GALEPATH

Galepath was one of the ancient cities united by Entharion the Wise to form the Kingdom of Quendor. To the south, Largoneth Castle divides Galepath from Mareilon. In all of Zork the beauty and splendor of the ancient city of Galepath is unrivaled. The perfectly paved streets are lined with majestic, soaring buildings that rise ever-upward, climaxing in glittering spires that seem to reach out and touch the sky--the spires and noble domes, its graceful bell tower, and peaceful library.

The teeming streets and markets of Galepath, are crowded with people in their colorful clothes, countless street games, an abundance of noise and laughter, and the energy of a busy city. One of the largest districts of Galepath is the mashed potato district. Deep in the heart of the city lies an incomparable garden, preserved by magic in a wonderful springtime glow. It is said that this garden has fired the jealousy of the mighty Implementors themselves; even those deities stand in awe of the triumph of the human spirit that is Galepath.

Every citizen of that city is immensely proud of that which they are a part. Even the lowliest rope salesman of Galepath swells with elation at the sight of the city banner, or the first note played by the Mayor’s marching band. From childhood the inhabitants of the city are taught to cherish the rich history of the city. From the earliest days when Galepath was but a small village, the inhabitants had the luxury of turning to intellectual pursuits. Blessed with good weather and productive farming, it was only a matter of time before the settlers began to found institutions of higher learning. The first of these, and to this day the most famous, was Galepath University, one of the prestigious Moss-League colleges.

Wiskus-meat is the foundation of a large trade market in the Mareilon and Galepath regions, yet is shipped all over Quendor.

[Note: Bittut Avenue is a street in Galepath.]


THE MASHES POTATO WARS
After the annihilation of Pheebor in 396 BE, an expedition by the Borpheans made an incredible discovery that would permanently change both the economic and culinary structure of the Westlands. The head of the expedition, a courageous, stoic and highly admired noble named Sir Thaddeus Galepath, described their finding in his journal. “Neither I, nor any of the men had believed a word of the scout’s barely coherent mutterings. But his dumbfounded elation was the field of mushy white substance. In blatant, but understandable, disregard for my orders, the men dropped their belongings and charged down the hill. I quickly gathered my senses and followed behind them. After testing the consistency of the substance with our hands, we threw caution to the wind and dove headlong into what we soon discovered to be the most delicious mashed potatoes that any of us have ever tasted.”

When news (and abundant samples) of this phenomena were sent to Borphee, the ruler of the burgeoning empire, a man named Mareilon, ordered that a village be established immediately to harvest the mashed potatoes and send regular shipments back to Borphee in lieu of any monetary taxation, and that village be named in his honor. Upon receiving these orders, Sir Galepath realized that there must be some kind of miscommunication, as he had already built an encampment which his men had fondly named, Galepath. It was also his understanding that Galepath would be a separate city, free from any kind of taxation and interacting with the other cities by way of equally balanced trade of goods. The dialogue between the two men quickly turned ugly and became steadily worse as it approached what seemed to be an inevitable war.

Fearing a repeat of the Pheebor massacre, Galepath’s advisors convinced him to invite Mareilon to a summit, where they would put their egos aside and work out their problems. Needless to say, this did not work. But surprisingly, it was not a complete disaster. Mareilon returned to Borphee, absorbed by this development, and quickly assembled another expedition that would colonize the region just south of Galepath. This new city would fall directly under Mareilon’s reign, as it was overseen by him, personally.

The competition between the cities of Galepath and Mareilon escalated over the years, eventually outlasting both men’s lives. One of the first and most famous princes of Mareilon was Prince Zarbonel. Though the mashed potato fields were virtually boundless, spiteful citizens would often harvest from the other city’s fields. Despite the valiant attempt to resolve the issue early on, war eventually did break out. But by this time, the new ruler of Borphee had wisely detached himself from the feud, thereby drastically lowering the stakes.

The cities of Galepath and Mareilon fought for centuries. And as they did so, both sides slowly lost touch with why they were fighting to begin with. They were driven by self-perpetuating and meaningless anger that only seemed to grow stronger after losing its foundation. The cities grew in equal proportion to their citizens’ disdain of the enemy, until both lands surpassed even Borphee in size, although the two were mirror opposites. Galepath would grow to become icon of intellectual pursuit of the entire world for millennia to come, while Mareilon would be dragged down into decay with the infestation of rabid gangs and corrupt politics.


PRELUDE TO QUENDOR
Although the history of the northern regions before the formation of Quendor is dominated by the rise and fall of competing city-states, these small powers were by no means the only participants in pre-Quendoran political life in the Westlands. In fact, several historical sources that detail the formation of the Kingdom of Quendor make no mention of the city-states whatsoever, describing the lands that now make up ancient Frobozz as wild and untamed wasteland, populated by all sorts of warring tribes and uncivilized nomads. Undoubtedly, the area stretching from the northern strip of the Mithican Mountains in the west to the Lonely Mountain and the coast in the east was still on the whole largely barbarized and highly dangerous. In fact, it is likely that the various warring tribes that inhabited the forests near Galepath and the hillsides near Mareilon account in a large part for those two cities’ respective inabilities to form a larger and more stable union or nation of some kind before the coming of Entharion.

In any case, it is nearly certain that in his history-making campaign against Galepath and Mareilon, Entharion himself encountered incessant delays along the way. Forced to fight his way through foreign and largely unexplored territory in his attempt to reach the coast, by the time he had reached his goal, the would-be monarch had defeated and pacified the various nomadic and tribal groups that had attempted to stand in his way. Although the twin pillars of his new kingdom would be the conquered coastal cities, it was these barbaric tribes that would form the bulk of the countryside population of Quendor at its birth.


WAR BETWEEN GALEPATH AND MAREILON
Over the centuries, several historians from both Galepath and Mareilon have tried to claim Entharion, later surnamed the Wise as one of their own. If we believe Froblivius, nothing could be farther from the case. By the time war had broken out between Galepath and Mareilon for the last time, Entharion had risen to the position of bozbian praefect, the chief military commander of the city of Quendor. The early details of his life are still obscure, but it does seem that he was a native-born Quendoran.

In any case, by 3 BE, Galepath and Mareilon were again at war. The prince of Quendor hurried to make his traditional and tired declaration of absolute neutrality. By all reports, Entharion, who was too young to remember any of the previous conflicts, failed to understand why all of his compatriots seemed so bored by the entire affair. It seems clear from the king's later writings that he felt something important to be in the making. He did in fact spend several weeks trying to convince the prince to let him march; it did not seem to matter to him which side he was going to fight for, so much as it did that he actually got a chance to fight. By the end of the summer season, both of the warring parties had sent desperate messages to the prince of Quendor begging for military assistance. With the vague intention of solving the chaotic situation, Entharion's armies had begun to march. Although the founder of the Quendoran nation would insist until his dying day that he marched only on orders from his prince, no such orders have ever been found, and the prince's later actions do not support Entharion's claims.

Within a matter of weeks, Entharion's forces had made the relatively short march to the coastal areas in contention and had come in sight of the two warring camps. The scene as told by Froblivius is a chaotic one indeed. The forces of Galepath and Mareilon, upon seeing the approach of the new arrivals, both withdrew and regrouped their forces, expecting the Quendorans to join their camp and help in the fight against the other. Soon it became clear that neither was the case; Entharion ordered the bugle to sound, and his forces descended with an amazing fury upon the unsuspecting coastal armies, hacking them to bits. The battle lasted barely three hours, and the results were devastating. When the dust had settled, the princes of Galepath and Mareilon, both of whom had been at hand, were laying their arms at the feet of the victorious Entharion, acclaiming his sovereignty. At first, it seems, Entharion had no intention of violating his oath to the Quendoran prince. In a brief letter sent back to Quendor, he informed his overlord that peace had been found, and that both cities were prepared to recognize the suzerainty of Quendor.

Concerned that the situation on the coast might sink back into anarchy, Entharion stayed encamped near the Lonely Mountain, determined to keep an eye on the two defeated powers. For months and months the prince of Quendor stalled, reluctant to reply to his powerful praefect. Perhaps he feared that Entharion had become too powerful, and preferred to see him as far away from the center of power as possible. Whatever the truth may be, it was a full six months before Entharion received a reply: “I don't want those cities. Put them back where they belong. And don’t come home.” Annoyed at the tone of the message, and more than a little resistant to the idea of forsaking his easy conquests, Entharion decided to take matters into his own hands. Entharion’s personal writings, although potentially very helpful, are in truth highly obscure. In fact, this one passage below degenerates from being unclear to downright unintelligible:
 

The true dilemma at this point lay in finding a simple way to unify the two bodies. Choosing the half-way point a stronghold, true wisdom. General wrath brings unrest I destroy. Be four kings tyrannized thee peoples it not for bar bar bar.

Nonetheless, Entharion abandoned his position in the Quendoran army receding into temporary isolation within what is today known as Egreth Forest. With his absence, the royal Quendoran army was recalled from the Lonely Mountain, thus relinquishing control over the two conquered city-states. Within a day of this repositioning of troops, Galepath and Mareilon, now bereaved of their watchmen, were once again drawing swords at one another.


DAWN OF THE ENTHARION DYNASTY
When the year 0 GUE finally came around, the people of Zork felt fairly confident that something big was about to happen. This assumption would turn out to be true, for during these days, Entharion emerged from Egreth Forest and built himself a tiny hut on the beach between Galepath and Mareilon.

Stunned by the presence of their new neighbor, soldiers from both sides approached the hut. Unaware that this was the man whom their princes had only three years ago surrendered to, they took turns interrogating Entharion. The Galepathians would poke his left shoulder with their spears and ask him where he came from, then before he could answer, the Mareilonians would poke his right shoulder and demand to know who had sent him. This went on for some time, until Entharion, instead of answering any of the questions, inquired about the apparent hostility between the two groups of soldiers. One of the dozen or so men crammed inside the tiny hut explained that they had been in at war for hundreds of years, noting, however, that it was none of his business and that he better get to answering their questions right away. Disobeying this order, Entharion again asked a question. “Why fight?”

From that day forth, the modest, unassuming man who emerged from the woods was known as Entharion the Wise. With a perfectly naïve question, Entharion united the warring kingdoms of Galepath and Mareilon and was exalted as the first king of the Entharion Dynasty. It was a glorious time. The new kingdom was named Quendor after Entharion’s city of origin, and his castle was erected between the cities he had united, on the former site of his hut. This region was named Largoneth. It was from this castle that he ruled for the entirety of his reign, and it would serve the as the capital of the kingdom for the duration of the Dynasty.


ONE LAST REBELLION
Although the citizens of Galepath and Mareilon had declared themselves one, the Prince Argonel, “rightful ruler of Mareilon,” did not so easily bow to the whims of Entharion’s sovereignty. In public he wore a façade of comradeship and loyalty, but in his heart he despised the forced union. While most of the population of Mareilon, who had grown tired of the conflict, were in no position to rise up against Largoneth and Galepath, Argonel was able to rally enough soldiers to his cause, that when his treason was discovered, Entharion was not hesitant to quell the insurrection.

In the last days of Mareilon’s glorious independence, Mazimar Spildo of Galepath took up arms with Entharion against the city and overthrew the last remnants of its might. The king condemned Prince Argonel to die by the executioner’s axe, but in an attempt (a pathetic attempt as Argonel’s descendants would later recount), he allowed the prince’s wife and son to go free. Most of Mareilon believed that the unity with Galepath and Largoneth had brought internal peace, protection from foreigners, even a great deal of new economic prosperity, while others believed it to be a charade. They saw that the wars against Galepath never ended, that Entharion only tricked everyone into believing they did by lulling them into a false sense of peace. Instead of a prince, a mayor was instituted as the head official, one over Mareilon and one over Galepath. Diplomats from both of these cities played a crucial role in the formation of Quendor.


THE SEVEN AND A HALF PROVINCES
Although the names of the original provinces have been lost, several pre-Flathead maps have survived that show the original provincial boundaries. For the sake of convenience, each of those provinces were referred by the names of their chief cities, with one exception: Galepath, Mareilon, Quendor, Znurg, Vriminax, Bozbar and Borphee. The province surrounding the capital at Largoneth was referred to as Frobozz, although no record of a city by the same name has survived to the present day. The half province was Borphee. This “half province” set aside, the rule of Entharion the Wise brought a semblance of peace to a war-torn land and began a dynasty that reigned over the Kingdom of Quendor and its seven and a half provinces for almost seven hundred years, spanning the majestic reigns of fourteen benevolent monarchs.

Now that the concerns that accompany constant warfare had been abolished, people in all the cities of Quendor were able to concentrate on more academic subjects. There was a sudden curiosity about the nature of the world. The study and practice of magic was very crude in those distant days, not the rigorous scientific endeavor it had become by the eighth century. But, the literary works that were produced during this period marked the very beginnings of what later became known as Thaumaturgy; the experimental study of applied magic.


THE REBELLION OF ZARFIL
In the peculiar form of democracy that had developed in Galepath before the creation of Quendor, time after time, generation after generation, one Spildo held the office of mayor for several long, prosperous terms, and then quite unexpectedly announce his decision to decline re-election. At that moment, quite conveniently, that Spildo’s most favored son would step forward and announce his candidacy. Thus for almost six hundred years there had been an unbroken string of uncontested elections as the city government became more and more hereditary. Umberthar Spildo was the last Spildo in office.

Prince Zarfil, a descendant of Argonel, poised the citizens of Mareilon to usurp the throne of its current mayor and to march against the armies of Galepath. Mayor Umberthar Spildo of Galepath, using any excuse possible to declare war on Mareilon, accused Zarfil, without any evidence what-so-ever of selling the Galepath University's Sacred Scrolls of Fizbin. Thus he marched out. The armies of Mareilon and Galepath met for battle on the Jerrimore plains, where both forces were unexpectedly consumed by Kovalli natives. In the aftermath, the citizens of Galepath  slowly went about the business of rebuilding their lives. The city had a contested mayoral election for the first time in generations.


THE ZUCCHINI WARS
In 464, the zucchini blights led Quendor to increase shipments of zucchini to the provinces of Bozbar and Vriminax  at the expense of the coastal regions. By 465 Mareilon marched against Frobozz to force the freeing of the zucchini route through Znurg to the coast. Harmonious Fzort ordered the Galepath militia to provide reinforcements, but Galepath refused to respond. Unbeknown to Harmonious, the entire city of Galepath was infested by a rebellion of yipples much larger and more powerful than those described in the Sorcerer packaging.

Dundor lead the armies of Vriminax against Galepath in one of the great and early battles of the Empire. Faced with heavy fortifications, Dundor of Vriminax ordered his cavalry to advance up the far side of the river. Although the river was too dangerous to ford, Dundor built a bridge under darkness. The yipples were taken completely by surprise as the cavalry was no longer held back by the torrential waters. Thus Dundor bravely crushed the yipples, quashing the rebellion.

By 474 GUE, the entire countryside was in a state of exhaustion and collapse. The population losses inflicted by the ongoing famine must have been devastating indeed, particularly to massive coastal cities like Galepath that were completely dependent on exports to feed their population.


NEW PROVINICAL STRUCTURE
Quendor at the time of Zilbo III's removal from power was relatively small, encompassing seven-and-a-half provinces divided along rather arbitrary and outdated boundary lines dating from the time of Entharion the Wise. These were Galepath, Mareilon, Quendor, Znurg, Vriminax, Bozbar, Frobozz, and Borphee (which had remained divided since the formation of the kingdom, ignored as too difficult to be worth the trouble). In those days, the major products of this agrarian land were rope and mosquito netting. In the year 660 GUE, Pseudo-Duncanthrax raised a tremendous army to wage a systematic conquest of the neighboring kingdoms. This vile ruler moved swiftly and brutally against the southern half of Borphee and put an end to the tottering and defenseless dynasty of Mauldwood. Finally accomplishing the merger of the two halves, Pseudo-Duncanthrax called the resulting territory Greater Borphee Province. This move began a trend; one by one, the neighboring principalities of Miznia, Gurth, and Mithicus were brought under Quendoran sway and given new provincial administrations. Orexia, on the extreme southern border of Miznia was not brought into Quendor, Pseudo-Duncanthrax himself being too unwilling to combat the diseases and dangers of the Miznian jungles and swamps in order to reach Orexia itself. Thus within three years, Pseudo-Duncanthrax ruled an empire that controlled virtually all the land between the Great Sea and the Kovalli Desert.

With the completion of the conquest of the Westlands, Duncanthrax was faced with the peculiar problem of absorbing lands several times the size of his original kingdom. Clearly it made little sense to turn each conquered land into an individual province, since any one of the new territories would be much larger than most of the original provinces combined. At this point, realizing that the original seven provinces were now too small to be effective in the new system, one of his many administrative reforms was merging them all into the Province of Frobozz, thus bringing to completion the creation of the provincial system as we know it: Frobozz, Greater Borphee, Miznia, Gurth, and Mithicus.

AFTER CURSE DAY
Following the disaster of Curse Day 883, entropy quickly took hold of the surface world. Lands were torn by violence and discord. Faced with the fact that Quendor was well past its prime, the once-great cities on both continents became dens of misery and confusion; lands were torn by violence and discord. The great island-continent of Antharia had been separated from all contact with the outside world. With the final collapse of the Quendoran state in the older provinces of the Westlands, the initial political evolution of the area was characterized by a surprising rebirth of the ancient city-states. Dating back over nine centuries from the ancient era before Entharion, the cities of Quendor, Galepath, Mareilon and Borphee all re-emerged as independent powers. Although Quendor would long remain a neutral power, and Borphee itself would soon be reabsorbed by the Quendoran Empire's successor state, Syovar’s Kingdom of Zork, Mareilon and Galepath were to enjoy several generations of independent power.

The old families of nobility that had long controlled Vriminax wasted no time in solidifying an alliance with Quendor, its nearest neighbor and the most ancient of the northern cities. By 884, the combined militias of the two cities had occupied the western half of the former Frobozz Province, under the notion that taking the territory would provide a solid defensive zone between themselves and the already growing tensions of Galepath and Mareilon. Borphee, in close communication with Accardi, and more concerned with its mercantile interests in Miznia and Gurth to the south, discarded the bulk of the ruined empire to the north, creating an immense territorial vacuum between Borphee and Mareilon.

The governor of Galepath secured the allegiance of the Lingolf Garrison and gained control over the Lonely Mountain and its nearby villages, coastal routes and highway approaches, thus bringing his territory almost to the border of the old Mareilon Province. Clearly upset that his rival had seized the initiative, and hoping to gain control over the historically important Largoneth site, the governor at Mareilon declared war on Galepath, thus at the fall of the empire reigniting the very conflict that had necessitated Quendor's creation some 900 years before.

In a manner characteristic of the age-old mutual antagonism of these two cities, barely five years had passed since the fall of Wurb Flathead before Galepath and Mareilon were back at war in 888 GUE. The various regional governors left over from the old imperial regime were to emerge as the founders of hereditary dynasties that would rule the two cities and the areas roughly corresponding to their old provincial boundaries for the next seventy years.

Suffering from the famine and confusion that had sunk over the Westlands since the decay of the empire, neither city could summon the resources necessary to defeat the other, and the war dragged on, punctuated by various short-lived truces. The more westerly powers, Vriminax and Quendor, were in no position to help either of the two opposing powers, both being more involved in protecting themselves against the incursions made by Kaldorn and Kovalli respectively. It was not until after the Westlands began to recognize the ascendancy of Syovar that the bitter war between Galepath and Mareilon was finally brought to a halt, the contested territory being taken from both sides by a newly-invigorated Kingdom of Zork.

For some ten years following Syovar's capture of the Land of Frobozz, both cities concentrated their military efforts against this new incarnation of the Great Underground Empire. It would not be until the Conference of Quendor led to a marked strengthening in Syovar's control over the world political situation would the aggression of the city-states begin to abate somewhat, at least until the Enchanters Guild strongly opposed about one-fourth of the way through the tenth century.


THE CONFERENCE OF QUENDOR
The beginning of the tenth century was an amazing decade for all known kingdoms. Syovar’s plea for a unified Kingdom of Zork was being considered by all leaders of the lands. All of the leaders of the surviving city-states, as well as representatives from Kovalli, Kaldorn and Antharia agreed to meet at the old city of Quendor in the northlands. The tremendous respect that they felt for Syovar made the conference possible. If everything went according to plan, the treaty would be signed proclaiming a union between the lands. As the conference approached, a truce between all the warring neighbors had been observed—but instead of working toward peace, the nations had merely used this time to build huge armies, poised to attack should the treaty not be signed. These included the army of Galepath, ready to amass on the Aragain border, and the armada of Mareilon, ready to block the Aragain harbors. Regardless of the attempts of the demon Jeearr, the Treaty of Quendor was signed, resulting once again in the unification of the entire area under one unified Kingdom of Zork.


GREAT MONSTER UPRISING
Despite the high regard Galepath was held in, the areas around it was filled with droves of mighty monsters, creepy crawlies, and lustrous loot during the time of the Great Monster Uprising. One of the many portals leading to the Bozbarland arena was installed during this period.