The Arcanium: A Realm of Magical Supremacy

The Arcanium

A Realm of Magical Supremacy

The Arcanium is a magocracy found in the southwestern region of Velas known as the Southern Anchor which comprises of the dwarven lands of Katetia, Drath of the dark elves, Yagotzia of the hobgoblins, the Sothian Palatinate which holds the high priest of Soth known as the Thanarch, the Court of the Night which is an alliance of undead creatures that made a deal with the living, Tarkaria which contains nomadic bestial tribes, the goblin lands of Golgotzia, the Arcanium, the dragonkin-filled Samdiria, the blue Urkain inhabited Ruk, the elven land of Syldania, and the human colony of Thrale. The Arcanium is a land of magic users. It is dedicated to the mastery of magic, the mastery of the world around oneself, and the mastery over one's rivals. The Arcanium is world-renowned for its powerful mages and the colleges that produce them. It is ruled by a sorcerer supreme, one who has climbed on the top of the Arcanium's hierarchy by means of their magical strength allowing them to crush all over rivals. The realm is very small as a nation, dwarfed in size by its neighbors. Despite its smallness, it is one of the most fearsome lands to exist in the world. This is due to the massive concentration of wizards and mages who dwell within it. This massive concentration exists due to the major colleges of magic that exist within it that produce mages with great ability. At a high mortality rate.

A History

The Arcanium came about during the height of the reign Empire of Mekkhor, a powerful empire that stretched across a swathe of western Velas. During this time, the cult of Lathras put the ban on magic-users and killed any they could get their hands on. Magic was blasphemous to Lathras who provided her own miracles to her chosen clerics. The temple also had a vested interest in removing a competing power. The Lathrians were entrenched into the Mekkhorsi's governmental systems and culture and another option for power like theirs could weaken their position within the empire. So it was done that magicians, Heka users, Kah users, and anyone that did not use the energy of Will was cast out of the empire. The Aeth users fled to the Anchor, chased out by the temple. They settled the as of yet untamed land and made their own nation. The magicians held a burning hatred for the Lathrians and the Empire itself for their mistreatment. Before the Lathrians came about, they worked in concert with Hekanites, Kah masters, and others as the healers and utility mages of the empire. They were removed from their rightful positions.

Supremacy through Mastery

This hatred involved into a superiority complex that infected the entirety of Arcanite culture. In the Arcanium, a man existed to discharge their strength, all else was will to power. It was determined by the Arcanites that the strongest should rule, and the strongest were determined to be the most powerful mages that earned their power through mastery of Aeth and no one else. No charlatan priest, no dullard king, no money-grubbing merchants, and especially not the dirt of society, the common man. This thinking contributed to the birth to a new plan of world domination that was planned by the Arcanium elite and the sorcerer supreme a hundred years have they were established. This domination would not be explicit subjugation of the world but a secretive infiltration of its power structures. The Arcanium would turn mages to their way of thinking and be rid of the dregs through a dangerous curriculum used in their colleges. These mages would infiltrate the world once they had their chance and gradually change the world to their image.

Defending its Existence

The Arcanium had to defend its right to exist against multiple threats over the years. In the time of the Cold Death, the undead marched on their lands and they did battle with the liches that controlled them. The dragons of Samdiria thought to conquer the little magocracy again and again and they were fought back time and time again. The vampires that existed in the land that is now known as the Court of the Night also attempted to infiltrate the magocracy and make powerful servants of its inhabitant's copies. They were fought back again and again and the Arcanium remained.

An Opportunity

The Epiphany of Saint Bromae, by which the first high priest of the war god Alar emancipated all mages across the land from harm and suppression, became the first massive push the Arcanites needed to push their plans. They were able to keep the Arcanium as the sole place to learn mastery of Aeth for millennia by shutting down any other colleges of magic that sprung up through sabotage or secretive influence. They made a parasitic alliance with the Temple of the Five that ensured the Arcanium had religious protection against being shut down. Indeeed, the Great Unburdening, a time when rationality and science was promoted and the secular power of religion waned, was one of the greatest setbacks they had experienced. No longer could their alliance keep their works from ever biting them in the future. New colleges of magic rose and these had ample defense against the Arcanium. However, it still remained a nation and institution with a massive amount of influence in the world. Nary a royal court could be found without an Arcanium-trained court mage at a king's side. Their reputation for having high-quality education also kept them in the public eye. Their power seems unassailable

Equitianism

Although many do try to assail it. Equitianists are some of the greatest vocal critics of the Arcanium. Their implied magical supremacy goes against the movement's egalitarian nature and they are ever vigilant about any organization that makes power plays like the Arcanium. Dasili Geriov, The founder of the ministry of magicks which controls and teaches magic use in the cold lands of Equilibratist Skalovia, was a massive critic of them in the first epoch. He grew within the Arcanium under a different name, Daeglas Pearl, and became disgusted at them when he found their ultimate plans of world domination. When the opportunity arose, he joined the great radical dragon general Uhlion the Broken in his Skalovian Revolution, a conflict fought between the enthralled kobolds and their sympathizers and leaders including Uhlion the gold dragon vs the draconic Scale Prince rulers of the city-states that littered the land. He joined the revolution because he believed in Zelienism, the founding ideology of equitianism, and because he wanted to help create a state that would eliminate the Arcanium's control by way of its own resources including a magic school that was against everything the Arcanium taught. He taught that mages are not above the people, but are part of the people. They are to use their strengths in ways to help their fellow men rise past their weaknesses following equitianist ideology. True strength is found in the collective back and forth between individuals to create an equitable society. He battled the magocracy over his lifetime by skullduggery as an official of Skalovia. His successor ministers still fight that battle today. The Arcanium's alliance with nations that are foundational materielists, an oppressive economic system to equitianists, has also made the fight against them double in importance.

Today

The Arcanium still stands as one of the greatest places for someone to send their young to learn magic. Their tuitions are quite high at 300,000 silver (or $300,000 in GURPS terms) but they can instill a great mastery of magic in their students. As long as they do not die from the live fire exercises the university has which results in a third of their students being killed or expelled. That is only the classes, one's fellow students and professors may also kill their rivals or shame another out of the program in their scramble t the top.

Mekkhas the Conqueror

Mekkhas the Conqueror
10,954 ON to 10,887 ON

Mekkhas the Conqueror was a prince born in the region of Lekkas that lies in the north-eastern portion of Mekkhor found west of Skalovia and south of Gromdalia on Velas. He conquered his way into becoming an emperor and his empire stretched from the lands in western Velas known as Lekkas, Orcini, Ravois, Catarein, Ashriq, and Malkhabir. His legacy includes much of the societal foundations of Velas in the Age of Flame and the current borders of the modern Velassian regions as of 0 ND. His famous tale is told in multiple history books, by bards, and his tactics and methods are still taught today by military theorists. He united nearly all the lands by military conquest and created the powerful Mekkhorsi Empire which would last for over three thousand years and go on to influence the world after.

Origins

Mekkhas was born to Doreios and Anteia of the city-state of Nessalonika which was found in northeastern Lekkas about three hundred miles west of Skalovia, a cold land inhabited by draconic kinds that was ruled by dragons. Mekkhas's father was the basileus of Nessalonika, its king, and he was often absent in Mekkhas's life due to the multiple campaigns he lead when warring against other city-states and the encroaching Skalovians. Lekkas, a northern region of Mekkhor on the continent of Velas found on the western border of the Fang mountains of Skalovia, had long been at war with Skalovia and the Scale Princes, the draconic rulers of the frigid land that claimed individual city-states within it. His mother personally taught him what she could of history, legend, mathematics, and how to be a great general in the vein of his father. Mekkhas grew in the shadow of war in Lekkas and he served with his father as a strategos along with his older brothers Kephelon and Maiandrios. He had served for only a year when he had seen his father and brothers fall to draconic invasions, burned to death by the red dragon Cagath at the tail end of his final invasion of Nessalonika. 

Escape and Wisdom

Eventually, Nesalonika fell and Mekkhas escaped to the city of Paiontos. There he met with Anaxis of Many Colors, a mercenary captain that had made quite a hoard of gold from fighting in wars across the lands of Lekkas, Orcini, Ravois, and Catarein. He became a drinking companion to the young Mekkhas and fed him knowledge he had learned in his time across the land. Men only respond to power. That power is won by iron and blood. All else is pageantry. Mekkhas joined Anaxis on his campaigns and learned of these other lands and how they lived and warred. He realized he was narrow-minded in his thoughts. Lekkas was insufficient and too small to truly defend itself. Lekkas was also not the entire world. Mekkhas of Nesalonika swore to unite the human lands together in order to create a world for man to prosper and rule. He began his campaign with several shrewd moves working within Anaxis's mercenary company. He bargained for lands and titles instead of gold. He created his own united kingdom in southern Lekkas and then spread its influence through conquests. He met and won the loyalty and respect of men like Anaxis who had true wisdom. These men would become his archons, generals and governors, and raise professional armies in his new kingdom of Thralonika built in the western portion of Lekkas. 

Empire Building

His kingdom became an empire once he caused the city-states of Lekkas to submit, the tribal chiefs of Ravois to kneel, and the kings of Orcini to lay down one crown for another as they were convinced to become archons. He continued his conquests well into the south, into Catarein and the deserts of Ashriq. He planned multiple projects over the decades including renovations of cities, great works made in the empire's name, and the establishment of some of the earliest institutions in Mekkhor. His name would ring out with greatness and every man that bowed to him at one time in shame would grow to adore him. He would always keep his eyes on Lekkas and sent legions to keep back the Scale Princes from progressing forward.

Tragedy and Succession

Unfortunately, Mekkhas died before he saw his dream achieved. He died of a fever at the age of 67 in the harsh deserts of Ashriq. His heir, Anakreon, would take over and finish what he began. He personally saw his father's home freed and the lands of Lekkas torn away from the greedy talons of the dragons. Once the realms were united, a great invasion of near one million men was launched into the cold reaches of Skalovia. Not by the princes did the army of one million see its number halved, but by the cruelty of the frigid land. Skalovia is deadly cold in its falls and winters and it requires the use of magical hearthstones to produce heat. In the beginning, the legions of Anakreon were able to procure these stones in the warmer spring but they were in short supply and the area they covered could not support all the men. Many died in the cold numb, their blue faces in permanent expressions of chilling pain. The war went on for decades despite this, but every year would see the men grow weaker, grow in unhappiness, and lost the original vision their predecessors had. They grew tired of war and fighting hundreds of thousands of kobolds, scalebound, monks, and the abominations of the Scale Princes along with the dragons themselves. They pushed the princes back into Skalovia, and this was seen as victory enough. The men returned home to Mekkhor and a great wall was built that separated the two realms. The princes would continue to breach it and many succeeded but they would not grab a permanent foothold like they once had.

Audovauld Bromae of Lorcilly: The Patron Saint of Battle

Saint Bromae

-5931 ON to -5879 ON 

Saint Bromae is the patron saint of battle and one of the most important figures to the Pentaphany, the largest religion on the planet Kyr. He was specifically devoted to the temple of Alar, the god of war in the temple of the Five. He was known for leading and fighting against the mass undead invasion known as the Cold Death where liches and vampires that were hidden in the depths of the cold sea marched upon the north to reclaim lands that were once theirs. Many stories abound from that time of his bravery and courage, his ability to lead men, and of the blessings and miracles he did on and off the battlefield. He is also a special figure to magic users across Pentandom, the lands that worship the Pentaphanic gods, due to his key role in freeing them from the original proscription the Pentaphany had upon the use of magic. He ascended to anathemahood, a demi-godlike state of power, to continue his master's work upon the world. He is often silent, as quiet as his god, but he is known to lend his power to his believers and adherents. He is seen as a figure representing the struggles the kinds have had in defending civilization.

Audovauld Bromae was born to the blacksmith Berengar Bromae and his wife the seamstress Rinilda in the town of Lorcilly which was found in what is now modern southern Ravois. Growing up, Audovauld was taught to become a blacksmith by his father and to learn the family craft. His mother told him stories of myths and legends from a tome that her family had passed down for centuries. Due to the nature of his father's work, Audovauld was often in the company of soldiery. He attended ceremonies, marches, dinners, and events that his father was invited to for his work in making arms for the legions of Mekkhor, the empire that ran from the north of Lekkas to the bottom of Malkhabir. There he saw the warriors and heard their tales of heroism and valor and decided he wanted to become one. His father attempted to dissuade him of this want but his head was full of the stories of legends and these men he looked up to and Berengar could not stop him. He grew in the fief of the Archon Cyr, a well-known warlord and loyal governor of the Mekkhor Empire. When he came of age, he joined the local archon's forces. He trained well and became a working part of the army's forces. He rose through the ranks despite his personal problems with what he found in the army. When he was first deployed, he soon became dismayed at what he was required to do as a soldier. He had to fight his fellow Mekkhorsi that were rebelling against the empire or other warlords attempting to make their own claims outside the Emperor's rule. He watched as his comrades pillaged from the lands they fought in, and burn down villages and cities in the name of the emperor and the empire. He wanted a better way.

Behind the backs of his commanders, he would personally attempt to discipline the soldiers from engaging in immoral acts on the battlefield. Sometimes a fellow warrior would be found severely beaten or dead with wounds from unexplainable sources. Many disappeared. His role as an authoritative figure shielded him from investigation and he was loved by much of the men he served with so these strange discrepancies were ignored. 

Audovauld grew in the light of Lathras, the old god of life that many Mekkhorsi worshipped long ago, but he was introduced to the Pentaphany by a traveling missionary from the land now known as Khattiba, a desert region found southwest of Ravois within the region of Ashriq. Her name was Laiqa the Wanderer and he met her when he saved her from a zealous band of Lathrians that were attempting to stone her to death for spreading the word of the Five, the gods of the Pentaphany. After her rescue, they grew to know one another and she taught him of the epiphany of the Five, the claim that all gods were facets of five: Sothe, Liestra, Alar, Prythe, and Astres. He grew very interested in this new religion and especially of a god of just war, Alar. He asked Laiqa to baptize him in the name of the Five and he swore to uphold their will. He would see war become just.

War did not become just with the arrival of the Cold Death invasions, a grand set of invasions from the sea by liches controlling the undead from ages past. Audovauld, now an officer in archon Cyr's army, saw firsthand the havoc the undead unleashed upon the living. This was during a time of great instability in the empire as the War of Dying Flame, a civil war between three emperors that had claimed they were the true heirs of the empire, was growing to a close and the Mekkhorsi empire would never see itself with the same entrenchment of stable power ever again. The Cold Death was one of the final nails in the coffin of the Mekkhorsi Empire as the archons looked to themselves and did not help the south where the dead became hordes. Archon Cyr was similarly impotent due to not having the knowledge necessary to deal with this type of threat nor its scale. That left the army almost all alone with the archon having gone mad with stress in his castle.

Audovauld refused to see his land snuffed out. He rallied the army around a new banner bearing the symbol of Alar. At the end of a great booming speech made to inspire his men, holy energy erupted from the banner he raised a great gout of miraculous energy that speared into the sky. The banner could now be pointed and used as a weapon with great tendrils of energy flowing out of it and destroying all in their paths. It was said that even Audovauld was surprised when this occurred but he found it inspiring and knew that Alar was with him. He was ecstatic in the new power given to him by his god but kept his original ideal of a just war in his mind and never found himself overtaken by a sense of corruption. For a decade of war, Audovauld united the southern Ravoir into a fighting force under the banner of the Pentaphany and Alar. He would win many converts by his acts of valor and many would flock to him, including the first paladins that he found himself able to bless with his miracles. The warriors of Irenia, a region to the southeast of Ravois that would one day become Alaria, also joined him and they brought the word of the Five back to the region. For all of his miraculous and great work, he would be named the first Bellarch, the high priest of Alar. He saw the Cold Death beaten off and turned his work into helping the Pentaphany solidify itself as an institution.

His defense against the Cold Death would help him see his great epiphany that would emancipate mages in the eyes of the faithful of the Pentaphany. Before his epiphany, mages and magery were banned from being practiced by the Pentaphany and the previous Lathrian religion on pain of death. It came from a source that was not holy and it made up the essence of monsters thus it must have been sinful and evil. Magic-users would be exiled from the empire and put to death if they attempted to stay. The Arcanium, a realm ruled by great wizards boasting one of the greatest magic schools in the world located to the south of Mekkhor, came about during this time and it began as simply a nation of refugees and then became something more. In this war, he saw many mages come to the aid of Mekkhor. Many of these mages were those who would profess a love of the Five but could not due to the banning of their kind. In this war, he saw time and time again that even with the miracles he could summon that many more Ravoir would have died without the powers of the mages to send deadly spells down upon the undead, serve utilitarian purposes in sanitizing food, healing when the Liestrian clerics could not be around, and helping to raise fortifications and defenses much more quickly than the army would be able to do on its own. 

He became the defacto commander of the Pentaphany's forces and formed the first Council of Five Palatines with the Thanarch Jullian, the Vitarch Fikra, the Iustarch Ladron, and the Stellarch Kalesius. There they decided to spread the Pentarchy across Velas and laid down the foundations of thee modern temples. Audovauld and the first Pentarchy had nothing to do with the barring of women from the temple clergy aside from Liestrian and Astresian temples. That was created in later centuries with the entrenchment of the patriarchical feudal system.

He took part in the war against the worms and was a welcome presence. In -5879 ON, he ascended to Anathemahood becoming the Anathema of Battle to complement the god of war. He now acts behind the scenes and is able to empower his followers. His holy banner is found in the Palatine of Alar, and its power remains. It has been saved for use in another great world-threatening war.

A chapel dedicated to him exists in modern Lorcilly and many Alarian organizations and orders have been dedicated to him. Notably, the Firmament dedicated their organization to him but they also disregard his emancipatory epiphany. 

Gromdalia: The Ancient

Gromdalia

The Ancients

On the northern edge of the known world lies one of the oldest confederations known to history. It is inhabited by tribes of the duerthi people, or dwarves as they are more commonly known. Gromdalia lays claim to the Gromdal mountains, snowy high-rising mountains found in one of the coldest climates of the world on the northern edge of Velas butting up against the Fangs. Underneath the peaks and within the rock of the mountains themselves lies the Gromdalian civilizations. They have cities hewn from the stone of the mountain that are covered with statues and great inscriptions of art formed upon the walls, buildings, and sides of caves. The Gromdalian's vast history is written on these walls but some has been lost to time due to neglect or pure age. Connecting the great cities, known as kyrgs are great underways, highways built between the cities that patrolled by heavily armored guardians. Each kyrg contains a ruling Teyrg, a merchant guild that serves as the government for the duerthi people. While a high king once ruled Gromdalia long ago, the royal dynasty was lost to a horrible plague and in its place rose the second most powerful institutions of Gromdalia: the guilds. Gromdalia is home to one of the oldest forms of magitek in the world: rune scribing.

Duerthi

Duerthi are short, stout people that stand at between three feet and four feet tall. They are often robustly built and long lived, reaching around six hundred years in age before succumbing to natural causes. They are one of the oldest Kinds in the world and have seen and lived through many ages.

Ancient History

Gromdalia has existed since before the Age of Twilight, the time when the great elven empire of Velas took its mysterious exodus away from the known world. The duerthi and the aelthi once worked in concert together before the empire took power and the elves treated all other kinds as beneath them and only suitable for submission or extermination. Before the aelthi could put the boot to the dwarves, the ancient kind had seemingly disappeared. Gromdalia avoided being conquered by the ancients hiding within the deep parts of the mountains. It was a miserable experience that saw many dwarves die by starvation without the massive fungal farms they had cultivated with the kyrgs of the upper mountains. Along with this, monsters rose in hordes the deeper in the mountains one goes. The fight for survival was on two fronts. When they retreated, they created a system of scouts that could stealthily creep to the upper levels and watch if the Aelthi still continued on their path of destruction. This went on for centuries. The duerthi were able to settle the lower levels and quell the numbers of the monsters to manageable levels by the end of their time in the depths. They still longed for their homes. Eventually, the strangest thing occurred. The Velassian Empire was no longer in the known world. In its place new primitive Kinds that now claim the earth. The duerthi of this time recognized these Kinds and knew their origins. They disregarded the new Kinds of men, bestials, and the others as little more than upright animals and kept to their own business for thousands of years. Over time, the knowledge of why the dwarves refused to communicate them was lost with the death of several venerable longbeards, a name for the oldest dwarves going on 500-600 years old. Duerthi are long-lived but they can succumb to death from natural causes. The newer generations would eventually reach out to these young Kinds and parcel out information to help them prosper. This resulted in the technological advances of humans becoming accelerated to iron age level. Along with this, many discoveries the duerthi had known on a scientific and philosophical level were shared with the humans to their south, the Lekkenics. Giving out of select information over time was done out of fear of creating a brand new Velassian Empire. In the ancient days, the duerthi helped the aelthi and suffered for it. So, these new Kinds were given bist and pieces. This information along with their own newly found advancements would lead them to the technological and societal level they were before the Epoch of Flame. The main vectorrs of this knowledge were the humans of Lekkas.

Runic Inscription

Runic inscription has long been part of duerthi culture. It is credited for allowing the dwarven kyrgs some of their greatest works and their beautiful hewn cities. How it works is that the runes are built into different objects, not just stones, and their shapes intrinsically draw upon aeth, the energy of magic. A similar phenomenon was seen with the chordant stones of Talah except instead of notes focusing music, the inscriptions summon it through their physicality. They often glow with the power of aeth once finished. Runic inscription was one of the very last things the dwarves passed onto the younger Kinds and forr two good reasons. One, they were trying to not allow them too much power. Two, it is exceedingly difficult unless one knows how to do it. It takes specialized tools and a special form of enchantment magic to work. It can take decades to learn how to use both, which is one reason why the discovery of the more easily used aetherium was so valuable to advances in magitek. Still, runic inscription is used in the Age of Flame, especially on aeroships to make them light enough to float.

Scriber Guilds

Scriber guilds can be hired for high prices to mark runic inscriptions on different objects. They are renowned across the world and hired for special projects by the wealthy and powerful. (In game terms they mainly use the enchantment system of GURPS Magic)

Equitianism

The guilds of Gromdal do not care for equitianism. They see it as an upstart movement that has not had the millenia of testing that their ancient traditions have had. However, not all duerthi in Gromdalia agree. Many have chafed under the power of the guilds for hundreds of years and find truth in the ideology. This truth is exemplified by the multiple ways the upper class of the guild masters have oppressed the lower classes in Gromdalian history. Underpaying them, keeping food when famine struck, forcibly suppressing dissenters, and always keeping the senior members of the guild at the top and almost never allowing the younger dwarves to prove themselves in a cyclical nature that sees new generations finally receiving the positions they yearned for and then keeping the next at the bottom. Along with this, open equitianists had to keep their alliegances secret or risk the shuttering of their jobs and exile. Because of all this, many Gromdalian dwarves flocked to the Skalovian Revolution and became key figures in the early history of the Uhlionic Republic. One Gromdalian resident that stayed in the Gromdal mountains, Regar Jarnsir, was a homegrown equitianist that had known Sylvaras Zelie, the elven creator of equitianism, and was a known theoretician and freedom fighter. He took part in the original rebellion against the Dai Empire in Liresku but left with the disappointing rise of the Dominion, the legalistic Prythian cult that ruled the lands with an iron fist. He was a supporter of the Uhlionic Republic, the newly raised revolutionary government that toppled the Scale Princes of Skalovia that ruled the land before. Regar saw it as his personal mission to pass on his personal friend Sylvaras's movement in liberation of the workers of Gromdal. He turned against the Republic and denounced vanguard-theory-based Equilibratism with the atrocities committed in Klastte and the invasion of Gromdalia in a clear act of imperialism.

The Gromdal War

Many of those dwarves would see themselves fighting against their own kin in what was to be known as an ultimately pointless war between the confederation of guilds and the Republic, now an ascendant land-conquering republic to their east. The Republic outwardly fought to liberate the dwarves from the masters of the guilds; it was actually thought up as a land grab to gain more resources including new veins of aetherium, the crystal that is key to modern magitek tools and creations, found within the Gromdal mountains. The URA, the black powder using Uhlionic Republican Army, was exhausted from two consecutive wars beforehand and the occupation of Klastte, a fallen kingdom now under the control of the Republic. Along with this, the revolutionary spirit of fighting in defense of the motherland was drained with those wars and the premier's cruel policies taking their toll. Along with this, the URA's weapons were not suited to the underground, requiring wide spaces to form lines upon. The Gromdalians knew the terrain, had prepared for such a war, and were ready to fight back the invaders. While not an excessively bloody war, totalling at around 20,000 casualties, many did die on both sides and this was the final black mark against the Republic in the eyes of even fellow equitianists, let alone the rest of the world which planning to create a massive coalition to smash the Republic. The black eye given to them was seen as enough for the time. Gromdalia won and expelled the URA from their lands.

Changing Times

Gromdalia is going through a relatively massive amount of changes in a short time throughout the Epoch of flame. The powers of the guilds are waning and the newer generations have a bevy of new ideas. Only time will tell if the ancient kingdom changes from its ancient traditions.

Drath: A Lost Past

Drath

A Lost Past

Found within a great plain of rolling grassland and steppes in southern Velas, Drath is the homeland of the Drathi people, or dark elves as they're more commonly known. Drath is home to a unique form of magic, blood magic, that all Drathi have a genetic predisposition for using. This mysterious realm came to be only a few centuries beforehand with the return of Aelthi that were long thought lost forever arriving in new changed forms.

The Drathi

Much like the other elves of Kyr, Drathi often have slender graceful bodies and long ears. They similarly have magic blood and are tuned to aeth naturally. They, however, have snow-white skin almost to an elf, black eyes, and naturally growing ivory-colored hair. They also seem to have genetically built-in knowledge of their particular form of blood magic. This blood magic concerns not sacrifice (like certain devils desire) but rather the literal use of blood as energy to focus aeth, the energy of magic, into spells. This has been theorized as an alternate use of kah, the energy of life, or potentially a mixture of the use of kah and aeth in a hybrid form but the mechanics are not well known by even the Drathi. Most civilizations abhor the use of blood magic whether through association with the Tithing Realms, those hells ruled by the archdevils and archdemons, or through general squeamishness. Along with this, it is rather difficult and possibly fatal to learn blood magic. 

The Return
-431 ON

Drath was formed when a flotilla of strange ships bearing the Drathi peoples approached the known world. They came to sail around southern Velas having no memory of where they came from nor why they were in this part of Kyr. However, they to an elf had an impending sense of doom that they shared with anyone who would listen that the Velassian Empire was to return to their old lands one day. They begged for sanctuary from the states in southern Velas as most of those upon the ships were starving and dying. They were denied such, as Thrale could not see themselves taking them on, Katetia has a long burning hatred for their ancient Aelthi enemies, and Yagatzia was in the middle of a war. The Tarks had no such delegation at this time, still being a roaming series of tribes. The one state that would help was the Sothian Palatinate but this was during the time of establishing the Court of the Night and resources were thin. Dismayed at this state of affairs the Drathi docked their ships on the near-barren lands that the nation stands on today. They would not live to see the next spring if sacrifices were not made. A lottery was held and the winners were cut down and their blood drained to power the magic necessary to create a new settlement. Near 33% of the population on the ships died this way. This was spearheaded by a female Drathi named Lleiwyn Narain, who would become the ruling despot of the new nation.

The Despotate

Despot Narain decided she was one of the few of the flotilla that could ensure the survival of her people. A strong-willed drathi, she directed the survivors in settling this new land with help of an inner circle of guards and would hear no dissent to her plans. She was brutal in putting down any that would threaten her rule with punishments such as crucifixions, public butchery, and bloody displays of her own accumulated power. In her way, she settled what is now known as Drath over the span of a few centuries. Her subjects are equally split in abundant gratitude and deep-seated loathing. 

Blood Stones

Blood Stones are family heirlooms given to the head of a house. They are strange magical stones that can store more blood than their palm-sized round shape suggests. Often they are fed by their uses who bleed themselves to fill the stones in increments over the days. The use of a bloodstone can create powerful magics without killing the user by using the accumulated blood in one's spells.

The Drathi Diaspora

Many Drathi have fled from the Despotate and Despot Narain has wished good riddance to them. They have found new homes across the world but often find themselves in marginalized communities similar to the Fallow and Djiinari. One large concentration of Drathi is found in Uladreng, the masked realm. 

Klastte: Men of War

Klastte
Men of War

Klastte is a land of dark forests and beautiful castle cities found in northeastern Velas. It is a land with a rich folk culture which is popularly taught by minnesang bards that learned their magical bardic musical tradition from the Talahvir. Pastries made in Klastte are delicious as are their meat products like schnitzel and bratwurst. Klastte was also home to Liestrian monasteries known worldwide for their quality beer. It was unconquered by the legendary figure Mekkhos, but it received Mekkhorsi cultural artifacts through trade. It is a temperate land with a cool climate. 

Land of War

Klastte has had a long history of war. Bordering to the north were the Scale Princes, dragons that ruled their own private hoards as city states that constantly feuded with one another and invaded the south where Klastte lay. The Nua Ragha, urkain pillagers hailing from the shores of Grush, commonly raided the eastern coasts and the boldest of them would sail along Klastte's central river, the Sondheim, and raid from the river into central Klastte. A land of warlike kingdoms in a region to their southwest known as Irenia would commonly pass through an open passage to the west of the southern Rauchig mountains, the range that surrounds the majority of the southern border, in attempts to conquer the Klasttic peoples. Along with these outside threats, the Klasttics themselves were split up into many tribes and petty kingdoms that held their own distinct dialects of Old Klasttic. For many centuries the different princes would fight amongst each other for ownership of the gold mines that lay within the Rauchig mountains in southeast and the fertile farmlands of the west bordering the southern reach of the Fang mountains that ran all along Skalovia's borders and ended in Klastte. Along with this were ancient grudges of blood between noble houses that spilled into assassinations and war. Then there were wars of religion fought between those that followed the old religion of Lathras and those that followed the new Pentaphany. The divisions of Klastte rand deep and it would take a miracle to unite them. A miracle was made by the Schalzich noble family of the old principality of Vrudekk found on the southeastern border of the nation. They were established in the city Wolfach and were a rich family from their rich trading ports and gold mines. They had hosted in their home city the Order of Saint Tobruk, a knightly order dedicated to the Pentaphany undivided. The order established to fight against Skalovia and the monsters of the lands like local nachzehrer vampires, the lizard and cat-like stollwurms, and the ravenous bakhauv that resembled a deformed calf with fangs. The Schalzich line were able to leverage their wealth into creating great mercenary armies to finally conquer the disparate kingdoms with the help of the Order. The different lands were consolidated into what is known as modern Klastte by the Schalzich Dynasty in the past few centuries and the head of house Schalzich at the time, Reichart Schalzich, was named kaiser, or emperor. Klastte in its unity has become a regional power of renown thanks to the wealth from its banking system, the consolidated power of the Schalzich dynasty, and the Klasttic Junker class. 

Klastte's Strengths

First among these strengths was the wealth built by the Royal Bank of Klastte, the first modern banking system in the world. The Klasttic bank was a standardized state-mandated financial establishment. It was first built to help the royal family of Schalzich keep the taxes gathered from the nobility of the newly conquered petty kingdoms, but its use expanded into money lending, depositing, investing, and currency transfer for any customer across the world. The Klasttic currency, the marque, became one of the most useful currencies in the world and it standardized the use of copper, silver, and gold currency. One could use a Klasttic marque even in the Huatec Empire, a nation across the sea on the continent of Xatla, and would not have to change it to the local cacao currency of the Huatecs. The amount of wealth raised was instrumental in funding the royal Schalzich family's multiple projects. Klastte was one of the first nations to establish state-funded schools to teach children of the Junkers, a landed aristocratic warrior class, in writing, philosophy, mathematics, and military theory. The first unification of the different Klasttic dialects was also undertaken in part by these schools and by the opening of new libraries full of printed books using the dialect of the Schalzich's native region of Vrudekk. Klastte became one of the first to emancipate the fallow, those of devil and demon blood, even with the full-blooded bigotry of Kaiser Heinrich von Schalzich who enacted this reform. New fortress cities, Festungs, were built all along the country to reinforce its defenses and to keep the locals in line by force and by the conscription system that would find their young fighting and becoming loyal to the kaiser. Many of these Festungs were governed and ran by Junkers. Junkers differed from Wakamotoese samurai and Velassian knights by being full-time professional warriors that were trained to be officers over large units of men rather than acting as either the main force of a kingdom or as shock cavalry. Junkers were required to take up command at all times and were expected to keep up with their skills. Under the Junkers were the men-at-arms and for a short period, line regiments that would be drilled in battle and similarly expected to be war-ready at all times. This made them natural candidates to train quickly in the newest ways of war.

Klastte and Equilibratism

The Klasttic crown became one of the first enemies of the movement with the raiding of weapons workshops that were once used to arm the southern front of the Skalovian civil war. King Juren Schalzich created a wave of hysteria targeted against the movement. This was known as the First Golden Scare, named after Uhlion the Broken One's scale color. The idea was spread that Equilibratism was a secret cult plot meant to take over the world. Regardless of Uhlionist vanguard theory and the concept of the worldwide revolution, much disinformation was spread and the true information that the Broken One had stolen  enlightenment from Astres herself set much of the world against the Republic. Tomes were burned, equilibratists jailed, and the entire world watched the Republic with a vigilant eye. Especially Klastte.

Klastte's Buildup

0 ND

Klastte had received the musket designs and magitek tools necessary to advance their own army to the modern gunpowder age. They received these from the original designer of the musket, Piotr Danilovsky, who had fled from Skalovia, at that time a newly formed nation to the north, after discovering the plans of the beloved Skalovian premier, Uhlion, that detailed a purge of any suspected dissidents to his reign. Along with this, he helped Klasttic engineers design new muskets and cannons that would be appropriate to stronger human arms. Klastte had around sixteen years to change their army but the original professional spirit facilitated the rearmament and changing of doctrines. Klastte built up to strike at Skalovia and tear away what they saw was a cancer ready to grow malignant. They may have won if they had not been facing legions of URA (Uhlionic Republican Army) soldiers hardened by the First Lich War, a horrid war fought in the north of Skalova against the invading Groza League of liches and necromancers.

The Patriotic War

16 ND - 22 ND

While near matching the URA beat for beat, the Klasttics had not known true total war in quite some time. Alaria's conflicts grew in on itself, the Nua Ragha found trade ships more profitable to raid than the Klattic coast, and their ancient enemies in the Scale Princes were slain. The URA had all the experience they could receive from proficient military drilling and officers with a complete education in all things war. They did not have built icy hardness of facing the undead and keeping the survival of their people. They did not have the indomitable spirit not born from espirit'd'corps but from the numbing of fear by witnessing the horrors the URA faced.

Klastte began the war due to a large bombing done in a border city named Schalzichburg. This was blamed on Skalovian terrorists and it was seen as time to defend the fatherland. However, it was technically carried out by Skalovian terrorists but these were monks of the Cult of Gor who wanted this outcome. They marched into Skalovia with an army of 300,000, cavalry, support mages, paladins, and a full bevy of newly designed artillery. That army fled with 50,000 that were still in fighting condition. The war lasting six years and it involved multiple long sieges and some of the worst looting and violence seen up to that point in history including the Massacre of Fort Brau.

The war is known as the Patriotic War only by those of the Klasttic Revival Movement that existed after the war. Klastte lost this war and was annexed as the new Klasttic Oblast to the Uhlionic Republic. King Juren Schalzich fled from the nation and was later found murdered.

The Massacre of Port Brau

Nearing the end of the war, the coastal city of Port Brau was captured by the URA. The siege was long and bloody and the city fighting even moreso. Once the city was captured, the commanding officer of the URA units that invaded the city, a blue kobold named Lukah Dubnov, asked the high command whether he could execute the prisoners of war in the city since he had nowhere to put them with a journey to the northern Skalovian gulags, workcamp prisons that mined the northern mountains of Skalovia, being too long to be too impractical. His question was given to premier Ural Kaitovsky, the successor to the great general and liberator of Skalovia, Uhlion. He not only gave the affirmative on the executions of those POWs, but decided the time had come to purge Klastte of any remaining influentials that would raise a hand against the Republic as they had done with the nobility of the Scale Princes. So it was made that near 200,000 Klasttics that were marked for execution were marched to Port Brau by the URA who were given orders to move the people of the occupied nation. These Klasttics were told they were to relocate to a new festung in order to make way for renovations to their old ones and that they would be returned shortly. They were marched from west to the eastern port. 50,000 officers, teachers, priests, and anyone else that were seen as a threat were executed. The largest reason why the other 200,000 were not was because of a lack of ammunition and a mutiny by a faction of soldiers against Dubnov and his military staff. The Massacre of Port Brau would make the nation a pariah state, moreso than it was before with the Great Blasphemy. This massacre ordered by the leader of the nation even gave pause to the Wakunansi, the older allies and trading partners of the Republic, and nearly made it consider breaking off their highly valued alliance. This set back equitianist work by centuries and demonized the movement to the point of even capsizing other movements that were merely related to equitianism such as abolitionist attempts in Thrale. It was a date that lived in infamy and gave birth to the premier's reign being known as the Terror.

The Klasttic Oblast

Klastte was annexed by the Uhlionic Republic in 22 ND under the rule of Premier Kaitovsky . A series of revolts and uprisings were put down over the course of two centuries. This annexation set near the entire world against the Republic and they were sanctioned and placed on interdict due to it. Klasttic culture was suppressed in the early decades of the occupation and the area was subject to Skalovification, the forcing of Skalovian and Equilibratist culture onto the occupied nation. The Kibbutz system of Skalovia was enforced upon the land. The military was disbanded and the URA, which would not allow Klasttics to join for decades, established martial law. Klasttic Pentaphany temples were looted and changed to administrative buildings. Klasttic cultural artifacts including books of folklore, stories of legendary figures, and minnesanger tradition were torn down. The nobles were torn from ownership of their lands and new union councils were created that managed those areas. One of the scariest things of this system to the greater world was that certain Klasttics kept close equivalents of their old positions and these were the Equilibratist sympathizers and double agents planted into Klastte including some of the Junker class. 

Das Syndikat

The Syndikat began as disparate groups of smugglers and black market dealers of Klasttic materials that grew and thrived under the occupation. These groups came together in the city of Port Brau, a popular coastal smuggling center, and created a new organization meant to profit off the situation the Uhlionics had created. Making a profit from desperation is not a new game. They expanded into hosting bordellos, gambling rackets, protection rackets, robberies, and more illegal businesses. They greased the palms of Uhlionic officials and even spread into parts of Skalovia. They exist even into future epochs of the setting.

Klasttic Refugees

Many Klasttics fled from Klastte during the war. Chief among these places was Alaria, the combined kingdom and palatinate of the god of war to the southeast, who had found themselves in a new peace after the Civil War. Interestingly, a number had fled to Wakunan, another equitianist state that held similar beliefs to the Republic inhabited by the hyena-like gnolls in their rich port cities and its vast savannah. The two states had traded with each other for millennia and Klasttic-owned estates had been established in Wakunan in the past. While the first few generations was anti-equitianist, further generations fell into harmonizing Klasttic culture with Wakunansi culture including hybrid food dishes and a unique form of Minnesang bard singing that combined with Wakunansi singing traditions.

The Verdant Peace

41 ND

Skalovification of the oblast lasted until the end of Premier Kaitovsky's reign. Premier Ukiatev, his much beloved successor, sought to overturn many old policies her cruel predecessor put into place. Klasttic monks were allowed back into the nation and their monasteries were rebuilt, although many temples remained administrative centers for the new regime. The suppression of Klasttic culture was stopped and certain parts even adopted by the Republic such as the Minnesang tradition which became an entrenched institution in the Institute of the Chords, or Orkestr in old Skalovian. This allowed a new source of magic users for the republic. Klasttic food, folklore, and religious traditions were allowed again. This cut into Syndikat profits but they had expanded enough into other domains that they stayed around despite the decreased pay. Revivalists continued their campaigns and sought nothing but the full independence of Klastte from the Republic. Over time, though it would take centuries, the occupation ceased to be this horrid thing and the Klasttic oblast would become a nation of card-carrying Equilibratists. A Klasttic premier would one day take power.

The Divided Nations of Mekkhor: Heirs to Ancient Empires

The Divided Nations of Mekkhor

Mekkhor

Lekkas

Lekkas was the birthplace of Mekkhas, the ancient conqueror that created the Mekkhor Empire.; It had long been an enemy of the Scale Princes before the revolution. Lekkas is known for its sheep farms. The Palatine of Astres is located in Lekkas. Most of the landscape is covered in mountains. Lekkas has a cold temperate climate. It was one of the first nations to be contacted by an old kingdom of dwarves, Gromdalia, and one of the first to receive gifts from before the Twilight. Because of this, the Lekkenics have a deep relationship with Gromdalia andt the Lekkenics have steadily traded with the dwarves for eons. Even with the rise of Mekkhas, one guarantee of the legendary warlord was that no duerthi blood would be shed by Lekkenic hands.
Lekkas did not always think of itself as Lekkas. Indeed across millennia it was host to dozens to hundreds of city-states bound together by a commonly developing language. These city-states feuded with each other as much as any outside threat. For their wars, they raised levied armies of hoplites, heavily armored warriors taught to wield long spears and round heavy shields in formation. Their style of war would lay the foundation for future tactics even when the hoplite grew out of fashion. Lekkas also found itself with the knowledge of the old-world, although a fragmented form given in bits and pieces by the dwarves. This knowledge was not exclusive to the dwarves; the elvish realms, dragons, and other ancient kinds also keep it, but much like the areas around those ancient places it gave the Lekkenics insights and different ways of thinking about the world. Many philosophers, academics, and innovators can draw back their foundations from this specific relationship and this sort of Foundational Theory has spread with trade and war.

Being a vector for old knowledge, Lekkenics value wisdom heavily. The land is littered with academies, universities, and research centers. The patron god of Lekkas, Astres, exemplifies the almost worshipful foundation of seeking questions into the unknown. When the Great Blasphemy occurred, Astresian cleric were the first to demand the ability to study what the Broken One stole from their god. They were also one of the largest hosts to revolutionary workshops making firearms using Dr. Holowitz's magitek tools. Lekkas was also one of the few regions of the world that did not contribute to the Blue Host that attacked the Republic at the end of the Skalovian revolution. Indeed, possibly just out of self-preservation, Lekkas has had a sympathetic to a cooperative relationship of the new Skalovian regime. While made up of harmonists, equitianist thought was not quashed until the events of Port Brau when the Bloody Scare set off.

Orcini

Orcini is known to be a land of romance and ostentatiousness. It is covered with fertile valleys and foot hills along with flat plains and rolling hills and rivers. Orcini surrounds the mouth of the Sea of Wine, walls off the Valarine Sea, and opens to the Green Step Sea which leads to Aizarin. Orcini is a rich port region and its fleets and control essentially gate off the majority of Lekkas, Ravois, and parts of Catarein so heavy tariffs are often paid to get past or trade gets dropped off on Orcinian land to have a native trading company serve as a medium to pick up the load and sell it themselves. Each Orcinian kingdom has a powerful navy to keep this control of the waves. Orcini has gathered a great amount of wealth from its trade and its domestic industries including dye works, wine making, and textile works. Orcinians essentially worship wealth. Many monuments and edifices have been created to this worship. Grand opera houses, great arenas, opulent palaces, grand forums, some of the largest cathedrals to the Five in the world have their home in Orcini built by princes, magnates, and others of the high classes showing off their monetary power. It is also a realm of great subterfuge, intrigue, and power struggles. Assassins, thieves, duelists, mercenaries, and spies make their home here and it is known to have at least been home to two found thieves guild and one found assassin's guild. Orcini has the monster, cultist, undead, and other issues that other realms have but even contractors are more likely to be set against their neighbors indirectly than for simple defense. 

Catarein

The Palatine of Prythe is located in Ortaset. Catarein is known for their cattle and dairy farms. The Catereinian landscape has flat plains surrounded by rugged undeveloped hills. It is a temperate land of hot summers and cold winters in the interior and more moderate temperature near the coasts. The southern fork of Catarein contains deserts in the interior which give way to the more fertile coasts. The northern section contains temperate deciduous forests. 

Catarein is no stranger to invasions, from the empire of Mekkhor to the Cold Deat to the Xhenonic Risen Empire to dragons to necromancers. Along with this, political divisions have split the land for eons from old tribal chiefs to Mekkhorsi warlords to the kingdoms at the beginning of the Epoch of Flame. The beginning split into three kingdoms is impressive in that those regions were split into near two dozen different petty kingdoms only a century beforehand.

Catareinians value machismo and status heavily. In the way Orcinians lift up wealth, Catareinians lift up the idea of face and respect. Face is won by being tough and standing one's ground. By doing what a man should do by dealing with problems head-on. By hunting large game, by winning fights against one's rivals, by commanding the respect, love, and if not those then fear of one's fellow man.

Dueling, bullfighting, prizefighting, once jousting, tournaments, contests, and more are used in games of gaining face. 

Epoch 2

The Catareinian Civil War

343 PR

In 343 the aftermath of the Grush War set off a wave of tensions in Catarein. This region had one of the last gasps of aristocracy and a great change was occurring across the world that would see the old blood toppled. This gave rise to three groups. The Liberadors, an equilibratist faction; the Patrianos, a harmonist faction; and the Guardias de Sangre, a Tierian faction. The civil war would be one of the more wild ones and underneath the surface opportunists, grifters, and malefic types rose from their dark cracks into the light of day. War has broken out and near all able-bodied men have either volunteered or have been drafted into the army of one of the sides. 

Ravois

Ravois is a land of rolling green hills, beautiful forests, and quaint cottages. Ravois was the first region invaded by the Cold Death and is also the birthplace of Velassian feudalism. It is also the originating point of Chivalry. Ravois as a region has long seen itself surrounded by enemies and rivals. Even back before Mekkhos the Conqueror brought it to heel, the original tribes often had to fend for themselves against all manner of threats. This has led to a long history of warriors that stretch from woad covered tribesmen to fully plated knights to professional men at arms. As a central location in Mekkhor, however, it is also home to many trading ports and receives a great deluge of different influences from across Mekkhor. Much of the world outside of Mekkhor is locked off by the heavily taxing Orcinian navies and Wakunan being a massive profitable trading point for Aizarinian merchants to stop at a long way before Ravois. Where Lekkas is home to vast repositories of wisdom, Ravois is home to art and culture across the regions. It is also home to a special martial art and kah style that has an emphasis on kicks called Pied Rapide style. Ravois three kingdoms are much longer established than other Mekkhorsi regions and this is due to the heavy centralization of administration duties the three have established. This centralization has power centered around the kings themselves rather than having lords running their autonomous regions with their fealty paid by levies and tribute. This has been found necessary as Ravois' divisions go deep and even one kingdom could hold host to essentially hundreds of petty counties and baronies feuding with each other. To the old way's credit, these lords did levy their forces when the kings needed them. However, they also often threatened the kings. The absolute monarchical system created is a result of decades of gradual change and it has rewarded the kingdom in a much more swift and responsive military force. It has also made repression of dissenting ideologies much easier. Religious power has long been a source of tension between clergymen and aristocracy even past the Great Unburdening. Outside of the great palatinates, Ravois holds the greatest amount of church-owned lands by the beginning of the Age of Flame. Clergy also do not have to pay taxes to the king and they are not required to levy manpower. This can make them popular with the lower classes where often peasants on church land are squeezed less for tithings and they do not have to fear being called up for service. Ravois is also a hotbed of harmonist sympathizers and amongst them is a minor league of equilibratists.

Malkabir

Malkhabir is a land of lush green coasts that give way to high mountain and parched deserts. It was one of the most difficult lands for Mekkhos to conquer and for good reason. Its harsh inner land has given rise to tribes of well-trained horsemen that have history in warring with each other and hunting great beasts like giant scorpions, deadly marid, and in ancient past the valleymen or qareen in old Malkhabiri. Malkhabir is also considered the birthplace of djiin and as such the birthplace of the djiinari peoples. It is known for the beautiful ancient architecture of its cities along with the style of flowing dress that saves the Malkhabiri from the fury of the sun. It is a land of feuding beys and emirs that war at a tendency similar to the southern Xatlan empires but without the history of bloody sacrifice. Malkhabir is the birthplace of the Pentaphany where the Five gods were united first. The religion spread from the peasants up to the governor generals of the Mekkhorsi Empire and to the rest of Mekkhor. It is also a region that plays host to a massive amount of trade as it serves as a gate to the inner Dancing Sea and a common point of rest for ships travelling abroad from Aizarin, southern Velas, and Xatla. Part of this trade has made the region a repository of knowledge from across the world. It rivals Lekkas in the amount of seminaries, academies, and great libraries it has built. Rather than the dwarves of Gromdal helping them along their way, they were given a worse crash course by dragons of what is now known as Samdiria attempting to control the region. Along with this, they trade with the local elven enclave of Syldania which similarly parceled out ancient knowledge. It is the birthplace of Uslariyah, an ancient martial art practiced by mounted warriors. The Pentaphany was first formed in Malkhabir.

Ashriq

Ashriq is host to fertile highlands and grasslands and is another major trade center. Less warlike than the emirates of the Malkhabir, Ashriq rivals Orcini in the scale of political intrigue both have. Ashriq is another region with vast repositories of knowledge but in Ahsriq, knowledge is power and it is home to some of the most secretive but also the most resourceful information brokers in the world. Ashriq is home to one of the oldest assassin traditions in the world and its tsalal agents are some of the most proficient spies and killers in Mekkhor. Ashriq is home to a heavy infantry and mounted cavalry tradition due to its wealth, mineral deposits, and fertile lands. It is also home to an ancient mixture of kah and heka tradition known as Altheanya where a mastery of the body was mixed with beseechments to djiin and other supernatural creatures. The Ess'Wun Kinship and those that practice Altheanya have a friendly rivalry and between them they created the world's first kah martial arts tournament that is still manually run. The Palatine of Liestra lies in Zakariyya and it shows. Around lake Nafi is a vast garden of fruit and greenery kept in perfect order for the patron mother. Yuduliya is strange region that has hosted a unique religious tradition for many eons. 

Riddle of Flame: A Setting Rundown

Riddle of Flame

A Setting Rundown

A broken being absconded with the enlightenment of the gods and his prideful machinations would revolutionize the world.

The Riddle of Flame is a fantastical epic setting with steampunk and historical elements. RoF can play host to numerous genres of stories set within its highly varied developing world including mystery, action, adventure, horror, war, and more! On the planet of Kyr the known world is undergoing massive technological and social changes that will see societies leap from the Feudal ages to the Industrialized era. Knights and spearmen are being replaced by musket-wielding linemen and cannons in war and simple crafts are being left behind for great smoke-spewing factories. The realms in ROF have seen a long history involving magic inherited by millennia of mastery, wars between nations, religious strife, discoveries, and mysteries long unsolved like the disappearance of the ancient elven empire. Now the realms of Kyr are being thrust into a new age of refined gunpowder, great machines, and flying ships.

A Massive World to Explore

RoF holds a massive world called Kyr brimming with territories as of yet unmapped by civilizations that inhabit three main continents:

• Velas, a continent host to some of the greatest empires in the world with the remnants of those ancient realms fought over by many kingdoms. These lands are a hotbed of intrigue and agitated ideology ready to boil over into unrest and war.
• Skalovia, once home to the dreaded draconic aristocracy of the Scale Princes, is now home to the burgeoning radical Uhlionic Republic that works to spread the ideology of Equilibratism to the world through agitation or gunpowder.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-uhlion-republic.html
• Klastte, the home of a warrior class of aristocrats that quickly transitioned to the age of gunpowder that serves a bulwark against Equilibratism.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/klastte-men-of-war.html
• Alaria, a kingdom dedicated to the god of war that holds the last gasp of chilvaric knights within its feudal borders. It is the home of the high priest of the god of war and to different sects that are coming to conflict over their beliefs.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/alaria-holy-wars.html
• Wakunan, a new republic built off of the ruins of matriarchical rule and genocide with its own ideological goals and a rich trading tradition. The savannah is old and home to many dangers along with those that wish to return to the old ways.
• The Ess'Wunn Kinship The kinship is a network of monasteries that teaches the secrets of kah.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/wakunan-healing-savannah.html
• Thrale, a newer republic of colonists set on taming Thrake's Vale. Thrale is an up and coming nation that will blossom into a full blown superpower. Within Thrale's borders are strange Elakansi people who have a mastery of the energy kah and infuse this energy in totems on their mountain home. Thrale makes its home in:
• The Wynde, a great forest shaped by magical means now left to be overgrown by ancient masters. The young colonies that lie beneath the great mountain Thrake ply into this forest in search of ancient magical artifacts left behind and new fertile land to call home in Thrake's Vale, or Thrale.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/thrale.html
• Grush, the homeland of the Urkain where the deadly Nua Ragha raiders make their home. A land of masterful blacksmiths and rejection of the gaudy. Within this archipelago lies ancient ruins of precursors and large forests with many dangers.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-grushian-archipelago-of-urkain.html 
• Liresku, once under the reign of a genocidal empire, now held by the godly Dominion in a theocratic grip. The god of law's agents rule the lands and suppress rebellion and heresy.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-dai-empire-and-dominion-transition.html
• The Court of the Night, a dark gloomy realm that acts as a nationwide house arrest for creatures of the night. The eponymous Court is made up of a mixture of vampires, wraiths, necromancers, and creatures that made a deal with the temple of the god of death to maintain their existence but there are undead that do not comply. It is a "safe" place to visit but beware of becoming the attraction.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-undead-creatures-of-shi.html
• The Sothian Palatinate, the warden realm around the Court of the Night which is home to the high priest of the god of death, Sothe.
• Drath, a despotate of dark elves that returned from distant mysterious shores bearing blood magic and snow-white skin after millennia of absence.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/07/drath-civilization-without-past.html
• Gromdalia, an ancient dwarven confederation found in the Gromdal mountains that has existed since before the twilight of time. It is responsible for the progress of the modern kinds up until the epoch of flame. Their unique runic magic is key to many magitek advancements.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/07/gromdalia-ancients.html
• The Arcanium A land based on magical supremacy where the greatest wizard rules. It is also home to the oldest magical colleges in the world with high fatality rates.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-arcanium-realm-of-magical-supremacy.html
• Samdiria A land of dragonkin founded by a dragon out of spite with a very libertarian feel to rules.
• Tarkaria A rough wildland of desert, grassland, forest, hills, and plains that is home to nomadic tribes of bestial kinds, animal men, and the Tarkkyrat, or United City of Tarks that seeks to consolidate the different tribes in the changing world in a modern city.
• Kesst A land of dunes, desert, and highlands that is ruled by the Diarchy and is one of the oldest kingdoms in the world. Along with Kessian culture are the enkidu, hulking kinds of tribesmen found in the highlands that keep their autonomy by service to the crown.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/nation-kesst.html
• Lusmia A land of tolerated necromancers that defend the entire world against the threat of an ancient race of mind-bending and fleshbending worms that seek to conquer the topside.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/nation-lusmia.html
• Groza a chilled land of liches and necromancers off the coasts of Skalovia and Grush that fight amongst each other when they're not invading the lands of the living for ancient grudges.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/05/undead-confederation.html
• Mekkhor A large region once ruled by an ancient warlord and now a divided land of multiple cultures.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-divided-nations-of-mekkhor-heirs-to.html
• Yagatzia A land of nomadic horsemen red-skinned hobgoblins.
• Golgotzia A land of free-spirited tinkerers and the homeland of the goblins.

• Xatla, a sprawling land of tropical jungles on one end and rolling plains that contains a vast collection of peoples from the masked Uladrengish to the warlike bloody empires of the south and the enigmatic Zethite dragonkin that lay beyond their wall of mountains. 
• Uladreng, a realm of the masked. Every citizen of this land wears black robes and white masks to hide their identities. They also often war against vampires invading them from the northeast.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/uladreng-dark-kingdom-of-masks.html
• Talah, an island realm of song where magical chordant stones have shaped an entire society to a choral hierarchy.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/05/talahvir.html
• Aizarin, a land of ancient cultures built from common conflict with a vast realm of fiendish undead besieging them on one end and a strange civilization of insectoid creatures claiming to hold an engine of heaven on the other facing off with knightly zealots. These lands include: 
• Wakamoto, a land of grace and perfection ruled by a divine emperor and his samurai warriors in defense against an undead scourge. They keep order in the land against threats to the Emperor including the Oni King and his minions.
• Zothica, the home to kinds of bug people from bulky tall beetle humanoids to flying mothmen and armored venomous scorpion men.Their civilization was saved and built by a strange device that gives its users wonderful powers, the Heaven Engine.
• The Firmament, a puritanical crusader state of knights dedicated to the god of war carved out of a sultanate. They wage a continuous war to create a world united under their holy control.
• The Rasp, the land of the dead threatening to drag down the lands of Aizarin filled with all manner of undead thing from the wicked jiangshi to the vengeful goryo.
• The Cursed Reach, a vast desert of Aizarin filled with fiends that contains a great lake circling a mysterious island at its center.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/04/aizarin.html

• The Risen Realms Deep sea realms home to sea animal people, the Xhenonics, and to their ruling caste of sun priests that lead them to invade the land.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-lands-of-xhenons.html
• Then there are new frontiers yet to be discovered including a landmass dotted with massive black spires that reach toward the heavens and an ethereally cursed land of swamps, dark forests, and serene countryside that hides secret mysteries.

Read for more information on the laws of a few of these lands: https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-laws-of-nations.html

A Living Technologically Progressing World

The Riddle of Flame is not stuck to one time. It is spread across three distinct epochs that sees technology and society progress with the march of time. It begins with the introduction of Napoleonic Era technology, advances to a mid-victorian state, and then finally ends with a WW2-like world. These are known as epochs and are numbered 1, 2, and 3.

• Epoch 1 sees the world in its greatest state of transition from the feudal kingdoms to the nation states resembling the wave of Enlightenment Napoleon forced upon Europe. Armies begin as professional men at arms with pikes and swords and end with linemen armed with bayonets and muskets. Along with this comes the first aeroships and the discovery of the new land of Gothica.
• Epoch 2 finds the world in the first steps of an age of machines and clumsy smoothbore muskets replaced with cartridge rifles along with brand new discoveries like the land of black spires newly named Shudder. Along with this, trains and steam engines become popularized with rails crossing the land.
• Epoch 3 has the world well settled in technological progress and older one-shot rifles are replaced with bolt action rifles and submachine guns. Fast-flying airplanes are established and the age of the automobile has arrived. Advancements are extremely eclectic with personal music players seen amongst pressed suits and stetson-style hats.

https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/aeroships.html

https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/weapons-equipment-tools-armor-ground.html

https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/05/brief-broadview-history-and.html

https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/technological-epochs-in-rof.html
https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/what-does-great-blasphemy-mean-and-what.html

A Feel of the Historical

RoF also contains degrees of historicity and verisimilitude. Many factions within the game are inspired by historical nations and cultures including but not limited to:

• Skalovia, which has a mixture of Slavic culture in its influence with Russia and the Soviet Union being direct prominent inspirations, but it also containing Polish influence as well.
• Klastte, which is an interpretation of Prussia and has an Eastern German influence with their early.
• The states of Mekkhor, which has inspiration from different regions that touched the Mediterranean including the Maghreb, the Levant, Iberia, Italy, and also France. 
• Wakamoto, which is a Japanese inspired land with another culture, the Kaze, occupying a similar space to the Ainu.

Along with aesthetic influences, technology generally proceeds through the advances made on historical earth but at different speeds for different domains due to interference by magic, religion, and other factors.

Certain events resemble events from real life, like:

• The Skalovian Revolution A war resembling the Russian Civil War in it's destruction of an old outdated regime and its uplifting of a new ideology and setting the stage for the growth of a superpower.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-skalovian-revolution.html
• The Great Unburdening A time period resembling the Enlightenment that concerns the loss of power of religion, the advancement of humanist (kindist) thought, and a progression of science

Attempting to be similar to history (although not strictly adhering to it), many nations are not clean or unscathed and the morality of states are usually varying shades of grey. For example, the Uhlionic Republic did rise from an enslaved society of kobolds and did topple over a callous regime in the Scale Princes but it would also go on to make oversteps and commit Katyn Forest-esque atrocities like the Massacre of Port Brau. Along with this, most nations have participated in the practice of slavery until the near the start date.
https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/slavery.html

Magic and Technology

Apart and in Accord

• Magic has long been part of the world and has served a key part in past advancements and society. 
• Technology has really burgeoned to become a new powerful force in the world and it rivals magic in its use and power. 
• Magitek combines both of them together to allow for unique and powerful tools but comes at the cost of volatility and expensive materials like the aetherium crystal.

https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/magic-magic-blooded-and-magitek.html

A World Driven by Ideology

The Age of Flame was begun by ideologues and it is further driven by ideologues. The ideologies break down into four major groups:

• Harmonism This is an individualistic philosophy that values freedom and prosperity.
• Equitianism This is a collectivist philosophy that values order and justice.
• To Learn More: https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-brief-timeline-of-feudalism.html
• Tierianism This is an ethonationalist philosophy made in response to the above two that is commonly militaristic and jingoistic.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-tiers.html
• Traditionalism This grouping contains those cloying to the old kingdoms and feudal systems that are slowly but surely dying out.

The Divine

The world contains multiple religions, prominent ones being:

• The Pentaphany The Epiphany of the Five that supposes that there are five true gods and all others are facets of those gods. Those gods being:
• Sothe, the God of Death, he who defends natural death and directs the afterlife.
• Liestra, the God of Life, the patron mother of fertility, farmers, and healing.
• Prythe, the God of Law, the great judge of justice and punishment
• Alar, the God of War, the lord of battle and just war.
• Astres, the God of Stars, the watcher of craftsmen, travelers, explorers, and keeper of knowledge.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-pentaphany.html
• The Temple of the Twins The religion worshipping the twin gods Dhaegoth and Vhaegoth who are prominent in Urkain culture.
• Hekanism Which describes a group of religions and traditions that draw upon the energy of Heka which is given by those between spaces such as kami and faeries.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/hagswoods-and-covens.html
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-deities.html
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/04/anima.html

Anathema: The Ascended

Beings occupying a demi-god like state exist that can serve as active patrons to their followers and worshippers. These include:

• The Woehltriv Archdevils which seek to leech off of society and control it. Archdevils include:
• The Crone Queen, the self-proclaimed queen of witches that delights in sacrifice and witches brews.
• The Crossroads King, he who is the greatest dealer and gambler of all time that grants wishes at a price.
• The Prince of Lies, he who twists others around his finger using his silver tongue.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/02/devil-worship.html
• The Woehltan Archdemons which seek naught but to discharge their strength.
• Veq, the Plaguebearer who delights in the spread of pestilence.
• The Oni King, an archdemon of blood and slaughter that lets his demons run wild in the world.
• The Living Saints Prominent figures that ascended in life and gifted their followers with power.
• Saint Bromae, devoted to the god of war in life and now continues his god's holy work in smashing apart the enemies of civilization.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/07/audovauld-bromae-of-lorcilly-patron.html
• Kunan, the messiah of Wakunan that taught self-control. She protects her people and followers through her patronage.

https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/anathema.html

Contractors

The equivalent of heroes and adventurers in other lands, contractors include errant knights, traveling paladins, wandering mercenaries, and other specialists willing to ply their trade for coin and rewards. Contractors can find quests posted on quest boards or given to them personally and are paid to scout areas, clear passages, defend settlements, and more.

Contractor groups include:

• Exceldius A contractor guild built by former mercenaries, Exceldius has seen franchises across the world and any aspiring adventurer would benefit from its many services and amenities found in its halls.
• Gravemarkers A religious militant organization of wandering paladins dedicated to the god of death. They use large blessed scythes and armor to strike down the unholy.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-chantry-of-sothe.html
• The Gold Company A contractor guild that directly answers to the Thralish Supreme Chancellor that acts in their nation's name abroad.

https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/contractors-adventurers-monster-hunters.html

The Energies

There are multiple energies that allow their users powers, spells, and other special effects based upon their special properties. These energies include:

• Aeth Mastery of this radiating ethereal energy that blankets the world allows the use of spells.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/magic-magic-blooded-and-magitek.html
• Will Bestowed upon those of great faith to allow them miracles.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-deities.html
• Kah The energy of life that strengthens the body and allows fearsome powers.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/kah-and-gurps-monk-template.html
• Heka This energy is a special mixture of Aeth and Will that is given by supernatural beings.
• Shi The energy of unlife that comprises of corrupted Kah that powers the undead.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-undead-creatures-of-shi.html
• Woehl The energy of the tithing realms drawn from sacrificed souls and the patronage of the unholy masters that dwell in those places.
• https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/02/devil-worship.html

Other Settings within Kyr and ROF

Maxim of Steel A dungeon crawler and Fallout/STALKER/Wild-West inspired mashup.
https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-maxim-of-steel.html

Gothica A Lovecraftian and Deadlands-like Weird Americana-like setting.

https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/06/gothica-new-world-of-horror.html

Further Reading

https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/glossary-of-terms.html