The Thergen Empire is not a kingdom of short folk hidden beneath stone. It is the old anvil of Therasya: a civilization of immense bodies, immense memories, and immense burdens, built by a people who remember the face of Therril, the breaking of Cord, and the screams outside their gates when Darkness swallowed the world.
Their cities descend as deeply as they rise. Above the mountains stand walls, roads, watchtowers, and citadels cut into the Thera Spine. Below them run vast highways, senate caverns, temples, armories, and refuge halls large enough to swallow nations. Many realms boast of armies, wealth, or miracles. The Thergen boast less loudly. They simply keep the gates oiled, the tunnels mapped, the larders filled, and the shields ready for the next night when the sun fails.
History & Founding
The Thergen story begins before the younger races possessed kings, coins, or written borders. In the mythic age, Therril crafted Ydor and the Thergen race upon him to worship Thera, and great temple-cities rose in the name of the world-mother. Their oldest splendors belonged to another sphere, and that lost homeland remains a scar in the Thergen spirit. They do not hate Entropy as a doctrine, but as exiles hate the fire that burned their house.
When Cord was shattered and his broken arm became the wall-foundation against the demon hordes, the Thergen were washed onto Therra by Ydor and began the long labor of survival. Their first Maern cities spread through the mountain roots, and in time Ael Maern was mined near the Wall with the aid of Men after the war treaty that followed the clash of the first kingdoms. From that age onward, the Thergen became more than a mountain people. They became the keepers of the wall between civilization and the abyss.
Yet the darkest glory of the Empire came during the falls of Darkness. When Therril’s shadow devoured the north and the surface nations fled, the Thergen opened their cities, caverns, and mountain gates to the races of Therasya. There was not room for all, and that truth has never left their memory. Blood was shed at sealed gates, whole families were lost, and from those terrible days came the Entombed, the fiercest of gate-defenders. Still, without the Thergen refuge halls, many kingdoms of the present age would not exist at all.
After the long refuge, the Erevium Gates opened and the races returned to the surface. The Thergen again supplied stone, iron, food, engineers, and guarded passage so the younger realms could rebuild. Cord’s Arm, however, remained scarred by demons. The War of the Seed and the planting of the Tree of Life restored light to the south, and with Fey aid the Empire began the Campaign of Anvils, reclaiming the Arm inch by inch until the northern light again touched the outer reaches of the wall.
Government & Succession
The Empire is governed by the Durg Mir, the Council of Nine, an oligarchy of elders whose authority is older than most royal lines of Men. The title of Emperor, known among outsiders as the Golden King, is not a simple throne of command. It is a lifetime honor given to the most honorable, wise, and well-spoken Thergen, and it carries special authority over judgment, diplomacy, and the public conscience of the Empire.
Aelin Belegar holds that title in the present age. He is First of the Council of Nine, Champion of the Ancestral Halls, Grand Veteran of Cord’s Arm, and Honored Survivor of Evernight. His authority is not built on ceremony alone. He earned his place in battle against demons, saved the Golden Hammer from enemy grasp in the halls of Ael Maern, and later received that same Hammer when the Senate named him Emperor after his campaigns in the service of the Thergen Defenders.
Beneath the Durg Mir stands a Senate of one thousand representatives, chosen by clans every twenty years. The elders and the Golden King serve for life, but the senators form the day-to-day executive and legislative body that translates ancient command into practical law. Below them are the five Mountain Overlords, the Ards, each responsible for one of the Empire’s five great regions: Clagh Modan, Fel Modan, Nur Modan, Gar Modan, and Azh Modan.
Succession is therefore a test of memory, reputation, service, and endurance. Clans may argue, factions may form, and even Thergen patience can crack under the pressure of the Arm, yet obedience to the Empire remains one of the deepest civic instincts of the people. A worthy ruler becomes part of the stone he commands.
A worthy ruler becomes part of the stone he commands.
Society & Culture
Foreigners often mistake the Thergen for a simple mountain race, as if stone and muscle were the whole of them. The mistake rarely survives a first meeting. The average Thergen is only a few inches shorter than a man, yet far broader, built with shoulders like doubled beams and bodies hardened by labor, pilgrimage, and war. Most tend their hair and beards with near-ritual discipline, and their eyes carry the strange intensity of people who remember too much and forgive too slowly.
Every Thergen is expected to understand stone, not as a dead material but as a patient witness. Many spend years in the mines or sacred embraces of Thera, learning endurance, practical labor, and humility before the mountain. Their handshakes are infamous because they test more than strength. They test whether the stranger flinches from honest pressure.
Among themselves the Thergen are warmer than outsiders expect. Friendship, once earned, is almost impossible to break. They love steadiness, direct speech, shared work, clan honor, and craft that outlasts the maker. They dislike waste, theatrical emotion, and empty debate when action is required. This has made them seem rigid to softer courts, but their rigidity is the shape grief takes when a people has survived too many endings.
Runecrafting, masonry, and smithing stand at the heart of Thergen culture. Their masons and runemasters carve stone as others shape clay, giving form, function, and sometimes life to mountain architecture. Golem crafters have held passes alone against giant hordes while tactical troops defended Cord’s Arm. Their monuments transcend decoration into living memory.
Faith
The Thergen favor Ydor and Thera above all other Eternals. Their gratitude is ancient. Ydor saved them from the ruin of Therril, and Thera received them into the mountain body of Therra. The grand temple of Ydor and Thera in Ael Maern is counted among the wonders of Therasya, and pilgrimage to it continues through every season.
Their greatest holy celebration is the Floating, the ten-year anniversary of their landing upon Therra. To outsiders it may appear as a festival of stone, water, and solemn procession, but to the Thergen it is the reenactment of rescue. The moment when exile became survival, and in turn, duty. No Thergen child is allowed to grow without learning why the Empire owes its life to the flow of Ydor and the embrace of Thera.
Shrines to Halshire exist throughout the mountains, though foreigners misunderstand them. The Thergen do not worship war as conquest or glory. They pray for discipline in the endless work of demon-slaying. Velia is also remembered in statues and old martial artwork, especially where guidance, conquest, and hard command saved armies from collapse. Other Eternals may have shrines within the cities, but none hold the central place of Ydor and Thera.
This faith is inseparable from history. Entropy razed their former homes and left their ancient constructs as loot for its chaos. The Thergen answer is an oath: the mountains will stand, the gates will hold, and the last demon will one day be turned to dust.
The mountains will stand, the gates will hold, and the last demon will one day be turned to dust.
Military
The Thergen military is built upon endurance, armor, and steel. Their warriors favor plate mail, immense shields, hammers, axes, maces, and disciplined formations that do not break easily under fear, darkness, or demonic corruption. They do not dance around the enemy. They grind it down, wave after wave, until its frenzy exhausts itself against iron discipline.
Their modern military includes several distinct traditions. The Thergen Defenders are organized defensive formations shaped partly by contact with Aenarch methods, but transformed by Thergen resilience and shieldcraft. The Entombed descend from the terrible gate wars of the refuge years, when the defense of sealed doors became a matter of salvation and damnation. The Clagh Vanard, or Arm Commander, is among the highest military titles in the Empire, and Haor Hammerbolt presently bears that honor while overseeing the defense of Cord’s Arm.
Runemasters, golem crafters, siege engineers, and cavern fighters support the great infantry blocks. The Thergen do not rely on cavalry in the open style of Men. Their roads, lifts, underpasses, and fortress galleries are themselves military instruments. At need, a Thergen army can vanish below a mountain, emerge behind a pass, seal a tunnel with runes, or hold a gate for years.
Their greatest battlefield remains Cord’s Arm. There, Fey archers, allied companies, and Thergen Defenders have bled together in the long campaign to reclaim the wall from demonic occupation. In Evernight, veterans such as Azdak Flamesteel and Thur Minedeep have led raids, blocked interior passages, hunted soul crystals, and fought the armies of the Illithid beneath the known world. The Empire’s army defends Thergen lands but also shields the world from Chaos.
Economy & Trade
The wealth of the Empire lies both in coin than in stonework, metal goods, arcane craft, and roads. The Thergen mine iron, gems, rare ores, and Erevium, and their instinct for veins beneath the earth is renowned. They often trade precious gems uncut, preferring Fey delicacy for final gemcraft, while preserving their own mastery for stone, steel, runes, and large works of engineering.
Their under-roads are one of the quiet foundations of Therasyan commerce. While Andor rules rivers and Kinetika rules the sky, the Thergen rule the secure passage beneath mountains. Goods can move through tunnelways when surface roads freeze, burn, flood, or fall under raiders. During Darkfall, those same routes become lifelines carrying refugees, grain, weapons, and messengers between sealed holds.
Thergen craft is also exported in the form of arms, armor, siegework, runed gates, tunnel engineering, monument stone, and fortified architecture. Their golem craft is rarer and guarded, but every kingdom understands its worth. An Andorian merchant may measure wealth in gold, while a Thergen measures it in what remains after fire, darkness and demon claws have passed.
Foreign Relations
The Empire is the immovable heart of the Southern Alliance. Other nations may quarrel, withdraw, or bargain, but every serious ruler in Therasya knows that when Darkness falls the question is not whether the Thergen will open their gates, but how soon they can reach them.
Relations with southern nations are shaped by shared survival more than simple diplomacy. Ael Maern participates in the rites of remembrance for the wars in the south, Thergen detachments appear beside allied delegations, and Thergen engineers have aided the rebuilding or fortifying of younger realms after catastrophe. In Starfall, Thergen stonework beneath Elianor is part of the city’s sacred identity, and the Thergen Stoneguard remain among its undercity defenders.
The Empire’s relations with border nations are not always gentle. Avaton pride, Lydorian ferocity, Zargovian secrecy, and Makinka independence all create friction along the Thera Spine. Yet even tense neighbors understand that the Wall matters more than insult. The Thergen rarely forget wrongs, but they also rarely abandon the defense of Creation because of wounded pride.
Their enemies are older than politics. Othmog, Helkor, the Demon Lords, the Fallen, and every servant of Entropy remain the true adversaries of the Empire. Against such foes the Thergen do not speak of victory lightly. They speak of holding, reclaiming, sealing, and enduring. In their language, these are often stronger words.
Notable Settlements and locations
- Ael Maern — Capital of the Empire and seat of the Durg Mir. Its surface works, deep halls, temple of Ydor and Thera, senate caverns, and relic-lined walkways make it one of the wonders of Therasya.
- Cord’s Arm — The broken arm of the titan Cord, transformed into the northern wall against demonkind. It is the Empire’s sacred burden and the battlefield on which the fate of the south is repeatedly decided.
- Lok Maern — One of the great Maern holds of the Empire, remembered among the principal refuge-cities and mountain seats of Thergen authority.
- Gar’Zak, the Black Forge — A major forge-city associated with the deep mountain lords and the old strength of Fel Modan. Thur Minedeep, the Digger, is tied to this region and its underholds.
- Naar’mik Maern — A great Maern named among the important cities of the mountain web, serving as one of the Empire’s heavy refuge and passage centers.
- Fal Rim — A Rim settlement on the high roads, guarding difficult approaches through the Thera Spine and serving as a watch-point against mountain beasts and raiders.
- Hel Zak — A fortress of the Arm remembered in the wars of liberation, where the free nations renewed their oaths after clearing demonic forces from the south.
- Nar — An old mountain settlement named in the internal routes of the Empire, known more to Thergen travelers than to foreign maps.
- Ard Zak — A command-hold linked to the authority of the mountain overlords, used in times of muster and regional defense.
- Cail Karn — A city destroyed by demonic forces during the War of Life. Its ruins remain a warning of what even Thergen walls can suffer when Darkness is given enough time.
- Cail Rim — The old mountain city from which Azdak Flamesteel supervises the eastern region of the Empire.
- Dag Maern — A deep Maern of refuge and memory, counted among the named strongholds of the Thergen cavern network.
- Don Rim — Battlefield and settlement associated with the Battle of Numahen, where Dullap led Thergen forces and repelled demonic armies under the sun.
- Vulrig Maern, the Rift City — A high and perilous city at the Archenstone passage, associated with Aon Battlesong and the western mountains.
- Crag Maern — A keep founded deep beneath the mountains by the Corr vanguard, tied to the long struggle around Cord’s Arm.
- Everwatch Fortress — A major fortress founded on the Arm with the reinforced treasury of the Alliance, symbolizing the shared defense of all free nations.
- Durgazon — A demon-marked Thergen city destroyed in the Seed-era wars. Its name remains bound to corruption, loss, and the price of reclaiming the Arm.
- The Erevium Gates — The refuge gates that opened when the races returned to the surface, a name that carries both liberation and the
Adventure Hooks
- A tremor opens an old Thergen under-road near the Barrowfen marches. The passage may lead toward a sealed Maern entrance, but something from the Nightfall years has been walking behind the stone doors.
- A line of Entombed gate-wardens attack a nearby village. The party must discover whether this is demon possession, or corruption.
- A light appears each year in the ruins of Cail Karn, pointing toward a chamber that should have collapsed during the War of Life. Inside rests a lost gate-key to a demon prince’s prison.
- During the latest ceremony in Ael Maern, the Golden Hammer smothers the sound when hitting against the oath-stone. Aelin Belegar sends trusted agents to learn whether this is a warning from Thera.
- A band of refugees reaches Cord’s Arm claiming that Darkness has already touched the south. The Thergen gates must decide whether to open or wait the Emperor’s decision.
- The destroyed demon-marked city of Durgazon begins sending smoke from its old vents. Scouts vanish, and surviving reports speak of Thergen voices chanting from beneath the ruin.
- Newly carved runes appear on the under-roads between Ael Maern and Gar’Zak. The marks are technically perfect but unknown to every living runemaster, and each one points deeper toward Evernight.
- Haor Hammerbolt’s patrol fails to return from a breach inspection on Cord’s Arm. Their last signal claims they found an intact Feyan artifact embedded in the titan-stone.
- Clan disputes paralyze the Senate when a new Mountain Overlord must be confirmed. The party is asked to escort proof of an ancient oath through tunnels where someone has sent assassins to prevent its arrival.
