The city-state of Halidi is relatively young, a mere fourteen years. And yet, it is one of the foremost powers in the land of Karamaroob. It all began when the Great Sorceress Cypress the Magnificent became bored.
One day, perhaps in late Fall, though the seasons were mostly meaningless in Karamaroob due to its oceanic disposition, Heiaspera decided that her gifts of magicianry were wasted in her tower all alone. She decided that she had quite "had enough of all of this isolated hermit wizard bullshit" and grasped her flight stone. With a word of power, the Sorceress lept into the air, and rode the winds to an unoccupied plot of land in the east of Karamaroob, a place which had no name, yet. There she began work, creating a school. You see, dear reader, there is no nobler a pursuit than that of teaching, and Cypress desired to share the arts of magicianry with as many as would choose to take it up. The school was built within the week, thanks to the hordes of summoned creatures she called to aid in its construction. It was a grand thing, a regal arcade led to the main entrance, which was set into the structure, such that two balconies could flank and overlook incoming students. The central courtyard contained a great tower and the campus itself contained multitudes of strangely organized spaces, compact enough to fit a grand hall into a gardening shed.
Naturally however, a school in such a remote a space required infrastructure to support it. As students came into the place, Cypress decided that they would need food, and so putting forth a call for farmers and cooks and bakers from the neighboring lands. Thus followed one need after another, and in the end, a small nation had emerged, all to support and uphold the school at its heart. In the end, the city-state was known as Halidi, the city of the candle, with its rulership defaulting to the headmistress Cypress, in lieu of anyone else.
Four years after its inception, the city formed the exploratory commission and navy, whose job was to find new knowledge and baubles of strange kinds to bring back to the city, where her studiousness, Cypress the Magician would study it with her comrades the other faculty who have come to join her.
Dear reader, this is how Formall De Hyde came to become stranded on that strange sea, by seeking what was not to be found. His charge from the lady of Whitecandle herself, was to seek something, a weapon to be used in the horrible future that his lady has seen.
Soon, the Dark Master shall turn his gaze to the world of Karamaroob. New lands lay undefended, ripe for the taking. New people for his furnaces, new forests and shrines to desecrate. The Hopestalker will not rest.
And now the good captain is on earth. What will he find there to aid them in the war that approaches?
