The Flow-Touched Land

## History

### The Devouring Serpent and Gaea

An infinity of time ago, a fairly large dimension, consigned by it's orbit, flew and impacted the Outer Boundary. It shattered and dissolved into rich feeding grounds for the Flow creatures, as many do. But this time, it was only consumed by one. A simple Flow-serpent, that happened to be in the right place and time, devoured the entire universe, It grew and blossomed, but with it's newfound size and power, it found that it had an even greater hunger.

This being, now referred to as Kochain by modern scholars, consumed dimension after dimension, feasting upon their remanents and growing ever larger, ever more powerful, and ever more starved. However, it failed to devour the dimensions fully, and after millenia, enough of the detritus drifted together and began to merge. Over hundreds of thousands of years, the detritus grew closer and closer together into a pure source of Harmonious magic, enough to where it became sentient and gave itself the name Gaea.

It is unknown if Gaea tracked down Kochain, or if Kochain tracked down Gaea, but they fought. While Kochain was mighty and incredibly powerful, it was ever-starved and the longer they fought, the weaker it became. Eventually, Gaea managed to wound Kochain enough to force it to flee, where it fled into the Flow. Gaea nursed it's injuries back to health, the scarring across it's core healing as expected. Except for one very specific spot, a relatively small but deep wound upon Gaea's core had gotten an infection of small flow-pests. It never healed properly, and slowly leaks mana out of it, an amount irrelevant to Gaea's greater form, but very relevant to the people that live upon that scar.

When Amun and Kuk'sar formed from the detritus of the battle between Gaea and Kochain, they eventually set to building a world around Gaea as a method of protection for her. It was a learning process, but they never fully devised a way to clear the infection and heal the wound. During the first years of angel and demonic civilization, they left the wound uncovered with the hope that eventually it would heal, but it never did. They instead covered it in a dense grassland in the hope of the natural life there being able to maintain the wound and eventually heal it, but the flowing mana stripped the land of it's water and life and left it a dry and barren desert. Kuk'sar had plans of attempting to repair the wound with shells of shimmering crystals that would siphon the mana off and introduced a moon-blooming plant species to the desert that would blossom crystals across it's roots as well as altered the structure of the sand to make it more likely to clump into crystals as well, but his full plan never came to fruition due to the Dawn War and Amun abandoned the project, leaving only the remanent behind.

### The Manaborne Satyrs (1500 BFNE - 1000 BFNE)

During the first eras of civilization, when the Goblins began to travel the oceans as Loa Trolls and the Dragon Empire blossomed in Auron, the demons within the Wildlands also dared to breach their solitude and a group of them fled down south of Edos. They wound up settling within the remanents of their creator's works, the Flow-Touched Lands. These demons, a group of satyr-kind, began to change due to the presence of the volatile magics that flowed up from the ground, their DNA, already heavily magic, shifting to accommodate the new-magics.

They became Manaborne Satyrs, their hooves and horns shifting to allow them to directly pull and twist and shift the mana in the air around them, and they wound up abandoning their demonic heritage in favor of this new, arcane, and powerful birthright. They founded a small tribal council within the desert, led by the demon that had first brought them out: Basile Gaumont. Basile led the Manaborne Satyrs into an era of great magical prowress, and due to them foresaking their demonic blood, they were protected from the wrath of Amun's Angels.

While the Dragon Empire brewed and stewed, the Manaborne Satyrs developed enchantments and 'discovered' runic magic. They were isolationist, focused heavily upon their small community. Their population was fixed, as was all of the demons within the Wildlands due to the secret bargains struck by their savior, and as such, they avoided all that they could. They survived upon the magics of the land, and became very advanced in their magics, able to conjure entire magic circles upon a command and being able to emulate spells cast by the divines. They, however, weren't violently isolationist, something that eventually doomed the species.

### The Nightborne Empire (1000 BFNE-0 FNE)

In 1000 BFNE, Forceprima, outraged at the heresy and treason exhibited by the Dragon Caller's Guild of Eventrey, decimated it, sending it's native elf populace across the world. While most fled to Tian, a group, led by Yokono Michi, was waylaid by storms and Dragon-made agents across the ocean and instead landed upon the coast of the Flow-Touched land. There, they settled the coast, relying on sea-life for a few years. After about 2 years, they encountered the Manaborne Satyrs.

The Manaborne Satyrs, having at first avoided the refugees, eventually welcomed them into their community. They taught them the secrets of the land, and bequethed unto them the ways of rune-binding and enchantments. At first, there was some struggle with this cultural mesh, but under the guidance of Yokono, the refugees gracefully accepted their aid. However, unlike the Satyrs, they were unable to sustain themselves entirely off the mana and as such, were limited to the coastline. That was until the discovery of the Yugao, or as it is now referred to: the Moon-blossom.

The Yugao was a plant introduced to the Flow-Touched Land by Kuk'sar in an attempt to work on repairing the wound upon Gaea by cleaning the mana out to the point where Gaea would be able to natively heal itself under a casing of mana-rich crystal. Due to the Dawn War, Kuk'sar never managed to finalize his work. The Yugao siphons mana out of the ground through its roots, creating crystals within seed-rich fruits that are then detonated, spreading it's seeds violently across the desert. It achieves this detonation through a mechanism known as Polar Force Repulsion. Since the plant of Kuk'sarian origin, the mana that it siphons is converted into profane mana and is then stored in the crystal. The flowers of the plant on the other hand, were borrowed from his brother, and alway's face the moon that is created by Amun, siphoning sacred magic off it's light. Once enough is gathered, the flower mixes the two within the crystal in the fruit, and detonates it. The fruit itself is tasteless but quite rich in nutrients to ensure that the seeds within the detonated chunks are able to grow quickly enough to start processing mana themselves.

The refugees began to consume, breed, and grow the Yugao with the druidic magics of their homeland. The fruits grew heavier and more pleasant to eat, the crystals stopped exploding but became harvestable and useable to mana-storage. With the power of the Yugao, the refugee's population grew massively and they began to settle across the desert. With the information acquired from the Manaborne and the ease of access to potent mana-storing crystals, the refugees developed at an incredible pace, with enchanted objects being extremely commonplace. They tamed the environment through the usage of cooling gems, runes that created fertile soil for the Yugao, and within one hundred years, they had settled all of the Flow-Touched Lands.

By 900 BFNE, they had noticed another side-effect of the the consumption of Yugao. The mana-rich fruit of the Yugao and their extreme reliance on it for food during these foundational years had had an effect on their biology and mana-systems. Their skin became purple like it's leaves, their ears gained two points that often tilted in the moonlight, their hair became white like it's fruits, but the most interesting change occured to their mana-flow. Their mana had been affected by the enchantments woven into the Yugao by Kuk'sar and it's flow was fundamentally altered. They began to only produce profane mana within their cores, and under the light of Amun's moon (or with exposure to sacred magic), they were able to process it into usable raw mana. This shift led to them becoming nocturnal, as having a core-full of profane mana made them irrate, sickly, and prone to magical outbursts. Under the light of the moon however, they were able to function slightly better, but the light of the moon was not potent enough. As such, they developed sacred-light lanterns that bathed them with sacred magic, using intricate runes to emulate the wave-length produced by Amun's moon as regular sacred magic did not work. Furthermore, they found that the wave-length had to match the one currently being output by the moon with a generic average one not being as effective. It is believed that this was originally done by Kuk'sar as a sign of friendship with his twin, to show that only the specific light produced by him would be what worked. This of course led to them needing to continually and actively create an incredibly complex magic system that would be able to read this wavelength and reproduce it. Hard to minimize, these systems were common within their cities and homes, and when traveling abroad they would bring portable ones that utilized a generic frequency. However, the light was diluted by regular sunlight and as such most preferred to sleep or remain indoors during the day-hours. This practice gave them the nomenclature of Nightborne, one that they gladly took in honor of the Manaborne Satyrs that showed them the way.

To help resolve this issue, the Nightborne, still under the leadership of Yokono Michi, began to expand across Edos, avoiding the Abscondita to the east and staying out of the Wildlands out of respect of the Satyrs, the Loa Coast due to the Loa Trolls presence, and the land that is now Ashen due to the dwarven refusal. By 800 BFNE, they had settled from the Flow-Touched Lands to the Cornalian Plains, folding the beastfolk into their ranks. With the settlement of the plains of Cornal, they also were introduced to the Well, the chunk of Amun that had granted sentience to the beastfolk. With the permission of the Church of Anu, they did investigate the use of the Well to sustain them, but found that it changed those that were exposed to it. They became unstable, and while powerful and imbued with mighty magics, they died shortly after. A mild push from the military existed to attempt to use them as weapons of war, but the greater Nightborne leadership under Emperor Yokono refused to allow such horrid acts to occur.

From 800-700 BFNE, the Nightborne Empire stabilized into one of cooperation and assistance to those that needed it. Massive sweeping social systems of health-care, food, water, education and housing all powered by the crystals of the Yugao fruits. The Nightborne also developed automata, constructs that, through intricate and highly complex systems of runes facilitated a form sentience. These constructs served as guardians, grunt labor, and servants for the citizenry of the Nightborne Empire. The cities of the Nightborne Empire grew larger and even more populous, with their capital being located within the center of the Flow-Touched Lands, called Yugao after the fruits. The Manaborne Satyrs retained their place of honor within the Empire, becoming a large advisory class to the Emperor, supporting the development of even further complex magics. During this time, a religion also manifested within the Nightborne Empire.

Following the fleeing of Eventrey, the Nightborne faith was in flux, with many believing it to be insufficient protection and false, as such new religions began to develop. The first one was that of the twin moons, the Hikaris. The Moons gave light and life to the Nightborne, firstly through the Yugao and eventually through their own bodies. The Hikaris were the personification of those moons, the warm red of the moon of Kuk'sar, nurturing and warming; and the cold shimmering light of the moon of Amun, fair and equal. Simultaneously, based upon stories from the Satyrs and the emissaries from the island of Vrok, a seperate religion developed based upon the Twin Gods. Unlike the Satyr's firm following of Kuk'sar and the Vrokian Lovers, The Nightborne interpretation took them to be two judges, a position of high importance within the Empire. They became the Twin Judges of Light, Amun being that of the unyielding justice and fairness, a judge that ensured that justice was mettled out evenly and without being tainted; Kuk'sar being that of caring and nurturing, a judge that ensured that aid was given to all that asked. A third Judge was also present, based upon the fusion of Solarion and Kritanta. Aslah, the judge of darkness, who was in charge of doing the things that must be done even if they were unpleasant, unkind, or unjust. Eventually, around 750 BFNE, the Hikari and the Judges fused into one, with the judges of light taking up their respective moons and Aslah becoming the darkness of an eclipse.

Around 700 BFNE, the Nightborne Empire, who had staunchly been avoiding interaction with their counterpart in Auron, was approached by a Storjryan. It is unknown who this Storjryan was, as Yokono was the only one approached. In keeping with the ethos and ideology set by xemselves and the other Nightborne, xey agreed to assisting the Storjryans with their pursuit for freedom. As historians know, this was a resounding failure. The Nightborne's advances in magical constructs and complex items were instrumental in the early stages of the rebellion, but they were quickly outpaced by the sheer power of the dragons. The Storjrya were crushed, with the Nightborne having made an enemy of the Dragon Empire for their assistance.

The Dragon Emperor issued a simple ultimatum for the Nightborne: Remove Yokono from the throne as well as his supporters, or face the wrath of dragonflame. Yokono, not one to bend to such threats refused, but was overthrown in 680 BFNE. Yokono and his supporters fled out of Edos, and it is unknown where they ended up. Yokono was replaced by Naw'Qu'Rian. Naw'Qu'Rian introduced several large changes very quickly upon the institution on the throne, cutting back on the aid offered to other nations and on the general ethos of assistance to prevent another accident like the previous one occuring. The transition was accepted by the populace fairly reasonably, as Naw'Qu'Rian also expanded internal programs heavily to focus more on the Empire's citizenry.

In the following century, the Nightborne Empire focused considerably more on it's internal affairs, establishing the Maws and lower rankings to aid in the rulership of the Empire. Under Naw'Qu'Rian, the Nightborne Empire's lands were subdivided into 5 Maws: The Maw of the Flow-Touched Land, held by Maw'Basile Gaumont; The Maw of the Mesa-Cliffs, held by Maw'Su'Qoa; The Maw of the Golden Plains, held by Maw'Ru'Sioal; The Maw of the High-Lands, held by Maw'Sroak; and the Maw of the White Fields, held by Maw'Polqki. Maw'Sroak and Maw'Polqki were not Nightborne, but beastfolk from the Cornalian Plains. They were given the rank of Maw by Naw'Qu'Rian so as to ensure that those that held the land were those that knew it. The Maw of the Flow-Touched Land was given to Basile Gaumont, the Satyr turned Mana-borne that had been the first to settle the land. All the Maws answered to the Emperor however, so there was little worry of the Empire falling into full division, and the natives of the lands appreciated being given rulers that were of their own races that would be able to protect their ethos.

In the year 666 BFNE, chronomancy appeared within the Nightborne Empire. It was unknown where it had come from at the time, but it is now known that it was brought by Yokono Michi, the former Emperor. After their exile, Yokono had arrived in the Dragon Empire. Through promises of helping the Dragon Empire collapse the Nightborne, he managed to acquire chronomancy from the Prime of Time, becoming the first and only Guardian of Chronoprimus. If Chronoprimus knew what Yokono's actual goals were, it is unknown. Yokono secretly returned to the Nightborne Empire and taught them of the time-magic, leaving them to expand upon it. Where she went next is unknown.

The Nightborne Empire, with it's skill and success with enchantments, greedily consumed the new-found magic. chronomancy, being created by the only prime that had not been spawned into existence by other magic users, proved to be a remarkably difficult magic to grasp, and Yokono had only given them the bare-bones versions of it, even though it is now known that they had incredible skill with it. By 600 BFNE, the chronourges had developed very small spells, allowing to accelerate themselves one second through time, as well as creating clocks that never desynced.

During the founding of the Faion Kingdoms in 650-600 BFNE, the new humans contacted the Nightborne Empire. In fear of enraging the Dragon Empire however, the Nightborne contact with the Faion Kingdoms was extremely limited. They opened small trade agreements for food, but there was no major cooperation. Because of this reason and the Nightborne usage of their own travel-mages, Solarionism never reached the Nightborne and could not spread. Over the following hundred years, the Nightborne continued their developments in chronomancy, with it becoming a large focus of much of the populace. They developed the ability to freeze an object in time, preventing rotting and degradation, which was primarily used for food storage as well as the ability to peer a few minutes into the future, which required a large and complex magic circle.

In 500 BFNE, when Necroprimus and Lich designed necromancy and enslaved the Absconditas of Al'daj, the Nightborne broke their pact of limited access. They helped the Absconditas greatly, housing refugees and supplying the rebel fighters with magical artifacts to aid their fight against the Necromancer Kings. The Nightborne's research into chronomancy was paused for this time, with much of their Wizards being dedicated to developing anti-necromantical artifacts to free the Undead from their enslavement. This wanton aggression against the Dragon Emperor's agents was met with rage by the Emperor, who issued the same and final ultimatim to Naw'Qu'Rian. Naw'Qu'Rian stepped down with no issue, but he did promote the next Naw: Naw'Su'Tur.

Simulatenously, a lucky chronomancer managed to create a spell that allowed him to peer incredibly far into the future. This spell was impossible to modify and was calculated to peer exactly 500 years into the future. It is now known that Yokono had given the spell to this chronomancer, layering it with other enchantments. The view into the future revealed a harrowing truth. The moon of Amun, the one that the Nightborne required to function, was gone. The land was in ruins, the Empire had fallen, the Nightborne gone from their lands, replaced by other races. Unknown to the Chronomancer, this was actually peering far into the future, into the age of the Twilight War. The news spread fast, with copies of this "doomsday" spell being able to be found in every city, town, and village. This greatly shifted the Nightborne ethos and brought them to belief that their current course of non-intervention would lead to their collapse under the Dragon Empire. This also created a great shift in their calendar system, with the calendar becoming universal across the Empire and it's allies, counting down to the proverbial doomsday.

As such, Naw'Su'Tur was considerably more aggressively anti-Empire. She opened trade with the Faion Kingdoms, supplying them magical weapons and assistance, openly attacking the Necromancer Kings. Under her rule, the Nightborne Empire became massively militarized in preparation of a war with the Dragon Empire. The development of chronomancy became a massive priority, and one with the full might of the Empire's military behind it. Massive developments occured, in part due to the doomsday spell's intricate crafting pointing to other developments: the ability to leap days forward in time, the ability to peer into the past by months, the ability to accelerate the path of objects through time, and the ability to look into the future by an entire year. The doomsday spell shifted the closer the Nightborne grew to war, showing their people successful and wide-spread, controlling the world.

In 400 BFNE, when Grameprimus challenged the authority of the Emperor, Naw'Su'Tur offered her assistance to him by sheltering his children from the wrath of the Emperor. When the Emperor shattered Stentuur, the Nightborne Empire landed on Stentuur within a month in an open act of aggression but were forced back by the Emperor's legions. This focus on the Dragon Emperor did limit their focus on their own lands, with the establishment of the Ziggurat being largely ignored by the greater Empire as a whole. They did utilize some of the discoveries about mental magic for their own pursuit of chronomancy.

In 300 BFNE, when the Faion Kingdom began to openly harass Dragon Empire land, they did so armed heavily with Nightborne weapons and artifacts. The Nightborne themselves were not present, but continued to orchestrate an effectively cold war against the Dragons, one that the dragons began to slowly lose due to the chronourges of the Empire. Simultaneously, the development of chronomancy continued rapidly. The Nightborne developed the ability to place an object within temporal superposition of itself, allowing them to minimize massive circles into relatively small devices. Their weapons and artifacts became incredibly potent, able to cast magic that would require entire concordants of wizards to achieve. They also developed the ability to peer years into the future, allowing them to outmaneuver the Dragon Empire massively.

In 200 BFNE, when the Dragon-slaved races began to rebel against the Emperor, the Nightborne Empire backed them up, offering them refugee in the Empire. Simultaneously, the Nightborne began to prep for their contingencies. The doomsday spell continued to shift, sometimes showing the moon gone and returned later, often gone forever, and sometimes the Empire survived. As such, the Nightborne began to prepare for the worst case scenario. They designed great moon-lanterns of sacred energy, but being unable to replicate the frequency if the moon was gone did not work. As such, they began to develop a solution for what they referred to as The Blink, and The Sleep. The Blink was the first scenario, in which the moon disappears for a time and then reappears. For this, they began construction on the Stasis Chambers. Using the found chronomantic ability to freeze objects in time and blueprints, that we now know were planted by Yokono, the Stasis Chambers would freeze the Nightborne in time and then release them once the moon returned. The Sleep was the second and far more difficult to solve scenario. The Nightborne began to experiment with space-travel, contacting the Solarionites. This created the first Anagrian space program, in which the Nightborne with the assistance of Solarionites, landed on Amun's Moon to collect rock samples. Each sample, however, only produced a fraction of the frequency. As such, they collected many samples. In comparison, they found that the sample's make-up was built up off the similar frequency, and through the usage of chronomancy, began operations to grow a secondary moon that would produce the same frequency, that when fully grown, would be able to awaken the Nightborne from the Stasis chambers. However, the Nightborne would be relatively defenseless within their Stasis chambers, so it was a race against the clock to finish their war against the Dragon Empire or to develop defenses that would be able to protect them before they were put to stasis.

In 100 BFNE, they won the race. The Dragon Emperor, driven mad by demonic whispers and the aggression on all sides, rampaged across the lands of the Faion. Simultaneously, the Abscondita rebelled against the Necromancer Kings with the aid of the Nightborne, liberating themselves. After the sealing of the Emperor within Setral, celebration swept the lands of the Nightborne, believing that they had avoided the doomsday, but the spell was still showing the same truth: a moon-less sky. As such, the stasis chambers began rapid production, assisted by the Abscondita, refugees from the Faion lands, and the Second Dragon Caller's Guild after the Nightborne assistance of it's founding. While the vast majority of the population was certain to enter the pods, a fairly large group of Nightborne from the Mesa-Cliffs argued against it, led by a Nightborne by the name of May'Shi'Ok. May'Shi'Ok argued that the reliance on chronomancy was a mistake, as there was no idea on where the magic had come from and that it had belonged to the Dragon Empire before the Nightborne. The Shi'Oks, as they had begun to be called, became a vocal opposition to the Doomsday spell's prediction and the stasis chambers.

Finally, in 0 FNE, the Empire fell. The Nightborne entered their stasis chambers, with even the Shi'Oks entering their own vault in preparation for the potential detonation of the moon, however they did not enter a stasis. The non-Nightborne citizens of the Empire remained, not needing to rely upon the moon for survival, they were elected to watch over the lands. The moon, however, did not explode in the zero year. The Nightborne, however, were not released. Yokono, who had built and create the blueprints for the stasis chambers, had made a pact, 700 years ago. They had made a pact with the Red Dragon, the sin of pride. To protect her people from the rage of the demons during the Twilight War, Yokono was to collapse the Nightborne Empire, to drag the Nightborne into hell with her. For this purpose, Yokono acquired the secrets of chronomancy, spread it amongst her people, planted his lie within the doomsday spell, and wove a spell within the stasis chambers. Upon the command of Yokono, the stasis chambers warped their inhabitants to the layer of hell bequeathed to Yokono.

There, they remained in stasis as Death, formerly known as Yokono but forced to choose a new name by her demonic benefactors, changed them, demonized them, and twisted their souls to survive within hell. The layer given to Death was not a kind thing. It was damaged, ruptured millenia ago, it's boundary twisted and broken. A punishment for Death's refusal to simply eradicate the Nightborne and their insistence upon saving them. Death slowly released the now-Demonborne from their stasis, and he was met with rage, despair, and disgust. This was untolerable to the Naw, and with the new powers bequethed upon him, he twisted the Demonborne's minds into worshipful adoration. After all, Death had rescued them. She was a hero, a Naw, a god. Under the pressure of the Red Dragon, Death had to commit one last horrid act. A weapon as powerful as chronomancy cannot be left in the hands of the enemy. As such, Death was forced to reach through time, space, and magic, and excise it from the Firmament, leaving itself as the only chronomancer left. Even the enchantments, the artifacts, and the constructs, who had all become interwoven with temperal magics for faster actions, for more compressed spells, and for no degradation, were stripped. This immediately decimated much of the Nightborne's cities, massive magic circles that had previously been compacted into the size of a plate expanding violently and rapidly. The non-nightborne within the cities died as magical explosions eradicated the highly-enchanted cities. Minutes after the Nightborne entered stasis, the remanents of their civilization was nothing but decimated ruins, shattered artifacts, and one lone-surviving vault, belonging to the Shi'Oks.

### The Shiokan Clans (0 FNE-550 AFNE)

When the Shi'oks emerged from within their vault, they lay witness to the devastation that had been wrought. The Sacred lanterns brought with them in to the vault had been made without chronomancy, allowing them to remain functional. For sometime, the Shi'oks used the vault as their home as they explored the Flow-Touched Land, realizing the devastation wrought. Believing it to be caused by chronomancy and abuse of arcane magics, they forbade the usage of chronomancy and limited their usage of arcane magics heavily, only for the vital and life-saving methods. After realizing that nothing remained for them within the Flow-Touched Lands, they migrated to the Holy Serafdom of Felyun, settling with the dysmagi upon Alhayaa.

Simultaneously, the surviving Mana-borne Satyr attempted to return the Wildlands but found that they had been banished for forsaking their demonic heritage. The other survivors of the Empire had fled the cities and slowly blossomed back into societies over the centuries. The remnants of the Nightborne Empire sat empty in the Flow-Touched Lands for thirty years.

Around 30 AFNE, a minor noble house from the Second Dragon Caller's Guild of Everntrey by the name of Monin landed on the coast of the Flow-Touched Land. Led by Xander Monin, the Monin house had spent it's fortune on mercenaries and grave-robbers, hoping to claim the wealth of the fallen Nightborne for their own success. They found plenty of wealth, but in the process, detonated many of the runes that had not had enough energy or enough disturbance to finish their violent reaction, losing a vast majority of the groups. Ashamed, the Monin fled to Stenuur, but their actions had even greater consequences. The detonated runes had shifted the polarization of the Flow-Touched lands beyond a tipping point, and the Mana-borne Satyrs found themselves no longer in tune with the magic that they fed on, and they starved to death. Those that could, abandoned their ways, returning to the profane magic that had sustained themselves previously, but many perished.

In 155 AFNE, the Holy Serafdom was overthrown by the Emirate to remove the Undead from their land for good and in the process forced the Shi'Ok, now known as the Shioka, out of their lands. Forced to make a pilgrimage across the Atisae, many Shioka died to it's necromantic sand, and May'Shi'Ok was one of them. However, within those desert sands, they found an injured and dying Wild God. Ru, the Sand-Hound, had been a casualty by the Reaper assault on the Undead, and had been left to die, her wound's infected with the sand of the Atisae. By pooling their sacred lanterns, the Shioka restored enough of her strength. In thanks, Ru aided the Shiokan escape back to the Flow-Touched Land.

The Shioka returned with Ru to their vault, which they named Anadwo Abankese (Night Fort) in honor of it protecting them from the Fall of the Nightborne. Ru became their patron goddess, a protector from the horrors of the Atisae and the fate that took the Nightborne. Unfortunately, using the sacred light of the lanterns to heal Ru had taken all the power that they had left, and they began to fizzle and break down shortly after the return. This was a major issue, as without the light of the lanterns, the Nightborne heritage of the Shioka would limit their ability to function, leaving them slow and drowsy during the day, and vulnerable.

The Shioka lived in fear of the many threats to them, something not helped by their new leader, who was chosen by Shi'Ok before her death: Anan'Obeng. Anan'Obeng was a paranoid man, who believed that not only the Dysmagi were after them, but that the Dragon Empire would want vengeance, and that the demons that doomed the Empire would be after them soon as well. As such, being unable to function during the day was undesirable to him. He sought ways to fix the reliance, and found that there was one right there with them.

Anan'Obeng was the first to undertake the trial of Ru, becoming empowered with her sand and earth magics, righting the profane mana within his core. He became thicker, broader, stronger than his lithe Nightborne ancestors. The rest of the Shioka quickly followed suit after witnessing this. As long as they had access to the ground, they no longer needed to worry about the need for the moons. The blessing of Ru further granted them earth magics unrivaled and allowed them to traverse the sands at will. The Shioka began to expand and grow, becoming nomadic travelers across the Flow-Touched Lands, following the mutated creatures that had been changed by the Nightborne Eruption.

The super-position had changed much of the creatures within the Flow-Touched lands. Many livestock, brought to be bred and butchered for meat, had been on the outskirts of the towns and had not been killed by the detonations, but had still been affected by the unfurling of spells around them. They became changed and began to adapt. Over the next century, they had become able to survive off the mana and began to roam the land in large herds. Other animals, such as cats, morphed into predators, able to utilize magic to project illusions of themselves and displace their position. The Shiokans hunted these creatures, surviving upon them.

In 220 AFNE, a group of Shiokans attempted to re-settle and create a permanent settlement elsewhere of the Anadwo Abankese. They broke ground south of the center of the Flow-Touched Land, close to modern day Cit'Mainet. At first, they were quite successful, and began to herd the flow-cows and be able to fully settle. However, over the next 50 years they discovered numerous issues. Firstly, construction was dangerous. As they used their earth magics to shape the land, they found that the constructions were unable to hold shape, the innate magic disrupting the earth magic that was binding them. Furthermore, shifting the sands occasionally set off more of the trapped super-positions, making each construction a potential detonation. Secondly, they found that the flow-cows were incredibly difficult to herd and keep in one place. They would drain the mana of the area faster than could be replenished and were capable to teleportation, making it impossible to successfully bind them. With no other way to maintain them there, the Shiokan attempt at permanent settling failed, and they returned to a more nomadic way.

In 300 AFNE, the Shiokans discovered new blooms of the Yugao. Scattered across the Flow-Touched lands, they were remanents of the blooms farmed by the Nightborne Empire that had survived the superposition and had finally been able to re-grow. At first, this was met with celebration by the current leadership: Esson Ayeh. Esson was chosen as the leader after Anon'Obeng's death due to the detonation of a super position during the settling. Unlike his predecessor, Esson was considerably less scared of the world and when the Yugao was discovered, was one of the first people to eat it's fruit. This was a mistake. The change in biology created by Ru upon the Shiokans could not process the fruit at all, and Esson nearly died from the damage to his mana channels. Forbidding the consumption of the fruit, the Shiokans avoided it where they could. The Flow-Cows, on the other hand, feasted greatly upon it.

Invigorated by the sight of the land slowly returning to how it was and motivated by Ru, the Shiokans began a 290 year long repair project upon the land. It was a slow and intricate process, where the mana was channeled through intricate structures of crystal, rock, and rune to be reverted to the state it originated in, undoing the damage wrought by the super position. The Shiokans used deep-earth magics to repair the foundation of the desert, and cut channels into the interior to allow under-water to flow and revive the cave systems beneath the land. Alongside Ru and the Nelinthian druidic orders that came to assist, they also began to heal the very land itself. Latching onto old enchantments created by Kuk'sar, they began to repair and activate them, leading to the mana expunged by Gaea to be channeled towards the center of the Flow-Touched Lands, liberating the sand and surrounding lands from it. They began work on turning this mana into harmonious magic to allow a better healing, but had little current progress due to the immense energies they were working with. To assist in organizing this, Esson Ayeh split the people into different groups as well as stepped down from his position of power, instead creating a council based upon experience from each of the seperate groups.

### Corinthia (556 AFNE-763 AFNE)

In 556 AFNE, a new wave of settlers landed upon the shores of the Flow-Touched Land, at the point now known as Corin's Landing. They were led by Ezen Bartan Corin, a relatively minor noble of Ur-Taen who was banished from his lands alongside his people for refusing to pay triple the amount in taxes that they owned to Taragai Mno, the king of Ur-Taen. Ezen Corin led his people from Ur-Taen, and set course for a land that they deemed to be unruled and free of the over-reach of kings and those put in power without merit. Ezen Corin was unique amongst the Ezen of Ur-Taen, as while almost all had acquired their position through familial relations, Ezen Corin acquired his title through convincing King Domoto Mno of Ur-Taen that he was far more deserving of it than the next inherited ruler due to greater business savvy and an education from the College of Helianen. Domoto Mno, who at the time was drunken, agreed and the title passed on to Bartan Corin.

Upon landing, the settlers under the banner of Bartan Corin began to call themselves Corinthians, and the land they claimed as Corinthia. They settled Corin's Landing, a small town, and for the first 6 years, survived in relative isolation, relying on fishing and small trade as well as the heavy financial backing held by Lord Corin. In 562, surveyors from Corin's Landing, which had become a relative known town due to it's position being able to be a reliable rest stop for Pollentia to south Auron vessels, who had been tasked with the recovering of Nightborne artifacts in the surrounding sands, discovered the blue sands of the Flow-Touched, which sparked a massive race of knowledge.

Researchers, wizards, and merchants all quickly discovered that the sands were incredibly useful for enchantment and complex runic structures as they carried magic as well as regular gems but were considerably easier to work with. Over the next 10 years, Corin's Landing expanded at insane rates. Rapidly, a city grew within the center of the Flow-Touched Lands, named Centralia, focused on the refinement and processing of the Mana-Sands. This was further expanded as old Nightborne artifacts were discovered and their enchantments studied and mass produced. Corinthia, still under the leadership of Lord Corin, was a rapidly expanding nation.

In 572 AFNE, Lord Corin officially met with the Shiokan people. In the rapid expansion of Corinthia, there had been numerous altercations and encounters between the local Shiokan people and the colonizing Corinthians, but none had created violence yet, however worry had begun to grow as the altercations continued to become more and more hostile, and not wishing to see his people devolve into violence, Corin met with the Elder Council of the Shiokans to discuss a solution. The primary issues the Shiokans had were that of the establishment of Corin's Landing and the mining city of Centralia within the Flow-Touched Lands, alongside their operations, disrupting the remediation efforts if done improperly. While the Shiokan's did not care about the actual colonization of the land, as their roams were still wide-open and uninhabited, they did not want to risk their efforts going to waste. At first, many of Lord Corin's advisors wanted to ignore the Shiokans, but Corin knew that chances were quite high that if it came to it, the Shiokans could and would sink the cities beneath the waves, as such he entered discussion and negotiations and finally officially met in 572 AFNE. There, the council and Corin settled on heavy regulatory affairs designed to ensure that the remediation was not disrupted and was assisted by Corinthia, furthermore Corin agreed to not expand into the Shiokan lands and in exchange, the Shiokans would help build him the city of his dreams: Corinthia.

In 572 AFNE, the small town of Centralia began to rapidly grow and shift as Shiokan earth shamans, alongside Corinthian arcanists, grew the city to the largest on Anagrian and made it universally habitable through intricate and complex enchantments, renaming it to Corinthia. Rapidly, the population and industry with the city boomed to incredible sizes, invigorating a new age of trade and technological development across Anagrian. Business grew massively, with Corinthia becoming the trading hub of the world by 600 AFNE, with a complex and intricate network of portals created and maintained by a hired guild of Solarionites, alongside large and complex magical factories creating mass amounts of goods. This revolution was heavily led by the Council of Success, the main advisory board for Lord Corin.

The Council of Success was established by Lord Corin in 572 AFNE to help handle the rapidly growing population and industry of Corinthia, with Lord Corin creating twenty seats. Numerous were from his old advisors, but the remaining 13 were recruited by him due to their success in business, their popularity with the people, innovations in magic, break-throughs in technology, and religious significance within the population of Corinthia. By 600 AFNE, this council of success had become a powerful entity within Corinthia, led by a few notable individuals: the business magnates Cornelius Crow, Azeria Pather; the arcanist Jebadiah Felhen; the celebrity Magneon Artis; and the religious leader Father Grimal. These individuals became prominently known as the Five.

Cornelius Crow grew to rapid business success due to heavy investments into the mining and refining technologies used to acquire and refine the Flow-Sand, with his businesses becoming integral to the backbone of the growing economy and distribution of the main good of Corinthia. Azeria Pather became incredibly integral to Corinthia during it's construction as the pioneer of the universal habitation runes that exist across the city, with the arcanists under her employment being vital to the establishment of Corinthia, with further success coming from expansion into other forms of rune creation. Magneon Artis was a fairly well-known cultural icon prior to her move to Corinthia, and her constant support and uplifting of Corinthia was pivotal in ensuring Corinthia's growth and success in the public eye. Father Grimal rose to success as a incredibly influential preacher, who argued that Corinthia was the first true chance that Amunism had to create a city entirely untainted by contact with dark forces like Fae or demons.

Jebadiah Felhen was the inventor of Magemade. Originally from Rael, Jebadiah Felhen grew up hearing the legends of the Faionite Covenmade, beings given life through the sacrifice of immense magic, shape-shifting immortal guardians that aided the wars against the Dragon Empire, the techniques still rumoured to be practiced within the Faion Fields of Rael. He became enamored with them, and spent much of his life attempting to create these beings. When he heard of the discoveries of the Nightborne constructs and elementals that were being excavated in the early stages of the Corinthian expedition, Jebadiah Felhen moved to Corinthia. With his expertise in magically-simulated life, he grew prominent as a leading researcher on the animated remnants of the Nightborne and was able to advance modern understanding of constructs exceptionally far. However, his greatest success was that of creating the first magemade. Based on the infused elementals and encoded directions of the Nightborne era as well as the archeological remnants of the Faion Covenmade, Jebadiah Felhen condensed enough magic into a position to give it a semblance of intelligence, and through complex runic algorithms, was able to expand this semblance into a full consciousness. At first, the technology was doubted as the mage-made were flimsy, and only lived around 3 months in their best iterations compared to the unending service of greater constructs and summoned beings, but the magemade were infinitely cheaper to produce than constructs (which required other materials) and easier to control and keep than conjured beings (which required a summoner and constant will-power or a pact). Their shapeshifting, while not as extensive as the mythical covenmade, was potent and handy enough for nearly all tasks and within 10 years, nearly all of the dangerous grunt labor within the Flow-Touched Lands was being performed by magemade. Ethics concerns did arise with many arguing that the use of magemade was akin to slavery, a practice that did not exist on Anagrian since the fall of the Dragon Empire, but were largely ignored due to the sheer efficiency this generated.

By 610 AFNE, the Council of Success ran much of Corinthia, with Lord Corin over-seeing the greater Corinthia lands and their international relations, however, Lord Corin did still exalt force upon the Council to ensure that they obeyed his founding ideals. The first of such incidents occured in 612 AFNE, when Crow Industries began to expand their operations into Shiokan-protected lands. As per the treaty with Lord Corin, the Shiokans destroyed the mining equipment and returned the miners to their camps. Bittered at the loss of hundreds of platinum, Crow began to gather a force to strike back, but was shut down by Lord Corin, nearly losing his spot on the Council. The following year, Father Grimal launched a hate-speech campaign against the Shioka, based on a conspiracy theory that they had been descended from demons and were a blight upon Amun's lands. For this, Lord Corin banished him off the Council. This led to Grimal staging an attack on the Shiokans, but his Amunist radicals were obliterated. Two years later, Jebadiah Felhen met with Lord Corin following regulatory changes around the production of mage-made.

In 615 AFNE, Jebadiah Felhen and Lord Corin met atop the Spire, a Pather innovation that functioned as the primary power source for the habitability enchantments upon Corinthia and held the main council chambers. The meeting was extremely publicized by the Council, and the media presence was the 2nd largest seen in Corinthia, only smaller than the embarkment of the Concordant-led effort into the Tomb of Dieryun. At this meeting, Jebadiah Felhen directly challenged Lord Corin for his position of power in a method that Lord Corin himself had designed during the founding of Corinthia. The method is called the Battle of Merits, and was powered by a complex set of mental runes and enchantments, that would allow the wielders to battle with their intellect and skill directly. One player proffers a puzzle, a challenge, or some other question, and the opponent has to respond with the solution, with a third mind being maintained as a mediator. This third mind, for the sake of impartiality, was a minor business man by the name of Raiton Fallenwood who was a relatively firm opponent of both Lord Corin and the Council due to believing that a worker-led government would be superior, he was however well-known for the founding of Raiton's Folly, a town that he had attempted to make independent of the greed of Corinthia but it had failed and been bought by Crow, renamed out of spite.

The actual contents of the battle are unknown, as Jebadiah and Raiton refused to share them. Lord Corin, unfortunately, did not survive. Whatever the last questions posed by Jebadiah were, they drove Lord Corin to throw himself off the tower, where he fell to a grizzly death, one that was promptly cleaned up by Jebadiah's latest mage-made. Jebadiah immediately stepped down from Lord Corin's position, and handed full control of the city and it's relations to the Council of Success, cutting out the additional council members. To make up for the missing person, Jebadiah put Raiton onto the council. To maintain a semblance of authority, Jebadiah however, made his seat permanent until his death and made the other seats able to be changed. This was to be done via a mass bidding war amongst the city, a suggestion put in by Pather and Crow to allow for their continued places upon the Council.

Post Lord Corin's death, the Council began to strip back on the treaties made with the Shiokans, entering a period of hostilities in which mining operations across the Flow-Touched lands began to crop up more and more and the Shiokans became more aggressive in the defense of their homelands, eventually being met with full mage-mercenary groups to protect business interests. In 620, the first Council bidding war was held. . Raiton, who many believed would have been bidd out, had retained a massive populist support across the years due to exceptionally good worker treatment and consistent advocation for the support of workers, often in direct opposition to the rest of the council. With heavy donations by his supporters, Raiton actually maintained his seat. The other obvious bid-out Magneon Artis, who was replaced by Quentin Pier, the owner and founder of Pier's brand, arguably the most prominent brand across the face of Anagrian, stemming originally from Everntrey.

In the following 33 years, Corinthia continued to grow. Aggressions however, continued to rise between the Shiokans and Corinthia, but even more so between the Al'daji and the Corinthians. During the foundation of Corinthia, Al'daj was undergoing the Awaqat Saeba and lacked a single solid government to oppose the rapid rise of magic in the west. However with the Ras Shadid's control fully settled into place, the newly militarized government began direct aggressions onto the Corinthian mining operations upon Felyun's Wall. This was met with a great escalation by the Council, and in 650 AFNE, a war was declared by the Council of Success. The war lasted approximately 30 hours, with the Corinthian surrender and the death of over 6 thousand Corinthian mercenaries and Cornelius Crow.

The only action of the war was a single operation by the Shadid of Al'daj, who marched upon Corinthian immediately following the declaration of war. The 300 unit infantry, leaving without their Amins, arrived approximately 10 miles outside of Corinthia at 6:37 am. They had been spotted on the approach, and were met with Cornelius Crow leading a battalion of Crow Industries mercenaries. The battle was incredibly violent and incredibly short, with the battalion and Cornelius being dead by 7:12 am. Before the battle was over, Jebadiah had called for negotiations, and the Council verified the motion immediately following, with it being the fastest motion to ever pass the council. Negotiations were opened with the Ras Shadid on the premise of mutually assured destruction, as the Shadid continued their march until just a mile outside the gates. Eventually, the countries agreed to stay out of each other's lands and business and to remain isolated from each other, and to sign over Felyun's Wall to be the Al'dajians.

Crow was replaced by a Oxfawn Quel, an Helianen elf that owned a major part of the countries lumber mills. Pather died of old age in 672 AFNE, being replaced by Mqwi Lockpick, a cat-folk from Cornal who controlled the majority of the on-ground trade route within Edos. Pather was buried at the headquarters of Pather Innovations, which was renamed to Pather's Rest when it became a proper city. When the Third Dragon Caller's guild was founded, Corinthia aided heavily in it's foundation, but did not join the Concordant due to not wanting to cut it's trading connections with the non-Concordant nations.

During the Twilight War, Corinthia acted heavily as a major point of supply and respite. Due to it's extremely easily defendable position and the defenses instituted following the Al'dajian conflict, it became the site of an endless siege, with the mages of the demonic legions working against the mages of Corinthia to find ways to block teleportation, create new ways of teleporting for supplies, defensive barriers, etc. Many modern day quick-fly enchantments were developed during the war. The central teleportation hub of Corinthia made it vital to maintaining supply routes to sieges and it's highly developed magical weaponry allowed for the arming of peasantry in efforts to defend their land. In the midst of the conflict all of the Council but Quentin Pier (who was away on business in Everntrey when the war broke out) died due to Demonic Artillery. Quentin rapidly selected their replacements: Tervaround Fiddlefen, a jewelry magnate who pioneered the addition of anti-divination to jewelry; Xalvador Fallenwood, the inheritor of Raiton's wealth; Soscath Ostur, a kemono hunter from Tian who had grown wealthy off an early detection system for attacks; and Vurla Stinger, a Raelian who had sold the city of Softhern to Corinthia. However, unfortunately for Soscath, his seat was not available.

In the process of developing Mage-made, and used heavily by the mass-production facilities following, Jebadiah created a pocket dimension that he used for the dumping of mage-made that failed to pass quality. The technology was passed to the factories that produced mage-made, and over-the-years, the pocket dimension was flooded with mage-made slurry and runic enchantments, the pocket dimension was maintained by Jebadiah, using complex enchantments to nullify the magic within to prevent the formation of sentience. When Jebadiah died, the enchantments failed, and the mass of discarded mage-made became sentient. It took the shell of the pocket dimension and formed a body around itself, becoming the Vessel. Filled with the knowledge from Jebadiah, the other mage-made crafters, and the mage-made themselves, it took Jebadiah's seat on the council, which happened to be Soscath's position. Unhappy with the arrangement and proper Tianese samurai, Soscath challenged the Vessel to a duel, and was turned into a pile of ash on the spot. Deciding that battling this being was not worth the trouble, the remaining council members agreed to let it be.

At the end of the Twilight War, the Council held a proper bidding contest, as it was time for one. They left the Vessel's seat up for bid as well, believing that it may follow the rules. It turned the blood of the highest bidder for it's seat, an infamously abusive mage-made factory owner, into pure lead, and the bidding for it's seat was permanently halted. Vurla lost her seat to one Marigold, a demon who made an immense profit on assisting the reconstruction of Anagrian and Hell following the Twilight War. Marigold was the first and only person to have been able to outbid Quentin Pier, suggesting the she is most likely the richest person on Anagrian.

Following the Twilight War, the Vessel pushed for the end of Mage-made production, and after 5 years (and roughly 300 factory owners turned into various substances) succeeded, with the last mage-made dying in 755 AFNE. The Vessel has since retained it's seat to prevent any further attempts and to ensure that magical creatures are not abused as workers. Corinthia had no major part within the Void Incursion's actual battles, but many of the technologies being used by the non-religious factions working on repairing Generath were invented and funded there, alongside Marigold who is heavily funding those purification efforts in exchange for land.

In 759 AFNE, when the Tenuemic War began, Corinthia began to apply the strategies learned from the Twilight War. However, they soon found that the portal networks were compromised, and any that used it were prone to being captured, forcing a complete shut-down on the interconnectedness of the world and being a major factor in the effectiveness of the invading force. Corinthia itself was a hotbed for the effort, with one of most massive sieges being staged there and two seperate archliches being assigned it by X'enon, ensuring that it was contained but not committing to a full assault. In part, this was due to the danger of waging war on the most magically advanced city. However, the forces of Tenuem did have a plan to handle the city when the time came.

In 100 BFNE, when the Necromancers were forced out of Al'daj, a large sect of their cultists infiltrated into the Nightborne Empire, and created a sub-culture within the people. They built their own tomb underneath the sands, as their connection to the other malicious powers across Anagrian warned them of the devastation that was to strike when Death would steal the time magic. They intended to remain hidden there until after the ruins had settled, but they were trapped by the sheer power of the collapse and died within the tomb. However, a connection still remained between the Necromancers and their god: Dieryun, one which the newly reborn Tenuemic necromancers sought to exploit as a way to breach the walls of Corinthia directly from the Dark Below, a dimension folded within Tenuem and the seat of power for the Tenuemic Gods.

Unbeknownst to the Necromancers, there was a traitor in their midst. The traitor leaked the knowledge of the Tomb of Dieryun to the Concordant in 762 AFNE, and in 762 AFNE, a group of Concordant-led operators, headed by Katsu Raiden, breached the tomb and opened the way. Several more operations proceeded, collapsing the necromancer's control of the portal networks and weakening their forces, limiting the influence that their gods had, and creating an insurrection within the non-necromancer populace. Within a few months time, Corinthia generated massive portals across the world to call upon the forces of Anagrian to lay siege directly upon the capital of Tenuem, supported by previous operations using captured necromancers, and upon the Dark Throne of Sanctus, which was only possible with access to the Tomb.

In 763 AFNE, Corinthia's people survived their third war. The city did not. The opening of the Tomb of Dieryun created a reaction with the energies of the Dark Below and the Flow-Touched Land's naturally unstable mana, and began to shift the land around itself. The city itself changed fundamentally, and magic within it began to obey unfamiliar rules for a time. This was already incredibly unfortunate to the people within, but things got mildly better when the Nova Renascentai arrived.

### The Nova Renascentai (763 AFNE-Present)

Many billions of years prior, following it's defeat at the hands of Gaea, Kochain fled into the Flow to find a new dimension to feast upon. It stumbled across one that was settled with a sentient race, creatures of magic and thought that populated a land that shifted as often as they did, known to each other and to all as the Coetia. Within these people, death was not a concept that existed, except for a single instance: that of Llln, akin to the death of becoming united. For to a creature of idea, becoming as one is akin to death. There was only ever one being that had committed this act upon another, devoured the being whole, idea and magic as one, and as such it bore the name: Llln'gtha. In this time of desperation however, when the Coetia required protection from the devouring serpent, they freed their greatest criminal, Llln'gtha, and bade him feed upon Kochain. And to a creature formed by ideas, the desire of a people, the idea of what you are, is what you become, and as such, Llln'gtha fed upon Kochain and devoured the weakened serpent whole. In celebration, and in fear of what this new power would bring, the Coetia struck a new idea unto Llln'gtha, and named it Sanctus: their holy great god, a guardian and father.

The battle between Llln'gtha and Kochain was devastating for the dimension of the Coetia, and as such, Sanctus absorbed the remanent of the planet, and created a pocket dimension for them to remain in. However, the power of Sanctus was not suited for creation, and the place became thin and unstead and was known as such by it's people: being labeled Tenuem. To sustain it and feed the unending hunger within itself, Sanctus began to feed upon small dimensions that it passed by, seeking out unpopulated ones at first, but as the hunger grew ever more desperate, it began to turn upon those that were populated.

For the first dimension that it at arrived at, Sanctus attempted to reason with it's inhabitants that they should join it's dimension for protection and because it has to eat theirs to survive. They believed it to be a deciever, a conniving liar, and that it just wanted to put them in the dimension for a snack later. The concepts of others upon itself began a slow shift within Sanctus, a split in the idea of who it was. The next dimension it came across, it attempted to be like Kochain, a violent devourer to scare them into joining the dimension through a seperate avatar, one that was charming. This worked, but the people of the dimension lived in fear of the Devourer, creating another split. Seeking to avoid anymore of these fractures, Sanctus maintained the same approach for many other dimensions, eventually the personalities deepening into the Father, the Devourer, and the Deceiver.

During one of Sanctus's early feedings and pursuit of a solution, Tenuem weakened randomly and drastically, with many of it's population dying. Devastated, Sanctus preserved the corpses of the Coetia that had died. To prevent the complete loss of the many species that it had collected, Sanctus decided to begin to store large parts of them and their cultures within stasis, frozen in time to prevent their death in the case of another thinning. These thinnings would become more and more drastic as time went on, the hunger grew greater, and the population of Tenuem increased.

Eventually, Sanctus stumbled across Anagrian, and anchored Tenuem within it's spheres of influence, siphoning off it's power slowly and stabilizing Tenuem as little as it could. While there, Sanctus began to investigate ways to fully absorb the power of Anagrian, or to drop Tenuem's people onto Anagrian for survival. However, it witnessed the Twilight War and Void Incursion, and realized that it does not want to mingle it's people with those upon the planet, so it began to plan to consume it. It knew of the power of Amun and Kuk'sar, and believing them to be god's like itself, believed their power to be tied to the perception of those upon the planet to them. The Deceiver began to prepare, infiltrating Anagrian and making contacts with those forces not aligned with the Twins. It recruited the Father's Children, gods that wished for a change. Most importantly, it made contact with Dieryun, the original necroprimus and the god of darkness.

Following the rebellion by the Al'daji with the assistance of the angels, Dieryun had fled to Avian, a small island nation south of Auron, and hid amongst it's native Titans, a minor form of wild god that became humaniod due to magical influences from Amun and Kuk'sar. There, he recollected many of the lost necromancers and cultists, and lay them in secret for the 850 years, slowly taking over Avian with the intention of staging a massive sacrifice to use it as a tunnel to break into the Forest and swipe Kritanta's power from underneath her nose. This was not unsuccessful, as Dieryun managed to sacrifice the island itself in 751 AFNE. The island at this point was very sparsely populated however so Dieryun did not manage to steal much of Kritanta's power, just a small piece of her shroud. This was, of course, done with the aid of the Lich brothers, X'enon and Argon, who were the most devout and powerful servants of Dieryun following his take-over of the Cult of the Damned, a cult following the Lich Imperius who ran in opposition to Dieryun as a leader.

Dieryun rapidly took up Sanctus's offer, and Tenuem began to be populated by the factions of Anagrian that no longer wanted to be under the heel of the Twins. The Father recruited Arachnea, a wild-god who had been shunned by the druids due to being the goddess of lies and as such not following Amunist values and being bad for their connections to modern society. The Devourer recruited Tyuiop, a war god of elden days who formed from the blood spilt during the dawn war and slumbered ever since. The Father created Mors Quins from the rubble of Generath's capital, the twisted bones of belief and safety charred and twisted by the Void, the memories giving birth to a god of twisting cities. The Deceiver recruited Forsyn, the first vampire and the god of excess with promises of glorious feasts and endless oceans of blood following the victory. Finally, the Father took the corpses of the Coetia, the ideas that were slain from the first Thinning, and merged them into Morin, who wore the piece of shroud Dieryun stole from Kritanta and became the god of nightmares, moving through the dream veil between the living and dead.

Sanctus's goal was a slow draining of power from Amun and Kuk'sar, killing off their followers, secretively collapsing the nations of Anagrian and finally leading the death-blow. Unfortunately, Dieryun's archlich was X'enon Lich. Driven mad by the power of a god and without the grounding that was required, X'enon drew attention to the forces of Tenuem that had been gathering for the past 20 years and revealed the war that was to come, forcing Sanctus to start the invasion years ahead of schedule. While the Anagrian-sourced forces fought, many of the original Tenuemic races refused to fight, led by a populist council of the races known as the Council of Voices. This faction became known as the Nova Renascentai by the Tenuemic warriors, as a mockery of their desire for a New Rebirth without willing to fight for it.

Tenuem did lose, with Sanctus being captured by Amun and Kuk'sar. In a last ditch effort to ensure that his people, both the Nova and Tenuem survived the end of the war, Sanctus sent them to Anagrian. Tenuem's forces were scattered across Anagrian, many immediately captured and put on trial. The Undead were given refugee and hidden away, welcomed by the Undead of Anagrian. The Nova, Sanctus released from the Tomb of Dieryun.

The Nova Renascentai emerged into the changing Corinthia, and were immediately attacked, believing to be violent invaders. Fortunately for the Nova, the rules of magic that had been changed were ones that were the same in Tenuem, and as such, they were able to defend themselves incredibly easily. After clarifying that they do not wish to fight, the Nova began to assist with the evacuation of Nova Terram, as the change in magic also began to change the habitation runes that operated the city, making the environment like that of Tenuem, and as such, non-conductive to Anagrian-based life.

Shockingly, the death toll of the change was only 50 people, and most of those were from completely avoidable accidents. The Nova assisted the Corinthians with relocation, and with cooperation between the Council of Success and the Council of Voices were able to take over the city due to it being far too twisted to be comfortable for Anagrian-life. The Nova renamed it to Nova Terram and assisted the Corinthians with building New Corinthia to the south, on the coast. Nova Terram is slowly becoming more accessible to non-Nova Renascentai life, with easily accessible habitation runes, but having to wear permanently enchanted habitation clothing is considerably bothersome at times.

For the Corinthians, the loss of the city was incredibly financial ruinous and forced a transition to a heavy naval economy due to the loss of the teleportation network. This, combined with rapid purchases from the Council of Success, created the Corinthian Port Empire, a coalition of port-cities across Anagrian that serve as immense trade hubs for their countries, acquired as a purchase or lend from their original owners. The Corinthian Port Empire has slowly recovered, but has not reached anywhere close to it's peak during the Corinthia era.

Over the following 7 years, the Nova Renascentai have expanded their connections across Anagrian. Firstly, they made contact with the Shiokans, and created treaties with them. They created a long-term deal with the Solarionites, the locals of Anagrian that were well-versed with the Flow that the Nova had originated from, and founded Transititus with their assistance, allowing for access to the Flow and the minor dimensions scattered across it. The Nova attempted to join the Concordant, but were refused by all but Everntrey. Helianen, Pollentia, Tian, and Ur-Taen all opposed them on the basis of being connected to Sanctus and Tenuem. Everntrey, however, did create a solid trade relationship with the Nova. Al'daj, on the otherhand, had strong oppositions to the Nova and were in the preparations of conquest, but the efforts were stymied due to the Corinthian and Everntreyan support of the Nova.

In the year 770, the Paradox Event occured. The Nova's religious demographic were primarily composed of two groups: those that worshipped the Great Father, an iteration of Sanctus that survived from the Coetia; and those that worshipped the Voiceless Gods, gods that had been snuffed out by Sanctus and believed to now be speaking and guiding their followers through their memories and practices. The latter faction was largely unaffected by the Event, as their gods were already dead. The former, however, has entered a period of instability, almost entirely due to the deeply open nature of the Great Father. During the Nova's travels with him, the Great Father would often personally answer questions posed upon him through infinite avatars, able to assist his followers with any request. As such, Great Fatherites heavily relied upon the Father's presence to guide the beliefs and actions of the many that followed him. Following the Paradox Event, numerous imposters pretending to be the Father have appeared, many with conflicting goals and guidances for their followers, heavily sundering the belief into smaller sects. The Nova politically handled the actual event fairly well, as the Council of Voices stood independent of it's original founders, the Voiceless Gods. It was, however, preoccupied with an event that occurred roughly a day prior to the Paradox Event.

During their original explorations of stasis magic, the Nightborne experimented with other magical artifacts to attempt a simplifications of the rituals and circles required. One of these was a Dark Lantern, composed entirely of unreflective metal and lit with a flame that absorbed light. The Nightborne's study of the artifact showed that it exhuded a powerful force upon the Firmament, aiding in maintaining the places of Heaven, Hell, the Forest, and Anagrian relative to each other instead of as close as their magical forces would create. Hoping to harness this pinning force for their stasis magics, the Nightborne delegated the research to one Nar'Ol'Thep, a nightborne researcher that specialized in Flow artifacts. She established a lad within the Eastern section of the Mesa-Cities, and began to design. The original research of the Dark Lantern hit snags early on, but the peripheral research sourced from it and the other Flow-artifacts surrounding it, gained Nar'Ol'Thep much success. Eventually, Nar'Ol'Thep did stumble across what she believed to be a breakthrough, inviting many of the surrounding Mays to the display. Unfortunately, the Lantern's experiment malfunctioned and the energies released unmoored the entire region from time, sending it to the modern day, where the region was freed from the Lantern's grip by Asha and Ubage.

The sudden return of the Nightborne Cities, as they call themselves now, upon the lands caused some concerns within the neighboring countries. For the Corinthian's, the return of the Nightborne is an incredible opportunity to learn and profit, as the Nightborne of this era still remember the methods of their old runic circles, the ones that were not fully reliant on chronomantical methods. For the Nova, this is not much of a concern, as the Nova did not have any intention of using that land anyway. For the Shiokans, this was deeply troubling as the Nightborne's previous tenure of the land was not of the best results. As such, tensions between the Shiokans and the Nightborne are slowly rising and shimmering, but without any open acts of aggression.

## Culture

### The Shiokan Clans

The Shiokan culture is characterized primarily by two things: harmony with the land and strong loyalties.

The former originates from their connection the Wild God Ru, which encouraged a strong relation to nature. The Shiokan's approach to this is akin to that of the druids of Auron, with heavy emphasis on the maintaining of the land in it's natural state. However, a major difference between the Shiokans and the druids is the definition of the natural state. Due to the Nightborne Empire's influence upon the Shi'Ok's founding, the Shiokan definition of a natural state is far more concerned with the mana of a region that of it's physical properties.

The strong loyalties of the Shiokans is what kept them alive from the Nightborne Empire, as they were able to rely and trust upon each other. During their fleeing from Al'daj, their mutual trust and faith within each other kept them going.

### The Corinthian Port Empire

The Corinthian culture has not changed since their evacuation from the city, and remains driven by a desire for progress, learning, and success.

### The Nova Renascentai

The Nova Renascentai is a culture focused heavily on peace and cooperation.

### The Nightborne Cities

The Nightborne Cities culture is a twisted version of the Nightborne culture, focused on bringing back the Nightborne Empire, and as such has a strong superiority complex and a focus on development and growth.

## Religion

### The Nightborne Cities

The same dieties of the Nightborne Empire, the Judges.