Iron Crown Recent History

Iron Crown is in decline. Several decades ago, the Yan Ki nobles were beset by their ancient nemesis, The Old Ones. The Old Ones were ancient beings that not only threatened Iron Crown, but existence itself. The Yan Ki were already on a strange trajectory, having compromised their principles and their bodies while living eons on the Astral Plane. They developed psychic powers, their skin grew yellow and pale, and their bodies became gradually twisted. These were the positive changes. 

Their morality suffered as well, and rather than fight a glorious, but hopeless battle against The Old Ones, as their ancient Celtic culture would have demanded, they instead did the unthinkable. The Yan Ki allied with a powerful devil, an ally that could stop The Old Ones. The devil queen Vlaakith became the patron of the Yan Ki and they vowed to follow her, even as far as to refer to themselves as “one of kith,” or simply,  Kith-yan-ki (githyanki).

Vlaakith, of course, wanted something in return – access to the vaults. The ancient vaults of Iron Crown possess all the most wretched, evil and powerful artifacts in the multiverse. They’ve been exiled here for safe keeping and protection from the likes of Vlaakith and her armies of fiends. At first, Vlaakith demanded the liberation of many of the artifacts, but after a series of terrible calamities, she instead keeps it as her private treasure vault, occasionally even sending adventurers into the vault to retrieve an item on her behalf. It seems it is easy to intern an item into the vault, but getting it back out was never intended.

The nobility have found servitude not exactly to their liking. They have sulked away to their estates, like the rest of the subjugated city state under its new, diabolical rule. Iron Crown remains but a specter of its former glory, its ancient and eclectic architecture crumbling while unseen menaces haunt its shadows.