Deceptively small on the surface, the Alturum Empire actually spans the entire length of the Vaces Mountains, in a labyrinth of underground tunnels and cave system. The majority of the Alturum population is thus extremely well adapted to living underground, where the sun holds little sway. Outsiders often find the Alturum Depths to be a strange and uncomfortable place, and any travellers guide will repeatedly warn you to be carefully when journeying in the depths. Even you don’t encounter any of the dangerous creatures that have adapted to the darkness, you may find yourself simply lost among the maze of tunnels dug over the many centuries since the Cataclysm.
When the Cataclysm tore across the surface of Astrael, the sudden influx of power contaminated most of the continent of Eikar. With the Capital City of Keassar torn asunder by the initial explosion, the nation was left with little influence over the remaining people, who all fled to the coasts. In the face of the rocky, difficult land along the eastern coastline, the groups of survivors who fled to the east sought more unique solutions, and when scouts and hunters started discovering immpressively large cave systems, many of them believed their salvation would come through burrowing into the very earth itself. Thus, the sporadic groups of underdwellers began to gather.
Because the eastern towns were often more recently and less heavily tied to the Keassarum Empire, many of them responded to the Cataclysm with anger and betrayal. Many believed that Keassar could and should have been able to stop it, and in the aftermath, the underdwellers clung to a powerful mistrust of others and, for a very long time, a deep mistrust of large-scale community. In the face of such fear and mistrust, meetings between the different communities typically ended in conflict, which often turned bloody, and only resulted in worsening relations between the different people with every passing year.
It wouldn't be until a mere 237 years before the end of the Second Age that the great bard Teyva Altur, having returned from a long journey through the many other regions of Eikar, decided that the underdwellers' well-developed traditions of mistrust and violence, were only harming everyone, and upon his return to his home in the deep, Teyva took up the life-long goal of healing the relations between the different deepdwellers. It was difficult, and often very dangerous work, but Teyva's dedication along with his impressive skills as an orator meant that by old age, he had succeeded in bringing an era of peace to the deep. His daughter, Arrat, followed in his path, both in their shared profession as a bard, and in his goal of peace, and due to her efforts, and eventually the efforts of her children, it was that her eldest son was eventually named the ruler of the newly-formed nation of Altur, and the legacy of the Bard-Kings of Altur was cemented when they wrote into the laws that the ruler of the great empire must first earn renown and respect as a bard.