   |
Flatheadia was the capital of the Great Underground Empire from 770 GUE, when Lord Dimwit Flathead built his castle there, to the fall of the Empire in 883. (The former seat of royal government was Egreth, in the Westlands. Dimwit's love of the Eastlands has always been given as the main motive behind the capital's relocation.) Before 770, Flatheadia had been called Aragain Village. In a surprisingly short amount of time, that small village was transformed (squashed) and renamed, quickly becoming the center of civilization as it was then known. After the completion of Megaboz's curse on Curse Day of 883, all that sits upon its former site is a small historical White House.
HISTORY OF FLATHEADIA
Having spent countless vacations overseas, Lord Dimwit shared the fondness of Duncanthrax for the uncharted territories of the Eastlands. Thus he decided to move the capital of Quendor from Egreth in the Westlands, to the little-known colony of Aragain in the central Eastlands, where the seat of government would remain until the fall of the Empire in 883. The small hamlet was replaced with the 8,600 square bloit monstrosity known as Castle Flatheadia, which was built literally on top of the unsuspecting villagers (rumor has it that some of the crude huts and tents are still occupied in the lower basement levels of the castle). Some bitter, unappreciative chroniclers have described Dimwit’s castle at Flatheadia as his biggest folly. In a surprisingly short amount of time, that small village was transformed, quickly becoming the center of civilization at it was then known.
To celebrate the completion of the Flatheadia Dungeon in 771, Johann Sebastian Flathead wrote and performed his famous "Flatheadia Overture for Rack and Pendulum." Though there has never been an accurate count, it is known that the Flatheadia Dungeon (also known as the Asylum), contained no less than 10,000 occupants at its peak. This is of minor historical note in the context of Dimwit’s other acts of excessiveness, but it is worth mentioning because of a drama of Lucrezia Flathead that played itself out within the dungeon’s walls.
With the entire castle completed, the seat of government was officially moved from Egreth to Flatheadia on the 14th of Jam, 771 GUE. At its peak, the castle at Flatheadia, which was connected directly to the sprawling underground caverns and tunnels after which the empire had been named, housed over 90% of the Empire’s population at its peak. The nearby village-turned-metropolis would be home to the Underground Revenue Service, the Postal Service, and various temples and courts of law. The dominating feature of the Flatheadia landscape after 781 would be the 400-story FrobozzCo World Headquarters Building. Much like Egreth, its counterpart in the Westlands, Flatheadia was the focus of all new underground tunneling and exploring in the area. Egreth was abandoned and collected dust.
The Wizard of Frobozz and Fudge (785 GUE)
In either the 770s or early 80s, the Wizard of Frobozz was appointed by Dimwit Flathead as the official court wizard at Flatheadia. If fate turns as a wheel, then the Wizard of Frobozz represented a low point for the excessive king. For among the senile Wizard's failings, the lively wit of his youth had been replaced by a semi-sadistic mischievousness coupled with an inability to pronounce spells other than those beginning with other than the letter “F”. In 785 GUE, havoc struck Quendor when he accidentally transformed the entire west wing of Dimwit’s famed castle into a mountain of fudge. Thus in one errant stroke of wayward magic, the Wizard’s blunder simultaneously destroyed it with a single word, “Fudge.”
To see the west wing of his beloved Castle Flatheadia transformed into a pile of fudge was too much for anyone to bear. Lord Dimwit, without giving so much as a written reprimand first, fired the Wizard for crimes against sugary goodness. Never one to let himself be outdone by an upstart ruler, Lord Dimwit, without another thought, ordered everyone, everywhere to help rebuild the west wing. Of course, the new wing would be 25 times larger than the previous one because Dimwit wanted it that way. Had he not already earned the nickname “Dimwit Flathead the Excessive,” he would have earned it here.
Both above and underground, the veins of fudge washed lusciously into area streams and ponds, and being magic, affected whatever ate it. These mutations included magic chocolate frogs, hills of chocolate-covered ants, chocolate turtles swimming in unusually luscious-looking ponds, and even chocolate rabbits. It was immediately declared illegal to eat Flatheadia Fudge (as it had become known) and local authorities were ordered to run a billboard campaign with the slogan “Stop Eating My Castle!” Dimwit built a fudge-melting plant in Fenshire to melt down the pieces of fudge that his castle had been turned into. It took more than a year for the west wing to be rebuilt. During this, period tons of the sweet chocolate was squirreled away in vaults while fresh foundations and tunnels were created throughout the valley floor, ostensibly to replace the original west wing, and yet the faint smell of fudge would always be hanging in the air after the reconstruction. (see the "Fudge Mines" for more information)
Death of Dimwit Flathead
Following the death of Dimwit Flathead in 789, which took place during a tremendous banquet held at Flatheadia, much of the empire fell into decay in wake of the fear of the Curse of Megaboz. Almost at once, sections of the underground caverns in the Eastlands fell into disrepair without Dimwit’s obsessive interest in the subterranean lands to ensure their upkeep. Even parts of the truly immense royal palace itself quickly became forgotten, as the less excessive and somewhat more austere King Loowit found little need for the square bloits of bedroom and bathroom that Dimwit so loved. While some people have seen this trend as an immediate indication of the empire's necessary decline, it seems more likely that the people of Quendor were instead simply recovering from a period of ridiculous excess, and returning to a more normal situation. If parts of the underground empire fell into disuse, it was not out of helpless and pathetic decline, but instead out of an increasing disgust and annoyance at the outrages of the previous regime.
Curse Day Draws Neigh (881~883)
Wurb Flathead came to the throne in the year 881. The dread Curse Day was a mere two years away and already the empire had fallen into a completely frantic state over their impending doom. Both town and countryside were abandoned as the day drew nigh, their inhabitants fleeing in the wake of the wizard’s curse that had already killed Dimwit and disposed of the royal Flathead family some 92 years before. The brief period of his reign, the last two years of the empire, saw the complete collapse of any sort of imperial authority, the effective size of the Quendoran state shrinking to encompass only the once thriving city of Flatheadia and the grounds of the royal palace itself.
On the 4th of Mumberbur 883, outside the gates of the castle, the peasants ran riot. The last of the royal guard abandoned their usual posts and spread themselves out around the castle’s massive stone perimeter, fighting desperately for the safety of their king. Finally, Wurb himself was forced to acknowledge the hopelessness of the situation. With the royal guard growing mutinous and the barbarian invaders moving closer to the capital, he snuck quietly out of the castle through an unblocked rear entrance.
The long wheel of time had run its course; he knew that the game was over. With the royal guard growing mutinous and the barbarian invaders moving closer to the capital, he began to hurry. Scarcely pausing to packing their bags, the king, his wife, and the last members of his family to remain until the end, snuck quietly out of the castle through an unblocked rear entrance, Wurb bringing only his pet elephant along with him.
In a final melodramatic act on the 13th of Mumberbur, that many people since have interpreted as his own admission of defeat and abdication, Wurb sent word that the castle gates be thrown open and the royal guard be relieved from duty. Within minutes, the Royal Treasury was sacked and looted, the royal soldiers and the orcs joining together in an attempt to scavenge anything of value. The remaining peasants broke into the royal wine cellars for one last rowdy party. By the next morning (the morning of Curse Day), the imperial treasury and the entire palace was virtually bare of any richness. Even the entire metropolis of Flatheadia was vacant; every building gutted.
One Last Cursebuster (883-11-14 GUE)
On the 12th of Mumberber, 883, one last treasure-seeking, a peasant from an unheard-of village in an obscure province set forth from his home for Flatheadia to stop the Curse. This is the one who would be the first to don the title of “Dungeon Master.” By the time of the peasant’s arrival at Flatheadia, most of the treasure-seekers had given up and returned to their homelands. In fact, he discovered that most of the population, including all figures of authority, had fled to distant provinces. And when he awoke on the hard floor of the castle on Curse Day (the 14th of the month), he found that even the looters and the most persistent adventurers had departed.
Megaboz, in the guise of the royal jester, Barbazzo Fernap, chose to assist this last cursebuster. In an attempt to halt the Curse, this peasant assembled two items from each of the Twelve Flatheads, tossed them into a cauldron which still remained in the castle of Flatheadia, and uttered a scared word. The huge outer gates of Flatheadia burst open and the entire structure began to shake and tremble. While the peasant escaped, the castle and entire village were reduced to a simple white house, which still remains today.
It should also be mentioned here, that before the peasant's quest, bottomless pits were the second-leading cause of death in Flatheadia. But on that dark day, he while seeking one of the the twenty-four relics, a brass lantern, he tossed a Frobozz Magic Anti-Pit Bomb into an incredibly quantity of bottomless pits in the lowest levels of Flatheadia. As they filled up, a legion of dark and sinister grues welled up and lurked quickly into the shadows. Unhindered by the darkness, they quickly spread to every area of the Great Underground Empire and beyond. Deathly afraid of light of any kind, the grues began lurking throughout the darkness of the abandoned underground empire preying mercilessly upon any adventurer foolish enough to explore their realms without a source of light at hand.
FLATHEADIA CASTLE
Here an attempt shall be made to describe some small portions of the 8,600 bloit castle at Flatheadia, and what went into its making. As the only source of the Castle's layout dates to Curse Day 883 (and but a sliver of information on 789), it is not certain if all the following regions were constructed before the castle’s 771 occupation, but they were certainly all finished before the king’s death.
Great Hall:
This was the huge central chamber of Dimwit's castle. The ceiling was lowered at some point in the past, which helped reduce the frequency of storm clouds forming in the upper regions of the hall. A wide balcony, itself large than most castles, overlooked the Great Hall. Banners and pennants were draped from the railing into the hall below, whcih could be reached via the wide stair.
Audience Chamber
This was a tremendous meeting room where thousands of visitors would queue up every day for an audience with Dimwit or one of his successors. Such visitors were usually wasting their time; Dimwit rarely had the patience to see even one person a day. A plush red carpet led from the main doorway on the north wall to the golden throne, fringed with red tassels, which towered above the floor.
Throne Room
This was a smaller version of the room to the north, meaning that a person could walk all the way across it without stopping to rest. The throne, though smaller and more comfortable looking, was just as gaudy. It was in this chamber that Dimwit would meet with his "advisors," raising taxes and plotting grandiose schemes. A secret passage could be opened if one sat upon the throne and snapped their fingers.
Formal Garden
Dimwit designed this garden to match a fairy tale he enjoyed as a child, and subsequent kings added their own touches, creating a hugely confusing maze of flowers and shrubbery and statuary and trees and fountains and pools and bridges and gazebos. The garden was seemingly endless.
Banquet Hall / Scullery / Kitchen
Many royal feasts were held in this hall, which could easily hold ten thousand guests. Legends say that Dimwit's more excessive banquets would require the combined farm outputs of three provinces. The nearby Scullery was where the castle's pots and pans, the output of the forges of Borphee for three years, were cleaned and stored. Although the Kitchen was the largest cooking area in the Empire, it must have still been crowded when all 600 of Dimwit's chefs were working at the same time.
Courtyard
This open area was paved with marble and surrounded by imposing stone walls. Dimwit would occasionally order carnivals to be set up in this court, on totally cloudless days .
Library
This chamber once contained copies of every book ever written.
Chapel
None of the Flatheads were particularly religious, but that did not stop Dimwit from building the biggest chapel in all of Quendor.
Solar
This was the king's solar, where he would bathe and dress and meet his most trusted advisors and intimate guests. Dim light entered through narrow, slitted windows. Following the king's death, the solar laid unused for many decades.
Dimwit's Room
The canopied bed of the private bedroom of Lord Dimwit Flathead was alone is larger than most farms. Attached to it was a small magic clothes closet (small by the standards of the castle; in a pinch it could probably have slept a few regiments).
Bastion / Parapet
A tall tower rose from a corner of the keep. The slitted windows were wide in the bastion, presumably to accommodate the weaponry of the period. The roof of the tower was a virtual museum of state-of-the-art castle defense from the eighth century. This fortified parapet, resting on stone corbels, rimmed the roof. Machicolations, holes between the corbels, allowed massive weights to be dropped on invaders below. (More often, they were dropped rather painfully on the soldier's own toe.) Crenellations were spaced around the parapet, providing openings for armaments and offering a commanding view of the castle grounds: the main castle just below, and beyond the moat, the castle's village and garrison.
Lower Levels
Dimwit loved zoos, because he loved imprisonment of any kind -- if the dungeons were full of prisoners he could at least get some joy from throwing a couple of minxes behind bars. This underground zoo in the lower levels of the castle, with 69,105 cages, was easily the largest in Quendor. Following Dimwit's death, the large hall and other areas in the lower levels were not maintained and gathered much dust and debris.
Lowest Hall
Few even ventured down into the lowest halls of Flatheadia since the Curse of Megaboz was laid upon the castle in 789. There was a vault here were Dimwit stored his trifles.
Underground Ecosystems
Dimwit's mania for including every conceivable ecosystem under his roof included the excavation and construction of the Great Underground Mountain, Savannah, Woods, Lake, and Desert, all beneath Flatheadia. The formation of the Desert clearly demonstrates Dimwit’s lack of perspective, as his originally intent was for a personal sandbox. The inspiring view of the Mountain made it easy to see why the king climbed it with such frequency, although some quibblers insisted that it was hardly “mountain climbing” to be carried up in a plush sedan chair, but those quibblers all were tortured to death.
Dungeon
The Flatheadia dungeon (also known as the Asylum) contained no less than 10,000 occupants at its peak. Within were state-of-the-art torture devices, including the comfy chair and a large oubliette. The recesses of the deepest underground, a network of catacombs beneath the dungeon, are known as The Dark.
Crypt
The remains of generations of royalty laid arranged on slabs through this underground tomb.
West Wing
The castle's newest wing was the west wing, reconstructed after the Wizard of Frobozz had turned it into fudge; but even afterwards the faint smell of fudge always hung in the air. For generations, the Kings of Quendor would come to the steam bath to sweat off excess pounds (which, given their excessive infatuation with chocolate truffles, was plenty often). Considering that Dimwit despises all forms of exercise, the Gymn was certainly a later addition by one of his successors. The tremendous Dirigible Hangar, completed with luxurious gondola, had a direct route to the Summer Castle at Fenshire.
Castle Exterior
The inner bailey was narrow grassy strip between the castle and the moat. A causeway, which was a peninsula of dirt and gravel, extended out into the moat from to the northwest of the castle gates. A tall barbican which towered over the tip of the causeway, guarded the castle's drawbridge. Its upper level was key to defending the outer perimeter of the castle, with its commanding view of the causeway, moat and baileys. The floor was filled with "murder holes" for dropping heavy cannonballs onto unwanted visitors who penetrated as far as the barbican's lower level. From here, a sturdy wooden drawbridge crossed the moat (the surface which roiled from the thrashing of countless ravenous beasts) to a wide meadow at the northwest edge of Flatheadia.
THE VILLAGE OF FLATHEADIA
The village of Flatheadia, which quickly became a bustling metropolis, was established in the center of what is today known as the Dark Forest. It lay outside the castle proper but still comfortably within the outer perimeter wall--a massive structure which formed the first line of defense for the castle grounds. The stone wall was said to be so towering that not even Babe Flathead could toss something over it. The huge oak gates at the northwestern corner of the city were reinforced, able to form an impassable barrier across the road. Nothing but the might of a powerful wizard was able to open the massive doors.
A rolling meadow at the northwestern corner of Flatheadia extended from the moat to the distant perimeter fortifications. Nearby the castle's army would be quartered. The garrison fell into disuse as all known lands fell under the rule of the Flatheads; the army had little to do except quell an occasional tax revolt.
The village center itself, which was to the north of the castle, was home to the Underground Revenue Service, the Postal Service, various temples (including the Church of Brogmoidism) and courts of law, and a shady park. The dominating feature of the Flatheadia landscape after 781 was the fantastically tall 400-story FrobozzCo World Headquarters Building.
THE CULTURE OF FLATHEAD
Little is known of the culture of the Flatheadians, save that the royal guard consisted of a goodly number of particularly stupid-looking people dressed in peculiar uniforms who wielded waffle-like objects. When the weapon was twisted, the enemy was instantly vaporized with the flick of a finger.
DISTANCES FROM FLATHEADIA
Shadowland - 16 bloits south along GUH-95
Royal Museum - 18 bloits south
Fublio Valley - 91 bloits south
White Cliffs Beach - 1 south, 4 east GUH-90
Flood Control Dam - 1 south, 4 east
Aragain Falls - 1 south, 5 east
Port Foozle - 1 south, 9 west
Quilbozza Beach - 1 south, 9 west