Creature:Knobi/Infrastructure and History

History on Koldenwelt
For the main history of Koldenwelt, go here

Old Age
In the Old Age, the Nobi built up their civilization. It endured from its founding at 2,000 BNA until 400 BNA, when the Nobi were driven to near extinction by a strange disease that came from a distant land. It is unknown where this disease came from, but it devastated the entire Nobi species. This was at about 400 BNA.

The Vyre
Summary: A strange and exotic disease that spread to us though trade and mutation. Wiped out 75-80% of our population, destroyed our civilization, and forced us into the highlands. Hunted us down no matter where we ran, and even in the highlands it wasn't safe, just safer. Cold temps slow the disease, predators kill infected quickly.

Flight from Pain
Summary: With our cities overrun by the Vyre and those who carry it, we were forced to flee. There were only 4 thousand of us left, from what had once been almost 60 thousand in 18 small cities. We fled with our horses and balloons and our ships. We took our entire civilization with us, and fled across the Eastern Highlands, westward and downstream, until we sensed the massive Ice-earth power essence to the south of us. We then headed down there, leaving behind our ships, but taking smaller versions of our current trains with us. We also kept as many balloons as possible, as they could flee a ground based attack with ease. It took up 3 years to complete the journey from home to the Highlands, but we did it. After we arrived in the Highlands we swiftly learned to adapt to the laws of the land, and moved to the center, where we founded Ironforge as our new capitol.

The Everwinter Highlands
Once in the Everwinter Highlands, we fled toward the center, where we could sense a mighty Fire-Earth power source. This Fire-Earth power source turned out to be a truly giant volcano, what would be called a "super volcano" by most people. It was there we built our new civilization, hidden from the world within the Everwinter Highlands, defended by Fire, Earth, Water and Air. We named the location "Ironforge", and there we make great siege machines and masterly crafted blades and weapons. With the power of chaos always hunting us, but also making it impossible to wage a war on others, we dropped of the map, forgotten and believed dead. That was not the case, but it turned out to be our savior. Had we not dropped off the map... well, it would have been a major challenge just to survive. The Everwinter Highlands are full of resources and fertile lands. Had we not remained hidden, we would most likely have been destroyed.

We hid, and in our hiding we grew strong. We built Ironforge up into a mighty city, we mostly tamed the Vyre, we spread throughout the Everwinter Highlands and placed cities on every active volcano in them, and we created a vast network of underground and on ground roadways and trade routs. Most of the roads and trade routs were underground, but some were above it, including the famous "Sky's Edge" road, which runs along the very edge of the Highlands, overlooking the vast Western Forests and allowing us to see all the way to the Eastern Plains. It's called "Sky's Edge" because it's on the edge of the sky, you can look down an see clouds drifting below you from that road.

As our infrastructure, population, and strength grew, the Vyre started to become a problem. You see, our cities were not safe. In the bad parts of them, you could be mugged and killed for a few coins. Prostitution, gangs, mafia underworlds, all of those could be found in out major cities, and in large supply. In fact, many people in our cities back then never got to see the sun. The deeper you were, the safer you were, mostly because deeper equals warming, and in the Highlands it can get to 50 below, and colder. This was not a good time for us, we had no real "law", just a bunch of gang leaders who told others what to do. As time went on, more and more people started to try and fight this, from 2 or 3 to 2 or 3 hundred, then thousands. Eventually, the Mafia Gangs and assassins and thugs were killed or rendered harmless, and we started to improve our health care and poverty rates. But even so, millions died in those underground slums and allys and wars. Millions died criminals, or worse. It was an underworld to break the spirit, and it did so for many hundreds of years.

After finally breaking free of the underworld curse, we started to focus our energies into feeding the large population of the Highlands. We built vast farms, created hunting grounds, and tapped into coal powered steam engines. Of course, we never needed coal for our cities, those were powered by volcanic heat and the immense turbines that the volcano's spun. The Highlands was powered by electricity, which was powered by wind and fire. Ironforge itself has vast turbines all across the super-volcano, which power the cities lighting and heating systems. Yes, it's advanced, but it's also non-mobile, you can't move a volcano. In any case, as we gave our cities power, the small towns, the farms and hunting villages and road systems, they all asked for power as well. It took another 200 years before the entire Highlands was powered, but we did it, because to fail was not an option.

Travis the Mad
Travis the Mad was a brilliant person, but completely insane by the time he died. He is the creator or Ironforge, the Seal at the Great Forge, and of the Grand Design, details of which are sketchy at best. He was the guy who managed to convince the rest of the Nobi to leave their home and journey to the Highlands, which is what truly earned him a place in history. He is said to have gone insane after creating the Seal at the Great Forge, but that he was always a little touched to the head. Listened to what his dreams told him, and apparently they were often correct.

Zeppelins
As we dug for coal and oil and other earth-bound resources, we found a strange kind of gas, noticeable only because it would explode if exposed to flame or spark. It seemed to be seeping out from under the ground beneath us, so we dug for it, because we figured we could use it as a weapon or maybe as a fuel source since it burned. As we searched for it and tried to figure out ways to keep it from escaping us, a group of scientists figured out that it was "lighter then air" so to speak, and then combined that with the "hot air rises" rule that allowed our balloons to float. They then decided to try this gas and see what happened. It worked better then they could ever have anticipated, lifting the balloon high off the ground, far higher then hot air had ever done. So then they got ambitious, and started building bigger and bigger balloons, eventually blimps and zeppelins up to 100ft long! And this strange gas could lift those with ease, allowing for faster trade then anything else we had, mainly because they didn't need to go around most mountains or river. They were also safe from land predators which would attack food trading caravans and supply trains for armies, as well as the armies themselves. It's no wonder the Nobi started using them so quickly, considering what the other options were.

With our empire secure and our populations safe and warm and fed, we turned our eye to the rest of the world. We knew that we couldn't hide forever, that someday someone would find us, or we would finally overpopulate the Highlands, so we started to work on our military. It was an easy thing to do. We had forts and walls and armies, to keep the Vyre from getting in, it was just a matter of moving them quickly and efficiently from place to place. Surprisingly, the answer as to how came from an orphaned genius. He was called Travis, or "Traveler" in the old tongue, and he loved to travel. It was he who created the first zeppelin, he who first flew from one end of the Highlands to another. And it was his descendant, Sivart, who would use this great invention to wage war with the world, to create the fastest armies to be found on land or sea.

The World
Sivart the Warmaster, as he is so often called, was the Nobi who unified the council of Masters, and became the Warmaster, the first new "Master" to be added. After hm came a great many others, like the "Foodmaster" and the "Trainmaster", but Sivart was the first. Sivart intends to take back our ancestral lands and create a new empire far greater then any seen before or any that will be seen afterwards. He intends to spread the Councils power, his power, to every inch of Koldenwelt. He plans for war...

Infrastructure
The Nobi have built a rather complex infrastructure in the Highlands. They have developed a train system in the Central Mountains, which takes people from Ironforge out to the other great cities. In the Central Mountains, this rail systems connects all the larger towns and villages, along with many of the smaller villages. Roadways were constructed, flowing with the landscape instead of cutting through it. Bridges were built to cross valleys, and towns grew up at crossroads and river-crossings.

The cities were built with the intent to take up as little space as possible, and to be easily defended from the Vyre and other creatures of the highlands. As such, all the cities have either walls with spikes pointing outward, or are built underground. Mostly underground.

When zeppelins were created 34 years ago, the cities added zeppelin towers, hangars, and landing fields, and the trading between villages and cities sped up considerably. After many years of expansion after this, the Nobi were unified both politically and infrastructurlely. With railways connecting the major cities (ending in "Forge") and roads connecting most of the smaller ones and zeppelins connecting everything to everything, the infrastructure of the Highlands was complete.