Johannes Lander

'So they [Darhemia] want their stuff back, huh? Took them long enough...'

Last words of Johannes Lander, upon being informed of Darhemia's emergence.

Johannes Lander was a dwarven politician, explorer and businessman, notable for leading the Lander Expedition, bringing back technology that would revolutionise Tilendrel's agriculture and bring an end to the Dark Age.   Life   Born the son of a cobbler and a taxwoman in Gildmire, Lander had a reasonably comfortable childhood in Westcove. From a young age, he idolised heroes of old, including Arden Sunbringer, and wished to leave his mark on the world as they did. He managed to get into the prestigious University of Thandorth, where he studied philosophy, but suffered from great stress and turned to drinking and gambling towards the end of his studies. Barely passing, he went into politics, becoming Mayor of his hometown and eventually a member of the Royal Council.   During his time on the council, he fell in love with a colleague, Rena Pharos, whom he would later marry. Due to his honest voting and unwillingness to participate in the politicking of the rest of the Council, however, he made several enemies, one of whom leaked evidence of his drunken misdeeds in university. Kicked off the council due to the scandal, his wife quit alongside him in protest, but the loss of his opportunity to make a mark on the world for the better caused him to become overcome with regret and return to gambling to relieve stress.   Racking up an enormous debt, Lander attempted to flee the country, but on his way to Duerga met an old university friend who claimed to have heard tell of large gold reserves in the Great Eastern Desert. Having little other choice and seeing this as his last chance to leave a legacy, he and his wife formed an expedition that also included several miners and a professional explorer who Lander hired using the remains of his mother's inheritance.   The expedition left Duerga's borders on the 4th of Drethreel, 1898, and returned without the explorer, four of the miners, or Rena Lander on the 2nd of Chillstrint. They brought with them a number of strange pieces of technology, most notably a complete plough that could be operated by only two oxen rather than six. Accounts of the expedition and the group's return differ, but it is widely believed that the technology they retrieved was either stolen or scavenged from the Darhemian Empire.   Upon arriving in Goldmarsh, Lander headed straight for the patent office, but according to an urban legend was blocked by a group of debt collectors in the doorway. Hitting them over the heads with the plough he was dragging behind him, Lander marched into the office and set it down on the front desk, asking to register it as his own invention.   Despite his outstanding debts, the patent allowed Lander to take out large loans from major Gildmirian banks, purchasing several semi-magical production facilities in Forge's Eye and putting the new technology to use. The profits quickly exceeded his debts, and he became the owner of Lander Implements, experimenting with the other retrieved technology and financing further expeditions into the Great Eastern Desert.   Lander himself spent most of the rest of his life in seclusion, and visitors would often report him having flashbacks or hallucinations and muttering strange worried-sounding sentences under his breath. His worries would come to fruition close to the end of his life, when the Darhemian Empire first made contact with Western Tilen. Reportedly, after receiving the news, Lander's last words were 'So they want their stuff back, huh? Took them long enough...' before he suffered a fatal stroke.   Legacy   The technology recovered during the Lander Expedition is widely credited with bringing an end to the Dark Age after the First Arcane War, and is now in widespread use throughout Tilen. Lander Implements remains one of the most influential corporations in Everflame and Gildmire, though it has moved away from Darhemian technology to more conventional items. While a small group initially blamed him for the Darhemian War, the atrocities witnessed within the nation's borders caused this criticism to mostly dissipate in the following years. In the end, Johannes Lander achieved what he wanted, though it seems not to have brought him peace.