I’ve assembled a few notes and cut and paste them together to get a good overview of the rise and fall of the Arrowsmith Dynasty of Pavis. There’s a LOT in here, so read it carefully!
In the early Second Age, Dara Happa was powerful and sent mounted corps into the open grasslands of the Redlands and Pent to punish the horse barbarians, traditional enemies from the east. During this great foray one of the horse tribes was badly battered; their only divine solace were obscure prophecies. At this same time, the leaders of Dragon Pass sought to effectively resist the Prax nomads; a tribe of the horse barbarians agreed to come southward and live in Prax as allies to the King of Dragon Pass.
The tribe was called the Pure Horse People. They were among the most conservative peoples of Pent. They held to the most ancient belief, and refused to augment their dwindling horse herds with foodstuffs from other types of herd beasts. Their migration was a relief to most other nomad chiefs, for they took most of the dissidents with them. Shortly after this time, most of the tribes of Pent were riding horses, but herding sheep and cattle.
The Praxians were outraged at the intrusion of a new tribe into their limited grazing lands, and they sought the aid of Waha himself. The god did not respond, and many leaders fought without him. The decisive battle was fought in 620; the Battle of Necklace Horse.
The battle brought the Praxians to utter defeat. The nomad army charged the horsemen and their allies and fought it out face to face, in epic barbarian fashion. The horsemen won.
The nomads withdrew from the marches of Dragon Pass and began raiding the horsemen instead of Dragon Pass, as had been planned by the sly leaders of Dragon Pass. The horsemen resisted the nomads, and even expanded their Grazelands into the River of Cradles.
In 720 the God Learners built a port called Feroda, at the mouth of the so-named River of Cradles. Several more cradles were captured, but nomads told the Jrusteli that more cradles were captured upriver by the Horse People. Explorers went upstream and returned with incisive political observations. Chieftains were called to make deals, arrangements were weighed, and at last a new alliance was formed between Tharlrax the Fair and Firegleam, king of the Horse People.
About the year 780 the city of Robcradle was founded upriver from Feroda. Walls were laid and buildings constructed. The river was secured to prevent the escape of any cradle. Trade quickly moved up and down the river, strengthening the Horse People as well as the Jrusteli. Three cradles came down river over the next 20 years; all were seized and dismembered at Robcradle.
The native nomads were outraged that these invaders had allied against them and seized so much grazing land for their outlandish animals. Chieftains and khans sent great gifts and fervent prayer to Waha in the Paps. Others sought allies against the strange intruders. Both attempts eventually succeeded.
In 800, the giant Paragua and many friends came out of the north from the Rockwood Mountains to attack the city of Robcradle. Waha raised his armies in support; all the tribes of Prax rode to assault the city. Resistance was crushed. The majority of the Pure Horse People escaped by fleeing, leaving their befooted allies to be surrounded and slaughtered to a man.
In 830, Pavis animated and befriended the Faceless Statue. He and his companions rode atop it as it strode to Dragon Pass. There he met with Joraz Kyrem, Khan of the Horse People, who was anxious to re-establish his folk in Prax. When Pavis came to Prax with his great statue, he was accompanied by many lesser allies often only hinted at in the histories and legends. One ally was an army of land-hungry horse riders, the followers of Joraz Kyrem.
When the statue and Waha wrestled heroically, the armies of each combatant battled as well, seeking to aid their great allies. Joraz Kyrem’s fine cavalry were well-suited to the task and were helped by other allies from Dragon Pass. The new allies marched slowly to the old site of Robcradle. In the first battle, the statue alone drove off the beast riders, and they retreated within the walls of Paragua. Then Pavis and his army and statue attacked. This is called the Too Tall Battle, and was fought in 830. The giants were driven off by the magic of the horse priests, the nomads were confounded by the magic of Pavis and his friends, and Waha engaged in combat with the statue, but was injured, and had one of his hamstrings torn out. Howling in pain, the god limped away and his armies fled with him, abandoning the useless walls to their foes. The giants withdrew to the mountains and never returned.
Other folk retaliated against the Praxians. The denizens of Dragon Pass sent out a strong expedition against the Paps. It was led by a great worker of magic, Varajiia Nopor. Waha had to respond and was again wounded severely. Numb with loss, the barbarians agreed to surrender if their sacred grounds would be left unharmed. The invaders agreed and withdrew.
Pavis then visited Waha in the Paps and used his arts to heal the barbarian god of his crippling injuries. This brought peace between Pavis and the nomads, and they agreed to act peacefully around Robcradle if Pavis would properly respect their beliefs, too Many compromises were made, but both parties agreed and peace was made.
After the Too Tall Battle, the Faceless Statue collapsed, all magical energies exhausted. Its body made the great quarry whose stones built the city’s interior. Construction was swift, thanks to the statue’s stone and dwarfish craft. Pavis married one of his daughters to Joraz Kyrem, and together they founded the Arrowsmith Dynasty. Another daughter ruled his cult. A third was in charge of the Flintnail cult. A fourth was the ruler of the marketplace.
Around 850, the city of Pavis was complete. In 860, Pavis himself retired permanently to his palace. His children were unsuited to rule, and rather than move control to the Empire of the Wyrm’s Friends, the city leaders met and selected a new king from among themselves. Pavis approved, and the Arrowsmith Dynasty took rule of the city.
Pavis entered into a magical compact with Waha and the city was established, but Joraz still had to deal directly with the barbarians. He knew of the antagonism the nomads had for horses, for there was similar antagonism wherever he had gone. He knew he could not defeat their timeless ignorance, so he sought to ensure continued goodwill among the nomads.
Joraz was a man of the Sun, as were all the Pure Horse people in those days. Yet he was different, too: changed by the mix of magics offered by the Empire of the Wyrm’s Friends where he and Pavis had studied and became friends. Issaries, they say, was a favoured god of his, and some claim that Joraz was favoured by Issaries as well.
Joraz took his horses, the finest mares and stallions with shining golden eyes, and magically bred them with the small zebras he collected within the great walls of Pavis. The result was a fine breed of creatures, striped like zebras and with their former instincts, but big like normal war-horses. The cross-breeds took well to friendship with men. The stripes symbolised their bondage, and the cross-breeding severed them from their kin.
During the splendor of Pavis’ domination, individuals who actually rode war zebras were counted among the rich, noble, and blessed. Joraz’s private palace was named Zebra Palace.
In 870, Thog the giant appeared with an army of trolls and trollkin raised in Shadows Dance. They laid siege to Adari and marched south to Pavis. The Arrowsmith Dynasty raised their own troops and mercenaries among the troll-fearful nomads and drove off the giant and his allies.
Thog returned with more trolls and a band of Jolanti in 875. Jolanti were a race of mindless brutish giants. In this case, they followed Thog’s every whim. They moved too swiftly for barbarian allies to come to Pavis’ aid, and broke the walls; the trolls swarmed in. Defence was fierce, but most of the city fell. But even Thog’s power was unable to desecrate the Temple of Pavis.
In 877, Joraz Kyrem, Lord of the city of Pavis, requested aid from the Sun Dome temple of Dragon Pass. The religious mercenaries complied in return for land, a spot in the sun, and a good price for their horses. After the mercenaries helped free the city, they moved to their new lands and were titled Counts of the Sun Dome lands.
King Jhoraz Kyrhee (Joraz Kyrem) fled to the Empire and recruited the Sun Dome Templars to assist him. Braced with their magic and his own, he met Thog in battle outside the walls and put out one of Thog’s eyes. Then his men marched against the trolls as Thog retreated.
The trolls tried to keep Jhoraz from the places of power, but the spears of the Sun Domers opened the way and Jhoraz engaged Thog in a further test of magic and will. They locked in battle for days while Thog’s allies were whittled away and even the Jolanti toppled. The pursuit ended when Thog lost an arm, for he fled to the Ironcold peaks of the Giant mountains. After this defeat, the cradles ceased floating down the river.
Under the rule of Jhoraz and his descendants, the city again flourished. Inspired by Sun Dome methods, farmers spread all along the River of Cradles to use the new agricultural methods. A demi god like priest from Dragon Pass built the Puzzle Canal, and elves arrived from Shadows Dance to create the still-famed Garden.
In 927, the Waha hero Jaldon Goldentooth reappeared in force, laid siege to Pavis, and then destroyed the zebra cavalry which gathered to oppose him. He besieged the city until 940, defeating three relief armies from the Empire of the Wyrm’s Friends. With the magics, defences, and treasury of the great city drained, he summoned the power of the inspirational statues of his youth and chewed through the mighty walls. The barbarians poured in, sacking the city and its palaces. The Arrowsmith Dynasty was destroyed and the city lost all contact with the now-decadent Empire of the Wyrm’s Friends.
The natives of the city metamorphosed from cultured urbanites into desperate savages. The greatest single slaughter followed the initial break-in by Jaldon Goldentooth in 940 when half of the city’s 25,000 inhabitants were killed or enslaved. The succeeding bloodbath among the helpless outlying farmers was even worse. Some straggled into Adari. Some found survival in serfdom to the nomads, by dedicating the best of the crops and lands to the upkeep of the nomad animals, subsisting on the leavings. This was virtually the same as slavery, but had the nebulous virtue of allowing them some claim to their lands.
The Arrowsmith Dynasty was no more. Others arose to lead the remnants. These leaders were valiant and powerful, but their eventual doom is told by their historic legendary title: The Seventeen Foes of Waha. All eventually fell before the might of the nomads.
So one really important thing to keep in mind is that the Arrowsmith Dynasty were Solars. Yelm Imperator figures. But at the same time, they were friends with Pavis and worshiped him as the city founder, were allied with the Empire of the Wyrms Friends, had plenty of Lightbringer followers and allies, and Joraz Kyrem favoured Issaries. So they are a sort of Yelm rulership we don’t normally think of, but may have been far more common in places like Saird or the Grazelands than we tend to think.
Meanwhile the Yelmalion mercenaries were definitely a different group and cult from the Arrowsmith dynasty.
Note that none of those are cult enemies. Orlanth and Yelm are neutral towards each other, and Yelm is friendly towards Issaries.
Do the Zebra Tribe now have Yelm or Waha cultists as their Khans? Pavis
The Arrowsmith Dynasty was pretty short-lived, 860-940. That’s only 80 years. Comparable to the Julio-Claudian or Theodosian dynasties in Rome, or the Sforza in Milan. I’ve seen notes that there were about 4 members. All but the first were descended from Pavis on the maternal line (Joraz Kyrem married a daughter of Pavis).
So if we think about this, Golden Age Pavis was ruled by a dynasty that combined city rulership, dominance of the city god cult, and ruled a Solar horse people for military strength.