First Siege of Absalom

Military: Battle

Even as its divine patron ensured its advantage in diplomatic affairs, Absalom’s growing wealth attracted envious eyes. Legends preserve the minotaur warlord Voradni Voon’s siege of Absalom, the first of many over the millennia, during which Aroden personally led the defenders from atop Azlanti Keep. Voon’s army of centaurs, harpies, and minotaurs were shattered and scattered across the land. Absalom’s adventurers gave chase, in the process exploring Starstone Isle, documenting its countless surprises and uniting into so‑called hunting lodges dedicated to these exploits.

Word of Aroden’s miraculous lifting of the Isle of Kortos and his passage through the Starstone to become a living god spread quickly throughout the Inner Sea and beyond. In distant Iblydos, far to the east of Qadira, tales of Absalom’s new godling gained the notice of an ambitious minotaur warlord named Voradni Voon. Voon too craved godhood, considering it the logical conclusion of his heroic story, which cut a bloody slash across the belly of central Casmaron.
Many of the minotaur’s victories over older and better‑established kingdoms of central Casmaron involved the employment of hundreds of thundering centaurs swirling in vast, interlocking circles, a ritual that unleashed terrible catastrophes under Voon’s direction. Old centaur magic had leveled three cities in central Casmaron. Absalom, they assumed, would simply be the next. Instead, when Voon’s vast army of minotaurs, harpies, and centaurs unleashed a devastating earthquake upon the city, Aroden’s magic reflected the tremors back onto the island’s eastern plateau, which swallowed huge numbers of Voon’s loyal warriors in great chasms rent into the earth. The cataclysm shattered the Brazen Arch portal that had allowed the warlord to march his army from Iblydos to Kortos, forever severing the remnants of Voon’s host from their distant homeland. Voon himself died upon Aroden’s sword, the Azlanti Diamond, soon thereafter.