Ithia

The name of the world itself, as given to it by gods. Homeland to the mortal races, it is known as the Mortal Plane and the Prime Material Plane. It is the common belief of Ithians that their history is marked by the turn of eras that begin with boons, peace or plenty and end in history driving conflicts and wars.
== History ==
Historian Ibjarm Ivari was the first to take the calendars of the world and solidify them into one. Though each realm and region's history is as varied as the last, Ivari took note of the swaying times of relative peace or plenty and then the short, but violent times of war, conflict or world altering events. Thus, he organized the history of Ithia into eras, each beginning with a time of peace and each ending with a time of great conflict that effected the world as one.
=== Creation ===
==== The Creation of Ithia ====
Legends say that the law of Time is older than everything and that this legend begins only after the first grain of sand began to fall from the hourglass...
Before the swirling miasma of the sky could be called as such, when the canvas of creation was naught but a blank fabric waiting for gods and heroes to cast their lots upon, there was the first light. It shone brilliantly, the first pinpoint of light to grace the unending darkness of the sky. Ailerion, the First Star. From him all other stars were born as he woke from the slumber and turned to survey creation, the unfurling of his cape casting the specks of light across the night. With him, all that was good came to be.
Simultaneously, as the first lights began to cast the first shadows, another was born. Ailerion's sister, Raneiss, the Unending Shadow, whose shadow bleeds out from around her to merge with all other shadows. A twisting form, she stepped out of the darkness, her mantle of dark wings settling around her shoulders, and with her, evil began to seep into the world.
And then lastly, from the swirling borders of their powers came a third sibling. A shambling, simple creature, Battask paid little mind to her older siblings as she came into being and brought chaos with her, turning her back to them and amusing herself in the playground of her brother's stars and sister's night. Tales say that Battask is driven mad by knowledge of all that will come to be, but that is a story for another fireside.
As Raneiss approached her brother, her and Ailerion spoke there upon the emptiness of creation. Though opposites, they agreed there that a canvas must be painted upon. So Ailerion brought forth a handful of stars and breathed greater purpose into them, casting them above him, he forged the sun and sang daylight into being. Raneiss took the train of her gown and shook it, gathering up the glittering motes of dust that captured the light of the sun and bound them together with her power, creating the moons Ilene and Y'tiel. Then the two together forged Ithia, a world as blank as the emptiness around them, but full of potential.
It was then that the siblings quarreled, disagreeing about what purpose to give the world before them. The battle grew feverish as Raneiss vehemently disagreed with Ailerion's plans and he with hers. Raneiss struck out at her brother. Eight drops of Ailerion's blood fell from the wound and each of the eight fell to the Prime Material and muddled with the sweat dripping from Raneiss' brow as she struck again and as the two took up arms against one another in unending battle.
Above, as sky filled with the quarrels of their mother and father, from the mingled blood and sweat of the two warring gods came the Divines. Eight beings as varied as the domains they represent, they looked upon the blank canvas of Ithia and saw their parents work left unfinished.
The first landed with such force he sent fissures and cracks and tremors and canyons through the earth. Rising up silently from his birth, Thane spoke his first words to the sky above him, questioning the purpose of his parents and what they might wish to come. His voice crackled, a gravely baritone that made the earth quake under him. Unanswered, he turned his attention back to Ithia and began shaping the mountains and valleys of the world. Burdened with coming before all the others, Thane took it upon himself to gain knowledge of all things to come after him, so that it might be chronicled.
Secondly came Nairen. Though his brother assured him that he had questioned their parents, Nairen attempted to quell their rages. Driven back by Ailerion's and Raneiss's power, Nairen's words fell on deaf ears and his plaintive tears filled the oceans and rivers and lakes of the world. He ran his fingers through the oceans, giving them ebb and flow and took to the sea to govern the tides and the waters of the world.
Perhaps wiser than her older siblings, Iyanith did not cast her attention to the ceaseless war above her and instead gathered up the world before her and breathed outwards in a pleased sigh at the heady scent of the churned soil. From the tempo of her breathing, the first seeds burst into being, trees sprouting up and towering high, grass swirling up and covering the land. Then she did look above her, if only to gather fraying tendrils of Ailerion's warmth to fashion summer and a ghost of her mother's chill to create winter, making between them the intermingled seasons of spring and autumn.
Fourth born was Jahel. Looking about her as her siblings each brought vibrancy into the world, she saw each had forgotten to curb in their powers and ensure that they might coexist. So Jahel spun up the weather to erode the mountains when they might grow too tall, to channel the storms of the the Ocean Born so they might bring needed water to green-life and, when necessary, so that the storms might rage hard enough to cull weak life and allow the strong growth to flourish.
Twins with more in common with their parents than they might know, Noir and Lynneth walked the thriving world of their four older siblings. Each vied with the other, jealous of their twin's powers but, begrudgingly, they worked their purpose. Noir cast his gaze across the mountains, valleys and oceans. At his behest, animals and the races of the world came into being... and at Lynneth's behest, they perished when their time was proper. With them, life and death came to be.
The next to last, Adenah, rose before her elders and smiled at them in a curious way as she turned to gift the races with love, fire and creativity. Where others before her had saw fit to create life, she saw fit to enrich it and she cupped each and every race against her bosom as she blessed them all in their own way, giving them culture and trade and crafts.
And then, at last, the youngest of the Divines was born. Far away from his kin, with no others about him and with only the finished product of his siblings' efforts in view and the sight of his parents at war, Flear made his way into creation with all the grace of a bewildered child throwing a tantrum. Reaching out, he scattered the living races as if playthings, bringing them together in the great clash of chaos and bringing trickery and war into the minds of mortals.
It was Flear's gleeful cries that brought his seven siblings to him and they gathered him up and took their leave from the mortal plane, finding that their influence and conflicts caused battles within the mortals. Whole empires toppled at their whims, as their fancies changed and their arguments grew impassioned. Fearing that they might become locked in a ceaseless battle like that of their parents, they ascended above Ithia and vowed to never walk the Prime Material. They fashioned Nebuliese, the Clouded Realm, a plane of starlight for them to dwell within and the border between their parent's war and the wiles of the mortals below. Each took an entourage of angelic hosts, made up of reborn mortal souls that each Divinity had favored during their time alive.
They then took the role of spectators, working their quarrels out by moving the mortal pawns as if a large game below and vying for control over the sprawling realms of Ithia.
=== The Old Era ===
==== The First Kin ====
In recorded history, there is no known name for the race before all races. In the writings of the older ages, they are called by some the Before-kind, the Star Children or the Divinities' Chosen, but modern scholars collectively call them the First Kin.
Very little is known about the actual lifestyle of the First Kin themselves, despite the fact that they spread far and wide across Ithia. Living vastly long lives, they were known as great lovers of the land, if only by example of the ruins left behind by their vast settlements and the remains of the terrace gardens of their mountain claims. A forge-craft gifted to them by the gods themselves has been lost to the clutches of time, and any found relic of starglint metal is sure to bring its finder fortune.
When the Divinities took their leave of the mortal lands, the First Kin collected the last sparks of their power and fashioned for their leader a crown of eight gems. Brought together in such fashion, this crown gifted the First Kin's leader, Mirana, with magical powers beyond that of the other races and gave her knowledge the power of the arcane. Mirana and the First Kin had prospered for thousands of years. Mirana then bore eight children and each child then gathered to him or her those which bore like minds and set off to build their own lands at their mother's behest.
Thusly, the First Kin were divided and so did they begin to change, each becoming one of the First Races.
* Miren of the Light, who was loved by Noir, gathered those which were the wisest and brightest and they became the elves.
* Rourin the True-hearted, who Adenah loved, gathered those which were cunning and who bore their love openly and they became the catfolk.
* Zira of Tooth and Nail, whom Nairen blessed, gathered those who favored the ocean, their skin grew tough and they became the lizardfolk.
* Fenne of the Green Mantle, whom was loved by Iyanith, gathered all those that loved the green things of the earth and became the halfling folk.
* Uthar the Strong-armed, who favored Thane's mountains, dug into the earth with those who gathered to him and they became the dwarves.
* Sikaih the Spear, who listened to Flear's words on the winds, gathered with those with battle in their hearts and they became the hyrians.
* Shirana the Wanderer, whom revered Jahel and was loved by her, gathered those who fringed between the others and they became the orcs.
* Amariel the Last Daughter gathered all the rest and Lynneth named what they became mankind.
Lastly where those that shied away from the light of Mirana's crown and her arcane power. They wandered into the wilds of the world, becoming all the other creatures and kinds of Ithia. They were known as the Grey Races and were those which were forwent the gift of arcane magic.
Mirana smiled to see her children so blessed, but her heart broke of loneliness. Where her children had become each a different kind being, she herself remained the last of the First Kin. Long centuries passed as she grew further and further apart from the races what had stemmed from the First Kin. Her children and grandchildren perished before her, long since adopting the qualities of the races they helped birth. The passing of her first and longest lived child, Miren, finally shattered her heart and she could bear no longer being so far removed from the peoples of the world.
So came the day that she declared herself queen no more. Taking the crown from her head, she hid it away and perished to the ages, her resting place a mystery to even the children of her children's children.
==== The Immortals ====
Those of the First Kin that turned away from Mirana's brilliance wandered into the wilds of the world and began to change to its whims and wiles. Though they lacked the arcane might of Mirana's progeny and the First Races, they found a particular connection to the power found in the world itself. From them arose all the other races of Ithia, known as the Grey Races, who walked away from Mirana's light into the shadow.
Among them rose powerful members, the first of their kind. Not unlike how Mirana's children had attracted to them what would become a First Race each, each of these beings chose a form which they preferred and, as they did so, others followed after them until the world was full and populated with thriving creatures and peoples, either First or Grey.
But, as long seasons and years passed and the Mirana's long-lived children passed away and the First Kin queen herself vanished into the unknown, these first of the Grey Races did not perish. By some divine blessing, they persisted on, growing more and more powerful as those of their numbers grew. Their time seemed unending and they became known as such, the Immortals.
==== The Old War ====
In the long years after Mirana's flight, the Immortals grew strong and some vied against the kingdoms and empires that arose from the races born from Mirana's children. God-like beings of seemingly unlimited divine energies, some grew envious and craved beyond what their existence allowed them. Some desired the arcane power that they had forsaken long eons past. And so, at the result of some inconsequential slight forgotten by history, war broke out across Ithia.
On one side raged the armies of those Immortals that craved what they had forgone. Among them were Nalcer, from whom all dragons that did evil had come, Chardgar, the ever-burning king of the salamander-kind, and a great many more who lifted arms behind the two kings to move forth against the First Races.
Against them stood a unified force of elves, humans and dwarves. The elven queen Mireny Tellearion stood fearlessly before the raging forces before her fledgling lands and that of her great-grandmother's siblings. At her side stood Gabrir Dalrimar, whose forefathers had been born to Uthar the Strong-armed and who lead the dwarves, and a young human, Derron Mitharien, a mage who was no descendant of Amariel the Last Daughter, but who had rallied the humans together and who commanded arcane power unlike the world had seen and his companion, Seserat’nlor, the mother dragon of good dragonkind who opposed her sibling Nalcer.
Those that fought saw no quarter as the armies clashed against one another, and those what had been caught in between found themselves as likely a target to the combined forces of the Immortals. Gabrir, though he took no small amount of foes with him, perished in the fighting. His battle with Chardgar would write its history upon the land. The great scars in the Angaran mountains remain to this day. His falling was met with a unified wail as the dwarven people mourned their loss.
The world shook for the fury of Nalcer as he struck down foe after foe until such time that he stood undaunted before Derron Mitharien. There was a poignant pause as Nalcer stared down at his foe before they broke into combat that shattered the land. Each blow they traded sent a ripping force through the world. Legends tell of long days and nights they fought and that as the moons rose higher on the last night, Derron's fortune grew dire. In a moment of fortune, Nalcer dealt Derron a fatal blow and stood over his form, triumphant.
Derron looked to the sky, his gaze clouded with the look of one soon to pass, and he saw the war of the Great Gods painted on the stars. Pained to believe this was the fate of the world, a swirling storm of unending conflict, he drew every remaining ounce of his power together. In a final spell that took the last of his life with it, he unleashed his fury on Nalcer.
Derron's last strike proved a boon. The magic struck Nalcer down mightily. But, as any Immortal, he survived, his form weak and pale on the ground. The resounding cacophony of Derron's magic drew the gaze of Mireny Tellearion and Seserat’nlor. The dragonness cried a plaintive note to the heavens at the sight of her ally and friend dead upon the ground and she flew at her sibling, enraged. They locked in battle and by the combined strengths of Seserat’nlor and Mireny, they bound Nalcer and his power.
So then did the armies of the Immortals grow quiet...
Though the battles had quelled, the Divinities had watched and had seen the combat. Moved as one by Seserat’nlor mourning for her friend, Derron, they saw fit to enact one more working. As siblings, they dipped their hands down, scooping up the Immortals and forbidding them from the Prime Material forever more. Though robbed of their homelands, the Immortals found themselves scattered across the Outer Planes one by one, but for Nalcer. The Divinities took his chains and bound him tighter, imprisoning him for all time.
Then the Divinities looked to the Immortals and sealed any fate that they might ever possess the arcane gift they had forsaken.
Seeing once more that something needs be done concerning the state of the world they had made, the Divinities wished together as one and healed the land. Where scars had ripped across the world in the combat, new growth thrived. Where famine had struck from long years of combat, plenty burst forth.
So it was that Ithia began to heal.
=== The Era of Unending Bounty ===
==== The Rise of Powers (Year 0 - Year 177) ====
The horrors of the Old War left the lands a scattered mess, peoples and races reft from their kind across the world. Despite the loss, the scattered remains of the First Races and the Grey kind alike, though worn from battle, found a land waiting to embrace them.
Gathering together those of her elven people she could find, Mireny Tellearion took them north into the soft lands of the Cradle of Light. Though weary from the conflict and loss of the Old War, Mireny Tellearion founded the Mireny Imperium and built with the scattered remains of the elves the nation's capital, Alerios, with it forging a devout following of the prime god Ailerion.
The first of proper nations to arise from the ashes of battle and what would become the oldest and most enduring of powers.
In the Austral Lands would arise the human kingdom of Phya. They would settle upon the bounty of the Yari River, which cut through the Shining Desert like a knife and provided succor and safe haven for all whom would attempt to make a bounty out of the land to be found there.
The dwarves of the Angaran Forge retreated to their mountains, bitter and disinterested in the affairs of their neighbors and fellows, but they persisted, a constant sentinel in the northern mountains.
Finally, remained Lalani. The Immortal of the Fey, when given the choice between exile or remaining in the mortal realm to eventually perish, she chose the latter, wishing only to spread her song and joy throughout the realm. She eventually came to settle in the forests of the North where she had been born, long before the Old War, and around her teachings and steady hand arose the Glaudris Circledom.
Though a number of powers and kingdoms rose and fell in the ages to come, none serve more as keystones to their regions than those named.
==== Age of Wealth and Plenty (Year 178 - Year 2,019) ====
The blessings of the Divinities after the Old War brought great boon to the realm. Forests grew green and thick in unnaturally fast time. Soil grew rich and black, crops and harvests were unusually plentiful. Storms were gentle and winds favorable. When there was need for stone to quarry, stonemasons would find material of the highest quality within a nation's growing and ever expanding borders. When soil was turned to till it for a farming, it would be fertile. For two thousand years, the bespelled nature of the realm blessed the mortals that inhabited it.
And every decade that passed, as the Ithians grew surer and surer that this plenty would cease, it did not.
Nations arose from the plenty. The claims of the Mireny Imperium spread and it sent ships the world across. Alerios grew wealthy and proud, a city of white marble that began to attract to it the scattered and lost elves from the Old War as they heard of its shining towers and the College of Starlit Mages was established.
Phya spread its borders wide, from one sea to another, and then finally bridging the Strait of Lorn. At their height, they claimed lands from all of modern Chausk to the edge of the Tribes of Fang and Claw, the ancestors of modern Tauwyns. Phya settled the deserts and built their garden cities and temples of alabaster, their gold topped spires becoming legend.
The dwarves dug deeply into the Anvilhead Mountains and their forges overflowed with precious gems and metals. They continued to ignore the business of their neighbors and they made no quarrel with others. But they prospered, as any, lost knowledges and crafts being refound or reinvented as the ages past.
New nations arose. Maurudren rose under a elven tribe lost after the war, who favored the gray mountains and rolling plains of the Middle Kingdoms. They carved their cities into the stone, twirling spires and arches that melted into the mountains as if naturally formed rock. Two small human holdings grew, the plains dwelling people of Tarth and the merchant folk of Alain’s Keep. Finally, rumors of a wood elf nation in the northern lands were whispered until they made themselves known as the wood elf defenders of the Lîrwood.
The Emerald Lands remained largely unclaimed, seen as a tangle of jungle and rainforest best left to its hobgoblin and strange other inhabitants.
It was the North that felt the change first. The passing of Lalani at the turn of the millennium could easily be called the end of the North’s Age of Plenty, as the northlands have never known true peace or bounty since the day the Fey Immortal perished upon her Throne of Mighty Oaks as the Divinities had promised. For the next thousand years, they knew the strife of things to come well before the lands of the rest of the world as they faced their own inner quarrels.
The War of Oaken Bows of the North marked the first real war since that of the Old War and it stirred fear in the hearts of many the world over, but the few who cried fear in still-prospering lands were quickly put to silence as lands continued undaunted through the age. Save for the northmen, few seemed to pay heed to the steady decline of the Divinity's Bounty as the second half of the Age of Plenty came to course.
==== Age of Growing Woe (Year 2,020 - Year 2,113) ====
Finally, even the bountiful Cradle of Light began to face shortages of commodities they had taken for granted. What began as a trickle swelled into a storm in decades following the turn of the millennia as the Ithian realm regulated back to a natural state and the blessing of the Divinities expired.
Though many disagree when the Age of Woe begins, as it varies from region to realm, and the North would argue it is far longer by their standards than by that of any others, most will take pause to agree that the rising of the twin moons Ilene and Y’tiel both eclipsed in the sky that marks the start of the age.
Though the Imperium faced its first time of strife in two millennium, it persisted for a time, bound together by sure faith in Ailreion, a devotion that some would call blind in hindsight. It was through sheer will that their armies fended off growing hordes of orc to their north who would seek to claim land for their own. Unruly tribes of forestfolk and centaur arose on the eastern coasts and the south.
Those of the Middle Kingdoms faced their own crises. The humans of Tarth sent constant and steady raids to the lands south of Maurudren. Meanwhile, the merchants of Alain’s Keep found their ships battered and splintered upon the rocks every season as storms kicked up anew, two thousand years of nearly calm seas had passed, and their coffers and stores grew thin. The wood elves of the Lîrwood retreated inward as a blight took to their wood and they focused solely on tending to their forest home.
Phya entered a precarious state as various factions vied for order and control and possible solutions as a country that had grown far too broad and wide began to shatter. Not even the mother river Yari could provide succor to all those, as her green belt began to recede. Lands farmed weary turned to dust as the Shining Deserts grew to near twice their size.
Peoples had gone to settle the Emerald Lands in hopes that the lush forest might provide some of the lost treasures of the age past. Then but a smattering of civilizations and tribal standings, most found they had arrived too late to make anything of the realm, and others scattered at the signs of a growing hobgoblin army. Few persisted and they did so precariously.
The North felt the worst of the blows, as the eclipse called forth the rage of Ganthyng the Mad, Son of Felthot the Wild, and Prince of the Werewolves, who ravaged the lands. Almost in the same blow, the accidental discovery by the part of the dwarven College of Eight brought a plague that wracked the land, reducing the inhabitants of the North down to but a scattered few. The discovery of its origin brought an animosity between northmen and dwarves that only healed in near modern times. The ensuing Council of Seven Armies tried and found failure in their attempt to unite a fragmented and varied North.
And then, over the course of short years, realms broke down one by one.
==== The Wars of Age’s End (Year 2,054 - Year 2,137) ====
The end of the era, Ibjarm Ivari prescribed it as unique in its kind. Where prior and future eras ended in a single world shaking event, the Era of Unending Bounty ended not in one unifying event, but a unifying state as the whole of the world was wracked with conflict in a short time.
In the Austral Lands, the arguing factions began to war. The War of Bloodsoaked Sand rallied a number of fragmented factions, each vying to control their own piece of the shattering realm. When the dust settled, only three remained: The Sun-sand Brotherhood, which occupied the lands around the Yari River, the Empire of Dust which stood where modern Chausk now stands and New Phynta, the struggling remains of Phya of old east of the Strait of Lorn. Before called simply part of the Austral Lands, they since came to be known as the Land of Sand and Dust, divided from the Austral Lands by the Harrowed Sea.
The Middle Kingdoms spurred in their share of conflict when the elves of Maurudren struck alliance with Alain’s Keep and together smote raiding Tarth from the land with the battle of Audlr’s Strike. The elves of the Lîrwood remained firmly unaligned during the conflict as the elves of Maurudren handed the northern plains to the humans to govern as Tarth was toppled cobble from cobble.
The North knew only the strife of the Wars of Excoriation, as the bloody war of mortal and fey wracked the North and the leaves of the Glaudrin Oak were said to have turned red and fallen in a display not seen since from the immortal and eternally green tree. The bloody peace it bought would reign for generations, the lines of battle becoming no-man's land and finally becoming borders that closely resemble the modern nations.
And finally the Cradle of Light and the Mireny Imperium herself knew only the dispute between brothers Marus Tellearion and Synall Tellearion, as Synall’s Schism lead into the War of Mages. Though Synall lead his followers south and fragmented the Imperium into two factions, Marus pursued and offered no quarter to those he saw as treasonous betrayers. In spellwork that cost him his life, Synall willed his people to safety and they settled in the unclaimed remains of the eastern Austral Lands, a hard area, but a land of their own, which came to be known as the Bidden Domain.
=== The Era of Starlight ===
==== Age of Tenebrous Truce (Year 2,137 - 2,451) ====
The years that followed were ones of small happenings as the world sought recovery following their respective conflicts.
In the Cradle of Light, the Imperium sought to reclaim lost borders and the death of the inept king, Marus, and the passing of the realm into the hands of his closest cousin finally saw reformation and organization such that Synall would have supported, were he alive to enjoy it. As a whole, the elven empire was salved and efforts made to reclaim their past glory in some semblance. There has been no better example of learning from one’s past mistakes as with the Mireny Imperium. Though Marus was not faulted for his devout nature, he is agreed to have been a fool’s king during the most unfortunate of eras.
The Middle Kingdoms largely began to resemble their modern form. Settlers from Shoneun founded a hyrian province, dubbing it simply Hyrn. Maurudren’s people sought to tend their raided province and the Lîrwood formed relations with their southern human neighbors, owing to their joint effort to discover and cure the blight that afflicted the Lîrwood.
The land that emerged from the spread rule of Alain’s Keep became known as Kondaria, deeply allied with their Maurudren neighbors. Kondaria began to enjoy a time of veritable prosperity, becoming as iconic to humankind as Mireny had been to elven. And while the Imperium had suffered in their war direly and their wealth was recovering, Kondaria struck out afresh and boldly, sending emissaries far and wide and seeking trade with all.
Some small nations carved their names into the jungles south of the Cradle of Light. In the Emerald Lands, emerging from the tangled weld of rainforest was a nation formed by two merchant brothers from Kondaria. The brothers Ghian and Gwain Varill struck their fortune from the spices and other grown treasures to be found in the rainforests and founded Varillsport.
The North saw a stretch of fair times, perhaps not bountiful, but fair by northern standards. A lack of strife graced them, though no real efforts were made to drive the growth they enjoyed in any one direction. The dwarves of the Angaran Forge remained disinterested in the ways of their neighbors and, as such, few know the reason that caused the exodus of a small fleet to leave the Forge by way of the Biting Bay, headed far south. A disagreement, perhaps, or striking out on their own, the greater portion of those in the Forge were mum to speak on it. For centuries, they were thought lost.
The War of Bloodsoaked Sand saw the Land of Sand and Dust left in a precarious nature. In New Phynta, a new line of rulers emerged, calling themselves the Ninth Divinity. The Empire of Dust sought to carve out a living in the high steps to the west. Set upon by eld-wyverns, they knew little rest but persisted. Finally, the Sun-sand Brotherhood reaped the benefit of the Yari River and prospered.
The most unique of cases was the Bidden Domain. In this age, it hardly resembled its modern form as those spirited away to new land by Synall found themselves in a hard, but unclaimed territory on the northern shore of the Austral Lands. Though an ambitious people, they were ill equipped to thrive in these lands, so unlike the bowl of plenty that had been the Cradle of Light. Their settled city of Synallos knew no bounty as the years churned. Slowly they began to perish or flee, as harsh winter and plague struck them. Many fled back to the Mireny Imperium as word of its recovery and Marus’s death reached them.
The Domain might have eeked out entirely, had they not discovered the scattered human settlements of the Hundred Clans of the Haoros, a horde of raiders native to the southern coasts. Finding aid from the humans, they gleaned valuable knowledge from the land-wise natives and sailing folk of the Frozen Gasp. Swiftly, a union was formed between the two cultures, with Haoras providing the Domain with no small amount of people who knew how to work the southlands and build prosperity from it and the Bidden Domain providing the Hundred Clans with knowledge of the arcane and weapons to empower themselves against one another in their civil disputes. With that alliance struck, Synallos began to prosper and the Bidden Domain spread to claim the north of the Austral Lands.
The last land of note was that of Quienen’s Outpost. Sparked by the small trickle of souls who fled the Austral Lands back to the Imperium, a small province made up of emissaries and temples of healing settled with hopes of mending ties with lost friends and family in the Bidden Domain. Though relations were lukewarm at best, they remained as they were, seeking to provide some small amount of succor to the Bidden Domain.
==== The Emery Conflicts (Year 2,452 - 2,501) ====
Known as the Emery Conflicts, they were the battles to ensue before true war broke upon the land, a time of growing pains for the recovering powers of the world.
Smaller conflicts erupted locally: The Merchant’s Struggle in the Emerald Lands, a conflict between the growing hold of Varillsport and their bordering hobgoblin foes. The Siege of Ice-Asunder, the marching of the giants upon Shoneun. The small conflicts fought between the tribes bordering the Imperium, finally put to rest when the orcs were truly ousted and peace made between the empire and the southern tribes. The sacking of the Empire of Dust by the eld-wyverns of Chausk.
New Phynta chafed against their rivals across the Strait of Lorn, the Sun-sand Brotherhood, who held the ancestral lands of old Phya. The New Phyntan ruler, Harad Te-yahre, the proclaimed Ninth Divinity, called for a reunited Phya and a return to the mother-river of old. Raids became common and the Strait of Lorn became precarious for those of the Brotherhood, New Phynta and unrelated alike.
Perhaps only the Middle Kingdoms enjoyed unilateral peace. Hyrn, though a combat loving people, enjoyed their battles elsewhere due to the strikes on Shoneun, their mother country, and long standing alliances between Maurudren and Kondaria held fast.
Finally, Nalykos Farzin emerged, the son to the leader of the Red-Wrath tribe of the Haoros. Though the Bidden Domain and Hundred Clans of Haoros shared a common interest in the trade of knowledge, crafts and work, the years had waned their relations. A bitterness crept into the relations between the people of the Bidden Domain as the people of Domain took for granted the workforce they had found in the Hundred Clans.
Molding that to his purpose, Nalykos united the Hundred Clans through promise and through force and claimed the land that the elves had built with Haoros sweat and skill as their own. Those who resisted, he enslaved, those who struck out at his armies, he slaughtered.
The Hundred Clans waged war fiercely. Though their culture began as a tribal one, their mages and warriors had grown to be fearsome under the nurturing of the Domain’s trade, their understanding of warfare far exceeded that of tribe against tribe in the days before the Domain had allied with them. Though the Bidden Domain had thrived for the hard work of the hardy southerners who knew how to work the land, the Hundred Clans had thrived in a far greater way, by obtaining knowledge of the world beyond their frozen wastes, they had begun to learn how to react to it. In a battle to be known as the Wave of Blood, the ships of the Haoros battered down the port of Synallos and razed it to the ground. As if overnight, the powers of the Austral Lands changed hands from elf to human.
It might have ended with that, had compulsion not turned Nalykos’s eyes northward to Quienen’s Outpost.
Though lukewarm relations between a shunned Bidden Domain and a healing Mireny Imperium had not made for kindness in the early years, it was Nalykos’s sacking of Quienen’s Outpost that drove the nations to war. Over time, the priests and acolytes had built the Outpost into one of peace. Initially, it served as a meeting grounds, a common, un-aligned land for nations who might not see eye to eye to send their emissaries and merchants. In the years since its founding, it became known as the Freeport of the South, a place that fostered and welcomed all, merchants and poor and adventurers alike. All nations with burgeoning trade made use of its port as a safe haven from storms or from piracy, where the Hand of the Freeport settled disputes justly.
So when Nalykos and his fleet sailed north and sacked the city easily, sending her small armada scattering, word became known that the blood-painted raider of the south sought a path of conquest. Gathering the pale remains of the Outpost's ships, fitting them with a skeleton crew of survivors and word of his intent, sending the Omen's Sails to sea. Surrender and open their ports to the Hundred Clans, he commanded, or be brought down by force.
Almost immediately, argument arose between all as these ships and their near-dead crews washed into harbor across the world. Countries grew fearful as word of Nalykos and his rampage reached them. First of Queinen's Outpost and then one by one the lizardfolk rose up unsuccessfully and the Tribes of Fang and Claw fell as the horde of the Hundred Clans marched westward from the Austral Lands to the Land of Sand and Dust.
The Mireny Imperium called council of her powers and that of her allies and any of those so threatened by the Haoros. In an assembling of nations and peoples not seen since the Old War, many gathered in the Hall of Hearing in Alerios and the chiefest of the gathered powers spoke their concerns:
*Adryl Tellearion, called the Fair-eyed Queen by her people, pointed out that, were the Hundred Clans not curbed now, where would their thirst end?
*Kamryn Lionyia, the youngest king to ever take the throne of Kondaria, preached caution. That neither should they launch headlong into a battle that might cost lives in the thousands, nor should simply consider ignoring it.
*Speaker for Maurudren's Council of Three, Rilitar Illandra pointed out that the Hundred Clans burned with surprising ability to conquer and overcome challenge, but it was his opinion that they must needs wait until the horde came to him, to fight on their own grounds. Though natives of the southern pole, they were swiftly overcoming the transition from the snow, to the rock, to the sands as they surged westward.
*The dwarves of the Angaran Forge, the only organized nation to be summoned from a disjointed North, delegated that they were content to remain in their mountains, that the horde would be hard-pressed to take them, and their committee left shortly into the talks.
*The Four Generals from Shoneun claimed that their foundries already glowed hot as new weapons were forged to wage war with these would-be challengers.
*Lastly, the realm of the Sun-sand Brotherhood desperately sought aid in the arms of its trade partners, stating it was only a matter of time before all of the Shining Deserts were soaked with blood once more.
Though invited, New Phynta was strangely absent from the talks. Jarda Te-harad, the second incarnation of the Ninth Divinity, was cunning for his years. Having taken Nalykos's omen to heart, he stood on the field of battle warily, but with plan in mind. Thus was it that he himself rode forth to meet the barbarian leader. He would bend knee before the Hundred Clans, for it was clear that their horde would claim the gem of the desert through sheer number alone, if not tactic. In return, let Nalykos not take Te-harad's rule nor his livelihood, but his armies of elephant and chariots and, with them, let Nalykos increase his army by half again so that the lands beyond of the Sun-sand Brotherhood and the eld-wyverns might be his. Te-harad would gladly pay tithe to the Hundred Clans were they to grace the Ninth Divinity with a reunited Phya. And there, upon the winter equinox, Nalykos agreed to the alliance.
So it was that the horde of the Hundred Clans of Haoros and the Shining Armies of New Phynta struck across the Strait of Lorn and wiped the existence of the Sun-sand Brotherhood from the playing field, the grudge between the two finally brought to a close. The Yari River ran red with the blood of ten thousand souls as they were put to blade, such that it stained the clay banks for a century to come. Jarda Te-harad proclaimed himself forever more the Sunlit King, the Rising Sun of the Desert, and the ruler of the Shining Realm of Phynta.
==== The Starlight War (Year 2,502 - Year 2,577) ====
So it was, that the joining of Phynta to the Hundred Clans and the fall of the Brotherhood moved the rest of Ithia to action. The Four Fleets of the Starlight Bound set forth under naught but the starglow of winter. In sight of the remains of Synallos, where the camps of the Hundred Clans had returned to winter and stretched from horizon to horizon, they dropped anchor. Sending an emissary before them in a final gesture to attempt peace, they awaited word, and Nalykos’s sent him back, flayed alive and eyes carved from their sockets.
Never since the Old War has a more vicious war been fought. Lasting the better part of a century, the Starlight War truly touched the world as a whole, whether they partook in the battle or not. The course of years of combat was a constant, swaying tide, and each new year that dawned the more victorious side seemed to change. A fair many tomes could be filled on the history of the war, that cost the lands that fought in it droves of their populace. Fathers perished to the tide of battle, only for their enraged and orphaned sons to seek the steel to avenge them, sailing south or joining the ranks of those that defended their homelands.
In the earliest years of the war, it seemed as if the Starlight Bound might have early success. But, as the keen eyed Rilistar had pointed out, the horde were not as barbarous as they appeared. Where the first years of the war had brought the armies and fleets south to face the Hundred Clans, the Starlight Bound quickly found that the horde had little attachment to the land on which the war was originally waged. Possessing sheer tenacity and ability to eke out a livelihood from any setting, cunning Nalykos knew his people well and he divided his forces, graced as he was with the larger army due to Phynta's aid.
Soon word of horror reached the ears of the Starlight Bound in the south of attacks back home. The Imperium's ports sacked and set afire. An army of hordemen a-march across the plains of Maurudren and Kondaria and her peoples fleeing across the ocean as the grasslands burned. Forced to split their own armies and fleets, the allies of the Starlight Bound sent to their homes defenders to aid what had remained of their militaries in their homelands. The tacticians of Hyrn and Shoneun alike would call Nalykos in one breath a mad man and in another praise the ability he seemed to have at keeping every single piece he played in his eye. To take this port here, to retreat here only to reemerge and conquer there... people believed him truly a chosen of Flear, a war-maker such that the world had never seen since the times of Nalcer, in time, the darkness he spread and the terror his name would call into the minds of the age would earn him the title, Raneiss's Wrath.
For years, the Hundred Clans of Haoros would terrorize the world. Tales would be sung of the Battle of Falling Stars, where Adryl Tellearion led the First Army of Alerios and the Order of Ailerion into battle, where even the stars wept for the tragic death of the Fair-Queen and a mourning song broke across Alerios at the news. Hyrian tacticians would, even to the day, argue vehemently the success or folly of Kirah's Gambit, a strike so disastrous for both sides of the battle and a victory so Pyrrhic that if left both the horde and the Starlight Bound so scattered it took them the span of a year to recover, called later the Long Year.
And then there was a dark time when it was believed he would triumph, when the horde of the Hundred Clans took their raiding ships and married them with the triremes of Phynta. Coupled with the storm and wind magic of their war mages, they birthed a ship of swift sail and frighting ability to topple any other on the sea through the jagged, tusk-like rams they installed on the vessel. They became known as churtham, or the Tusked Ships.
What spearheaded the victory of the Starlight Bound would be that plucky little land of Kondaria in two turns of the tide to be known Kamryn's Two Lucks.
The first was when Kamryn set off southwards, around the span of Phynta in hopes of planting forces south of the desert and attacking from the unknown. In the process, when Kamryn landed his forces in Broken-rock Cove, he was greeted by a force of dwarves, lead by Dalkom Ironfury. Calling themselves the Atia Confederacy, they had long ago grown tired of the perceived lethargy of their northern cousins and could stand no longer to remain silent in the strife of the realm, lest they become as sloth as their estranged forefathers. They would gladly lend their steel, wit and strength to the cause. With that, Kamryn lead his fleet and the war ships of Atia northwards. In a single blow, Kamryn and Dalkom laid waste to the Shining Armies such that they were crippled for the remainder of the war, to Nalykos's fury.
Secondly was the Battle of the Bay of Terns. Leading forth a fleet into Quienen's Outpost, Kamryn and his allies purged the horde from the small island, creating a permanent stronghold for the Starlight forces in the south and liberating the land from decades of terror. Any attempt on the port then made by Nalykos was thwarted, as mages hailing from the College of Elderfort made still the wind in in the sails of the Tusked Ships and made brittle the rams on the prows. Enraged, Nalykos drove his personal warships aground in the harbor, his closest fighters surging out in a fury as he himself sought to seemingly strike down this resistance single-handedly. The resulting conflict, between Nalykos Farzin, Kamryn Lionyia and his allies Glynnii Tellearion and Dalkom Ironfury would become legend.
No single Hundred warrior remained save for Nalykos, his arm shorn from his body at the shoulder by the starglint blade of Kondarian kings and queens. Sure of their victory, it came as a frightening surprise to them when Raneiss's Wrath bore his hands into the oozing stump of his shoulder and threw a circle of blood about himself, calling to his patron goddess for aid. Shadows enveloped him and he was seemingly saved by her dark graces, vanished from the grasp of the Starlight Bound.
Then for a time, Nalykos seemed put on the defensive. Those that had fought in the earliest days of the war were a rare thing. Nalykos and Kamryn had both spent near their whole lives at war, and people remarked on the gray that streaked Kamryn's hair and the white that touched the end of Nalykos's wild mane. Recent successes in ousting the Hundred Clans from the Imperium and the Middle Kingdoms had brought a precarious peace to those lands, where though they still feared the raiders wroth, they rejoiced in a free homestead not seen for the past many decades. At the urging of Glynnii and lulled into a false sense of security by the turning tides, Kamryn returned to Kondaria to summer and see to his kingdom's doings for a time.
But, this precarious lull-like peace was not meant to last. Word of the largest concentration of the Hundred Clans since the dawn of the war, their fleet stretching from horizon to horizon, reached the ears of the Starlight Bound. Nalykos mounted his entire fleet and sailed north, revenge in his heart and madness in his eyes and raising a mechanical arm of shadow and starglint to the heavens. The shadows of the twin moons cast over the sun, an ill omen of things to come. The Middle Kingdoms quaked in fear, but Kamryn raised sail once more and went to the Maurudren cape as he sent call for his ally's aid. Thus assembled the full might of the Middle Kingdom forces and the forward guard of her allies against the Hundred Clans of Haoros, poised for what many believed would be the final conflict.
But before the horde could assail his lands, Kamryn lifted his hand in an order, a sending alerting the mages of Elderfort of his intent. Behind him, rushing outwards from Elderfort, across Kondaria and Hyrn to surrounded the waters of the three lands and to the rose a weave of magic shot through with constellations, a shimmering barrier to defend and deflect the enemies of the Middle Kingdoms and the finest achievement of the mages of the College of Elderfort. For a breathtaking moment, the barrier held behind the Starlight Bound and a murmur arose of concern across the ships of the Hundred Clans. Then what began in a whisper raised into a cacophony as the weave began to snap. The waters churned and rose up in a storm of destructive proportions, assailing the assembled fleets. Constellations along the weave blinked out one by one as the sea roiled and vessels on both sides capsized and were dashed into the tangling net of the barrier spell. A storm shook the middle of all of Ithia as the barrier's magic bled outwards and escaped the control of its creators.
When the waters calmed days later, as the remaining fleets of the Atia Confederacy and the Mireny Imperium sailed into view of their allies' lands in the Middle Kingdoms, nothing remained of the horde or of Kamryn to tell the tale of what had occurred, save only for the Veil. A great storm of fog, lit through with lines of magic and bursts of star-like light, swirled passively but constant around the circumference of the interior lands blocked their path. Glynnii would send countless mages forth in attempts to breach the barrier, but those that did return had found no way to break it. Dalkom discovered that every ship he sent to the fog was met with the overpowering compulsion to turn back and any ship goaded forward was lost.
Thus it was that the Starlight War came to a close, as the estranged allies of the Starlit Bound attempted to sift through the wreckage of their allies' floatsam for any sign of what had passed. For days more, the Veil remained. Few survivors were found and they could only speak in jittering, maddened cants. Bitter disappointment set in their hearts, made weak by decades of war and the tremendous blow to their own militaries, the allies of the Starlight Bound set homeward, the Veil glittering impassible at their back.
=== The Era of the Veil ===
==== Age of Uncertainty (Year 2,578 - Year 3,183) ====
So it came to pass that the world found itself strangely divided. At first it all seemed a bad dream and for the first few years people whispered that the next season, surely, the impassible sheet of fog and magic would fall. Countless voyages, from within and from without, were sent into the fog, forced to the edge of it and then vanishing beyond. None survived on either sphere and none known passed through. Months turned to years, years to decades and finally the Veil simply became an accepted thing.
Outside the Veil, the aftermath of the war left all who participated in it weary. The Mireny Imperium set on the path of slow recovery. Dalkom Ironfury set his people to maintaining their borders, ever wary of a recovering Phynta to his north. Over the decades of war, peoples who had fled the horde of the Hundred Clans and the estranged merchants of Kondaria, who had found their homeland sealed, made their way to the North, settling new nations in the unforgiving lands.
What dregs of the Hundred Clans of Haoros remained seemed poised to scatter back to the coast of the Frozen Gasp. They were enough to hold their claimed lands of the fallen Bidden Domain, but no longer enough to maintain the brutal and unforgiving lifestyle of conquering. Infighting and bickering amongst them began.
Then emerged from their ranks, flanked on either side by what remained of Nalykos's personal forces, a pale man with hair as raven and wild as that of the fallen warlord. Calling himself Marqirn, he was at first thought a slave, for his ears were tipped in the manner of a half-elf and the enslaved elves of the captured Bidden Domain had long suffered at the hands of their captors, but he swiftly proved otherwise. In the span of the Long Year, Nalykos had taken to bed a favorite of his slaves, an elf priestess, whose belly swelled darkly and who bore him what seemed a proper half-elf babe, save for two curled horns above his brow. At first the warlord had thought to dash the child she bore him on the rocks, as he had done with those before, but he took curious interest in the horned, silent babe who did not squall as those before him had. So it was that Nalykos reared his whelp on a draught of cruelty and harshness. Though Nalykos's intentions for the young man would never be known, taken to the grave as they were, none could deny the commanding presence he had passed on to Marqirn. In time, people began to whisper that he was the wrath-touched of Raneiss, though the dark goddess had never laid her touch upon the world since the time of creation, and he took for himself the name Wrothborne.
There were clans that chaffed under the idea of succession to this unknown, but Marqirn demonstrated swiftly that they would be met only with steel for their uncertainty. The young man proved himself as cunning and charismatic as he was cruel and those that did not join him or leave swiftly found themselves in worse situations than those that did. So it was that Marqirn took the remainder of his father's united people under his control, assuring his succession in much the manner his father had before him. Then Marqirn declared that the Hundred Tribes of Haoros would be no more. His father's downfall had been his inability to curb his thirst for conquering. From the rubble they would build a new nation, a twisted marriage of the advances of the Bidden Domain and the barbarity of the Hundred Tribes. Closing the boarders for two hundred years and cutting ties with all, it would not be for decades until the twisted nation was born, but it came forth later as a whispering on the wind, the Byden Dominion.
Such was it that the world outside the Veil began to resemble its modern form. As one century passed to another, realms salved their wounds in a state of lassitude. Though words of a dark country manifesting to the south struck fear in hearts that another war was on the horizon, the Dominion remained silent, trading only with the Shining Realm of Phynta after the two centuries of closed borders came to pass. Though some lands faced their shares of strife following the war, with the Sahaugin Wars of the North reaching the ears of all and the Tanglefern Campaign leading to the emergence of the Mercantile Conglomerate, the world remained passive.
Within the Veil, chaos ensued for a time, as the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdoms dealt with their new found isolation. The Kingdom of Kondaria shook from the loss of their king and the death of the eight Magi of Elderfort. If not for the steady hand of his daughter Estriel, riots might have taken the country. Within the first decade Kondaria, Maurudren's Council of Three, the elves of the Deep Heart and the Hyrn High General forged a pact of peace to remain allied and strong in this separation of theirs from their allies without. A survey was taken of the status of each land and as one century past to the next, the four lands learned to cope.
For six centuries, Ithians survived and then thrived as scars healed over and the Veil became an accepted thing for those within it and outside it. Trade resumed, a comfortable state crept back into the world. The Imperium and the Dominion remained bitter, and though they refrained from communication or agreement of peace, they also did not participate in active hostilities. And for Ithia, so in need of another stretch of peace, that was enough.
==== The War of Ash (Year 3,184 - Year 3,189) ====
In time it became belief that the Veil would never fall. Though fathers told their children who told their children's children of the time when the world was much larger, people within the Veil gradually adopted the mindset of doing without what could not be obtained from behind the Veil. Though they had not forgotten the lands beyond the Veil and they continued to survive, it was clear they were beginning to suffer. Outside the Veil, it simply became known as an obstacle, a large bank of fog or storm that merchants and travelers skirted around.
Then came the catalyst of the Veil's downfall. An angel cast out from Nebuliese for his perceived slight against the Divinity Noir, Bail Shaern fell from grace and arrived in the Middle Kingdoms. Once a member of Lynneth's host, Bail proved incredibly ambitious, powerful and had long since risen to being one of her favorites, becoming a leader of one of her legions and a guide to the dead. As old as time, Noir and Lynneth have shared a rivalry, coveting the other's gains and powers, and such that it was that Noir set his eyes on the rising star of Lynneth's host. Bail scorned the advances and embraces and for that slight, Noir cast him out without the consult of his twin.
Arriving on the sands of Hyrn, Bail cried his woes to the heavens, entreating his goddess for aid and to return him to his home. Silence answered him, as answered all on the mortal plane. Furious at the god Noir for his betrayal, Bail turned his eyes to the lands about him even as his wings grew dark and his light dim from his falling. He found before him the Middle Kingdoms entering their sixth century since the Veil had trapped them, and what he saw was a hungry Hyrn, a nation of warfarers, soldiers and fighters without a war. Though long generations had subsisted off of eternal training and gladiatorial combat, the thirst for battle that burned their blood remained unslaked.
So it was that Bail raised some of them in alliance and an army of hyrians marched on an unsuspecting and unprepared Maurudren, taking his revenge on the country most favored by Noir. Though Maurudren raised her armies, she had found that years of peace and constant alliance had dulled her blades. As people fell to Bail's forces, he called upon dark magics unseen by the eyes of mortals, commanding strange control over the spirits of the dead. Corpses rose whole and sentient, with will of their own, though bound to Bail's cause. It became that those that Bail's armies killed only fueled his forces.
In due time, his legions sacked the realm and he put to unholy fire the whole of the Radiant Plains, such that when the new life grew it returned gray and brittle, as if grown from ash, and they would be known from then on as the Ashen Plains. High Caermont burned, the stones of its turrets shattering under the heat. Calling on the aid of Kondaria and the Lîrwood, the once proud empire fled their lands as they were overrun with the risen undead ashwalkers of Bail's making. Kondaria and the wood elves raised up arms and marched south. Though in an ongoing struggle of four years they held against the assembled legions, they did so only barely. And, in the end, the resulting capture of Elderfort and the crippling of her king left the country and her northern forests firmly under the rule of the fallen angel.
With that, the Middle Kingdoms fell under the singular rule of Bail Shaern.
==== The Fall of the Veil (Year 3,190 - Year 3,202) ====
For years, Bail's rule remained constant. Though he ruled and preferred his claimed land of Maurudren, he levied taxes and tithe from Kondaria and the Lîrwood both. Hyrn, wary of fragmentation amongst her people swiftly declared a truce with the fallen angel, lest his war come to their shores. Those closest of his hyrian allies became his exalted. This might have been the way of things for years to come, as though they were conquered, Kondaria and the Lîrwood retained their nobility under Bail's allowance. It was not a cordial relationship, but for fear of the uncurbed rage Bail had shown Maurudren, they remained complacent.
Save for some. In the year 3,202, Damian Alain of Alain's Keep raised his sword in rebellion and set out from his home with his best friend Ryun to Elderfort in hopes of seeking companionship in others. Hearing of his cause, Faelar joined him as he passed through the Lîrwood, Taceryn, Airik and Zabrira joined them in the capital itself. When they were waylaid by passing ashwalker troops, their intent was made known and Bail turned his eye northward, but continued to observe as they added to their growing band his previous bedmate, Kai Sikah, who had commanded his hyrian forces before in the war. The growing band continued south, securing passage from the port town of Samara on Rafrira's ship and adding to their number their eighth.
These adventurers would be called the Divinity's Companions, named so for the commonfolk's belief that they were the favored each by one of the Divines. They were:
* Damian Alain, the noble of Alain's Keep and a knight trained at the Knight's Order in Elderfort and the believed favored of Noir.
* Ryun Sirani, a descendant of Sel Teki merchants trapped within the Veil, believed favored by Adenah for the love he bore for his companions.
* Rafrira Teld, a sailor and mage who feared no storm and seemed a master of the waves, as if she were trained under Nairen's eyes.
* Taceryn Obresse, a mountain-dweller and wanderer, his steps were said to bring quakes wherever he so went, so much so that people associated him with Thane.
* Faelar Iythronel, prince of the Lîrwood and one of their Sworn. He was thought to be Iyanith's favored who would see her Lîrwood saved from Bail's control.
* Airik Sandsong, a young wizard with such command of the elements that people thought he was the son of Jahel.
* Kai Sikah, a hyrian, once loved by Bail, who had been scorned and who was believed to hear Flear's whispers on the wind.
* Zabrira Keeneye, a catfolk of the Tribeclaws who would not see dead walk the earth a day beyond their passing and would ensure their fate be sealed, as per Lynneth's design.
Such were the companions that set out across the sea to free the land from the strife of the angel's revenge. Whether they believed themselves chosen by the gods or not, they shared the common interest of disposing the dark king from his throne in High Caermont. As they made passage on the sea, Bail waylaid them with the best of his ships and, failing that, his finest mage brewed a storm that racked Rafrira's vessel, such that even Airik was swept away by its fury. Ship battered, the hull split as Bail himself called down lightning upon it, scattering the companions just off the coast and lifting their leader from the strewn wreckage as collateral.
The remaining seven of the eight regathered their senses on the shores of Maurudren and, miraculously, reformed over the turn of moons, tested by the shambling undead, ashwalkers returned to life with too little sentience and too much hunger, of the land and the beasts that had run wild across it for the past decades. When the seven companions finally regrouped as one and struck out for High Caermont some months after the storm Bail shattered them with, it is said they found their companion awaiting them not in chains as they had expected, but with purpose set in his gaze.
The tales of Damian Alain's capture vary. Some call him a betrayer and call for his death, others claim him to be a divine redeemer, more yet call him bewitched. The ashwalkers give him a special name and consider it the fairest word in their foul cant, asthiak, which means 'giver of will'. The bards make up their own versions, the most popular being tales of Damian taming a roaring beast of revenge in Bail's breast, others sing he is be-spelled by the angel.
Regardless of what transpired during the moons his companions were estranged from him or what he spoke to them as they rode into the open gates of High Caermont, all know he lead them within the city to stand in the hall of old Maurudren's Council of Three and raised their steel starward above them. If the Chosen had been a means by the Divinities to salve Noir's err in casting down Bail, it had failed them. Damian had stayed his rage and his companionship with his allies had stayed theirs, refusing to beget death with more death.
None know the true story of what occurred beyond that moment, save for the eight companions and the angel himself.
What is known that High Caermont lit with bright light and Bail was stripped of his command of the ashwalkers, giving them freewill, and lost his power forever more to command any that rightfully belonged to the death goddess. What is known is that the Companions fell as one to a knee, sigils of divine might burning brightly upon them, before they fell drained and unconscious in the eyes of the old Maurudren royals.
Some say they simply discovered the spell that the Magi of Elderfort took to the grave with them when the Veil took their lives, as there were eight Companions and eight magi. Others say it was knowledge Bail gleaned during his time in Nebuliese and he crafted himself, executing it with aid from his goddess. Still more say that the Companion's true fated purposes was thus and not the downfall of the conquering angel. Some whisper that perhaps it was Bail given a choice: remain, stripped of his power to be used as catalyst, or return and lose what mortal companionship he had found to a land suffering within an impassible wall. Some say it was his penance for his crimes upon the mortal realm.
Whatever the fate, reason or cause, the energy that burned out of the Companions and that was stripped from Bail is believed to have struck outwards. Fog rolled in from the sea, covering the whole Middle Kingdoms in a bank of mist for weeks. And, when the fog at last cleared, from the southern horizons of Maurudren and the shores of Hyrn and Kondaria, ports-men called out in alarm and surprise.
The Veil was gone.
===The Eras Reunited===
==== Age Anew (Year 3,203 - Year 3,206) ====
So, thus is the state of the world.
Three years since the Veil has fallen and the world is still in shock. Old treaties are still being re-penned as the Middle Kingdoms have begun to attempt to forge new alliances with old allies. Both sides still experience a sense of doubt, confusion or uncertainty when faced with the idea that the Veil is, indeed, gone. The lack of it, though, has sparked a new rebirth of venturing and travel at sea has swelled for it as both the Middle Kingdoms and the rest of Ithia seek to discover what has changed in the past six centuries.
Category:History