Merlon

Merlon is the immortal king of the lyrian empire residing in Merlon's Keep. He is pictured with long grey hair, a concise nose, deep blue eyes and a fiery red beard.

The Beginning

Merlon was born as the last of the royal dwarven family, who's name is forgotten by now. The lyrian civilization was still new and fighting both among itself and against the dragons. Merlon though had a vision to unite all dwarves under one gigantic empire and he knew, that whatever he created wouldn't survive his demise. So he gathered the most powerful and most ambitious druids and gave them the task of finding an immortality spell. After many years of researching and failing, they finally succeeded and gave the king what he always desired. After they cast the spell, Merlon made them take an magical oath to never use that spell again and to not tell anyone about their feat, and so they never did and took the secret to their graves. Being immortal, Merlon sought after the last remaining dragons of Tal'Lyra. Slaying three of the beasts himself, he finally brought an end to the Age of Dragons.

An Empire emerges

Merlon quickly expanded his kingdom and started to subdue the other clans through both conquest and diplomacy. Over the next hundred years eventually all the kingdoms joined the newborn empire. He then began to form the government and the laws to ensure a prosperous future for his people. At first he had some resistance, but over time, and with Merlon outliving his enemies, the resistance calmed down and even the last dwarves saw what a benefit the united empire is.

The Golden Millennium

The next thousand years brought wealth and expansion to the lyrian empire. Under the leadership of their king the dwarves mined deeper into the mountains and build towns under nearly every mountains, and even a few outside the protecting stonewalls. He drove them to perfect their weapon smithery, to enforce walls of the the Endless Mountains with strong druidic spells and let them build the greatest town ever build, Merlon's Keep.

The War against the humans

When the humans arrived at the foot of the Endless Mountains, Merlon first tried to start friendly communications with their leaders. The humans though assumed the short people to be no big obstacle and started to raid dwarven outposts outside the mountains. Merlon led the lyrians into the next 500 years of battles and destruction, sometimes winning and sometimes loosing against the new enemy. Finally he could convince the talian emporer to meet and talk about peace. With the offer of a new start together in Reach's End, the humans finally agreed to the long wanted peace.

Fighting alongside the humans

After the long war a periode of peace and trade began. Merlon did his best to strengthen the diplomatic relationship with the empire to the south, while fortifying the dwarven position in the Endless Mountains. In this time Merlon had the idea of a gigantic statue made out of glass in the middle of the dwarven capital. With the 100 year long construction the capital also got it's today used name, Merlon's Keep. He encouraged and sponsored a variety of expeditions to the last unknown places in Tal'Lyra, one of them into the Blowing Swamp. The there discovered evil power started the Windsong Revolution in the talian empire. While at first being unsure if he wanted to risk dwarven lives in a talian rebellion, Merlon soon started to help his human friends, when he saw what evil the expedition awoke. With dwarven help, the wicked wizards were defeated and got pushed back to the Windsong Tower. During the decline of the talian empire Merlon and his advisors decided to stay neutral and honor their treaties with all human people. At the same time, Merlon ordered his engineers to figure out how to build a floating town on Horto's Lake to harvest Glowing Vox and Healing Gansh.

His reign today

While he can't die from normal causes, Merlon's body still ages ever so slowly. When he noticed that 200 years ago, he ordered his most capable druids to find a solution, but to this day, they couldn't finish the task. So the old king stays mostly in his chambers and let's his advisors to most of the ruling to conserve his body. There are some rumors about him being to weak and fragile to be king anymore, but no one knows exactly.