Southern tip of the Island of Odus
Overlord Virate Manaar
Seen by few, and escaped alive by even fewer, Paineel is one of the best-kept architectural secrets of all of Norrath. It is a beautiful nightmare, a whispering labyrinth of heavy gray stone, gilded domes, and panoramic windows. It is actually the only city on Norrath to make extensive use of glass, and the effect is breathtaking.
Very few ever see the city, however, as its only connection to the outside world is a long, dark subterranean tunnel guarded by malevolent undead. On the way, visitors must look down over the edge of their path into the malevolent depths of the Hole - an unfathomably deep and strangely alluring cavern that has claimed the life of more than one hypnotized traveler. The treacherous path along the edge of the Hole ends at a hidden door only accessible to those who hold the key.
The city of Paineel itself is not, as many believe, completely underground; it is actually open to the sky, but deeply sunken into the mountains of Southern Odus and inaccessible via overland routes.
Cazicites (known as "Heretics" to their Erudite counterparts)
The history of Paineel begins with the brilliant and driven man known as Miragul, an Erudite who grew discontented with the rules that the Erudin High Council enforced to control magical study. Gradually amassing a group of followers who shared his ideas, he began to hold secret meetings to study forbidden tomes and dark magics. Some of his followers traveled to faraway Neriak and returned with knowledge of necromancy and the dark gods-- knowledge that instantly captured Miragul's imagination above all else. He and his group came to believe that Cazic-Thule, god of fear, was the most powerful of all gods, and that the practice of necromancy was the best way to serve him.
In time, the Erudin High Council began to uncover the secret workings of Miragul's followers, and branded them Heretics for turning to the dark gods. Miragul was enraged by what he saw as the Council's weakness and fear, and began a civil war. His followers set up camps to the south and practiced guerilla warfare against their former brethren. The High Council fought back with the combined might of their arcane schools, and drove the Heretics further and further south, until the war culminated in one disastrous outpouring of hostile magic.
The Erudites - some say with the help of a traitorous necromancer - tried to end the war with one concentrated blast of magical force. This single devastating explosion of power was enough to expel a large chunk of Odus out into space. The blow was too great for the Heretics, and their forces scattered. The Erudites, thinking they had won, returned northward... but meanwhile Miragul and his followers had begun building a great city deep within the chasm created by the blast - the chasm that came to be known as the Hole.
Unfortunately, during their building projects, the Heretics unwittingly opened a portal to the plane of the Underfoot. Elementals flooded into the city of Old Paineel and nearly wiped out the Heretics before they were able to close off the portal and begin building over again, closer to the surface. If one looks down deeply into the Hole, however, one can still see remnants of what was once the glorious city of Old Paineel.
Despite their worship of an evil god, the Cazicites are often quite friendly and social with one another. In all the world, they have only each other as intellectual equals. They work freely with one another, and when they come to know other individuals, the bonds of trust between them can become quite strong. As they are not followers of Innoruuk, they have no inherent distaste for the idea of love, but the Cazicite concept of love allows plenty of room for ego, power struggles, and possessiveness. Woe to anyone who should attempt to come between a pair of Cazicite lovers!
Once a male and female Cazicite come to value one another enough, they will wed to bind themselves under the law. Cazicite courtship and weddings are very orderly and formal; all in all, they are not that different from those of Erudin. Weddings are full of ritual and solemnity, and tend to be long. Afterward, each member of the married couple considers the other his or her exclusive property. Disputes between couples are considered private unless they are taken outside the home, in which case the law may intervene.
Children in Paineel are simply a means to an end, and are allowed perhaps the least freedom of choice and expression of any children in Norrath. A bonded couple often have plans for their child that span well into his adulthood. Children are produced to carry on family work or research, or to increase the numbers and status of the family within the city. Disobedient children tend to meet with "accidents." Most of the actual child rearing in Paineel, as in Erudin, is left to a nursemaid so that the parents' work and studies can remain uninterrupted.
There are not as many strict social taboos in Paineel as in Erudin. The consumption of alcohol, though considered rather gauche, is not forbidden so long as it is kept within the confines of a home or tavern. Public display of affection is permitted to some extent, but generally frowned upon. The only area in which Cazicites are stricter than Erudites is in their acceptance (or rather lack thereof) of foreigners. Cazicites tend to kill strangers first and ask questions later, and in Paineel this is not a figure of speech. All over the city can be seen animated undead servants who were once unwelcome visitors.
Since the ambiguous disappearance of the charismatic Miragul, the Cazicites have been led by a succession of Overlords whose reigns last only as long as the terror they manage to inspire among their inner circle. The current Overlord is Virate Manaar, a Shadowknight who rose through the ranks due to his unusual combination of dizzying intellect and physical prowess. At present there are none who dare oppose him.
The Cazicites should not be confused with the chaotic and Machiavellian Teir'Dal - they do believe in law and order. The laws and everyday rituals of Paineel are much as they have always been, since Cazicites as a people uniformly desire the growth and progress that come from stability. Even when a new Overlord takes over Paineel, he is not likely to make changes in the legal and social system enforced by his predecessor. The Overlord's power lies instead in his power to assemble and direct teams of the city's most gifted Cazicites to research, infiltrate, destroy, or acquire whatever it is he personally feels is in Paineel's best interests.
All Cazicites, as their name suggests, worship Cazic-Thule. Their lives are centered around fear, from the most subtle feeling of dread to the white-hot grip of terror. Many outsiders erroneously believe that the Cazicites are numb to the horror of death. On the contrary, citizens of Paineel deliberately surround themselves with grim reminders of their mortality for the very purpose of evoking a constant low-grade primal fear. They design their city to resemble an elaborate tomb, let tortured spirits and vacant-eyed skeletons loose to wander the streets, and tirelessly pry into the secrets that exist beyond the dark veil of death.
The Cazicites believe that if they can learn to live in fear every day of their lives, they can master the emotion and learn to fully function in its presence. They alone will have prepared themselves, will possess the strength to stand tall as true followers when Cazic-Thule returns to Norrath to rule with his cold iron hand.
As for holidays, the nature of the Cazicites' worship does not allow for revelry. In Paineel, every day is the Day of the Dead.
None, though they have some affinity for the necromancers of Neriak.
Erudin
None
Vore Shadowedform, Aneth Kuroska, Ozzuan Athrex