Valkadian Pre-history

There are traces of ancient Valkadian advanced masonry, hints of sorcery and defaced ruins over multiples nations and continents of the world. Most of those are simple oddities, but some contain age-old treasure and knowledge troves. A sufficiently determined adventurer, or a guild of researcher might even get some of those to speak a few secrets and stories of nights long gone and forgotten skies. What is clearly known, is that Valkadia, due to an overarching fate, or an ingrained instinct, tend to grow powerful and collapse on itself, losing millennia of painstakingly gained progress in the process.

Current Valkadian lore masters try to decrypt those patterns to understand the origins of this cycle of Stories as they call it. Trying to break this self-inflicted curse. Their most recent findings demonstrated that each cycle seem to have given new attributes to Valkadia, which rebuilt on ruins of their predecessors, gaining new insights and might faster than in their last cycle. A few theorized that this is the result of a grand design, destined to strengthen Valkadian into true heirs of their ancestral primogenitor Valka.

### -6000 to ? | An experiment lost to time : the ratling

#### Distant past (- 6000DC) Landaleitan’s journal extract 1

*Extract from the copy of a decrepit journal*

This expedition was a great success. Well, not the spiders, mind you, those are enormous around here. All wildlife seems very prosperous, when I think about it, this is probably why I will win my bet. As you know, I am in course with [indecipherable gibberish] for the Imperator favors, we are supposed to scour the whole world to bring a way to grow Valkadia to new heights. The others thought the Eastern island were a fluke, that it was so close that our ancestors would have gathered everything of value long ago. Fools ! I found big furry creatures, everything seems big or bizarre here. But what’s important is that they use tool, I am sure of it, I saw them, they look like rat but with pointy sticks, some use rock hammer to open tough nuts. If they reproduce fast like other rodent, who knows what venture this will open to the empire ? I’ll bring a few hundred on my flight back to the capital. [the rest of this page is unreadable]

#### Breeding of Scavers

3 : get some sentient ones and were forced to give them some form of citizenship (we don't do sentient alive slaves)

4 : some valkadian noble had the idea to experiment a government and statecraft and propped Skarl as a thing, far in the past

5 : lost control of the experiment ; maybe some houses kept contact with Skarl through the ages

6 : fallen on themselves a few time since then, still lives with ratlings

### -3000 | Skarl, the tale of an experiment in statecraft

##### Experiment initial report :

According to their Imperial will and with the help of the great houses, the Skarl operation is a resounding success. We took ten thousand rattlings beyond the Wardak range (see attached map, see annex 1 : great accounting of the Skarl experiment) ; according to the experiment parameter we gave them as little information as possible, except from one clan that report to us everything they see. Those observers mingled into the clans, usually taking the roles of spiritual guides, shaman and healer, but we instructed some of the smartest Scaver to become artisans.

In less than a decade they started to set themselves up inside old mining tunnels and a few old building left to rot in open air. We got regular report on the way they organized themselves (see annex 2 : schematics of Skarl first dwellings).  It seems like a long way from a functional civilization without our regular shipment of food and tools ; but it seems that some enterprising individuals are starting to form their own clans, more structured than the slave tribe we usually see around our mining operations. (see annex 3 : primo-tribes -refer to tally in annex 4- and the proto-clans).

As a conclusion to this introductory reporting ; we thing this statecraft experiment will be a clear success within the next centuries. We might finally have some clues toward how the first Valkadian empire set itself up.

### -1600 to -800 DC | A penultimate game : The Elder's Ashes empire

    This was the last iteration of the Valkadian empire, now referred to as the Elder's Ashes, for all of it crumbled almost eight centuries ago to the last Imperator folly. Very few traces of this era remain. The Elder Ashes collapse causes are wildly controversial and a predominant discussion subject among all the archivists and historians minor houses, all they know for certain is that this cataclysmic event caused the local cold desertic Pravus wasteland to appear in the west. The last theory being that the penultimate Imperator found a way to open a gate toward a previously unknown plane of magic, solely to be backstabbed at the last moments by his heir, trying to prevent what he perceived as the end of times. Some tell tales about centuries old Valkadian undead's brotherhood still roaming the continent, fully aware of the past and fiercely trying to get it to stay under the cinders.

> Better to play the Game on my Elder's Ashes rather than letting the Story unravel to nothing.
> -Unamed Imperator written words recovered from a burnt journal
>
>

### -800 to -200 DC | An Era of internal strife

Soon after the empire collapse, wild sorcerous manifestations scoured the land and formed what is now known as the Pravus wasteland around the old capital. For decades, manastorms rushed along the coast and unnamed magical aberrations walked the forests. The old leadership crumbled, while the are rumors about some of the most powerful liches fleeing the continent on dark vessels. Most cities and fort disappeared, only a few ruins remaining, ugly and deformed as old charred bones.

Some valkadian houses survived this local apocalypse and started to rebuild. Breaching the old vaults, guided by the few elders and undead remaining, this new nobility seized all the magical knowledge they could ... but power without wisdom is naught but a double-edged sword. For centuries, the old valkadian lands fought itself, the old valkadian nobility fought itself, the new valkadian nobility fought itself, Valkadia's future was grim. On a positive note, for the great houses at least, cold bodies were available in ample supply.

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**Note of importance :** during this time of strife, Valkadia gradually lost almost all influence outside it's new core province ; a few Valkadian communities might have survived here and there and some Houses kept links with the exterior world. But to the world at large, except it's closes neighbors maybe, Valkadia disappeared, letting only ruins, incomprehensible magical experiments and throngs of undeads behind itself.

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### -200 to 0DC | A new Darklord, a new Game.

It took approximately six hundred years for the reformed Houses to come together once again, under Maleum's leadership. Not strong enough to get Valkadia to follow him as a true emperor, they took the mantle of Darklord, a title of old prestige, and thus got enshrined in history as Maleum the reclaimer. In two century Maleum took it upon themselves to rebuild a functional Valkadia, far from the grandiose ever-growing empire, they built a modest but study power base, so that Valkadia could grow back stronger than ever.