Gyorvar was the capital of Gyongyos. An ancient port city and the center of Gyngosian culture, Gyorvar housed the entire family of the Ekrekek (King).
During the Derlavaian War, the soldier Istvan, who was from the eastern countryside, traveled with his friend the mage Kun to Gyorvar en route to a new posting. Istvan marveled at the crowded streets stacks of houses on top of each other. Kun, who was from Gyorvar, explained that so many people of diverse backgrounds mingled into a cosmopolitan culture, that the countryside's old feuds and generations-long disputes disappeared in the city.
When the government of Gyongyos' chief enemy Kuusamo determined that the war would have to be fought to the finish, they announced their plan to destroy Gyorvar with a magical superweapon, but wanted to give their enemies a chance to avoid this horrible fate. The Kuusamans demonstrated the weapon on a desert island, and brought prisoners of war, including Istvan and Kun, to witness it. The prisoners were released and sent to Gyorvar to warn Ekrekek Arpad and his council to surrender. However, the ruling council believed the test to be a hoax, and sent the secret police to arrest Istvan and Kun for sedition and defeatism.
The Kuusamans were left with no choice. They detonated the weapon, destroying Gyorvar. Among the countless casualties were Ekrekek Arpad and the entire royal family, and Kun, who had been released from prison after signing a statement that his report of the weapons test was in error. One of the Kuusaman mages who had powered the weapon was Pekka, a recently widowed mother who felt psychic pain from the deaths of hundreds of mothers and children in Gyorvar.
With its government and cultural center eradicated, Gyongyos had to sue for peace.
Literary comment[]
Győrvár is the name of a small city in western Hungary.
Within the Darkness series' World War II metaphor, Gyorvar takes the place of Tokyo, Japan. However, the pseudo-atomic destruction of the capital breaks the metaphor. It is as if the United States in 1945 destroyed Tokyo, with the entire Japanese Imperial Family killed in the bombing, rather than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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