the word!
Thanks again to everyone for their continued love and support. Onward to $17K…
Now, how about a bit more lore on the great cities of ESSENCE?
A rapid history of the Gateways of Moltania: Yoringheim and Omeyllond
Yoringheim
Population: 50,000, with a majority of Lurzians and small minority of Stonesoles
Yoringheim, once a fortified Chasmadian stronghold guarding the main gateway to the continent, fell in battle to a Myrrh invasion and subsequent eruption of Lady Chasmatus. Its shattered gates now serve as landmarks for the bustling Lurzian Lurch trade route, the city reborn as a hub for new traders and adventurers.
The collapse of the Great Gates
Yoringheim was founded long ago by Chasmadians to act as both a key trade checkpoint and military stronghold. If the southern continent of Lurzia wished to trade with Chasmadia (and, by extension, Myrrh to the North), they needed to pass through Yoringheim; no other route was feasible for long-lasting trade. The monumental Great Gates served as a stark symbol for how Moltania was perceived in the South: rich, austere, and mysterious. Still, Yoringheim itself was an immense cosmopolitan metropolis, and further north from the wall, along the prosperous river delta and mountain canyons, many Chasmadians, Lurzians, and some adventurous Myrrh folk enjoyed a sophisticated, peaceful lifestyle.
On the day of Lady Chasmatus’s eruption (and nearly a century into the great War), half of the Yoringheim’s able-bodied civilians were laying siege to the towers of Omyellond. This left Yoringheim vulnerable. Led by King Isyl from Galfanas, tens of thousands of Myrrh soldiers and woodland warriors such as the Giant Sage Sloths and Elder Tree-sirs charged down from the northwestern valley and poured through the ill-defended inner Yoringheim gates. The city was quickly seized, with citizens fleeing into the sea or perishing at the locked gates to Lurzia.
However, keeping the city proved unexpectedly costly for King Isyl. Rusty Constructs—an industrial being being unknown to Myrrh folk—emerged from deep within the mountains in a frenzied state, wreaking havoc on entire legions of Myrrh’s army. Much of the city was caught in the crossfire, including the enormous outer Great Gates. As Myrrh’s army waited, trapped against the crumbling southern gates and running out of time, Lady Chasmatus erupted in the East. A tsunami of ash and magma of mythical proportions quickly spilled down the eastern mountains and flooded the city. The battle of Yoringheim broke down into a mad scramble to open the gates and escape into the Lurzian Plains. But King Isyl and his army were never heard from again.
An era of trade and exploration
Now decades later, the Great Gates lay toppled in the surrounding valley, with a few Constructs frozen at the base of the destruction. Pioneers, traders, and adventurers move freely between their home continent and the Great Gates ruins via the Lurzian Lurch, a post-eruption trading route that stretches from Lurzia to Omyellond. Yoringheim sits at the heart of this road, acting as a major guild-focused settlement for supplies, equipment, and traveling parties. Very few original Chasmadians or Stonesoles remain here; of those who do, only faint memories of Yoringheim's past remain.
Omyellond
Population: 10,000, with a maojrity of Lurzians and small minority of Isylians and Stonesoles
Built atop a soaring forest of magical towers and ambitious trade routes, Omyellond collapsed under the weight of rebellion and a Chasmadian invasion. The eruption of Lady Chasmatus saved the former great city from complete destruction, though its scorched ruins and scattered slums now make up a modest frontier outpost that lingers like a graveyard of old power.
The toppling of a unified city
Omyellond was a glistening city of towers and megastructures that stood tall for centuries as the Gateway to Myrrh. Before the great War, architects and tycoons from Chasmadia worked with the craftspeople and sorcerers of Myrrh to construct skyscrapers that grew with the surrounding forest, sprawled out into the western valley, and extended all the way to the tops of southward mountains like grasping fingers. Entire networks of vital trade routes and lively urban neighborhoods existed high above the ground, with mountainous cloisters blending with natural and enchanted wood, rock, and metal. The nexus of political, economic, academic, and military activity also intertwined within these great columns and situated itself into a vertical hierarchy: power rose to the top, and decay sank to the bottom.
The decade before the eruption saw a surge of ground rebellions in the city, with one capturing the attention of all Moltanians through a deep, violent, and ultimately unsuccessful ascent to the innermost cloud spire. Martial law was enacted, entire lift columns and buildings were destroyed to isolate classes, and Chasmadian trade was severed and replaced with deportations and detentions.
Chasmadian retaliation against Omyellond was swift. In less than a year, Chasmadia had positioned an invasion force in two distinct chokepoints: the western valley, with troops funneled from Peldupaik and Yoringheim, and the southern mountain cloisters, with troops from Yoringheim, Phlia, and Hedonheim. With boiling social unrest and a relatively small military, Omeyllond watched with shock and dread as the masses of troops slowly piled up to their borders. Citizens near the ground were able to quickly flee into the Eluardian Wood—toward Eslanora—while many in the hundreds of towers found themselves trapped between the invading ground force and those descending from the mountain pass. Raging battles and skirmishes took place on the various floors, platforms, and walkways of Omyellond’s gleaming skyscrapers, with Chasmadians quickly gaining and holding territory in a single day.
Fighting ceased in an instant when Lady Chasmatus erupted, with those on the edges of the megastructures getting a front row seat to breathtaking columns of pyroclastic gas and molten ashfall. Before many had time to move, this explosive, otherworldly cloud reached the Omyellond towers and buried both Myrrh folk and Chasmadians in a vortex of crumpled white metal.
Relics for a new frontier
A few of the strongest towers still stand in Omeyllond today. But newer residents stick to the ground, staying far away from the ominous towers that remain scorched by the mythical eruption. The city mostly exists as organized rubble, with makeshift slums, trading posts, and supply depots scattered next to the Lurzian Lurch trading route. Omyellond is a frontier for a new generation of Moltanians, a seedling for the regrowth of settlements brought in from Yoringheim and the deeper southwest.
Thanks for reading, y'all. More updates soon!
- Will & Cosmic Stew RPG
