Dragon's Grotto
Basic World Lore
Ivoryhold is the City of Light, a bastion in a world ravaged by a force of evil, so dark, most go mad from even attempting to comprehend its meaning. Five individuals were initially tasked to end the threat to the world: Allevia the Elven Cleric, Scarlet Risk the Bard, Grimrod the Dwarven Druid, Krilge the Half-Orc Barbarian, and Sir Tristan, the Fighter-Monk. Together they tried to defeat the cultist known only as Umbra, and in their mission failed. Umbra’s plan was to summon a dark god, one which was successful and the ensuing chaos killed Grimrod and Tristan, forcing the rest of the party to try and save those they could from the oncoming apocalypse.
To accomplish this goal, that party sought out the Lamias, a race of underdark-dwellers from ages past, a race of snake-people. Oft confused for the Yuan-ti, the Lamias were not trusted or trusting of humans and the other surface-dwelling races. However, their leader, Yumiko the Immortal, in her wisdom and mercy, cooperated with efforts to evacuate the great surface cities of the world. Cooperating with the last of the Party, Yumiko built over her own ancestral capital the city now known as Ivoryhold, splitting the government into an oligarchy made up of Councillors. Yumiko, Allevia, Scarlet, and Krilge made up the first Councillors, accompanied by the Lord Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun, former Archmage of Waterdeep.
The Clerics of the surface world, by and large, enacted a mass casting of Divine Intervention to shut down access to the Upper Planes by all methods save death. With the power Umbra’s master had displayed, the Gods did not want to risk their own realms to corruption or invasion. As such, all access to any plane save the Plane of Dreams or the Feywild was cut off, both places too entwined with mortals and too saturated with chaotic magic to shut down completely. This effort drained the clerics of all lifeforce, leaving naught but husks, and from the ashes of this all remaining priests banded together to form the United Church, a polytheistic organization worshipping most major gods of the Pantheon.
Large pillars of Obsidian, all the while, slowly grew up and cut off access to the other planes. It seems Umbra didn’t want to be banished back to the Abyss after his victory for the Material Plane. Not a lot of research has happened conclusively, but common opinion among scholars at this time suggests that destroying these pillars could re-open planar travel.
Food itself was scarce, especially in the beginning. Over time, trade was established in tense negotiations between a nearby Drow settlement, Guallidurth; in return for artisan products left over from the surface and new ones commissioned expressly for the purpose of trade with the Drow city-states. This brought a wealth of exotic crop mushrooms for the city to grow and harvest, alongside those crops the druids that survived managed to grow. These initial harvests proved crucial in establishing Ivoryhold as the center of trade in the region, as with their relative prosperity these survivors managed to attract more survivors to Ivoryhold.
Over time, Yumiko, Scarlet, and Allevia have remained on the council; the other seats filled by the races with lesser lifespans. No expedition to the surface has ever been successful to date, nor have any returned from these ventures. Contact with other cities is fairly limited since Ivoryhold became self-sufficient, they’re either too far out or too small to be relevant as regional powers. There’s a lot of these outlying hamlets, many in ruins but a fair few still inhabited along the roads of the underdark.
