Antagarich

**Antagarich** (Anta-ga-rih) is one of the major continental landmasses on the continent. To the distant west it borders the realms-beyond-the-seas, chiefly Jadame, Hannu, Ghiscair, Sangvebar and the sinister city of Stygai, and to its east it borders the continent of Ulthos.

## Etymology

The name Antagarich is derived from the Anta'ghaer, meaning "Early Beauty" or "Waking Beauty", which originates likely from the now deceased elvish language spoken by a subculture of wood elves that dwelled in the White Forest during the First and Early Second Era, before assimilating into the larger wood elf and high elf cultures around them. Although the language is now extinct, there are a number of people who are still capable of speaking it, namely the Aen Saennair Filavandrel Muirich, the oneiromancer Yhessa and the archmage Cedric Chiredean.

Although it is not known when this change occurred, *Antagarich* is pronounced with the "c" being silent.

## History

The history of Antagarich can be divided into five distinct periods: the Dawn Era, First Era, Second Era, Third Era and Fourth Era/After Cataclysm. The First Era either began immediately after the Dawn Era or an unknown period after it, there are no records of the events and time scale of the First Era available to contemporary scholars, the majority of them having been lost to time.

### Dawn Era

The Dawn Era is either the period of pre-history that includes the creation of the universe, prior to the advent of mortals, or the period pre-dating the existence of the mortal races but not the world itself. The majority of scholars and learned elders agree that it is the former, with "everything" beginning when the Dawn Era itself ended. The events that occurred during this era are known only through myth and religious teachings, and interpretations vary from culture to culture. During the Dawn Era, time did not originally exist, and even when it was created it followed an incomprehensible nonlinear path.

#### Birth of the Universe

Before the establishment of anything, the world was a vast and empty nothing devoid of any concepts and aspects - pure and utter emptiness. At an unknown interval, but presumed to have been countless thousands if not millions of years before the First Era, the first forces, or concepts, emerged from the vast primordial nothingness: Minerva, the aspect of Chaos; Magna El, the aspect of Order; and Toruvel; the aspect of balance. The ensuing conditions and foreplay presented by the three aspects would lead to the creation of the Universe, a vast Grey Maybe dominated by equal parts of each aspect which would become populated with the creations of all three aspects for differing reasons. Minerva, being Chaos, created on a whim and without cause or reason, creating ideas, concepts and entities both good and evil, or simply in-between, such as happiness, hatred and passion. Magna El, being Order, initially had no intention whatsoever to populate the universe with his own creations but did so to act against Minerva's chaos: creating ideas, concepts and entities both evil and good, or simply in-between such as misery, compassion and aversion. Toruvel, content with the balance provided by Minerva and Magna El, did not create anything until much later and merely observed the machinations of his kin.

The universe was no longer a Grey Maybe, although the "grey" aspect of it remained it was no longer a "maybe" as the birth and creation of new entities by Minerva and Magna El resulted in it becoming a Grey Certainty: a universe populated by countless numbers. At this time Toruvel, sensing an imbalance approaching to the domain he so patiently observed, created death and vested it in his one and only son: Veles, the modern God of death and passing. Under Veles' gaze, the processes of death would become true. He later severed a part of his own soul and with it created the sun at the centre of the universe, illuminating the vastness and shining light in all directions. The sun itself was an aspect of balance, having been born of Toruvel's soul, and acted in accordance with the balanced nature of its creator. Minerva, on a whim, would create the planets which orbit the sun, and Magna El, seeking to bring order to them, granted them an orbit to prevent them from floating aimlessly though the universe. It is believed that the many stars of the universe are actually the deceased descendants and children of Minerva and Magna El.

Through a union between Minerva's Hatred and Magna El's Misery came about the Chasm and nine children to rule it: Astarion, Dis, Minauros, Shand, Stygia, Malave, Maladomini, Cania and Karlach. Today, the Chasm and its rulers are recognised as the Nine Hells and the Nine Lords of Hell respectively. Although the children represented aspects of their parents originally, they all obtained unique trait for which they are known best for today after Toruvel banished them, their unique traits are Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, Lust, Vainglory and Melancholy. To balance out the influence of the Chasm, Toruvel forced it out of the universe to decrease its power, forever banishing the nine children of Misery and Hatred. This led to Misery's death from heartache but not before Toruvel harnessed her aspect and created a proto-Misery to take her place and maintain the balance, as a consequence this led to Hatred's attempt at slaying Toruvel which failed. As punishment, Toruvel attempted to harness Hatred's aspect but could not do so because of his undying defiance of the aspect of Balance. Thus, Toruvel elevated Hatred and made him act as the modern God of defiance, hatred and resentment, known otherwise as Lucius, a position he resents and wishes he did not have to fulfil, and in order to balance him he elevated Minerva's Lust and turned her into Alana, the Goddess of love, beauty and procreation, a position she loves and fulfils dutifully.

The cycle of Minerva and Magna El creating children and creations, and those later mixing with one another, continued until one day when Toruvel, with the aid of Veles, imprisoned both Chaos and Order away inside the sun to prevent them from ever disrupting the balance he achieved. Shortly thereafter, after organising the children and descendants of his two peers, Toruvel sealed himself away as well in the sun to eternally watch over the star's two prisoners. Before he did so, however, he created linear time, thus ending the Dawn Era and beginning the First Era, and ordered for the world to be populated. It is said that after this, the chief divines, headed by Veles, in conjunction with the lesser children of Minerva and Magna El, brought mortal life to one of the planets orbiting the sun: the world.

### First Era

It is said that the elves, dwarves and halflings came to live on Antagarich roughly 4,000 years before the first men set foot on the continent, and were greeted by the lizardfolk of Tatalia who "were always here" (scholars believe that lizardfolk civilisation may be the single oldest humanoid civilisation in Antagarich) and the nymph races of the woods, mountains, lakes and plains who, like the lizardfolk, were believed to have always been here. Dragons and kobolds are likewise believed to have already inhabited Antagarich before the first races settled, with a legendary and mythical dragon city - contemporarily called the Dragon Palace - allegedly having existed in the highest peaks of the Dragon Mountains for thousands of years, serving as a home of a dragon realm before it was, presumably, destroyed or abandoned, or simply faded into obscurity.

According to these same legends and claims, gnomes arrived not long after the elves, dwarves and halflings, and settled alongside the latter in the hills and shires. Later, around 2,000 years before human settlement, the dwarves came in contact with orcs in the mountains which began the thousands of years long conflict between the two races, known to them both as the Long Agony or the Long War.

According to lizardfolk myth, the gnolls are not native to Antagarich and instead came "thousands of years ago" when they launched an invasion from their subterranean homeland only to be defeated and enslaved by the legendary hero Krixka, either before or around the same time as the arrival of the elves, dwarves and halflings. Since the Lizard-Gnoll conflicts, the gnolls have known nothing but the single longest unbroken history of enslavement at the hands of their scaled masters.

Demihumans are said to predate humans, but are believed to have settled Antagarich after the elves. It is believed that upon arriving in Antagarich the demihumans and elves immediately began centuries of bloodshed which were only ended when the first humans arrived and began fighting both groups simultaneously. Prior to the Age of the First Men, demihuman civilisation is said to have stretched from modern-day Enroth to the modern-day Imperial Province of Lebioda and parts of what is today Fabiola and Mag Turga (in southern Lanthyrian Empire).

The Forts of the Dawn, which sit at the western border of modern-day of the Golden Empire of Fabiola and separate it from Mossovy, are believed to have been built in the First Era but it is not known by whom, with the architectural style of the fortifications not matching any known culture. The only remote similarity is the material, with many ancient lizardfolk cities and the forts seemingly consisting of the same kind of oily black stone.

### Second Era (10,000BC - 1000BC)

#### Age of the First Men (10,000BC - 7000BC)

The Age of the First Men refers to the arrival of the first humans in Antagarich, settlers of unknown origin - believed by some to have come from Jadame and Ulthos, or perhaps another place or world entirely - and the subsequent widespread human migrations that took place over the course of roughly 3,000 years which saw humans settle and populate the lands stretching from the western coast of modern-day Enroth to the far-eastern coast of modern-day Lanthyria and Fabiola, with late human civilisation coming to settle parts of Antagarich as far south as the valleys of the Fiery Mountains and parts of the Scorchlands. During these three millennia, humans came into conflict with elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, orcs, demihumans and the lizardfolk, among others, with the nonhuman races generally being pushed back and humanity coming to occupy their former homes. During this time it is said that the early humans drove a race of woodland faeries into extinction when they destroyed the legendary Willowood. Early human-demihuman wars were said to be brutal and cruel, with both sides - the former inspired by a need for land to settle on and the latter forced into this mindset by previous centuries of brutal war against the elves - perpetrating widescale massacres and actively engaging in genocide against the other, with entire settlements being wiped out and many communities of demihumans, particularly the ancient Ursine, being driven out of their homes in the lowlands into the inhospitable mountains and hills to starve.

According to human legend, a human ruler, known today as the King of the Night, is said to have fallen madly in love with a woman with pale-white skin and deep blue eyes, proclaiming him his Queen. According to these same legends, when he gave her his seed he also gave her his soul, and the two used foul sorcery to enslave their subjects and led them beyond the Bone Mountains into the cold-desert of the Grey Waste. It is believed that the Bloodless Men who inhabit the Grey Waste today are the descendants of the enslaved, and that the King of the Night and his Corpse Queen still rule over them with sorcery.

Tieflings are said to have "appeared" between 2,500-3,000 years after the first humans settled in Antagarich, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. According to myths which are mostly dismissed today, the First Tiefling was the daughter of a human woman and Lucius, the God of hatred, and that all tieflings are in part her descendants. Tieflings were largely treated with disdain and driven into isolation within ghettos alongside their families, but many were simply slaughtered at birth by terrified parents. Pogroms became a part of life for them which led to many unsuccessful tiefling uprisings within human realms. The common animosity between tieflings and humans saw them integrate with the wider demihuman population, for a lack of animalistic features they did not lack hatred from humans and were largely accepted as part of demihuman communities by most demihumans with a few exceptions.

#### Age of Heroes (7000BC - 6000BC)

Subsequently following the end of the widespread human migration, an age of prosperity and wider peace was ushered in by the signing of treaties between the races. The Age of Heroes is named after the many legendary men and women who lived during this period, the name did not enter use until the Third Era. Many noble houses trace their family histories to the Age of Heroes and many stories, songs, and legends are told about it. It is an era that is shrouded in mystery, with more myth than fact known about it. There are numerous tales from the Age of Heroes, too many to count. These histories were not recorded in books but passed down from generation to generation through story and song. While some of them may be dismissed as fairy tales everyone one of the realms in Antagarich is influenced by them in one way or another.

Fabiolan legends state that following the Great Schism, a great war between petty princes and kings, the great Moonstone Dynasty rose from the ashes of Fabiola and established the Golden Empire, unifying the realm in an unprecedented way. The rule of the Moonstone Dynasty would be undisputed for hundreds of years until the ascension of the 9th Moonstone Crown Prince to the throne - the Bloodstone Emperor. It is said that the Bloodstone Emperor married a demihuman woman and fathered a dozen of impure children with her, ordered the statues of Fabiolan Gods destroyed and brought the sinister Church of Starry Wisdom - which he may have founded himself - into a position of power and authority, beginning to worship their "outer God" and bringing about a reign of darkness, political and religious repression and chaos, with the Bloodstone Emperor and his wife allegedly known to feast on human flesh, practice necromancy and experiment on orphan children. For nearly two decades the Bloodstone Emperor reigned until his tyrannical reign ended when he was assassinated and succeeded by his bastard half-sister, the first Opal Empress, who began the Fabiolan Opal Dynasty and ushered in a period of national healing.