Schlagen

**Overview**

Schlagen is an extremely mountainous continent with some amounts of forest and rivers, very similar in geography to the real life country of 'Switzerland'. The population of Schlagen is entirely that of dwarves, with only sparse amounts of humans and goblins along with the occaisional Drow or Tiefling. There are two kingdoms in Schlagen, Kirkja Landeth and Freeivol. Furthermore, the entire region of Schlagen seems to have an ongoing perpetual crisis with demons and demonic incursions. From the grain farmers on the surface, all the way down to the great lava forges. As Dwarves, of course, they are obsessed with mining, smithing, crafting, and all things related to this. A dwarf can be born, grow up, die of old age, and be buried without ever seeing the light of day, and thats the way they like it. Schlagen is known for their extremely intricate works of stone infastructure, some of which being built thousands of years ago and still operates to this very day. Has a population of 6 million.

**Continent History**

Schlagen was the fourth continent to be created, the old god being a bat-like creature. It is fabled that Schlagen died of starvation, its food source being a species of large insect that no longer exists.

**Brief History**

Schlagen has been the home of the Dwarves for as long as anyone can remember. Their history has been chronicled not by pen and paper, but their works of stone, each one being inscribed with names, dates, and even poetry. Names from thousands of years ago are still chronicled on stone just as old. Thus, a full timeline of Dwarvern history would be a monumental task, and to a Dwarf, would be a waste of time considering the medium of paper is 'flimsy' to them.

The earliest Dwarvern city, and the current 'Capital' of Schlagen is Vjakr Gruna, a city built around a deep underground lake. Conflicts between Dwarves happen on a more personal level, they are a naturally cooperative race in comparison to most other races in the realm. The growth of Dwarvern civilization has always been a linear process, steadily rising as more tunnels, more structures, and more ore is mined. While they are master engineers, technology has remained almost completely stagnant, having learnt how to carve stone, smith tools like gods, grow mushrooms, and engineer architecture thousands of years ago and not much else.

Five hundred years ago, Orc's sailed in from Pollosh and raided the island of Schlagen, looting, pillaging, and even kidnapping some of the Dwarvern people for enslavement. While Dwarves most certainly knew how to fight, they had never dealt with an invasion of this manner. This was a sort of wake-up call for the Schlagen Dwarves, and because of this event they became more militarized, before being a loose coalition of city states, but now unifying into the first continent wide kingdom, called 'Kzormond'. Kzormond was a fairly progressive kingdom, having an election, a senate, and a leader who did not wield absolute power.

This however, did not last. One hundred and twenty years ago, Drekilessa attempted to invade Kzormond in order to enforce the 'Kivanewo' or the Kingdoms favorable trade and geopolitical situation. Their goal was to replace the Kzormond government with a more direct monarchy that supported Drekilessa, and open the Kingdom up to more trade. The war was called among Dwarves the 'Jarlethurkon Orstrjeth' or the 'Dragon War'. This conflict ended up going terribly for Drekilessa, and was notably one of the few complete and utter defeats for Drekilessa, taking near one hundred percent losses while the Dwarves barely lost any men. A seige was attempted against the Dwarves, but this also went poorly, as Drekilessa could only hold the very surface of Schlagen, and Dwarves were used to cultivating and living underground. Drekilessa eventually left, on the way out setting alight all the fields and foliage they could. Because of this, the Dwarves have held a grudge against the Dragon people, because while in their minds they can understand invasion, scorched earth tactics were just illogical and barbaric.

The Dwarves were seen as undefeatable, at least in a defensive setting. But Fifty years ago, they finally met their match...

**The Slok Jemed**

For reasons that still remain a mystery, one day a new threat emerged: Demon's. Hundreds, if not thousands of them began to appear all at once across Schlagen. Some were feral beasts that attacked everything on sight, and others were spirits that possessed Dwarves to infiltrate society. There were also Vampires, a demonic infection that made whoever received it need blood to survive. The first year after this is referred to as 'The Slok Jemed' and Dwarven history is now divided pre and post Slok Jemed, or 'SJ' for short. The Demons completely destroyed the old kingdom of Kzormond, and Dwarven society collapsed completely due to the sheer volume of Demons appearing.

After the year of Slok Jemed, mysteriously the Demonic invasion slowed. Drekilessa attempted to invade Schlagen again, but failed, in the process bringing the Vampuric infection from Schlagen to Firestland, and eventually the rest of the world. The remaining Dwarves used this calm to rebuild, reforming into small city states once more. The Demon's were still present, but less so.

**The Reconstruction Era**

The Dwarves learned how to deal with Demon's over time. As the Dwarves reformed however, there was a split in methodology in dealing with the Demons. The north side of Schlagen became the Kingdom of Kirkja Landeth, a theocratic religious state that used faith in gods and holy symbols to fight the Demons. Culturally, they regressed by many years, turning into a rigid autocratic theocracy, justifying their actions by the threat of demons.

Meanwhile, the south side of Schlagen became Freeivol, the remnants of the old Kzormond kingdom that follows their structure much more closely. Freeivol does use holy weaponry, but they use whatever means at their disposal to fight the demons. This includes using Demonic magic to fight the demons, and they research ways to use Vampires and other dark magics for their own purposes. They follow a philosophy like Kzormond, where all problems are practical problems that can be solved with practical solutions.

These two kingdoms have yet to go to war, however tensions are very high, and it is speculated that neither side goes to war in fear of being vulnerable to demonic or external invasion.