Nivorah

Nivorah, also called the Golden City, was the ancestral home of the Elmali peoples and a part of the Dara Happan empire. It was located far north of the Black Eel valley, by the Arcos river. The city now lies crushed beneath the great northwestern glacier. Both Riders and Wheels remember the Golden City as an ideal and wish to return there, though many think that is impossible.

After Orlanth the Rebel slew Yelm the Sun, the people of Nivorah had to defend themselves from the followers of rival sun claimants, including the followers of Yelmalio and Shargash, during the subsequent War of Many Suns. This started prior to, and was contiguous with, Hyalor's introduction of horse-riding to Nivorah. When Emperor Manarlavus planned to create a dome over the entire empire to shield it from the growing glacier, Hyalor and Samnal, his rival, united for the first and perhaps last time to defy him. Hyalor and his Riders left the city when it became clear that the ice would overwhelm it, while Samnal and his Wheels remained until the bitter end, fleeing only at the last minute.

Culture and Religion

Gods

Nivorah herself was a goddess, the wife of Elmal, as well as a city. Gods whose worship dates to the city of Nivorah include:

• Elmal, patron god and governor of the city, and now the chief god worshiped by most of its survivors.
• Buseryan, god of scribes and writing.
• Gamari, goddess of horses.
• Busenari, goddess of cows and fertile pastures.
• Reladivus, Elmal's son by Nivorah herself, patron god and protector of the city, now worshiped by Wheels and invoked by Riders as a tamer of rivers.
• Relandar, brother to Elmal, then god of nobles, now the Hyaloring god of learning and wisdom.
• Erissa, goddess of healing.
• Osara, then goddess of daughters, whose role in Rider society is much expanded from that.
• Yelm, the sun god and father of Elmal; the city housed a temple to his worship which was maintained even past his death, up until the city's demise.
• Oria, the Earth Mother and Yelm's consort.
• Nyalda, in Nivorah, she was a minor fertility goddess and a concubine of Yelm's.
• Samnal, Elmal's son, now worshiped by Wheels and reviled by Riders.
• Verlaro, another son of Elmal, god of common men, no longer worshiped by Riders. 
• Perondeto, god of glass and glassmaking.
• Nocheli, goddess of the red dye insect.
• Tepekos, god of bronze and redsmiths.
• Narva, goddess of beer.
• an unnamed bell goddess.

Additionally, Hyalor lived in the Golden City, but may not yet have been considered a god. 

Ancestors were revered, but not necessarily counseled, inside a great marble mausoleum. Also, there were no shamans in Nivorah.

Culture

Nivorah was a highly developed but stratified society, with nobles at the top of the societal hierarchy, and with common men situated far below them. Lower yet were the slaves, of which every noble house in the city owned at least some. Everyone that owned a horse, including most of the ancestors of both Riders and Wheels, belonged to the noble caste. Horse- and chariot-racing dates back to Nivorah, sponsored by imperial princes.

Also, Nivoran society was very patriarchal, with men alone possessing the rights and duties of warrior or leadership positions. Furthermore, men enjoyed greater social freedoms than women. For instance, men could have relations with foreign women, but women would be put to death if they were found to do the same. Women would also be banished, enslaved, or executed if they became pregnant outside of marriage. Fire cages was another punishment dating back to Nivorah, used for taboo breakers.

Clans, or some approximation thereof, existed inside Nivorah. They never split or feuded, as Buseryan priests kept ledgers of who owed what to who, and disputes were settled by imperial magistrates. The whole of the legal system was headed by the Emperor.

Of the people descending from Nivorah, the Wheels hew most closely to its traditional society, being strictly patriarchal, authoritarian, and keeping slaves.

Lore

Ride Like the Wind

In Ride Like the Wind, your clan circle can say the following of Nivorah:

• "In the Golden City we were nobles, fighting the empire's enemies from horseback. When the emperor wanted us to live under a dome, we said no."
• "We have come so far from the Golden City. Sometimes I find myself thinking that it is better as an ideal than a place to return to."
• "We could not take all our gods with us from the Golden City, but at least we had some time to prepare."
• "We wear glittering plaques on our belts in remembrance of the Golden City."
• "Our ancestors became wanderers after leaving the Golden City."
• "In Nivorah every noble house owned slaves. We gave up this practice when Hyalor and Gamari showed us the freedom of the trail." 
• "Hyalor refashioned us twice: when he saved Gamari, and when he helped us flee Nivorah."
• "Wheels portray Hyalor as a mortal who sped the Golden City's doom with radical changes."
• "The Wheels hold to more Golden City ways than we do. They subjugate their women and observe a long list of taboos."
• "In Nivorah, Buseryan's priests could read in the ledgers who owed what to who."
• "In the Golden City scribes of Buseryan Sky Watcher kept note of our debts."
• "I received an extraordinarily clear vision of Buseryan pointing to the stars, and warning me personally that the Storm God was coming to slay Emperor Yelm. We might have had to leave our scrolls and statues of Buseryan in Nivorah, but his predictions are always reliable. However, Orlanth murdered Yelm thousands of years ago. I don't think the gods have the same sense of time we do."
• "It was Stosuntak, priest of Relandar, who rode to the sky and came back with a message: we would need a home for our ancestors. In the Golden City we had not needed to ask questions of our long-gone forebears. Instead when we went to the marble mausoleum we revered their glory only."
• "In Nivorah the Emperor ran the legal system."
• "When we left the Golden City for the wildlands, we met shamans, whose spirit magic differed from ours. Some of us embraced their ways."
• "When we left the Golden City for a hostile new land, Yanade showed us how to talk to its spirits."
• "If Raven was so great we'd have had him, or her, in the Golden City."
• "Some stories have Raven appearing in Nivorah, but he did not show himself until the exodus days."
• "We did not need Raven in the Golden City, where honesty ruled."
• "Verlaro was born after we left the Golden City." This contradicts "Osara and Verlaro", but sometimes contradictory stories are both true.
• "We did not have goats in the Golden City."
• "We had to learn a new style of kiln building when we left the Golden City."
• "In the Golden City birds lived only in cages, and sang when we told them to." 
• "We had to leave our bell goddess behind when we left Nivorah. Inilla sometimes sings, though."
• "Racing goes all the way back to Nivorah, but back then it was imperial princes who sponsored it." 
• "The Busenari temple in Nivorah famously held feasts on holy days." 
• "In the Golden City, Yelm sat on his solar throne, and the sky was solid as could be."
• "In the Golden City men could dally with foreign women, but our women would be killed if they tried the same." 
• "In the Golden City we all worshiped in great central temples." 
• "Clans did not split in Nivorah."
• "The earth temple of the Golden City had a thousand stairs down into the earth." 
• "We did not feud until the exodus. Before then, imperial magistrates settled disputes between clans."
• "Fire cages were used against taboo breakers in the days of the Golden City."
• "In the Golden City, banishment would be the most lenient of punishments for pregnancy outside marriage. The woman might be enslaved, or even put to death."
• "Dara Happans attacked our ancestral city during the War of Many Suns. Forebears of the <Dara Happa Hating Clan> bore the brunt."

Lights Going Out

In Lights Going Out, the clan ring has this to say of Nivorah:

• "In the Golden City, no one knew of Chaos."
• "Chaos demigods did not dare beset Nivorah. But then the glacier drove us out. "
• "These horrors would not have dared to attack Nivorah."
• "This won’t be a fate we can ride away from, like our ancestors did from the Golden City’s doom."
• "Before the ice, before the coming of the horse, living together in Nivorah, the Golden City."
• "Our ancestors maintained Yelm’s sun temple for generations after his death. But they could not take it with them when they fled Nivorah, and it was crushed to nothing by the glacier."
• "Valind the Glacier was the god who crushed Nivorah, golden city of our Rider ancestors."
• "Inilla is one of our older gods, but not Golden City old."
• "While we have most often been led by Elmali, the ancestors remember Dostal chieftains in the generations between Nivorah and Berenstead."
• "During our migration from the Golden City, our ancestors adopted entire bands of foreign hunters."
• "When our Rider ancestors left the Golden City, they chose clan chiefs based on merit, not birth. Our Ram ancestors did the same."
• "Way back when we lived in the Golden City, we didn't have to deal with tricksters."
• "The Riders met Dostal on the road south from the Frozen City. The Orlanthi already knew him."

Other Stories

In the later ages of Glorantha, Nivorah's memory has faded to myth:

• Nivorah on the Glorantha wiki

Images

Nivorah in the background, her son Reladivus in the foreground.

Gamari and Hyalor in foreground, Nivorah in background.

Samnal in foreground, Nivorah in background.

Nivorah is swallowed by the glacier.

The elder Chanla has a vision of her people's lost home.

Hyalor leading his people out of the partly frozen Nivorah, as depicted in a Rider story tent.