Welcome to Undriel

There is a legend amongst my people that the land was not always split into nine city-states waged to control the resources to keep their kingdoms healthy. There was a legend of a time when there was peace, not at the edge of a sword, but through reason and philosophy. This age eschewed the gods and, maybe there we find the reason for its downfall…

I wish to tell you the story of the First Empire, Uildía. It is said that this kingdom was ruled through the wise counsel of its five ruling houses, Ó Braonán, Arienthiel, Cathwar, Hávaar, and Tenzil. It is said that all the tribes were descended from these five houses. Of the origin of our kinds differences? Well… that was lost in the Great Fall. We are now who we are. But I digress. The Empire of Uildía, born from the ashes of the Grand War and a beacon of hope for a bright future.

The families guided the people, who did not want for food, or cloth or hearth, and the great Hearth Halls would take the weary and the stranger, welcoming them to abide by the peace of the home. This time a man could walk the roads, knowing the Galloglas patrolled them. The shadows held no fear for men, and perhaps that was the greatest weakness. For without fear, the Uildíans were lax in their vigilance.

In the 300th year of the Uildían Empire, a man came into the court and asked to see the council. What they spoke of has never been recorded, nor the name or description of the figure who walked into that room. However, when the counselors returned, it was said that they were pale of face, as if in a great shock. They called their advisors and sequestered themselves within the council chambers for many a moon. Their silence brought a chill to the people, who began to see something change.

They say it was the crops that failed first. They seemed to wither and die, turning to dust in front of the eyes of the people. Then, the farthest cities began to be silenced one by one, as if they had vanished overnight.

As the counsel sought answers to the calamities that continued to befall the people. The herds died, and people began to fight amongst themselves for the scraps of edible food they could find. Regions fell to famine and plague as a pestilence spread from town to town until the Galloglas were forced to burn the villages to the ground for the people's protection.

Dechtíre, the daughter of Ó Braonán, called upon the counsel to leave their chambers and see the suffering the people experienced. But the counsel hall remained silent. Enraged, she gathered those loyal to her and swore to find the cause of this suffering. She took with her the sword Dyrnwyn and marched out with a handful of faithful companions.

No one knows what she found out, for the people were consumed with their fears and troubles. It was then the enemy struck. From the shadows, like a coward, the Fomori attacked. The gates were undefended as the Galloglas sought to tame the plague, and so they passed through unmolested into the outer cities at the heart of the Empire.

The first to fall was the Golden city of Nysa, the greatest of engineers and scholars’ home. The battle lasted two bloody days before the Fomori overran the battlements and put all those within to the knife and fire. None came out from the city, and the great towers were torn down.

The Galloglas began a counter-attack, but without the council’s leadership, they floundered in the face of such a vicious enemy. They were driven back, street by bloody street, city by city until only a few towns remained.

In this darkest hour, Dechtíre returned, battling through the Fomori with an army unseen by any before. When the great blade Dyrnwyn fell upon the enemy, a great panic overtook them. Dechtíre forced her way through to the capital of Uildía, Niflheim, and rallied the men before her, returning once again to battle. Thus the Fomori were routed, but not before they exacted a mighty toll upon the defenders.

When they left, the plague seemed to go with them, but their presence polluted the land, and nothing would grow in the ground. The people continued to starve and dwindle until they numbered less than ten thousand.

Dechtíre approached the council chambers and flung open the door to find the counselors’ bodies upon the floor. So it had been the first act of the Fomori; the death of the righteous body of rulers so the land would be without leadership, then they had struck.

Those who remained from the Houses gathered together, but much was as it had not been. Arguments broke out, and Houses bickered. Some wished Dechtíre to become Regent and rule, while others decried her as the architect of their disaster. Dechtíre tried to persuade them to listen to her and the important news she brought on her return, but none heard.

For a second time, Dechtíre left never to return and formed her kingdom called Caer Wyde, which still stands today. It is said that when she found the place upon which she would build her new land, The Morrígan shone her radiance upon Dechtíre, and now her temple resides upon that spot.

The Houses could no longer exist in harmony, and so began the great divide as each House claimed its land and swore to protect it against all enemies. And so the time of rebuilding began, those loyal to each House coming together to start fresh in the shadow of their Empire. Soon Uildía began to crumble and became dust, the land around it inhospitable and unforgiving. Now it is no more than a myth, a place where technologies beyond imagining still lie to be recovered…