Interturn 3 - The Age of Tides

**Saga of the Wyrdfallen: Tale of the Draconic Schism:**

Of the Dragons, Wyrd:  Deep in the heart of the obsidian city, Tranombokinului, heart of all dragondom such as it was, there stirred a great unrest. In the dreams of the lesser dragons generations forward, the scions of fate would be torn and misled by visions of such suffering and mortal coil that it would come to threaten the very make of Draconic society.  they would be corrupted by their order to bring order and peace, as is the benevolent nature of their make as per their creator, Lirokof. Over centuries and millenia these lesser dragons, a growing political faction on the landscape of Kovol, would form the Arcktemperthae, meaning "Ones who fear not action". They believe it is those who have the mortal perspective and limited life, unlike the 'elder' reincarnating dragons, who should rule Dragonkind. More importantly, it is their perhaps radical belief that the lesser mortals should serve a greater purpose, namely the dragons themselves.

It was this belief that caused great turmoil and increasing tensions across Kovol, in time, foreseeing the calamity of these conflicting views, the Brassborn withdrew from open contact through the planar web, and were seldom sought out by other mortals and dragons in coming years. They retreated into their cities to toil away at new creations, and explore the depths of the ocean unhindered.

All across Numen the tensions of the coming conflict were felt for generations; the Elterbrin foresaw this calamity and in their prophecies had written of the The Fall, their more pragmatic kindreds saw to it that they would be prepared for war.  Every race connected through a scion to fate could feel the tension and building prejudice of the Lesser dragons, and none would be unmarred by its passing.

So the lesser dragons were challenged by their Elder kindred in one epoch, inevitably as it was, that the Lesser dragons had continued to denigrate and reduce the active rule and power of their elder kin. The first blow was struck when one of the leaders of the Arcktemperthae was slain by an Elder dragon upon grevious insult, and the insinuation of apathy and weakness on part of all Elder Dragons. in a series of skirmishes across the obsidian city, the Elder Dragons were forced into battle with their more greatly numbered kin, and driven back from the citadels of their royal languishment.

This greatest of heresies was punctuated with the arrival and reveal of the Ecthakr, a sworn band of Elder Dragons who had themselves been reincarnated into mortal bodies in ages past only to be born as a mortal scion of that race - and it was they who had seen the truth  - there was indeed a need for order as it is the nature of all lesser mortals to be chaotic. They did not come as dragons, though, but as mortals of the lesser races; Man, Elterbrin, and Dwarf riding in gilded plate atop their lesser kindred. These riders saw to it through the prodigious application of their eternal knowledge and sorcery that the Elder Dragons were slaughtered where they did not flee.

The Elder Dragons fled Kovol, betrayal in their hearts at this greatest of heresies. They fled into hiding across Numen; some even flying as far as Muspel. Guiding, or hiding amongst the lesser mortals of the world; little in artifacts and eggs that they carried from their homeplaces. Of the Dragons these broods are known to have landed into hiding:

The Icedrakyr, hiding in the ice-caverns beneath Muspel's frigid surface.

The Isendrakyr, living amongst Oasis's and the dunes on Desarid

The Swamp Dragons, nurturing the young Mushroomites and guiding in them the light of Ruotta's divine energies to eventually grow into something greater.

The Fatebound Dragonsages, a small brood of dragons who hid themselves deep in the vaults of Teregany, where their eggs might be preserved in the ashen heat of the Volcano hence; guiding the wisest of the Brassborn in a means of retribution.

The scattered, a small group of the dragons who chose to abandon their wounded or dying bodies and permanently reincarnate into the likes of Man; for the Elterbrin were deemed too arrogant and lost to be guided by their wisdom. Man, in its archaic nobility still held promise and so those few dragons who entered the race indefinitely would hide amongst them, guiding them towards greater things.

and the Void Dragons; soaring far until they discovered, most curiously, the Dwarves of Humbles. Whom they would agree to trade wisdoms of the world abroad with in return for safe hiding.

Of the Dark Years; for it was when the last guardians standing between the darker tendencies of mortal minds and the world at large left; so did anything preventing the world from falling into shadow. In the following years and centuries the Arcktemperthae prepared their legions of dragons to make their war on the mortal realms and subjugate them, one by one, until order was brought to this most entropic of worlds.  When they came, they came in the thousands, adorned in black glass and blades forged from volcanic steels.

**The Elterbrin:**

All hope was not lost hoever, for the Elterbrin had forseen this battle, and in their innovation had invented the Ballistae; a progression of their crossbows intended to kill great beasts. The war across miltourne waged for a century and half; the mastery of fire that Vynthrol had granted his children gave them unnatural resistance to immolation, but could not altogether prevent it.  When the dust settled and the unaged Dragons brought forth their lords, much of northern Miltourne was a wasteland of ash and dragon-bones, for every thousand Elterbrin warriors slain, a hundred dragons fell to their volleys and fire. Syn-Shulumoar was buried entirely beneath the clouds of ash unleashed, the forest burnt to the ground once the Arcktemperthae realized the guerrilla forces they fought.

In the ashes of Syn-Shulumoar, the Arcktemperthae built the Obsidian city of Sholgorthad, pinnacled by a great obsidian citadel from whence the Dragon-lords of the Elterbrinnic realm could look forth on their rule. The remaining Elterbrin either submitted to their rule, shattered in morale and number, or ran forth through the Planar gate and hid with the remaining Jatairni on Lirok, where they would found new cities to continue their rebellion.

Under the rule of the Arcktemperthae the realm prospered, for Elterbrin and Jatairni alike were the indentured slaves of their Draconic masters, building new cities and great forges. The greatest caste; those of the warrior caste, would serve in the armies for their dragon-lords to continue their invasion of other realms.

It was to their benefit, that only one obsidian obelisk existed south of the Sanus Belt, in the Spit obsidian peaks of Lirok, an enclosed valley of great height. It was here that the remaining Elterbrin, who had freed their remaining houses of indentured Jatairni to be freemen once more, would build a great fortress citadel to hold back the invading armies coming through the planar gate, Tel-Medur.

They would send messengers across the northern sea to the realms of Noshkalar and Man alike, calling their aid in the holding of this great planar gate, to hold back the tide. A compact was struct; that all three races would put aside any difference of ages past in order to stem the Scaletide. New cities would be built across Lirok, utilizing its untapped resources both mineral and natural, building great forges and the *Azure Kingdom* would rise from the Ashes of the old one.

**Humanity of Termansk:**

Of Men; perhaps of their own accord, perhaps of the draconic influence running through the veins of their Lords and Kings, regardless of the why, Man flourished during a time of such darkness for so many. Their island realm became the ruled realm of Termansk, and they would build further cities along the eastern coast of the continent they had come to dub *Prosteria*, an extension of the Termanskian sovereignty. The Noshkalar had begun to decline in culture under the increasing numbers and organization of the Vatarnkalar at this point in history, and thus increasingly fled to the walled cities of Man for protection, operating as merchants, fishermen and a generally well-respected symbiote of Mannish culture.

Of their culture and technology; Man's increasingly great focus on honor and skill above pure innovation - the ethical codes of Honor became codified. Thusly their warrior-culture was codified in the orders of Warriorhood that one would train in from a young age, shortly after birth, to be both honorable and lethal. Focusing their efforts on endurance; humanity innovated increasingly heavier armors particularly in their creation of crude mails. A human warrior is expected to campaign and battle in cloth wrappings, over which a mail cloth and coif is placed, and atop which thick bronze plating under-wrapped with more cloth is placed. Segmented plating over mail allowed for the increasingly expensive-to-field human martial warriors to combat with opponents of superior strength and magical standing; a tactic initially devised to deal with the infamously conquering Elterbrin but perfected in the fires of their defense against the legions of the Arcktemperthae, of whom they would stalwart defenders.

**The Brassborn:**

Of the Brassborn; their technological leaps into exosuit technology granted them great privilage to explore the depths of the oceans as much as becoming stewards of the few remaining clutches of loyal dragon-eggs in the heart of their volcano. When they Acktemperthae came, and make no mistake, they did - flying across the ocean in winged waves- they had long sealed up the entrances to their cities and prepared, under wisdom of the dragons, for a long and drawn-out besiegement.

To this day, millennia hence, the Arcktemperthae have been unable to crack the impenetrable granite hides of the Brassborn gates - which have been reinforced with arcane alloys devised by the greatest brood of Elder Dragons left. Deep in the forges within they prepare for the inevitable, against their better nature, and make all haste to ensure that tunnels and means exist for their folk to evacuate when the day comes for the end of their civilization as they know it. On the surface above, Teregany, the city once built of obsidian and granite by Mechanical and Draconic limb alike, is laid to waste and becomes Siwen-Blith, the mining colony of the Arcktemperthae, where they send ships of slaves to carry out generations of heavy mining into the volcano's side in an attempt to shatter its hide and allow access to the living jewels within.

**The Dwarves:**

Of the Dwarves; They were surprised to find the Dragons fleeing, for it is their nature to be dissected from the course of time across the globe above. It was even more to their surprise when they were educated by the Dragons on the nature of war, and the nature of conflict; instructions on the construction of weapons and more importantly; prophecies.

**The Prophecies of Uthaine of Man:**

the Void Dragons had constructed a prophecy, that if inevitable would prove the downfall of the Arcktemperthae - a fact that generated fear in the ruling darkling Dragons to the south, for they saw it in the fate-spires the Elterbrin had once constructed - meditating on potential futures with their immense wills.

*One day a boy-dragon will be born, but not born a dragon, He shall be Uthaine of Man, and he shall carry with him as a shield, the Seal of Va in one hand, and for his blade the Scionic bond of fate to his heart. When the hour is late and the sun is high, he shall battle with the traitorous Ecthakyr at the heart of all creation, and show them through his infinite suffering the error of their ways. In his last act of victory, the great weapon shall be activated and all that has come to pass in darkness will be rejected before the light.*

In order to fulfill this prophecy the Void Dragons, dwindling as they did for lack of eggs remaining, passed the schematics and designs to the greatest smiths of the Dwarven age, for Zatvok, an arcane superweapon houses in archaic alloys and gemstones that when activated would harness the planar energies of Lirok's gates to petrify the flesh of all living things within radius, and trap their souls within eternally.

**The Compact:**

And finally; of the Compact; Elterbrin, Jatairni, Noshkalar, and Man. Signed under the King of man, Procthaine, and the last Amberaine of the North, Kermeridius. The Races of all were to be governed by a grand crown in times of great need, to be interred in the mausoleum of Syn-shulumoar - a temple of great mourning for all Elterbrinnic folk. The Crown of the Emeyrdion Amberaine. The Compact values equality of all peoples to the necessity of its function, but maintains segregated districts within each of its cities for each race, whilst the Elterbrin are a humbled people as they are free of the Dragons' influence, they are not without prejudice of epochs past.