The Great Winter

aAt exactly 10000 TSC, 7492 AEU, and 4472 AFL, The Realm of Eljuk began to freeze, the reasons unknown to the people of the realm. Crops failed, people starved, as well as bloody revolutions and wars against rulers who could not help their families.

## Year 1:

In the year 10001 TSC, the winter simply did not go away when spring should have arrived, with the weather shifting to become colder and colder by the day. Weaker crops began to fail and many began to starve. In the lands of Navish and Makkun, the weather led to an increased crop yeild as their temperature gradually began to descend into more temporate climates. The Woodlanders began to notice more and more that game was scarcer and even the fruit began to vanish faster than normal.

## Year 2:

Winter came and went again, with a horrendously poor harvest. People in the human lands of Caluk and Aklein begin actively taking to the streets to beg for food from their leaders, who shun them away. Alternativly, the lands of Navish and Makkun are bountiful and prosperous in their new found temperate weather, establishing great farms in Makkun that dominate the entire Steppe. Under the leadership of a small oasis town on the rise, the first steps are made to the Baran Empire. The Elves are begining to feel the pressure, having to trade more and more with the Underground Nations of the Dwarves, Goblins, and Shadowlanders for their food, but even their sheltered farms are begining to dwindle.

## Year 3:

After nearly two years of food being lacking, the once powerful nation of Aklein disolves into near anarchy. Citizens migrate en mass to the Western Empire of Bara in search of food, while others riot and threaten the power of the King and his Nobles. To add more to the chayos, Caluk warriors desert from the Royal Army and raid both smaller states within Caluk and attacking the weakened Aklein from the East. The land of Shamuun is in danger as well, with the last of the Skylander crops failing, they become dependant on trade with their Shadowlander cousins, even sending merchants to barter with Goblins for their food of the sea. But by winter of the third year, even their great stores begin to dwindle.

## Year 4:

The weather turns even more bitter, slaying the Dragons and many of the other, less adaptable Fantastic monsters that roamed the Realm. The Hebi-Lok - surviving due to the aid of a single sympathetic Nature Spirit, loose their God King, a great snake that patrolled the waters around their islands. Aklein now ceases to exist, with the land of Yixshire ruled now by Caluk warriors, and the King facing revolts outside his own palace. The Houses of Caluk have long since turned on one another in a bloody struggle for power. Bara, however, was perfectly at ease, and even sympathetic, offering aid to the now bloated corpse of Aklein and the wreck of Caluk, trading food for incredible wealth from the people.

## Year 5:

The fifth winter is so cold, ships now are coated with an outer layer of ice when they travel the waves. Worse still, the sea is growing more and more cold, killing off the larger fantastics of the sea that remained, leaving the waves to the whales and smaller sea werms. Bara begins to expand it's reach beyond the three peaks and establishes the minor fiefdom of Makain.

## Year 6:

The sixth winter shows to the surviving wizards and mages and mystics that the cold is truly magical in nature, as the sea itself begins to freeze. Great icebergs of salted ice drift across the waves. Many have resorted to cannibalism to survive, leading to them transforming into the vile Theelgeth monsters, wandering and slaying all they can find. Bara has expanded past the river of Lemont and begins to fight over the body of Aklein with Caluk, with the King stubornly holding on to the seat of his power in the city of Aklein. Caluk has managed to almost completly exterminate it's entire nobility before the nine remaining houses begin talks of peace.

## Year 7:

The Sea has gone so cold that the fish begin to die. The Goblanti and the Orcs reforge their pact of unity and prepare to depart the land of Shamuun to look for more plentiful shores. By the time the leaders meet and agreed on where to go, winter has come. The Lords of Caluk have failed to come to an agreement, with war threatening to exterminate another three lines of noble blood.

## Year 8:

At long last, the Central Sea has frozen solid, with the salt of the ocean salting the surface of the new wasteland. The Orcish-Gobanti confederacy march south in a titanic horde, while desperate Caluk and Akleini armies march north to seek better lives. The two forces meet in a horrendous clash, beginning The First War of Orcish-Goblin succession. The human armies put aside their differences and held firm, sending runners across the ice to warn the continent of the impending attack. The Confederacy crushed the two armies, sending the Caluk force in retrete and shattering the Akleini force to a third of its former strength. With hardly any forces left, the army turned tail and fled back to the capital to prepare for a siege. The Orcs touched down on the shores of Aklein by autumn.

## Year 9

The Orcs and the Goblins stormed into Aklein and Caluk, but those wars both were brief and were signed away by the chieftains rather quickly; the true prize was the Baran Empire, where most of the fighting would take place. While the Orcs found the weather in that region to be too hot for their taste, they enjoyed the current weather of Aklein, and many familes set up villages and camps on Akleini soil, housing raiding parties to attack and steal the Baran Harvests. However, those that settled down were only the Orcs, as the Goblins were far more interested in capturing and returning with loot rather than setting down roots in the new realm. By the end of spring, the Elves had begun to move in the footsteps of the Orcs and Goblanti, with a few warbands marching south but few passing the small islands in the ice, where many set up roots in what they thought was the new realm. Although these were mainly outposts, they would become permanent homes by the 18th year.

## Year 10:

The Houses of Caluk have been reduced to six with one fleeing to an island off the mainland, before a treaty is signed to bring about a five year peace while order is restored to their lands. The Orcs have begun to trade their bounty for furs and meats from the few native Akleini Tribes to survive, with Aklein begining to nurse its wounds again.

## Year 11:

Wraiths from the North Waste have deemed the time as right to begin a crusade against the descendants of the three heritics that left their ranks oh so long ago. They poured into the Woodlands, through the passes of the Skyland Mountains, and flooded the caves of the Shadowlanders. This invasion prompted alliances to be forged in the few that remained, with the Woodlanders, Shadowlanders, Dwarfs, and the skeleton of the Skylander Kingdom to unite and at least significantly delay their advance, stoping advances that would have overrun miles only advance a hundred yards.

## Year 12:

It is in this year that the future savior of Eljuk, Jimhet, ascended to the rank of court Mystic in the Sapphire Palace. In addition to this, a strange being fell from the stars and landed in the marshes of Caluk, and made a deal with the young magician.

## Year 13:

Over the course of an entire year, the being and Jimhet traveled across the land in search for a way to stop The Winter. In this time, they passed through Aklein city and took lodging with a clan of Orcs that had settled outside of the city, before entering the Baran Empire. There, they avoided battled and dangerous Theelgeth that wandered the land, before Jimhet was captured and imprisoned in the Dwarven Fortress of Nitchisar. It is said that the strange being aided him in his escape, and led him to the farthest edge of Shamuun, where Jimhet mysterously ended The Great Winter and his otherworldly ally vanished, commensing a period in time known as The Thaw.

## Aftermath

The spell that Jimhet used to free the world from the grips of the gold led to a sudden return to the temperature and warmth of the world. Overnight, the warmth returned to the world and all was as it once was. Word quickly spread of the powerful spellcaster who reversed the deadly winter, and most if not all the nations of Shamuun and The Crescent pledged loyalty to him. Jimhet went on to found and build a city known as Waicc, and founded an Empire known as the Order of the Golden Dawn.

### Rumors:

Acording to information from outside sources, it is told that the great winter was caused by the death and subsequent fall of Methu, with his children falling into deep sorrow for his death. Additionally, the story of Jimhet and his mysterious ally is said to have a dark secret to it; that the figure is said to have been Inovkan the Betrayer, the very entity who slew Methu, cast out of his own realm and tricked by Jimhet into serving him. All are considered rumor, with the last only coming to light long after the third incarnation of the Order of the Golden Dawn. However, it is known that the heirloom cloak of the line of Jimhet did only appear after the disaperence of the unknown and powerful entity.