View source for Iobaria

{{Region
| image = [[File:Iobaria map.jpg|300px|The region of Iobaria]]
|name = Iobaria
}}

The land of '''Iobaria''' is located east of the nation of [[Brevoy]], but is considered part of the continent of [[Casmaron]]. Found north of the [[Castrovin Sea]], it was once a mighty empire, but was decimated two millennia ago by a series of plagues.<ref name="CS-153">{{Cite book/Campaign Setting|153-154}}</ref> The empire, at its height, stretched from the [[Icewall]], [[Ice Steppes]], and the [[Lake of Mists and Veils]] in the north to the [[Myrfrus River]] in the East, the [[Icerime Peaks]] and [[Hills of Nomen]] in the West, and the [[Castrovin Sea]] to the south.<ref name="PF-33">{{Cite book/The Varnhold Vanishing|55}}</ref><ref name="PF-33x">{{Cite book/The Varnhold Vanishing|58}}</ref>

Iobaria is low-density and sparsely populated. About eight of every ten inhabitants live outside cities in settlements that are smaller than hamlets elsewhere. Other, non-human races live as nomads in packs that are smaller than that of an average village. <ref name="PF-33">{{Cite book/The Varnhold Vanishing|55}}</ref>

== Geography ==
; [[Orlov]]
: The fomer coastal capital of Iobaria manages to retain faint traces of its ancient grandeur. Its scheming prince dreams of re-establishing the Empire, but in fact doesn't even have enough troops to fully man the city's ancient fortifications.<ref name="CS-153" />

; [[Hask-Ultharan|Hask-Ultharan, the "Cairn of Many Torments"]]<ref name="PF-58">{{Cite book/The Varnhold Vanishing|59}}</ref>
: This is an enormous cairn of quarried stone blocks, marked in the script of the [[Cyclopes]]. The ''[[Record of Truan Iolavai]]'' describes how the scholar and his party investigated the cairn, against the advice of his local guides, only to be driven off by a howling mob of malformed giants led by the [[demon lord]] [[Kostchtchie]].<ref name="CS-153" />
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== History ==
Iobaria's first inhabitants were the unknown entities who carved the steps into Dirrinir. 

The first ''recorded'' inhabitants were the "Koloran" cyclopes, who left ruins in Iobaria and memories in the histories of [[Iblydos]]. One such cyclops was Karth, whose visage was immortalized in the Maw of Karth. In -5293 AR the Koloran civilization collapsed.

During the 700s AR [[Ulfen (human ethnicity)|Ulfen]] explorers from [[Avistan]] migrated east to the Lake of Mists and Veils, via [[Mendev]]. Okormirr was the first Ulfen settlement east of the Lake, around [[752 AR]].<ref name="PF33-55">{{Cite book/The Varnhold Vanishing|55}}</ref> Okormirr then spawned the city Orlov, which eclipsed its metropolis in 764. In 905 Iobar of Orlov united the Ulfens in Iobaria (and, likely, in [[Issia]] and Mendev).

In 1106 was the first recorded great plague, the Tearplague. Most of the plagues seem to have arisen from the forests.<ref>{{cite book/Campaign Setting|164}}</ref> Iobarians have blamed cyclops ruins like Orosknir,<ref>{{cite book/The Varnhold Vanishing|62}}</ref> and in 2767 they blamed foreigners. The one plague which they tracked down to its source was the Chardeath in 1634, which in 1869 they tracked to the necromancer Otyb the Undying. Even today a host of illnesses keeps the population low.

The worst plague was the [[Choking Death]] of [[2742 AR]]. That killed three quarters of the population and led to a vicious pogrom remembered as the Native Plaguestrife. Thus weakened, Iobaria lost control of its vassal states, which rebelled against its control, only to collapse themselves once they were cut off from central support.<ref name="CS-153" />

In 3212, Iobaria reunited, but fell into internecine strife before the process was complete. King Irral I won the Restoration War in 3304, with the help of draconian allies - to whom he ceded control of all cyclopean ruins not currently in use. (The human-occupied cities remained human, and humans retained a presence in strategically-important sites like Fralros.)

In 4606, Aroden fell and the Worldwound opened northwest of Mendev. In the next two decades, many Mendevians fled east; then, the Sarkorians followed. New Iobaria could not absorb the Sarkorians, and collapsed again, starting at Mavradia.

For a detailed timeline of the history of Iobaria, cf. the [[Iobaria timeline]] article.

== Inhabitants ==
The numerous diseases which emptied Iobaria two millennia ago have never disappeared completely, and still serve to keep its population very low. Most live in the endless forest wilderness in a state of semi-barbarism, and avoid the ruined cities of their ancestors altogether.<ref name="CS-153" />

==== Religion ====
Today, Iobarans worship a vast group of minor nature spirits. Most religious figures are [[druid]]s.<ref name="CS-153" />

== References ==
{{refs}}
[[Category:Nations of Casmaron]]