Norland

**Norland** is a prime plane of the world. Although it wasn’t the sole plane in this world, but it was one of the top few. The timeflow here was slower than in most secondary planes, and ten years in Norland could be equivalent to centuries elsewhere.

The language spoken was in Norlandese or Norlandic

## Overview

Norland already had three great human empires, but there was still a lot of territory left to go around in the plane. Humans could still expand and conquer the Far North, Lithgalen, or Klandor to found new empires, or even unify the sparse independent countries on the mainland.

### **Interplanar Politics**

Norland wasn’t the only primary plane, with many known planes that were no inferior to it like hell, the abyss, the celestial plane, and the astral plane. Some secondary planes possessed unusual single powers that made them no inferior to primary planes, like the elemental and shadow planes. The relationship of all these planes with Norland was complicated; they weren’t so distant that they existed only in legend and folklore like normal men thought, but they weren’t friendly like some theologians claimed. The only constant was conflict and war.

Just as Norland’s nobility was intent on expanding their influence outward, many other planes wished to conquer them. Every now and then, some powerful beings would construct a portal that connected to Norland, leading troops out in an attempt to conquer this beautiful and fertile plane.

Given the power system and sheer area of the plane, it was impossible to conquer Norland with power alone. After all, the number of troops one could transfer through any passage between planes was rather limited. However, with enough numbers came a swathe of fools. There were always some hot-headed powerhouses from another plane attempting to launch attacks on Norland, although they couldn’t even conquer an earl’s lands with the meagre armies they managed to send.

### **Gods**

With the Eternal Dragon holding a firm position, Norland’s pantheon did not reign supreme like those on lesser planes did. Numerous legendary beings were always plotting to build up their own power, advancing to become demigods after which they would transcend. Who would want to worship these deities that weren’t too far beyond them?

As a general rule, the more powerful a plane the lesser the status of the gods presiding over it. Those who transcended everything had no need for faith, like the Eternal Dragon or the rumoured Overgod.

### **Starry Sky**

Nobody knew what the stars were, even today. Divine kingdoms, reflections of other planes, or just gems that the Eternal Dragon had hung upon the crystal sphere of Norland… There were many hypotheses, but nobody had actually found a proper answer to it.

Not even legendary mages could explain it. Even if these mages could traverse the various planes and understood the laws of the world, the end of Norland’s sky was still a mystery. There was once a legendary mage who tried to fly towards the night’s stars. Nobody knew how long the man had flown, but he didn’t manage to even approach a single star. Eventually, he had been drowned in a strange storm of dazzling light that almost burnt him to a crisp without warning, forcing him to use the last dregs of his energy to escape. He had returned to Norland a dying man, only managing to recount his experience before he died.

With even a legendary mage being unable to find out what the stars in the sky actually were, nobody tried to do such a foolish thing again. 4;166

## Counterparts

### **Lithgalen**

In Norland, humans were constantly at war. Amongst themselves, against the three other major empires, against the Daxdians at the Land of Dusk… they spent all of their growth period in combat. Anyone who could enter the epic realm amidst the constant bloodshed truly had the power to back their level. Even the Celestial Sage, someone widely considered weak for an epic being, was no different. This held true in Klandor as well; Asa would be able to defeat any of the three epics of current Lithgalen ten times out of ten.

### **Klandor**

The Klandorians were a proud race that lived on the Land of Heroes. Their might equals any country of Norland, with even the totemic warrios slightly above rune knights in terms of burst power. However, that was only one country and that would be a hard-fought battle.

## Organizations

Every plane was structured like a pyramid. The people at the top had the most resources, and the number of positions at every level was set in stone. A person’s status was only relative to others; if one wished to advance, they could only trample others as they climbed up the ladder. Although the methods were different for different people, the net effect was the same.

where most of the Major Family are living, this is also the location of the City of "Faust" where the Church of the Eternal Dragon is Located.

Most of the time on other plane are calculated based on Norland's time.

Example: The forest Plane is 8:1 time compared to Norland.

There were six great empires of Norland:

### **Human Empires**

The human empires now hold the majority of the mainland when they had beaten the duergar back into a small corner of the mainland up far north.

1. Millennial Empire
2. Sacred Tree Empire
3. Sacred Alliance Empire

### **Non-human Empires**

1. Elven Empire
2. Frozen Court

### **Formation of Countries**

Everyone knew that one needed true power to set up an independent country in Norland. An epic being would be allowed to set up a dukedom without any interference, and if they were strong enough to suppress their peers they could expand that into a kingdom or empire as well. Those who weren’t at that level would face interference from the older families of the plane, something those clans viewed as a responsibility more than anything else.

## Conquests

Norland was always enveloped by the fires of war. The human race occupied less than half of the continent, and was constantly at war with the other races for land and survival itself. However, humans didn’t war like the demons; the latter did fight against the other races, yes, but they also fought ceaselessly amongst themselves. The neverending battles on the continent affected the depths of the oceans, and even many other planes.

### **Interplanar Wars**

Interplanar wars were already deep-rooted within the psyche of Norland’s inhabitant. Any family that had stood the tests of time had at least one plane’s resources backing them. Because of this, wars in Norland far exceeded those in these secondary planes in scale. Due to the importance of interplanar war, those matters were extremely complicated. They needed a standard battle plan from the moment of infiltration, inclusive of their setup and expansion all the way to total conquest.

Thus, even in Norland only the upper echelons of society were involved with interplanar wars. Theory and tactics on such conquest only spread through the inner circles of nobility, and commoners would never be privy to such information.

### **Battlefields of Despair**

Norland and Daxdus have been at war for over a thousand years and know the coordinates of each other well. However, teleporting into another primary plane is basically suicide. The Battlefield of Despair is the best way of wearing out the enemy. The birth of every saint or legendary being takes an inordinate amount of resources, so we fight here to make each other bleed. Once one side cannot take it anymore, they’ll lose their footing in the battlefield and the situation will turn very dangerous. The Land of Dusk will become one of the best fortresses of the attacking army, allowing them to send an unending stream of soldiers over to the other side.

## Lands

* Land of Flames

It was an unwritten rule that even a regular soldier of a powerful family was superior to a minor noble.

### **North**

This is where Deepblue is located, acting as the safeguard against the duergars. The Far North of Norland was filled with snowy mountains and frozen plains, a scant few river banks thawing in the summer to form some sparse greenery. The barren land was quite vast, containing hundreds of species like the duergar, dragonblood gnomes, and orcs. There were a number of humans as well, with some powerhouses having set up dukedoms, but most humans here were considered slaves or even food.

The lands here were loosely controlled by a conglomerate of the most powerful races called the Frozen Court, one of Norland’s six great empires that was no weaker than the Sacred Alliance or the other two human empires. Most of the Frozen Court was located underground, forming a maze of passageways that were rumoured to originate at the boiling flames down below. The food issue was solved with blackell mushrooms grown underground, relying on the heat from the flames instead of sunlight and water.

## Trivia

* One question had plagued his mind all this while— why was it that a plane like Norland was so special? However, there was no answer to be found. Faust hadn’t been built by humans, the city of miracles coming from a time before recorded history. Even to this day, there were many mysteries in this city that people had yet to discover.
* When Richard became a saint runemaster, he became the fourth in the current generation.
* level 14 was enough to be knighted even in Norland, while those with leadership ability could even become baronets.
* To those of Norland, the color blue represented destruction. This was the final destination of all life, which was why the moonforce of the blue moon powered the secret sword known as Annihilation. It was just that this was a move that ended in mutual destruction; Annihilation drew upon its user’s power with reckless disregard for life, inevitably injuring or even killing them.

## References

1. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 22
2. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 98
3. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 89
4. ↑ Book 8, Chapter 116
5. ↑ Book 8, Chapter 31
6. ↑ Book 7, Chapter 1
7. ↑ Book 8, Chapter 6
8. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 129