Andura

Andura is a thrice-broken land. Broken once, during the Last War with the Beyond, when the Gods at last saw victory against the Abyss, a victory that sealed the daemons of the other side away for good and all, but one that came at a terrible price. Broken once more when fire rained from the heavens, shattering almost all that remained to be ruined, as our gods cast aside this world once and for all. And broken one final time, when the remnants of the civilisations that emerged afterward dabbled in sorceries beyond their understanding.

It was at the end of the Second Epoch that the most High Lord of the Skies, Ethain, departed this plane with the Gods that followed him, the people left behind huddled beneath the earth for safety, as the seas boiled and the mountains crumbled above them. When the skies cleared and the greenery spread across the world once more, the Fourth Epoch dawned as the mortals built their world anew, desperate to reclaim the prestige they could scarce remember. In the Fifth Epoch thereafter, the Seven Great Empires of the Dawn rose out of the ashes of the Great Darkness, and the mortals found their honour.

For over a thousand years, the people of Andura flourished. The Sixth Epoch continued bright and clear and beautiful, as the civilisations of the world reached the peak of their advancement and the zenith of their pride. But no Empire lasts forever, and these were no exception. Arahna'dar fell in fire, when the homelands of their Dominion were seized by a foul darkness, a taint that persists to this day. With the head removed, the rest of the Dominion clawed and slashed at itself until its territories had bled each other dry. The Khalyn Imperium was split asunder when its twin rulers chose swords over words, and fought one another until the Capital of the Imperium was left a smoking ruin. Sorcery and fate wrote their ruin, cursed the two to begin a war that still rages on.

Tzukadia was wracked by a plague so virulent it  left but one in every ten alive thereafter, and the majestic island expanses of Siranoc vanished from this world altogether. Ghar Valan was scourged by the nomadic horsemen of the far north, who united under one banner to lay their enemies low for the first time in their history. Its people were left adrift, broken, wandering the world in their tribes and clans, desperately searching for a homeland to call their own once again.

But it was Vanteos, bravest and most beautiful of all the Empires, foremost among the daughters of Ethain that inherited the world, that was brought the lowest. Their land was consumed by fire that poured forth from the mountaintops, as though some evil entombed beneath the earth had woken at last. The proud lands of the Seven Swords vanished beneath the red-gold flames, its majestic spires and towers melting into a slag that turned the oceans red. Its people scattered on the wind, fleeing desperately aboard their ships to anywhere they could find. An Armada that numbered in the thousands crossed the oceans north and east and south, desperate for safe harbour. They braved storm and wind and sea-beast, and terrors far beyond any this world could comprehend, but they survived.

It was these survivors that found themselves disembarking in what was once the Tzukadian Empire, these survivors who spread across the land to eke their own clans and kingdoms out of the ruins of that once-proud land. Men and women fought and bled across the ancient realm, amidst the ruins of the old Emperors, and led armies against one another for the fate of towns, then cities, then kingdoms. It seemed the world was destined to consume itself once more, but fate had other plans.

It was then, amid all this conflict, that hope kindled itself anew. Adari refugees emerged from the northern deserts, founding their own kingdom anew on the grassy plains of Anah. The Kingdoms forged by the Children of the Armada fought one another until the land was divided into a hundred kingdoms, then a score, then but five.

A golden-eyed hero struck a bargain with an elven clan in the depths of Blackmoon Forest, and founded a city that would become one of the mightiest of its age. Vantean sailors allied themselves with the tribesmen of the Isles, and the nation of Ikaria was born in the lapping waves of Szeriki Bay. The people of the world came together with their Gods disparate and ancient, and hammered their faiths into a religion that would spread across the new world like wildfire. Stories drift in from the far east of strange lands, and stranger peoples, but the Children of Andura, at least, have found their honour once more.

Now, it is the Seventh Epoch of the Known World. The Exodus Kingdoms have flourished in their new homes, bright banners fly across the land, and the Age of Blood is but a distant memory. The Ascendanist Church holds sway in almost every land, the stories of their nine Gods and Goddesses known to children before the names of the Kingdoms in which they live. Across the land, the Golden Wheel Trading company dominates commerce, and the Cobalt Company of Ikaria builds their trading empire across the seas in turn. Stories of daemons and fire that rains from the sky are considered stories in truth, now.

There are those who see the men and women who inherited the world as weak and squabbling children, quarreling amidst the stones laid by greater spirits. Some see the new Ascendanist Church as a mere gaggle of scholars desperate to seek the aid of beings that no longer walk this earth, and they have their reasons for doing so. There is a fury in this world, still, to be sure. The cities of the Jekulan League, last remnants of the Dominion, war with one another incessantly, fighting for gold and trade and power. Practitioners of magic are hunted in Khannaea and Arkhanagad, still blamed for the dissolution of the Old Imperium, and the north remains a broken realm of warlords, brigands and tiny villages, all of them shrouded by the inky-black smoke that sweeps in from the Darklands.

But there is beauty here, too. From the eerie, whispering majesty of the Veridian Wood in Tere-Velor, to the silver towers of the Grand Godspire in Ivantier, this world has its sights to see. There is a fierce pride that burns in the heart of every Child of Ethain, no matter how black that heart may be, for they the descendants of those who survived the Age of Blood.

Andura, from the Whitespine Mountains to the farthest reaches of the Jekulan League, is a land home to many. Kings and Queens, scholars and priests, clerics and inquisitors and cutthroats all call this land their home, for good or ill. And from the meanest killer to the most pious worshipper, everyone in this world has something they desire. Who you are, and what that is, depends entirely upon yourself.