Rule of Might Chronicle

The Rule of Might Chronicle is one of the chronicles of Ceal. It tells the story of the Ascension Event, the birth of the Wel into an already occupied world, and the resulting Genocide War. The Rule of Might Chronicle takes place around 1870 BN, and can roughly be divided into three parts.

## Part 1 ~ The Ascension Event

Due to reasons that are still not fully understood, the Ascension Event taking place during the 1,919 BN Iserial Tide caused a number of mammal Fatikelij species to spontaneously transform into Cemarelij in their entirety, including every last individual. This not only left gaping holes in many ecosystems, but also destabilized the somewhat precarious balance that existed between the three extant Cemarelij species: Dragons, Gryphs and Draykin.

Originally, the Wel tried to receive egalitarian recognition from the other Cemarelij species, and while they were successful in parts of the world, especially the majority of the more long-lived Dragons and Draykin never came to think of them as anything more than particularly clever talking pets. In time, the Wel started to affiliate with the Gryphs with their shorter life-spans more and more, and while a number of generations of Wel and Gryphs were born - all within a world dominated by the Dragons and Draykin - resentments gradually grew stronger.

Eventually, the Wel and Gryphs put a bold plan in action, intending to overthrow the Dragons and Draykin in order to create a world order more in their favour. Using the fact that Dragons and Draykin did not take them for full, the Wel infiltrated their societies and over the course of a decade of coordinated espionage got their hands on a great number of technologies and Iserialogies that should prove useful in the war to come.

## Part 2 ~ The Escalation

The Genocide War began with an incredibly well-coordinated surprise attack on a great number of strategic positions of the Dragons and Draykin by the Wel and Gryphs that served to greatly even the odds. Within a day, the militarily superior Dragons and Draykin were brought down to roughly the level of the Wel and Gryphs.

At the beginning the conflict was only directed against the major Dragon and Draykin powers that opposed an egalitarian world view. However, within the first few months of the conflict, it quickly escalated, and more and more people of all the races joined the fray. The Wel, who felt they were fighting for their very right to live, applied tactics that were perceived as brutal, dirty and dishonourable by the Draykin and Dragons, who until then had by their very nature only observed relatively honourable combat.

For both Dragons and Draykin, combat had come to mean a ritualized show of force, which might cost lives, but was in essence about determining the balance of power without causing too much harm, and for the Gryphs, combat was effectively "playing really rough". The Wel, meanwhile, made war into a serious business, determined to destroy their opponents at any cost. This ruthlessness and the unwillingness of the Dragons and Draykin to "lower themselves" to the level of the Wel brought the Wel many military victories, and the Gryphs were mostly jut going along with it, elating in the thrill of battle, and their continued triumphs.

However, as the war dragged on, more extreme leaders came into power on the sides of both the Wel, but also the Draykin, and as the Draykin started to adopt brutal but effective Wel tactics, the war reached a new high in ferociousness. Many lives, including civilian, were lost in this phase of the war, and both the Dragons and Gryphs were starting to re-evaluate their positions.

## Part 3 ~ The Resolution

Eventually, the Dragons and Gryphs both decided to pull out from the war and attempt to calm down the Wel and Draykin, who were still going fiercely at it. Driven by martial leaders, the vast majority of Wel had been driven into a blood-frenzy and were bent on completely wiping out the Draykin. Meanwhile, the Draykin were by now clearly losing, and were frantically trying to either somehow turn the war around, or at least enforce a stalemate. However, before long, only the continent of Ventana was left of their previously world-spanning dominions.

And the Wel would likely not even have stopped at exterminating all the Draykin. Already, there were powers at work calling to continue with the Dragons next, and some even demanded that the Gryphs be put down too, referring to the idea of Wel superiority, and attributing a divine spark to themselves due to the unresolved origins of the Ascension Event.

It was only through the joint efforts of a number of young Dragons, Draykin, Gryphs and Wel, all of which were united by their belief that the different Cemarelij species *could* coexist if only they tried, that the total eradication of all Draykin - and possibly the Lyerelij species too - could be averted. These brave souls - who had already played important roles during the previous phases of the Chronicle - not only managed to overthrow the bloodthirsty Wel leaders, but also came up with a clever plan that would both satiate the Wel's hunger for Draykin extinction, yet also allow the Draykin to live:

With the help of the Draykin sage Moebius Thazyan, they managed to invoke the great Moebius Barrier around the entire continent of Ventana, barring entry to all but Draykin, and those who knew the secret of entry. They combined this with an elaborately planned out ruse, a final, desperate attack by the Draykin, a climatic final battle for the Wel to win, and then, silence.

## Aftermath

Hidden behind the great Moebius Barrier, the remaining Draykin could live in peace, having the entirety of the vast continent of Ventana all to themselves. Meanwhile, no Draykin was ever seen again in the outside world for over a thousand years, and only few Dragons and Gryphs ever crossed back and forth through the barrier. In time, the stories of Draykin faded to a footnote of history, a foe once defeated by the mighty Wel, and the Wel prospered, while the remaining Cemarelij species at least recovered.

Many Wel expeditions were sent to the mysterious mist-shrouded continent of Ventana in the centuries to come, but few Wel ever managed to make it through the great Moebius Barrier, and those few who did never returned.