Darnoon - Beyond The Horizon

Ladies and gentlemen, we on Beyond The Horizon hereby present you Darnoon. A city meant to show you what time and quality we put into our ultimate project. The texturepack used for this build aswell as for the project at all is Conquest by monsterfisher, which can be found here.

If you're new to Beyond The Horizon and have no clue of what our concept and goal is, head over to our website (still in developement, thanks for being patient) and take a look or head directly onto or server via robulus.draydns.de

Note that this will not be part of the project in the future but only serves as a teaser!



LORE



After the alliance of the disparate Noonic tribes fell apart, those from the north and western reaches of their land began the migration that took them home once more. That continent, the last refuge against the colonial invaders, now defended, the Noons once more descended into little more than pettily squabbling nomads, too busy with the act of mere survival to care about their brethren unless at the end of a spear.


Except one small, plucky tribe. Stumbling quite by chance upon a pass into the northern mountains, this tribe found the several valleys within to be not only entirely untouched by human hands, and surely impossible to attack from the outside, but that one in particular held close a secret none before had discovered.


The Dar tribe, quite by accident, had stumbled across the largest gold deposits in the known world.


None of the Dar that were alive at that time ever saw the world outside of those valleys again in their lifetime, as unknown to the rest of civilization, the Dar were not 'the lost tribe' as they had been named by other Noons, they hadn't vanished nor been taken by vengeful gods, but were instead biding their time in their secret refuge. The city which took shape - molded by the crags, the mountains - dutifully chiselled by their stoneworkers - was later to be known as Darnoon, 'Noonic Settlement of the Dar Tribe' in the common Noonic tongue, and eventually became one of the most feared, most besieged, most wealthy cities in the known world.


First, they had to announce their existence. Centuries had passed while the Dar built their hidden city, and the tribe had, in their absence, been written off by the rest of Noonkind as somehow, mysteriously vanished, and by the scholars of the great city of Arrus as one of the great mysteries of the age: how does an entire tribe of people vanish overnight, leaving no clues?


Theirs was a sudden return to the rest of civilization. With the Dar's master stonemasons having tunneled straight through a mountain in the quest to fulfill the future they had been promised, the picks struck through the final section and, no sooner had it been shored up, one man left: Dran Totook-Dar, youngest son of the Duke himself. Bound southeast with letters intended for the leaders of whatever cities may still exist or that had sprung up since the Dar's deliberate disappearance, he also carried a more immediate message; at his wrists, the purest gold. His shirt, woolen but with interwoven strands of gold sheet. Atop his head, the helmet of the last leader of the Dar before they vanished. At his hip, a double-ended blade in the Noonic tradition, but made of nothing but gold and silver. To aid this deliberate display, Dran had been given a cart, loaded with thousands of the most miniscule nuggets, to give freely to those he met on his journey.


During his journey to the other cities, Dran's message was accepted with many an astonished expression and questions of the Dar's disappearance, but he answered none; his mission was no more than to offer Darnoon's end of their firm bargain to the other cities: leave us alone, pay us what we ask, and you can have all the gold you desire.


Since then, what has followed is all too predictable: Darnoon has been attacked, besieged, blackmailed, by bandits, cities, even alliances of both, but nothing works against the city. Darnoon cannot be taken from the outside if defended, and does not respond to threats or pressure, as the current ruler, the Duchess Ullin Dar, knows well what her forefathers knew too: that Darnoon has what men and women will kill one another over, and that no matter how hostile the intent of others may be on one day, come the morning? Those same enemies will be on their knees, knowing the futility of their attempts at force, and begging for more of Darnoon's gold.