Dominion Era/Locations/Thirë Lotar

Thirë Lotar is a Tretalleri town that existed on the Dominion lands bordering the Desolation around Di'Teýrivellë. It thrived between Y.D. 8200 and Y.D. 8800 and is notable for a number of things.

The Glittering Font

In the year Y.D. 8247, an unnamed community leader in Thirë Lotar saved a young maiden in the forest surrounding the town, according to local legend. The story goes on to claim that after saving the maiden and giving her home and food for the night following, this man found out the next morning that she had gone. Three days later, he heard a knock on his door and saw the maiden he'd rescued standing on the porch of his house—only this time she was far more beautiful than she had been before, carrying about her an almost-divine radiance that, the story claims, made the man faint.

Records show that locals of Thirë Lotar believed this young maiden to have been The Maiden. The legend continues and says that in gratitude for his service to her, the Maiden crafted a fountain in the middle of the man's field. It is said that the waters gushing from the spring glitter even in sparse light, guiding the lost and providing nourishment for the thirsty. The man's crops, it is said, became instantly lush and beautiful as the water from the font spread into his irrigation canals.

Before the man could thank the Maiden for what she did for him, she had vanished. There are numerous accounts from visitors from all over the Heartland that the spring was a very real thing, and records show that Thirë Lotar was a popular destination for men that ventured into the Desolation, either seeking glory by killing Stonewurms, or to get cuttings from Lignebârgë for the numerous attempts at creating new and improved Lignetâllë.

Di'Ridhalna

Thirë Lotar later gained a rather unsavoury reputation when Dominion Era/Di'Ridhalna had its first officially documented case in a woman known as Learra a'Namman in the 84th century. Although surrounding towns and villages did not see this as any different—Di'Ridhalna had been a local legend ever since the establishment of Dominion territory in northeastern lands bordering the Desolation—the rest of the Dominion became rather wary of travelling to Thirë Lotar.

Income from tourism, especially from pilgrims that believed the Glittering Font of Thirë Lotar to be one of the signs of the Maiden made manifest in the world, dried up almost as soon as news reached the Grand Rookery of the death of Learra a'Namman to the Stonecurse. However, Thirë Lotar remained the source of some of the best and tastiest fruits in the Dominion, although due to circumstances, the town was forced to trade with local villages who in turn traded the goods with the explicit understanding that no one was to mention that the produce came from Thirë Lotar lest business be driven away.

Abandonment

For the next three hundred years, Thirë Lotar lived in relative comfort. As the years passed and no new cases of Di'Ridhalna were reported from the town(although there were two from other border towns more than ten kilometers away from Thirë Lotar, public interest in the Glittering Font was renewed and Thirë Lotar was able to finally trade directly with the rest of the Dominion. The town responded to this change in circumstance with vigour, although underneath the surface, there was some unrest and uncertainty bubbling.

It was in Y.D. 8704 that some foragers from Thirë Lotar noticed that the Desolation, marked by cracked, darkened earth, had somehow made its way across one of the streams that had so helpfully marked the borders of livable Dominion territory and the Desolation. Town leaders immediately convened about the findings and decided that digging up the patch of Desolation and tossing it across the stream was perhaps the best course of action. For some time afterward, it was thought that all was well, until reports came in from another town that a large swathe of the forest had died over the last week as a result of the spread of the Desolation.

Town leaders decided to take some more time to observe the stream, just in case there was nothing to worry about. However, over the course of the next five years, reports of the Desolation spreading in sometimes major ways continued to reach Thirë Lotar, and, inevitably, townspeople began to hear about them. Few wanted to leave, but there were those that immediately packed up and moved away once news of the concern about the Desolation reached the town.

Over the next twenty years, Thirë Lotar slowly but surely began to bleed population, although, due to a very emphatically worded letter to the Grand Rookery from all the border-town leaders, a population of priests, experts, and researchers replaced the people that left. Over time, these people began to leave, as well, because it became quickly apparent that there was nothing to be done about the inexorable forward march of the Desolation.

The drying up of the Glittering Font in Y.D. 8763 spelled the beginning of the end for Thirë Lotar, as the harvest three weeks later proved to be worthless as well. At the time, a mass exodus began, with the Dominion stepping in to relocate families that were affected by the crisis. By Y.D. 8765, only the people that refused to leave remained in the ghost of what was once a thriving town. Ultimately, those people died or left, as well. Thirë Lotar was long empty by the time that the Desolation swallowed it, along with three other border towns, in Y.D. 8792.