Therin's climate is, overall, slightly cooler than Earth's own 14 °C (by probably less than one degree in totality). Its orbit is more elliptical than Earth's, bringing it relatively both farther and nearer to its sun at times, and it rotates more slowly. This makes the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures more severe than on Earth. Seasons also tend to be harsher - winter is colder and summer hotter.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The six continents of Therin are called, in order from largest to smallest, Jiran, Lamira, Iniuth, Gardran, Orcant, and Yorun.

The largest and most significant continent is Jiran. Its southern coast touches the equator of Therin; the continent stretches across two-thirds of the world. The west coast of Jiran is seperated from Iniuth's east coast by a narrow, shallow bay. Along the center of Jiran, there are four distinct mountain ranges, called the Jagged Range, the Shadowed Range, the Lofty Range, and the Reddened Range from west to east. Passing over the mountains is difficult in the best conditions, so most travel is forced between the ranges. There is one mountain range that runs north to south instead of east to west on Jiran, the Rogue Range.

Lamira is the second coldest continent. It is in the northermost reaches of the world. The earth and rock of the continent is buried under ice for the most part. The icy ground of Lamira is occasionally broken by tremendous, jagged mountains. There is a great deal of volcanic activity on this continent, and many precious minerals can be found here.

Iniuth is to the west of Jiran, very close to its western coasts. A paradise for the High Elves, most of the land is covered in lush, millenia-old forests and even more ancient structures of stone. The southern coast, however, was cursed by the spells of Aga'mannixx during the Queen's Age, and no living thing dares to go near the blackened, barren land and poisoned water there.

Gardran is the rocky continent to the north-east of Jiran. It is the most mountainous of the lands of Therin, as well as the most volcanic. A large lake to the north is the only reliable source of freshwater, but the rock hides many treasures of ore and precious minerals.

Orcant is the next largest continent, northwest of Iniuth. It is a rugged landscape, much like a Gardran calmed of its volcanos, but also more weathered by wind and sea. Little of great value is found beneath the earth there, but the land is greatly fertile and boasts a great assortment of plant and animal life.

The smallest continent is Yorun. Yorun is mostly covered by the southern ice cap of Therin, except for a few mountain ranges and such that thrust up out of the ice and snow. The Red Tower has drastically altered the environment of the circular valley that lies over the south pole; it exudes an unnatural heat that clashes with the cold air of the continent to create an almost-eternal, stationary hurricane that rages constantly with lightning, snow, rain, and hail. This storm is centered over the Red Tower and the valley of Kral-Gorthak, where the weather is deathly calm and unnaturally warm. Kral-Gorthak is a sunken, uninhabitated plain of jagged black rock. It is surrounded by a circle of high mountains, with passes in the north and south.

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Moon Segments - With two moons, Therin's lunar cycle is understandably quite different from our own. The moons are named Lantas and Lantôrn. There are twelve phases of the moons' journey across the sky. Every year, the moons will either both become full at once, or both will be shrouded. This alternates from year to year. A complete two-year cycle is called a Kalôtan. The moons change their apparent shapes much slower than Earth's moon does, so it takes a year to go from the first to the seventh phase. Each phase lasts about two months, except the first and seventh, which happen only for one night. Lantôrn is significantly larger and brighter in the sky than the other moon.

First Phase - Neither moon is visible. This occurs only once every two years, and is a holy time for followers of Nathilkal, Goddess of Darkness among the Six. Followers of Ilithân fast, refusing to eat or drink anything, this night.

Second Phase - Lantas is a waxing sliver, Lantôrn is shrouded completely.

Third Phase - Lantas is a waxing crescent, Lantôrn is a waxing sliver.

Fourth Phase - Lantas is half full, Lantôrn is a waxing crescent.

Fifth Phase - Lantas is waxing gibbous, Lantôrn is half full.

Sixth Phase - Lantas is full, Lantôrn is waxing gibbous.

Seventh Phase - This happens only once every two years. Both Lantas and Lantorn are full. This is a holy night for followers of Ilithân, God of Light among the Six. Followers of Nathilkal fast, refusing to eat or drink anything, this night.

Eighth Phase - Lantas is waning gibbous, Lantôrn is full.

Ninth Phase - Lantas is half full, Lantôrn is waning gibbous.

Tenth Phase - Lantas is a waning crescent, Lantôrn is half full.

Eleventh Phase - Lantas is a waning sliver, Lantôrn is a waning crescent.

Twelfth Phase - Lantas is completely shrouded, Lantôrn is a waning sliver.

'Lantas' and 'Lantôrn' mean 'Elder Sister' and 'Younger Sister,' respectively, in Gîlrim. The Dawn Elves believed that the moons were the daughters of the sun, ('Therioth,' or 'Great Mother'), who had given birth to them to bring light to the wandering children of her friend Therin, ('Little Mother,' Dawn Elven name for the world). The moons bore candles kindled from their mother's flame - Lantas generously gave the brighter candle to her sister, and so appears smaller and dimmer - but Nath il Kal ('Voice in Dark') seeks to snuff out their lights, like all other lights in the cosmos, so the moons must at times cup their hands about their candles' lights to try and hide from it. Nath il Kal cannot be evaded forever, however, and at times one or both of the sisters' candles is extinguished, and they must return to their mother's flame and rekindle their light.

The Calacis explains the moons as great demons of the Dawn Elves, entrapped by the Nommèdetè in cages of holy light. It is usually safe enough to walk under the light of the moons, therefore, though they warn that these beasts' power forever struggles against that of the Nommèdetè, and even the shine of their cages can be turned to the purposes of trickery and evil. The demons are often testing some part or another of their bonds, the darkness of their evil shrouding and obscuring the light of the cages, but even when the moons cannot be seen because of this, the demons remain imprisoned, and the followers of the Nommèdetè walk at night without fear, though not without a lantern.

The Six tell that the moons are part of the order of celestial lights kindled and governed in the sky by Ilithân, who keeps them all in good order even though he is barely worshipped anymore. He rarely keeps both moons at full brightness out of respect for Nathilkal, but in exchange for one night of true darkness every two years, He lets both shine fully the other year. The light of the moons encourages calm thought and logic, and thinkers and inventors who worship the Six feel they do their best work at night.

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Therinic days are about 30 Earth hours long. However, the people of Therin count 20 hours in each day. For ease of reading, all noted times are given converted to our own standard. Several widely-used calenders for keeping track of time in Therin are listed below. For all, the month named in asterisks is the rough equivalent on Earth.

Spring

Days of Leaves *February* - 30 days
Days of Dragons *March* - 32 days
Days of Crowns *April* - 29 days
Days of Tidings *May* - 31 days

Summer

Days of Joy *June* - 29 days
Days of Flame *July* - 34 days

Autumn

Days of Shadow *August* - 28 days
Days of Song *September* - 30 days
Days of Tears *October* - 28 days

Winter

Days of Frost *November, December, and January* - 87 days

There are 358 days in the Dawn Elven calender. Every five years, the 31st day of Tidings is excluded. This is known as a dry year, and keeps the calender in time with the actual seasons.

The priesthoods of the Six follow their own calender, which is based around the holy days and festivals of their gods. When all of the Six worked together, before they fell into dissent and were reduced, it was believed that each of them governed over an equal sixth of the year.

The Days of Yuardêa

Leaves' Day (celebrated with the followers of Nathilkal)
Month of the Prophetess *March* - 30 days
Month of the Paladin *April* - 30 days
Burning Day

The Days of Rava

Hearth Day (celebrated with the followers of Yuardêa)
Month of the Painter *May* - 30 days
Month of the Warrior *June* - 30 days
Life's Day

The Days of Ilithân

Lantern's Day (celebrated with the followers of Rava)
Month of the Stars *July* - 30 days
Month of the Moons *August* - 30 days
Fall's Day

The Days of Ilirîn

Finder's Day (celebrated with the followers of Ilithân)
Month of the Judge *September* - 30 days
Month of the Storm *October* - 30 days
Law's Day

The Days of Vargoth

Lord's Day (celebrated with the followers of Ilirîn)
Month of the Snows *November* - 30 days
Month of the Ruler *December* - 30 days
Reckoning Day

The Days of Nathilkal

Dirge Day (celebrated with the followers of Vargoth)
Month of the Sorceress *January* - 30 days
Month of the Thief *February* - 30 days
Dancing Day

There are 372 days in the calender of the Six. Because it is not kept in proportion to the actual year, every 150 years or so since its commencement has seen the Days of Vargoth taking place in summer, for instance. Farmers, and others who need to be exact about the seasons, who worship the Six will often generally use the Dawn Elven calender, trusting the priests to keep them appraised of festival days.

[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 03:43 AM).]

From the beginning of history to the fall of the Emperor and the rise of the Calacis.

The Dawn Elves founded their first and greatest empire around the Red Tower in Yorun many tens of thousands of years before the mortal peoples appeared. With their immensely powerful magicks, they wrought a great city of stone around that monolithic, preternatural citadel. That city was called Kral-Gôrthak ('Dragon-Crypt'). Dawn Elven lore tells of a war between the first Elves and the Dragons for control of Therin - in the battles of that terrible conflict, the continent of Yorun was torn up from the sea as other lands drowned forever beneath the waves. Thus dispossessed of the lands they had lived in, the Dawn Elves migrated to the defeated Dragons' former homeland. The Dragons had lived around the Red Tower first, and worshipped it, but it was there before them, and before Yorun rose from the ocean. The Dawn Elves settled on the barren land about it as the place that would become their new home. The inhospitable nature of the realm did not concern them - their own magicks and the power of the Red Tower sheltered them from the cold and provided them with food. So the Dawn Elves made the first city, and they named Lûth as their Queen. Her heir was her eldest daughter, Alêna, and her right hand was her sister, Ilis. Other notable members of the court of the Red Tower were Aëril and her father Narth, leaders of another, wilder group of Dawn Elves loyal to Lûth. Kili, the ill-fated daughter of Gîl, the first of the Elves, was given honor and respect as the chieftain of the Raen-Kal, strange Dawn Elves with black hair who embraced the study of magic, riddles, and secrets, disdaining the natural world. These three tribes of Dawn Elves; the bold explorers of Narth and Aëril, the noble Queen's people, and the thoughtful Raen-Kal, were content to spend their immortal lives as they wished. Whatever conflicts may have marred the peace of this era have been forgotten in the bloodshed that ended it.

At some distant time, the ever-wandering people of Narth discovered strange people in the wide realms of the world who were not Elves. At once the Queen's court was beset with heated debate over what to do about the new creatures, the weakling mortals who seemed sure to perish in the harsh world without the power of the Dawn Elves. Aëril and Narth argued that they should act as gentle guides and guardians to the mortals. Kili retorted that the mortals would, if they knew of the Dawn Elves' existence and greater powers, simply grow envious, and there would be a second war for the rule of the world, one that the Dawn Elves might lose. Lûth eventually sided with the Raen-Kal, ordering that no Elf was to interfere with the mortals. This deeply offended Aëril and Narth; Narth left Kral-Gôrthak entirely in disgust, but both honored her command. Despite their frailty compared to the Dawn Elves, the mortals flourished, spreading throughout the world. They were far more contentious than the immortal Elves, however, warring between tribes and races almost constantly. Few showed any talent for magic, and fewer still were as powerful as even the weakest among the Elves.

As the mortals propagated, there were ever fewer and fewer places where the tribe of Narth and Aëril could go without breaking the Queen's commandment. In time, they could not risk leaving Yorun at all, and worried that soon the mortals would sail south and discover even that land. Their accustomed wandering forcibly restrained, despite pleas to Lûth, they became increasingly resentful of her ban. As they seethed over their seeming lack of freedom, Kili of the Raen-Kal gave birth to a son, whose name is no longer remembered, and died. The son of Kili was raised by Lûth herself, in memory of her friendship with his mother, and became as a son to her, and a brother to her children Alêna and Aerev.

As he grew older, the son of Kili became very popular among the Dawn Elven court. Making friends and allies in many places, possessed of sharp wits and a charming tongue, he was one of the most influential of the Elves by the time he came of age. He became, in time, Lûth's secret spy among her subjects, but he soon tired of even this immense responsibility and power, and developed greater, unspeakable ambitions. Among Narth and Aëril's people and even among the Queen's own tribe, he found many willing to listen to his increasingly insidious whispers against Lûth's law, including Narth himself. Narth and Kili's son approached Aëril herself eventually, promising lordship over the whole world if she but sided with them, but they misjudged her loyalty to the Queen. She went to her old friend Ilis, Lûth's sister and commander of the royal guard, and told her of Narth and the son of Kili's treasonous words. Ilis immediately imprisoned Narth, the son of Kili himself having fled from her reach, and began trying to dig out the roots of the would-be usurpers' treachery.

The son of Kili left Yorun and went among the mortals, breaking the Queen's law. Amazing the ignorant lesser races with his feats of strength and magical prowess, mediocre for a Dawn Elf though they were, he convinced a great number of their chieftains and kings to aid him in overthrowing Lûth, whom he claimed was a cruel tyrant plotting against them. In return, he promised to reveal to them the secrets of the Elves' immortality and power. Ilis sent a number of her soldiers to apprehend the traitor, but among them were many who had hearkened to his words, and when they found him they joined him rather than capture him.

Sailing to Yorun in a vast fleet of ships built by the mortals, the son of Kili and his new followers landed on the coast without challenge and gathered many more discontented and ambitious Elves to his banner as he marched to Kral-Gôrthak. Those loyal to the Queen fled from him or fell to his eager followers' blades. The man who now styled himself Emperor of Therin met the Queen's army, leg by Lûth herself, in battle before the Red Tower. As the Queen's sister, Ilis, bore Alêna to safety, the Emperor's armies overwhelmed Lûth's, and the Queen was killed, her son Aerev and her crown falling into the Emperor's clutches. The Emperor set his ally Narth free, making him his right-hand man, and stripped Aëril of her rank, exiling her from Yorun. As for the Queen's son, the only, and lesser, of her progeny in his grasp, the usurper imprisoned and tortured him, until he was utterly broken, languishing in the deepest dungeons of the Red Tower. The son of Kili did not fulfill his promises to the mortals, though he suffered them to live among the Elves, from whom they learned much.

Ilis and Alêna found Aëril in Jiran, and together they plotted to kill the Emperor and put the rightful heir to the throne in her proper place. In time, they launched a rebellion of their own, but they did not approach the discontented mortals for help, which proved a costly mistake. They took the Red Tower from the Emperor, and Alêna briefly sat her throne, but she tried to send the lesser races away from Yorun and restore the realm as her mother had ruled it, and though she set her brother free he betrayed her. The Emperor and his followers returned to the Red Tower through secret ways that Aerev opened for him, and both Aëril and Ilis were captured and executed. Alêna and her brother were stripped of their magicks and exiled once again, this time without hope of returning so long as the Emperor lived.

Fearing that some unforeseen enemy could yet use the mortals against him even as he had used them against Lûth and Alêna, the Emperor enslaved them, seeking to oppress them and ultimately exterminate them, ensuring that the Elves, under his rule, would dominate Therin forever. The then-secret religion that would become known as the Calacis arose in this time, spreading among the slaves, promising a release from bondage one day. In time, as the Emperor became assured that his plot was succeeding, and his seeming infinite power drove him to mad self-exaltation, naming himself god of the world, the Calacis rose up and the mortals overthrew the Elves. The Emperor, Narth, and many of their followers were slain in the uprising, and the Calacis banished the surviving Elves from Yorun, sending them to Iniuth. The ruling races of the Nommèdetè left the Red Tower behind to resettle Jiran, Orcant, and Gardran. The power of the first Alsecrantè of the Calacis forever ruined the homeland of the Dawn Elves, the force of their wrath burying the Red Tower in the once-glorious city of Kral-Gôrthak, itself blasted to a sunken pit of smoking black rock.

The Crimson Age ended with the Calacis ruling over the whole world, at its most powerful. The Dawn Elven rule had waxed and finally waned, to a diminished, broken, and defeated population, caged in Iniuth. But the Emperor's death had also broken the curse forbidding Alêna and her brother Aerev from using their magic, which would have immense repurcussions later, and the son of the Emperor, Helseth Bericë, lived still.

[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 03:44 AM).]

Here is listed and briefly described the various ruling races of Therin, after the Elves.

Elves - The eldest and greatest of the peoples of Therin, the Elves of the day are nonetheless lesser descendants of the Dawn Elves, first living beings to inhabit the world, who were accursed by the Calacis. As a result of the Nommèdetè's curse, High Elven and Deep Elven blood cannot intermingle, no matter how diluted. Those with any High Elven ancestry cannot have children with those who have Deep Elven ancestors. The only exception is among those who worship Rava and Yuardêa after the end of the Queen's Age, since the Calacis has lifted its curse on them.

Dawn Elves - The first people to dwell upon the world, the Dawn Elves were the tallest of the peoples and had golden or black hair and yellow or green eyes. They were immune to corruption of the flesh in most forms (notably, they did not suffer or die of old age), and also had tremendous physical strength, dexterity, agility and endurance. Their sorcery was second to none. The Nommèdetè of the Calacis cursed them at the end of the Gods' Age, however, that their descendants would be lesser than they. The Dawn Elves dwindled away to a final extinction millenia later, their 'inferior' children being either High or Deep Elves.

High Elves - One of only two Elven subraces that are acknowledged as having direct, pure descent from the Dawn Elves, High Elves retain all the physical power and prodigious stature enjoyed by their ancestors, and the potent blood of their descent renders High Elves immune to natural disease, poisons, and aging. High Elves tower over the other races, and are the strongest and hardiest of the peoples of Therin. They retain the golden hair and eyes of their Dawn Elven ancestry. With their birthright, however, comes a great disadvantage; the curse of the Calacis upon all Elves. High Elves, both male and female, are often infertile for long stretches of their lives, and so High Elven children are excessively rare. High Elves also lack the mental discipline of their Dawn Elven ancestors, meaning that although they have a heightened sensitivity to the forces of magic they often make poor magic-users, and in fact have something of a vulnerability to spellcraft.

Deep Elves - The other of the Elven subraces that is acknowledged pure descent from the Dawn Elves, Deep Elves nevertheless could hardly be more different from High Elves in many aspects. While the High Elves are by far the strongest and most readily enduring of physical hardships among Therin's races, the most robust Deep Elves can rarely claim even the equivalent of an average Human's physical prowess. Physically frail and weak, and of comparable height to Humans, Deep Elves have dark blue-black hair and deeply violet eyes. Their skin is very pale, and they have a far more slender, delicate build than the other Elven subraces. Where High Elves keep the physical power, immunity to disease and poison, and agelessness of their Dawn Elven ancestors, the Deep Elves retain the Dawn Elven craftiness, creativity, aptitude for magic, and mental discipline. Deep Elves live no longer on average than Humans do. They are also just as susceptible as Humans, if not more so, to disease and poison, although their race also propogates at a rate only slightly slower than Humans' (Deep Elven birthings, however, are harder on mother and infant than for the tougher Human race).

Fair Elves - Fair Elves are considered the most populous of the Elven subraces. Fair Elves are children of a roughly even mix of Human and Deep Elven blood. They may or may not retain the dark hair of their Deep Elven blood, but they always possess the deep violet eyes and pointed ears. They are less frail than the Deep Elves, although not as robust as Humans, and possess more magical potency than average Humans, although again not as much as the Deep Elves. Fair Elves are as short-lived as their parent races.

Jade Elves - Also known (somewhat disparagingly) as Cinder Elves for their black skin and hair, Jade Elves are named after the brilliant green of their eyes. Jade Elves originated in the withering heat of Jiran's southern deserts. They were born of the interbreeding of a population of Dawn Elves, who refused to join their kin in Iniuth or Yorun, and the dark-skinned Humans of southern Jiran - therefore they are considered the High Elven equivalent of Fair Elves. Jade Elves are a hardy people, bulkier and taller than their Human ancestors. While they are not immortal, their lifespans are often double or triple that of Humans. Jade Elves possess less magical potential than High Elves, but also do not share the High Elves' vulnerability to its power. They are likewise stronger and endure hardship and suffering better than Humans, but not as well as High Elves.

Goblins - The only thinking race in Therin, besides Elves, who are not listed among the ruling races by the Calacis, the Goblins are also known as the Beastfolk among Humans. The most varied in shape and size among the races, Goblins can stand anywhere from three feet in height, with wiry, skinny builds, to a lumbering seven feet, with bulging muscle. The only constants through the race are their dull gray skin, large, pointed ears, recessed noses, and piercing yellow eyes. Goblins divide themselves into Breeds, which could be likened in some ways to Elven subraces. Goblins grow to adulthood physically very quickly, in less than ten years, although their minds take a few more years to mature. The various Breeds are the Cloud Breed, Blood Breed, Eye Breed, Blade Breed, and Wheel Breed. The Cloud Breed is the second rarest of the five, and Goblins of this Breed tend to be the largest and strongest. The Blood Breed is rarer than the Cloud Breed, also smaller and weaker, but it is from the Blood Breed that all War-witches come from. The Eye Breed makes up more than half of the race as a whole. They are the most Human-like of Goblins, physically. The Wheel Breed is composed of the smallest, weakest Goblins. The Blade Breed is between the Eye and Wheel Breeds, slightly smaller and weaker than Humans but possessed of a tremendous cleverness when it comes to making and maintaining weaponry. Goblin children often bear startlingly little resemblance to their parents, and seem to defy the rules that govern the bloodlines of other races. Two tiny Goblins of the Wheel can produce a immense Goblin of the Cloud. The only trait that seems to reliably breed true for Goblins is hair color, which for them comes in many different and sometimes shockingly strange shades.

Humans - Therinic Humans are largely indistinguishable from those of Earth, except that some are born with a greater or lesser talent for magic.

Dwarves - Dwarves are the longest-lived race who are not actually immortal, some lasting for thousands of years. Dwarves are the hardiest of the Nommèdetè's ruling races, though not as enduring as the perished Dawn Elves and High Elves. Dwarves typically stand four to five feet tall, and are very broad and bulky in build. Both male and female Dwarves bear robust facial hair. Dwarves are usually about as accomplished in magic as Humans.

Odessi - The Odessi are named third, after Humans and Dwarves, in the Calacis's list of ruling races. Typically standing over six feet tall, whether male or female, most Odessi have a muscular, hulking build, being the strongest of the ruling races and almost as physically powerful as the Dawn or High Elves. Their scaly hides are almost as tough as leather armor, and their sharp claws and horns make them deadly even without a proper weapon. Besides possessing tremendous physical strength, Odessi are also great explorers, being naturally gifted climbers and spelunkers, and have an innate talent for working with machinery of all kinds with a surprising deftness, whether it be the rigging of a sailing vessel or the intricate gears of a clock.

[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 03:44 AM).]

Magic is a power possessed in varying quantities by some creatures. It grants the ability to enact one's will upon the world, potentially in complete defiance of all the laws of nature which govern the cosmos. It does not follow any rules of the universal order, and its uses are essentially limited only by the imagination of its wielders. Each mage's spells behave differently, to one degree or another, from all others, just as each person's mind is different. Magic is capable of doing anything which its practitioners can conceive of doing, if they possess sufficient vision and, perhaps more importantly, bravery.

Potential - 'Potential' is one of many terms used to describe a particular person's affinity for magical forces, and is apt enough for the purpose of this text. It can only be guessed what determines potential. The Elves are spellcraft's undisputed masters, as their ancestors pioneered and formalized it, to what degree that is possible. They are not, however, the only beings who can wield it. Having Elven ancestry means that one has a certainty of possessing at least some potential, but seeming random chance causes there to be at least a few mages born to each generation of the mortal races. It is unknown why magic seems, on the one hand, to be tied to the blood of certain races, and yet is still present in unrelated individuals of other species. It is also unknown what factors influence the 'quantity' of magical power inherent in any individual. Although the study of magic tends to cultivate a cool, emotionally detached, intellectual personality in its wielders, this does not seem at all related to actual potential. The most powerful mage of all time is widely-acknowledged to have been Alêna the daughter of Lûth, the Dawn Elves' Queen. Yet the rest of her family seems to have possessed no remarkable magical power at all. This enigma is common knowledge to students of mysticism and generally simply accepted as the nature of magic without further questioning, in the face of a total dearth of explanations.

Most living things which have any magic potential at all are thought to live out their lives and die without realizing it. Of those few who discover their power and figure out or are trained in how to use it, many possess very little potency. These 'common' mages can perform only the most minor kinds of supernatural tricks even with a lifetime of study - conjuring small lights from nothing, enchanting garments to ward off uncomfortable heat and cold to an extent, performing a simple task without physical exertion, etc. As this is still much more than the average nonmagical person is capable of, even common mages are often satisfied with these useful if unremarkable cantrips. This is just as well, because the only route to greater supernatural power for a mage that does not possess such potency innately is dealing with Outsiders, which can easily result in a fate far worse than death even if the ambitious magician is successful in their bargaining. The rare sorcerers who possess greater abilities and learn how to use them often live a life totally removed from that of mundane people. Existing largely by its own rules and concerned with its own affairs, this community of wizards across the world is nicknamed the Jirandî, or 'Dawn-(wo)men.'

Those who possess considerable magical powers wield a power greater than any to be found in nature, but every spell carries with it a price. Magicks are tied somehow to Outside, the chaos which is not the natural cosmos. Mages run the small but terrible risk of accidentally tapping into Outside with every spell, particularly if they are playing with unfamiliar powers, under stress. The best outcome when such a disaster occurs is that the mage catches a glimpse of Outside and simply goes utterly mad. More horrible possibilities include the entrance of an Outsider into the world, or that the unfortunate wizard is dispatched Outside, from whence there is no return, with sanity intact at least. Other possibilities include that a spell 'goes wild' and randomly destroys or alters the caster and their surroundings somehow. Simply living the life of a mage means spending almost all of one's time in constant study and mental conditioning in order to master spellcraft. Every sorcerer of significant power must carry this burden, or abandon magic altogether. Some sorcerers remain very much attuned to Inside, but they are a minority. Most lose almost all appreciation for reality and all it has to offer, in favor of the mystical.

Magic and the occult are often connected, but they are not necessarily the same thing. It is believed by some that many mystical practices and rituals resonate Outside whether their practitioners possess magical abilities or not, encouraging Outsiders to exercise their own powers on behalf of the 'magician.' The Calacis insists that all magic is in fact the result of such 'demonic' pacts, and persecutes occultists as readily as actual wizards.

The Jirandî - A nickname for the greater community of powerful mages, 'Jirandî' (singular: Jirandi) is also often used as a name for any sorcerers, in general, but this may be not be entirely accurate for all individuals. Many Elves and some mortal mages, particularly those who follow the Six, are not considered part of the larger society of wizards. Given some feeling of kinship because of their shared dangers, powers, and enemies, fellow Jirandî were often the only friends a mortal wizard was likely to have in many places, before the Last War. Hunted and despised by the powerful and wide-spread religion of the Calacis, the Jirandî have only reentered mundane society recently, and even then only because their powers have come into great demand from the Guild and Old Powers. Likewise, most High Elves find the very notion of mortals casting spells to be disturbing, and almost none of them are counted among the Jirandî, who are not welcome in Iniuth.

The Jirandî are not an organization per se - there is no official hierarchy, nor do they have leaders. Rather, they form a social circle for mages, who are not often welcome in mundane society, and also form a framework for the sorcerers of Therin to work in concert. The Jirandî, as a community, maintain several secret libraries scattered across the world where magical knowledge can be safely stored, and also allow those with the potential who seek to become apprenticed to easily find a teacher. News of currents Outside which may affect spellcasting is also spread through the Jirandî, along with information regarding notable mystical events and artifacts Inside. Some wizards voluntarily keep a dangerous watch on hostile groups such as the Quivenantè, seeking to keep abreast of their doings in the potentially lethal Yora Tâth, or 'Night Games.'

The politics of the Jirandî are esoteric, and many sorcerers abstain from participating in them at all. Of those wizards who do indulge, most fall into either the 'Conservative' or the 'Untouchable' camps. Broadly, Conservative mages believe that, for whatever reason, the magic community at large is best served by fitting in quietly with Inside society, discouraging the study of necromancy and other schools of spellcraft which are disruptive or harmful to innocent mundane people and seeking to use their magical powers to further worldly agendas. Untouchables believe that sorcerers should feel free to pursue whatever course of magical study they see fit to, and that the Jirandî as a whole should abstain from limiting and restricting the activities of their members, instead taking a more aggressive stance in trying to gain some power over the mundane societies. Among the Conservatives of the Jirandî have been such (in)famous mages as Berwin the Crusader, companion of the husband of the Prophetess of Yuardêa, Ilisclimë, King Sadiir Graem IV, and Eramus, chief advisor to King Feyd Dendural I. The Untouchables have counted among their ranks such names as Barondar kaz Skadrael, Zargen Kell'Xorn, and (arguably) Armande Gael. Conservatives usually present themselves as unremarkable, no different to look at or speak with than any mundane person. Untouchables tend to include those mages inclined to break the laws of mundane society and those who are tainted by demonic blood or possession. While the affairs of the Jirandî usually have little direct impact on most mundane people, there have been times when the community has had an impact on history. Most notable of these was during the middle of the Queen's Age, when Alêna forced herself into the circles of the Jirandî, seeking to turn as many wizards as she could to her side by offering to teach them lost secrets of the Dawn Elves. It is thought that, if it were not for Armande Gael, who briefly joined the Jirandî himself to oppose her, the Red Queen would have drawn most of the mages across the world to her banner, giving her a potentially decisive advantage over her enemies.

Money has little value to most of the Jirandî, who can easily provide for their worldly needs with their magicks. Within the dealings of the community, most often goods and services are repaid with enchanted objects or magical favors. On those rare occasions when mundane people have sought the Jirandî for magical solutions to their problems, the wizards are notorious for charging exhorbitant fees for their services. This remains true in modern times, and companies often must find more interesting rewards for their sorcerous employees than mere money. Even worse, many occultists demand payment of livestock or even people, body or soul, in exchange for their help. Finally, even if dealings with the Jirandî themselves go smoothly, those people seeking their help might find themselves persecuted by witch-hunters like the Quivenantè for simply associating with mages.

In the spirit of inquisitiveness fostered by the King's Peace, many academic institutions proposed objective studies of magical forces, in an attempt to reconcile them with Inside - these scientific ventures were rapidly struck down by the community of wizards.

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The Occult - Not necessarily related at all to magic, occult practices focus on communicating with and conjuring Outsiders, almost always in a religious context. Steeped in superstition and long considered an evil and taboo area of study, occultists are persecuted by the Calacis and, oftenly, mundane powers as well. Occultists are also called shamans and demonologists, and while they might possess magical powers of their own, it is not thought that it is necessary to be a mage to successfully perform many occult rituals. The occult community often overlaps with the Jirandî, but the two societies are quite different in nature. Demonology has long been dominated by the teachings of the Arcane Keepers of the Void, whose particular religious beliefs are the primary influence on all other shamanistic cults. Therefore, most occultists focus on dealings with what are considered the worst of demons, and actively discourage research into other, more positive aspects of Outside. In modern times, demonologists are intensely hostile towards those who would attempt an objective, scientific study of Outside. They justify their vicious, terroristic actions to that end by saying it is for the good of the scientific community that they apply their methods to Inside concerns, where they belong.

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[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-25-2007 @ 05:28 PM).]

Here are described several noteworthy religious sects, persecuted by the Calacis, which worship the Outside or some specific facet of it.

The most feared secret society ever to spread its pestilential teachings across Therin, the Arcane Keepers continue to work from the shadows, preparing eternally for Veltenfarthan, the end of the world. They have counted among their ranks some of the most infamous and black-hearted sorcerers and occultists ever born, and are one of the oldest and bitterest foes of the Calacis.

Beliefs - The Keepers restrict much of their teachings to the higher levels of their organization, but a reasonably complete, if basic, explanation of their mythology is possible from what information they release more or less freely. The Keepers do not allow those with Elven blood, Goblins, Dwarves, or Odessi into their organization. Many of its members are tainted with demon blood, however, so they are not technically purely Human, either. One does not need so much as a drop of magical potential to join the Keepers, as they practice the occult as much as actual magic. They believe in a complicated body of myths concerning the Outside which guides their dealings with the demons there, too complex for most people to understand without extensive study. Broadly, they identify themselves with the minions of the demon named Garmundûr, an unimaginably powerful lord of the Outside who seeks Therin's destruction and is opposed by those lesser powers both Inside and Outside which seek to foil him and dominate the world for their own purposes. The Keepers believe that the entropy inherent to Inside is the expression of Garmundûr's awful predations, which will eventually drain the whole universe of all that makes it seperate from Outside, and, when time itself is destroyed and all is ended, allow him to swallow it whole. Even though his victory is assured, however, Garmundûr enjoys making 'meals' of bits of Inside when he can, and his servants offer great rewards to those who help them satisfy his hunger.

The Keepers see themselves as agents of the chaotic powers of Outside in Therin. They exist to spread havoc and death throughout the world, further the study of the darkest and most dangerous and unholy magicks, and avoid the impending subjugation and destruction of Therin by Outside by making pacts with demons, their ultimate goal being to become so tainted by unnatural essence that they can survive Outside themselves. Paradoxically, this often means that even as they seek to speed Therin along to its final end for their demonic masters, the Keepers search desperately for a means to delay the apocalypse until they themselves can escape the consequences. No one is more knowledgeable about the monstrous denizens of Outside than the Keepers, and it is thought that the highest-ranking cultists dwell at times in their own domain there, acclimating themselves for the day when they believe they must abandon Inside altogether. Constantly struggling against the potentially-disastrous predations of the Keepers are organizations such as the Calacis, the remaining priesthoods of the Six, and many governments. They count among their allies almost the entire occult community, including such evil sects as the Kell'Xorn Academy and the Night's Walkers, and countless powerful Outsiders.

History - Older than the Calacis itself, the first written record of the Arcane Keepers is a mention from the court documents of the Baronies of Essen, which speak of en Sprüche zas elt Kurztarteln, or 'the Speakers of the Dark Abyss,' a dread cult of shamans and wizards that sought nothing less than the destruction of the world. The legends of the religion itself speak of three distinct Foundings of the sect; it first arose in the distant past, perhaps one of the oldest religions in the world, shared by primitive mages even before civilization truly began. This First Founding wielded great influence in the world and could act openly for a time, possibly being responsible for the creation of many bizarre and otherworldly ruins remaining from those years. Most mages throughout the mortal population were inducted into the cult, some becoming rulers and tyrants, others sinking ever deeper into their dealings with Outside. It was over the course of the First Founding, especially when the group was forced underground by the rise of the Baronies of Essen and the Axtauca Empire, that the lore and mythology of the religion would begin to take shape and grow into something resembling its modern form.

After the Dawn Elves enslaved the mortals, the Keepers became one of very few organizations to remain active to any degree. Many mages desperately embraced its ideals, hoping that by making a pact with the right Outsiders, they could destroy their hated Elven masters and gain their freedom. Nevertheless, it was the Calacis, not the Arcane Keepers, that finally overthrew the Elves, and countless wizards and occultists were executed by the blessed witch-hunters of the 'upstart' religion. The Keepers were very nearly wiped out. It was not until the middle of the Gods' Age that they would rally, in what is now called the Second Founding. Taking advantage of the widespread chaos as the Six, the Calacis, and the Elves warred for supremacy, the religion of the Keepers spread like a cancer throughout the population, and soon occultism and sorcery were growing more and more widespread. The Keepers gained a particularly strong following in the East Empire, subverting the Yinwa no Deimosharu after the first Empress, who was a demoness of some kind, ascended to the throne, and are largely responsible for that nation's hostility towards the Calacis. It is thought that they manipulated both sides in the Six's schism, silencing priests that called for peace and moderation and selling information of each priesthood's weaknesses to their enemies, and are partly responsible for the destruction of the priesthoods of Nathilkal, Ilirîn, and Ilithân, and played a part in the near-annihilation of Yuardêa's.

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Organization - The Keepers' organization changed drastically between each of the three Foundings, though certain essential elements remain unchanged. Among the latter include the Prophets; among the most powerful of the cult, these sorcerers are said to be able to perceive Outside without going mad. These 'Wise Ones' can peer into the past, present, and future with incredible clarity and understanding - there is a recorded instance of a Prophet in the Gods' Age foretelling what some argue was the Last War, remarkable as that seems. Unfortunately for the Keepers, the Prophets' visions are so cryptic, even to the seers themselves, that they are generally useless before the events they predict. The Prophets nevertheless wield a tremendous deal of influence in the Keepers. They live more in dread than any of their subordinates or even enemies, however, because they are most attuned to Outside, and must constantly be on watch against a thousand mundane and otherworldly threats that seek their destruction. The Prophets rarely appear even to other Keepers, preferring to manipulate events from as great a distance and through as many intermediaries as possible, even if it makes them seem somewhat cowardly.

Some of the most ancient myths of the Keepers deal with the legendary figure of the First Founder, the mage who created the religion and instructed its first members. There is a distinct religious division within the Keepers regarding this figure, in fact. Some believe that the First Founder, having bartered his or her soul to a demon in exchange for immortality, still exists somewhere, Inside or Outside, subtly guiding the Keepers and working to foil their enemies. Others believe that the First Founder was among the group of mortal mages who fought with Alêna in the Emperor's uprising against Queen Lûth and broke her power, defeating the greatest sorcerer ever born, albeit at the cost of their own lives. The latter group became somewhat dominant during the Queen's Age, using their doctrine to subtly mock the Red Queen - if the Keepers beat her before, after all, surely they could do it again. Much concerning the First Founder is perhaps deliberately left shrouded in mystery; not even as much as their gender is known. If the First Founder is still alive, he or she would be the eldest living being remaining on Therin, at least 5,000 years old, and the most powerful mage.

The First Founding - The Keepers were divided into sects according to region, each generally having anywhere from fifty to five hundred members. Every sect was ruled by a Tyrant, who took their place by murdering all rivals. The Tyrants themselves aspired to become Prophets, who seemed to have been rather itinerant in this early time, wandering from sect to sect spreading their teachings. Sects often came into brutal conflict with other local religions. Each sect had its own particular rituals and beliefs, as determined by the Tyrant, though any which became too deviant risked vicious punishment from the Prophets and other Keepers.

The Second Founding - Intended to best suit the circumstances of their war against the Six, the Elves, and the Calacis, the Keepers divided themselves into even smaller groups than the sects had been, called covens. There could be multiple covens in as small an area as a village, but no coven was allowed to have more than a dozen members. A coven did not have a single leader - rather all its members paid homage to a particular demon, following its orders so long as they did not contradict the Prophets' greater schemes. Covens were encouraged to ingrain themselves in the fabric of society, unlike the sects, entering into city guards and merchant guilds to increase the Keepers' overall influence and make them more difficult for Quivenantè and other witch-hunters to root out and destroy.

The Third Founding - Adapted to the more open-minded attitudes of the modern age, the Keepers operate more or less in the open now, in gathering places called salons which often clandestinely offer various popular but illegal services and vices to the general populace. Each salon and its neighborhood is administered by an individual who bears the title of 'Prince-elect,' voted into their station by a majority of the Keepers in their domain. All the Princes-elect in a city are beneath the Prince-sanguine, who rules over all the Keepers there by right of demonic heritage, and can be usurped only by others who possess Outsider blood. The Princes-sanguine in turn serve the Prophets. A Prince-sanguine's home in a city is always called his or her 'castle,' regardless of what kind of structure it actually is, and is often populated by numerous demons and magical constructs who serve the Prince. In some cases, such as the castle of the Prince-sanguine of Tir, the structure itself is tainted with Outside, loosening its connection with reality and sundering it from the natural world. Where the Prophets might dwell in the modern age is unknown.

A foul school for the worst kinds of mages, the Academy was a haven for necromancers, demonologists, enchanters, and other sorcerers who enjoyed preying on other people with their fell spellcraft. Many of its most powerful members sold their souls to Outsiders in exchange for immortality, becoming monstrous abominations that delighted in tormenting others.

History - Founded in the 401st year of the Queen's Age at an unknown location by the infamous Zargen Kell'Xorn, the sorcerer who reputedly achieved immortality by selling his soul to the demon Legion, the Kell'Xorn Academy was a benighted institution and Outsider cult that existed solely to spread the foul teachings of the worst magicks. It counted among its allies from the beginning such nefarious and malevolent occult sects and fell religions as the Arcane Keepers of the Void, Kuthu sa'Bannishra, and the Night's Walkers, as Kell'Xorn had encountered and befriended many such groups in his wanderings across the world.

In the 402nd year of the Queen's Age, Kell'Xorn gained his first cadre of apprentices, a disillusioned and bitter group of Fair Elves from the North Kingdom who had fallen ever deeper into the study of the occult but, running out of sources of information to further their 'education,' had pursued the spreading whispers about the knowledge for the taking at the Academy. The only one of these seven Elves to survive the first few months of Kell'Xorn's harsh tutelage was Draena Waite, becoming in time nearly as resourceful, powerful, and black-hearted a sorcerer as her master. Becoming Kell'Xorn's 'favored' student, she is said to have accompanied him to unspeakable communions, where holes to Outside were torn open by cultists in long-forgotten temples far removed from civilization and sanity, and monstrous sacrifices were made to appease what was drawn forth. In time, she underwent the same hideous transformation as her instructor, allowing a demon to possess her body and soul in exchange for immortality and supernatural abilities. In the 421st year of the Queen's Age, she travelled throughout Therin, gathering a fresh crop of students for the Academy. Finally returning with a mixed lot of some thirty would-be sorcerers, Waite would do more teaching than Kell'Xorn himself this time, as the master sorcerer became more and more involved in the occult and made pacts with ever more demons, bringing the Academy ever more in tune with the unnatural throb of the hideous life of Outside.

Of the second generation of the Academy's students, there were two survivors after five years of instruction. The others, like Waite's peers, were either murdered by one of their two irate teachers, consumed by their own novice use of magicks, or drawn Outside, never to return. These two, a Human named Merlow Marsh and a Deep Elf named Astar Sadow, took up residence in the Academy, joining their teachers as figures of great power and influence in the larger occult community and eager to instruct their own students. Marsh, Sadow, Waite, and Kell'Xorn would eventually become the four primary pillars of the growing Academy, whose mastery was unquestioned by the mages beneath them. In the 502nd year of the Queen's Age, as part of a celebration of the Academy's hundredth year, the four greatest teachers formalized to an extent the organization of the Academy. All members became 'Disciples' of one or the another of the four masters, as befitted their personal talents and nature. Disciples of Kell'Xorn focused on calling up, dealing with, and dismissing Outsiders, and tended towards a more detached, scholarly approach to their studies. Disciples of Sadow were mainly interested in swaying and dominating the minds of others, discarding any form of orderliness in favor of a chaotic life based around fulfilling one's own desires. Disciples of Waite embraced necromancy and the manipulation of immaterial spirits, often delving into ancient lore and evil spells that forever altered their perception of the world around them, making them act in very strange ways - Waite herself was said to exist outside the stream of time itself to an extent, perceiving the immediate past and future as immediately as the present. Disciples of Marsh specialized in magically twisting and altering the physical world according to their whims, transforming themselves into forms beautiful and horrible, often entirely losing what remained of their empathy for other living things.

The Academy had, by that time, become one of the most hated enemies of the Calacis and the surviving religions of the Six, along with countless more benign magical sects and even several nations. Kell'Xorn's loathing for the worshippers of Yuardêa is well-known, though considered somewhat unusual, as he was briefly one of the companions of Ilisclimë herself. Straying too close to the Academy, knowingly or unknowingly, was a terrible risk for anyone not a member, but especially so for Yuardêans. The nature of the Academy made it essentially impossible to reliably locate, as it was not entirely of this world, and it actually moved - or Inside moved around it. Its architecture seemed to be similarly mutable, appearing at times to be a vast dark tower, a run-down castle shrouded in darkness in the middle of the day, and a great sunken pit riddled along its sides with caves. Several noteworthy demons came to reside in the Academy (or within the Academy's inhabitants), adding to its danger, and often using it as a way of passing from Outside to Inside and rampaging through the natural world, wreaking untold acts of carnage and desecration. Even staying away from the Academy did not guarantee safety, however, for its sorcerers were all too fond of going out themselves on raids through the countryside, collecting slaves for various uses: pleasure, sacrifice, or, perhaps most horribly, food. Kell'Xorn himself is said to have sprung from empty air in a feasthall in the town of Ashendale, in the North Kingdom, in the 523rd year of the Queen's Age, and murdered over thirty people in cold blood, going on to eat their flesh and drink their blood from the goblets they had been using for wine. Whether the story is entirely true or not, public outcry over the Ashendale Massacre prompted Queen Hilgaen Diirje II to send a force of over two hundred royal men-at-arms and mages, under Dame Gwaen Branier, to destroy the Academy and execute its leaders. Joining this force would be the Yuardêan Gan Swyft and perhaps thirty of her fellow priestesses with forty knight escorts, and an Aladant of the Calacis, Lord Cris Bast, with sixty of his best Quivenantè, all determined to stamp out the sinister cult permanently.

It reputedly took only hours for the assembled company to reach the Academy from Tirin Kal, as the place could be reached largely only by following unnatural paths of magic anyway. The battle against the forces of the Academy which followed was truly nightmarish. Amidst the shifting, treacherous spires, living walls, and cloven pits of the demonic 'structure' alone, almost a hundred of the attackers perished, consumed by the Academy itself or falling from it into abysses that emptied into Outside. When the sorcerers themselves were encountered, it was even worse. Guarded by demonic servants and monstrous abominations born of magic and madness, the mages of Kell'Xorn fought their would-be killers with a viciousness and brutality that denied nature and morality. In the end however, despite it all, the bravery and skill of the invaders largely won out. Swyft and Lord Bast were both slain in the fighting and only a scant few, perhaps thirty, of all those who had entered those grounds of aberration and ultimate perversion survived. Most of the sorcerers and demons of the Academy, including Marsh, Sadow, and Waite, were killed, however. Kell'Xorn himself fled Outside, pursued by an obsessed Dame Branier, and the two have never been seen again. The Queen lauded those who returned alive, and their names, along with those of the dead, were carved into the southern gatehouse of Tirin Kal's walls. It is believed that Dame Branier killed Kell'Xorn and hopefully found a quick, painless death, Outside.

The Academy has never been seen again except in folk tales and horror stories.

[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-22-2007 @ 07:16 AM).]

Here is described the Calacis, most powerful and influential of Therin's religions.

History - After the Dawn Elf Alêna's rebellion against the evil Emperor toward the end of the Crimson Age, the Nommèdetè (lit. plural of 'Nameless,' no exact English equivalent, but means '[the] Nameless Gods') visited Therin in mortal form, instructing three chosen people in the ways of the true gods, making them Their first Alsecrantè (lit. 'High Wrath-wielder'). These three passed this knowledge from parent to child for many years after, awaiting the right time to proclaim themselves openly and challenge the Dawn Elven tyranny.

The first of the Alsecrantè declared themselves openly when the Emperor finally let his guard down, thinking he had beaten the mortal races into mindless servility, and began gathering followers, performing miracles in the name of the Nommèdetè that outshone any mere spellcraft of the Dawn Elves. They called the religion they formed the Calacis ('Good Faith'). The Calacis grew rapidly, and it was not many years later that the Alsecrantè led a great uprising against the Dawn Elves and cast them down. The survivors were exiled from their homeland by the Alsecrantè, sent to the island realm of Iniuth and forbidden from ever leaving or again taking up arms. In this time, the Great Mysteries were given over to the keeping of the Calacis, and the list of ruling races was established, naming only Humans, Dwarves, and Odessi as those intended by the Nommèdetè to rule Therin.

With the fall of the Dawn Elves, many new nations of Humans, Dwarves, and Odessi sprang up in Jiran, Orcant, and Gardran, controlled by the Calacis willingly or not, while the Goblins were banished to icy Lamira or simply left in Yorun. The Nommèdet (lit. 'Nameless') temple was also constructed at this time, a vast structure that now stands broken and charred by war in the streets of ruined Tirin Kal atop the Grey Hill. The influence of the Calacis was for a time very strong, as many felt they owed their freedom from Dawn Elven tyranny to them, and the armies who had overthrown the Dawn Elves were theirs. This changed in time, as the Calacis was harried and frustrated in its efforts by the surviving Dawn Elves' vengeful machinations to repair the damage caused in the uprising.

When discontent arose against the Calacis and the slowness of its progress, this was twisted into fear that they had overthrown the Dawn Elves only to set themselves up in their place as tyrants. Another war soon followed, exacerbated by the emergence of a new, powerful cult, the Six. Many such false religions sprang up after the fall of the Dawn Elves, but this was the first to possess the influence and miraculous, if still inferior, powers to resist the Calacis. The cult, the Dawn Elves, and the Calacis warred across Therin for many more years. The Calacis was forced to give over most of its territory to Human nobles of foreign lands, who had until then remained out of the war and steadfastly refused to aid the Calacis in any of its ventures or accept the Nommèdetè. The lands of northwestern Jiran were given over to the family Diirje, the southern deserts were given over to the family Graem, and the eastern coasts were given over to the family Wakanabe. These became the North Kingdom, South Kingdom, and East Empire, (it is by these names they are known casually, though they are formally named after their ruling monarchs) which were the first major powers of the world since the Dawn Elves that bowed to no gods. While the Calacis has since established a substantial following in the North Kingdom, the Nommèdet still has little influence in the South Kingdom and East Empire.

Having reluctantly allied itself with these godless powers, and with the destruction of the Dawn Elves' false god Mordraug by the Six, and the subsequent civil war that decimated that cult as well, the Calacis managed to survive this second war against the Elves in better shape than their foes. They remained in a state of uneasy peace in the years until the rise of the Red Tower, the Quivenantè waging a quiet war upon all who dared oppose the Nommèdetè and break Their sacred laws, slowly regaining power in the lands.

During the war against the Red Queen, the Calacis enjoyed a sudden upsurge in strength, as the common people turned in fear to the Nommèdetè, who had saved their ancestors from the Dawn Elves twice before. Even the normally hostile High Elven Senate reluctantly allied itself with the Calacis, grown accustomed to their power and authority and unwilling to serve under a monarch once again. While this opinion was not shared by many High Elves, a majority felt that their loyalties lay with the independence of the Senate and not with a ghost of the distant past. In this time of alliance, the Calacis did what it could to soften High Elven attitudes towards the Nommèdetè, seeing an opportunity to turn the Elves away from heresy. While no High Elf, even now, would claim to worship the Nommèdetè, fighting on the same side in the War of the Red Tower has greatly reduced hostility on both sides since.

The Calacis, unfortunately, did not enjoy this state of affairs for long. The Red Queen, who at first was considered only a minor threat, resisted all efforts to destroy her and her rapidly growing dominion. In spite of the Nommèdet's increasingly desperate efforts against her Red Empire, the Red Queen only grew in power. In the lands she conquered, all worshippers of the Nommèdetè were put to death without mercy. The Nommèdet's greatest champions among the Quivenantè were annihilated with contemptuous ease by the Red Queen's terrible magicks when they dared challenge her in battle. Over the 900-year span of the war, the Calacis and their allies, including the Senate, the North Kingdom, the Church of Rava, and the reborn Church of Yuardêa, were systematically and ruthlessly cut to their knees by the Red Queen. The Red Queen left the killing stroke to her greatest lieutenants; the Arch-lich Aga'mannixx, the Red General Feyd, and the Goblin-king Tanis Bloodeye. It was at this time, however, that Aga'mannixx betrayed the Red Queen and turned Feyd upon her. While Tanis Bloodeye stood by her, the peerless warrior Feyd overwhelmed them both at last and finally murdered the last of the Dawn Elves in cold blood. Bloodeye destroyed Aga'mannixx, second only to the Red Queen herself among the enemies of the Nommèdetè, and Feyd abandoned the Red Empire, going on to overthrow the Graems and rule as monarch of the South Kingdom. Neither Feyd nor Bloodeye shared their late queen's emnity for the Calacis, and so the religion was left devastated but alive.

After the Queen's Age's end, the numbers of the faithful began to growing again, but slowly. The Nommèdet put out a call to all the Calacis priests to do what they could to spread and strengthen the faith among the masses, reminding them of their duties and sacred vows in the harsh times. On the other hand, the Nommèdetè enjoyed a long-awaited victory over Their ancient foe, the Six, when, with the indirect aid of the then-General Feyd, They destroyed the weakened Church of Vargoth, leaving only the vastly more agreeable goddesses Rava and Yuardêa from the cult's deities to deal with.

The outbreak of the Last War was an opportunity for the Calacis to once again, perhaps for the last time, play the part of a great power in the world. Priests of the Nommèdetè all over Therin fought the Guild without giving or taking quarter, their ferocity honed by centuries of war against the Red Queen. The ultimate sacrifice of the Alsecrantè in the final defense of Tirin Kal is largely responsible for the dramatic upsurge in Northerner converts in the days of the King's Peace. As the forces of the Dura Maranel had launched what they thought to be one final, decisive assault against Ander the Dark's beleaguered forces, the Alsecrantè hurled themselves bodily into the front ranks of the enemy troops, lightning and frost and flaming death blasting away the soldiers and mighty Automatons of the Guild's war machine like ants in the face of a hurricane. They were slain, but their heroic actions saved the city.

The Calacis has gained influence in the days of the King's Peace, but its actual miraculous powers seem to be in decline. The Alsecrantè have not been seen in public for years, and the higher ranks of the clerics have distanced themselves from their followers.

The base of all the power of the Calacis is the ability of its priests to combat magic and further the will of their gods with miracles of supernatural power. The path of a priest to this kind of power, however, is harsh and rigorous. It requires the total sacrifice of the self and all individual will in favor of letting the will of the gods act in the world. While this does not necessitate the sacrifice of personal ambition, for example, it requires that all facets of the priest's personality be set to the ways of the Nommèdetè. So, the only permissible ambition becomes ascension through the ranks of priesthood. The only permissible hate is for the enemies of the Nommèdetè. The only permissible jealousy is for those more favored by the gods. Only when all aspects of the self are sublimated or converted to religious terms can a Calacis priest become a channel to their gods' will. While, obviously, very few if any can achieve this kind of selflessness, so no mortal can be a perfect vessel for the power of the Nommèdetè. The more of himself that the priest has sacrificed to further the will of the Nommèdetè, the greater the power bestowed upon him, and the closer the priest becomes to hearing the voices of the gods. The highest priests of the Calacis, the Alsecrantè, are said to be able to converse freely with the Nommèdetè.

Anon de Laquelle (lit. 'Anointing with Water' but often simply called 'the anointing,' in Gartrim) - Anon de Laquelle is a holy rite that takes place at birth, or otherwise at whatever time a person converts to the Calacis. In the rite, an Auxcrant dips three fingers into blessed water and gently presses them against the forehead of the one being anointed, reciting a blessing. The priest then declares the name of the one being anointed; for an as-yet unnamed child this is usually selected by the parents, while an older person most often simply uses what name they already have. If the anointed one is unsincere, or is not a pure-blooded member of one of the ruling races, the blessed water will scald their forehead, causing agonizing blistering and leaving a permanent scar. Otherwise, they are accepted into the Calacis.

Deion d'Eidellenè (lit. 'Watch of Nights,' or 'Nights' Watch') - This ritual is performed every day by followers of the Calacis. When it is almost nightfall, each family is expected to solemnly light a candle or lantern in front of their house and offer shelter to any fellow worshipper of the Nommèdetè who does not live in the region for the night. The Calacis teach that nighttime, while not necessarily dangerous, can bring misfortune to those caught outside and unsheltered, and the followers of the Nommèdetè do not trust the moonlight.

Aragan d'Gil (lit. '[The] Fall of [the] First') - A celebration in remembrance of the triumph of the Calacis over the Dawn Elves in the Crimson Age, Aragan d'Gil is a time when followers of the Nommèdetè remember and express joy for their blessings, and are expected to also forgive and forget their wrongs and those who have wronged them, "for all that is evil lingers only briefly before becoming dust, while the Nommèdetè are eternal," as one of the first Alsecrantè said. Aragan d'Gil is often honored with a feast and family gatherings, and it is a very popular day for weddings in the Calacis.

Chilles d'Nommè (lit. 'Joining of Names') - The Calacis derives its marriage customs from the mortal weddings, performed almost exclusively between nobles, practiced in the days before the Dawn Elves enslaved the world. The Dawn Elves themselves did not perform weddings of any kind, though many of their descendants have since adopted the practice in one form or another. Chilles d'Nommè itself is not a marriage in as strict as sense as practiced among, for example, the priesthoods of the Six. Chilles d'Nommè ceremonies will often be performed for any sort of circumstance where a joining, alliance, or uniting of any parties receives the blessings of the Nommèdetè. The coronation ritual of the North Kingdom's Sovereign, for instance, is considered to be a Chilles d'Nommè between the monarch and his or her realm (this is why the North Kingdom as a whole shares the name of its ruler, becoming the realm of Dark instead of Diirje after Ander the Dark became King). When enacted as a marriage in the more conventional sense of the word, the actual practice of the Chilles d'Nommè is left to the preferences of those being wed and the priest performing the ceremony. The rules of the Calacis governing marriages are that all the involved parties and their children (if any) share one surname, that any party to the marriage be allowed to leave the union whenever they wish, that all children will be raised in the Calacis faith, and that all involved partners are anointed members of the Calacis.

Anon de Naldon (lit. 'Anointing with Dust' but often simply called 'the pilgrimage,' in Gartrim) - When a worshipper of the Nommèdetè wishes to dedicate his life to spreading the word and ideals of the religion, he must first donate all his worldly possessions to the priest who anointed them or, if that is not possible, to the poor. He then takes the name of 'Pilgrim,' (although some prefer the original Arnet Comès) and must answer to no other name while he makes a pilgrimage to the Dai Aulanè d'Calacis ('Three Shrines of [the] Good Faith'). The first shrine is Aulan d'Nalènnis ('The Shrine of Generosity'), along the east coast of Jiran. The second shrine, Aulan d'Auxcorè ('The Shrine of Virtues'), stands in the middle of Wymar City, on Yorun's northern coast (originally situated somewhere in the middle of Jiran, it was captured and taken to Wymar City by soldiers of the Red Empire in the Queen's Age as a trophy of conquest, and the Calacis has yet to put it back in its rightful place). The third shrine, Aulan d'Damont ('The Shrine of Wisdom'), stands before the doors of the wrecked Nommèdet temple, and when the pilgrim has knelt and prayed before all three shrines, he may pass inside the center of Calacis power. In the halls of the Nommèdet, the pilgrim must spend three days and three nights (in remembrance of the three days and three nights the Nommèdetè took to instruct the first Alsecrantè) in study in the libraries there. The pilgrim's knowledge of the ways and lore of the Calacis are tested when the three days and nights have passed. If he satisfies the testers, he is recognized by the Calacis as an Auxcrant (archaic, roughly 'Blessing-wielder'). Once an Auxcrant, the new priest may choose to remain at the Nommèdet to follow a higher calling in service to their gods, or to leave to spread the teachings and worship of the Nommèdetè.

Anon de Noisseau (lit. 'Anointing with Flame') - The rite that marks a Calacis priest as worthy to perform blessings and miracles, Anon de Noisseau is marked by a tremendous sacrifice on the part of the priest on behalf of the Calacis. This sacrifice is unique to each individual, and is never spoken of, kept private between the priest and the Nommèdetè. Having been found worthy, the priest who wishes to advance will be taken to the courtyard of the Nommèdet temple, where wood will be piled with a ceremonial round shield set on top. The wood is set aflame for the ritual. If the priest has pleased the Nommèdetè, Their blessings will protect his form and he may climb the bonfire and take the hot shield without fear of being burned. If he has not yet pleased Them sufficiently, he is well-advised to not try taking the shield. Once done, the priest is declared to be a Secrant (archaic, roughly 'Wrath-wielder') and can call upon the Nommèdetè to perform miracles and blessings when doing Their will.

Considered by the priests of the Calacis to be the most important gift of the Nommèdetè, even more powerful in their own mysterious way than Their greatest miracles and blessings, only the highest priests know exactly how many of these texts were given into the keeping of the faithful. Each of the Aladantè possesses one of the Great Mysteries, and part of each one's sacred duty to the church is to study it and attempt to decipher its secrets, diligently writing down all of their own thoughts as they pore over the words. It is believed that there are more Great Mysteries than there are Aladantè to guard them, however, perhaps many more.

Little is truly known about the Great Mysteries to those outside the upper ranks of the Calacis. They are a set of books or scrolls which were given to the first priests of the religion by messengers of the Nommèdetè, if not the Nameless Gods Themselves. It is known that any not of the Calacis who dares so much as look upon one of these holy artifacts will not only be blinded, but will actually have their eyes burned from their sockets. Those heretics who go so far as to profane the texts with their touch will be burned away by the wrath of the Nommèdetè. Even as recently as the end of the Last War, the priests of the Calacis have used the Great Mysteries as potent weapons in and of themselves; the Alsecrantè who gave their lives in the final defense of Tirin Kal bore one with them, protecting them from the guns of the Dura Maranel by scorching the sight of the soldiers aiming at them. The great war hero of the Guild, Corennar Dal Highcrest, was blinded for the rest of his life in this battle, and converted to the Calacis himself after the end of the war because of his experience.

The Quivenantè ('Protectors' or 'Stewards;' singular Quivenant) are a group of worshippers of the Calacis gods, all volunteers, who have chosen to take up arms in defense of the Calacis and to root out and bring to justice its enemies. All train in the Blessed Discipline Sancris so they can combat heretics and witches (magic-users). The Quivenantè are divided into three Rounds. In the days of the King's Peace, the Quivenantè have become a secretive organization, working through subtler means than they once used. They have also adopted more modern weaponry, equipped from the guarded armory of the ruined Nommèdet temple. Generally, this weaponry is used only in self-defense or to protect others of the faithful, and not to murder or threaten enemies of the Calacis as was once common.

Anquinè (lit., plural form of 'Untested,' no exact English equivalent, but 'Novices' has the same meaning) - Those Quivenantè too inexperienced or too unskilled to advance to the next Round. Each is issued a revolver with a black finish and a blessed knife with a black hilt. They bear the formal title 'Squire.'

Quinè (lit., plural form of 'Tested,' no exact English equivalent, but 'Veterans' has the same meaning) - Those Quivenantè who have served faithfully for three years, or who have performed the Anon de Noisseau, and have also demonstrated considerable skill in Sancris and other forms of combat. They are allowed limited access to the armories of the Nommèdet temple. They bear the formal title 'Sir.'

Alquelonnè ('High Champions') - Those Quivenantè who impress their superiors enough to be brought into the retinue of an Aladant. The Alquelonnè are the officers of the Quivenantè and are responsible for training, equipping, and leading the Quinè and Anquinè. They have nearly unlimited access to the Nommèdet armories. An Alquelonn has authority within the Calacis equal to a Secrant, and formally bears the title 'Marshal.' As members of an Aladant's retinue, Alquelonnè are expected to act as their master's personal bodyguard and steward in addition to their duties with the Quivenantè.

Aladantè ('High Lords') - Often called the knights of the Calacis, they are Alquelonnè who have performed the Anon de Noisseau and who have so impressed the Calacis with their leadership skills, virtuousness, and unimpeachable reputation that they are given lands owned by the Calacis to govern. They bear the formal title of 'Lord' (whether they are male or female) and hold unquestionable authority over the Quivenantè. In their lands, they are required to spread the proper worship of the Nommèdetè, and root out and arrest cults and witches. Whatever money or goods the Aladantè collect that they do not need is sent to the Nommèdet temple to add to the coffers of the Calacis. Each Aladant is also entrusted with one of the Great Mysteries of the Calacis, and one of the storied relics of the religion (these include the personal belongings or even the bones or ashes of the church's heroes).

Rault Aladant ('Most High Lord') - The greatest of the Aladantè in skill in battle, leadership, and devotion to the ways of the Calacis. She is the supreme commander of the Quivenantè, and wields tremendous authority in the Calacis hierarchy. The Rault Aladant is the acknowledged Grandmaster of the Blessed Discipline of Sancris, and very few magic-users indeed could stand before her in battle. The Rault Aladant is granted the formal title 'Count,' (whether male or female) and all lands owned by the Calacis are under her jurisdiction. The Rault Aladant is entrusted with the most blessed arms of her first predecessor, Nethaine Andraal: a gleaming white suit of steel plate armor with a white sword, a white lance, and a white shield, as well as his personal banner; the three-pointed star of the Calacis, black upon a white field. The current Rault Aladant is Count Slaness Whitescale, a female Odessi born in Orcant.

[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 09:25 PM).]

The Blessed Disciplines are unique martial arts, pioneered by the Alsecrantè as a way for mere mortals to combat Dawn Elves' powerful war magicks without the direct aid of the Nommèdetè. They created the first Discipline, Sancris, which is still in use today, largely among the Quivenantè of the Calacis. Since then, however, other masters of combat have invented four more, all of which will be briefly described here. Unless otherwise stated, the Disciplines can be used with more or less equal effectiveness for any weapon and any armor. Each Discipline has a Grandmaster who is considered the most skilled and practiced at the technique out of all its practitioners.

Sancris - The first of the Blessed Disciplines, Sancris was wielded by the first Rault Aladant, Nethaine Andraal, to combat the Dawn Elven Emperor and his battlemages in the Crimson Age. The Quivenantè of the Calacis, among whose ranks are most of the Sancris-users of the world, typically relied on the sword and shield or the lance. Since its creation the Discipline has been adapted for most other weapons, however. Sancris was created specifically to combat magic-users by shielding against their spells and disrupting their state of mind. A practitioner of Sancris, if they expect to receive any benefit from the martial art, must train intensively and daily in it, both by practicing the forms and sparring, and meditation on the techniques. Sancris relies on this constant training in actual battle. Performing the movements of the Discipline is intended to draw upon the hours of conditioning to create a certain mind-set in the fighter, closing their thoughts off against outside influence and endowing them with a measure of protection from sorcery. The greatest masters of Sancris can actually use their mental focus itself as a weapon against a magic-user, keeping them from casting spells. Sancris is a highly linear, aggressive mode of combat, intended to rapidly approach a single magic-user, preferably with the advantage of surprise, and cut him down before he recovers from the shock of losing his magic. The current Sancris Grandmaster is the Odessi Slaness Whitescale.

Ardain - The second of the Blessed Disciplines, Ardain was created by Helseth, son and heir of the Emperor. The only Discipline that can be used by magic-users, Ardain practitioners are extremely rare. Use of the Discipline is forbidden by the Calacis, for its purpose is to act as a defense against Sancris and a weapon against the priests of the Nommèdetè. With Ardain, a magic-user may engage and defeat Quivenantè on their own terms. It may be a magic-user's only chance against skilled Sancris practitioners. Its disadvantage is that it prevents the conventional use of most magicks until the opponent is defeated and proper focus on spellcasting can be resumed. The current Ardain Grandmaster (among those in contact at all with the small number of Ardain practitioners) is the Deep Elf Anya Danathel.

Rafaid - Potentially the most destructive of all combat forms, Rafaid takes bloodlust to a deliberate excess, creating a way of battle powered entirely by blinding rage and fury. Rafaid was crafted in the Age of Gods over decades of solitary meditation and training by the monstrous Karran the Terrible. Rafaid adepts use intense meditation and constant practice to learn how to channel their anger through Rafaid. The nature of Rafaid makes it an amazingly dynamic fighting style; the fighter's skill, speed, and strength are influenced by the amount of rage they can summon up. Where anger dulls the senses and weakens the minds of others, Rafaid practitioners, when using the Discipline, find focus and strength beyond themselves, while the mere rumor of such a berserker's approach can terrify the bravest foe into simply fleeing for his life. Rafaid is unique in that, the longer a fight lasts, the greater the strength and ability of the fighter becomes. Truly skilled Rafaid wielders never tire of battle, their self-imposed rage feeding off itself to grow ever more powerful to increase their combat power. Rafaid is very wide-spread among the Goblins. The current Grandmaster is the Goblin Shrughmek Blackblood.

Setaal - Devised by the Human swordmaster Arkus Dramelach soon after he defeated and killed Karran the Terrible in the Age of Gods, Setaal was his vision of the perfect fighting form. While he had formerly used Sancris, he felt that the Quivenantè's fighting style was inferior to Karran's own Rafaid Discipline, and neither fulfilled his vision of the ultimate means of doing war. Dramelach founded a style of warfare based on serenity and emotionlessness, in contemptuous spite of the horrors and outrages of war. Setaal is the result. The Discipline requires the fighter to clear their mind of stray thoughts and all emotion, fighting with cold, impassive intent to destroy opponents. Setaal is a form of exquisite balance and deadliness. A Setaal practitioner wastes no effort in a blow unless it will be her last, instead allowing her opponent to fruitlessly try to penetrate her defenses until the slightest, lethal error is made. The current Setaal Grandmaster is the Fair Elf Halethé Ondulien.

Yinwa no Deimosharu - Invented and perfected by the first Empress of the East Empire, Kemo Wakanabe, the use of Yinwa no Deimosharu was once restricted to female heijin, and there are exceedingly few male practitioners even today. Yinwa no Deimosharu is unique for demanding as much from the body of its wielder as from the mind. The intensive conditioning required pays off for the adept by allowing her to effectively wield the most versatile of the Blessed Disciplines. An adept of Yinwa no Deimosharu is infinitely resourceful and capable of mastering any situation or possible scenario of combat. Adepts of Yinwa no Deimosharu look down on straightforward battle as wasteful and costly to both sides, though they are capable of matching a warrior of Rafaid or Setaal blow-for-blow if forced to it - they will often employ wild acrobatics and unbelievable contortions, fighting like some murderous dancing jester, to attempt to distract or mislead the adepts of other Blessed Disciplines, since Yinwa no Deimosharu is not intended for duels to the death and encourages wearing little or no armor. The current Yinwa no Deimosharu Grandmaster is the demi-Human Keino Wakanabe.

Meldoth - First envisioned by warrior Sextus Quinn in the early years of the Queen's Age, and later perfected by his son, Meldoth focuses on forging a connection between two practitioners of the Discipline to allow them to work with uncanny harmony in battle, complementing each other's weaknesses and strengths. Meldoth is the most difficult Discipline to master, as it requires a deep emotional bond between each pair of wielders. Any disruption in this bond, whether by a heated argument or disagreement or any source of contention, will also disrupt their ability to work together in battle. If this disruption occurs in the middle of battle it can be dangerously weakening. At its best, however, Meldoth allows two warriors to fight as one, sharing plans and feelings wordlessly and perfectly coordinating their every movement thoughtlessly. Meldoth at its finest is the deadliest of all the Blessed Disciplines. At its worst, it is useless and dangerous to its users. There is no single pair of universally-acknowledged Meldoth Grandmasters at the current time. Some of the best include Jade Elf Sheira Enden and High Elf Alis Lenain, Humans Lin and Wu Fa, and Humans Eleanor and James Elaith.

[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 09:25 PM).]

The downfall of the Crimson Throne and the High Council marked the end of Elven dominion over the world, and the victorious Calacis declared a new age's beginning - the Age of Gods.

While the Calacis had destroyed Dawn Elven power, it had not actually gained the influence needed to take over in their stead. While many people had taken to worship of the Nommèdetè, many others had allied with them only long enough to gain their freedom. With that accomplished, the unity of the races beneath the Calacis dissolved. In this time of anarchy and bedlam, the Nommèdet worked desperately to restore order and end the fighting. Only a few years after the downfall of the Crimson Throne, however, the Emperor's only surviving son and heir, Helseth, rose up against the Calacis, declaring that the Calacis and their false gods had betrayed their own people to strife and chaos in an attempt to simply replace the Emperor as the new tyrants of Therin. Helseth claimed that the misdeeds of the Elves against the lesser races had been the fault of his dead father, and that he would honor the promises the Emperor had scorned if the Calacis could only be defeated. Many, disillusioned of the Nommèdet's failure to bring immediate healing to the world, were swayed by his words.

Therin was torn by war again, as the followers of the Nommèdetè fought to stop Helseth's attempted revival of the Dawn Elven rule. The legendary first Rault Aladant, Nethaine Andraal, fell to Helseth's vengeful blade and mastery of the Discipline Ardain in the early years of this conflict. A man called Karran the Terrible, a heartless monster spawned from the horrors of the battles that had ended the Crimson Age, murdered the first of the Alsecrantè and many of the higher priests of the Calacis in a terrible bloodbath soon after.

With the death of the first Alsecrantè, Helseth quickly gained strength. Realizing that, without quick action, he would overpower the foundering forces of the Calacis, the new high priests offered vast tracts of land in Jiran to the powerful noble families Diirje, Graem, and Wakanabe in exchange for their aid in the war. While this left the Calacis with almost no remaining land of its own, for the moment, it prevented Helseth's immediate victory. However, a new threat to the Nommèdet and its allies would appear in the form of Mordraug, the False God.

Mordraug claimed to be the one true deity, come down in the form of a Dawn Elven man to bring divine justice to the Calacis and its gods. Amazed by Mordraug's miraculous powers, which far exceeded any magic he had ever seen, Helseth was quick to swear allegiance to him. The entire noble family of Graem was very nearly wiped out in the following fighting, the worst of the entire war thusfar.

It was at this time that a new religion rose up to oppose both Mordraug and the Nommèdetè. The priesthoods of the Six believed in only six gods, who granted their followers supernatural powers. These six gods were Vargoth, god of ice; Rava, goddess of fire; Ilirîn, god of air; Ilithân, god of light; Nathilkal, goddess of darkness; and Yuardêa, goddess of earth. The Six, the Calacis, and Helseth battled viciously for decades. Many of the Dawn Elven wonders created during the Crimson Age vanished forever, either destroyed or hidden away and lost. The strength of Therin's peoples bled nearly dry as the war dragged on, each side becoming weaker and weaker, none gaining any clear advantage.

The priests of the Six, horrified at the carnage and unreasoning war that was destroying their world, resolved to put an end to at least one of their foes once and for all. After long prayer and many trials and tests from their gods, the Prophets of the Six forged the Blade of Six, a weapon of immense and wondrous power, whose edge was forged with purpose. The Prophet of Ilithân took up this champion's sword and used it to destroy Mordraug, proving once and for all that the creature was no god. Helseth's power crumbled almost overnight. The Dawn Elf himself challenged Ilithân's Prophet in a rage, and the two fought a vicious duel, finally resulting in the death of both.

With the loss of the Emperor's only child, thought to be the last scion of the ruling Elven families, any hope of the Dawn Elves regaining power on Therin was also dead. In death, however, Helseth would also undo the power of the Six, as Vargoth, Nathilkal, and Ilirîn turned on against Rava, Ilithân, and Yuardêa over the Blade of Six. The resulting civil war, combined with renewed attacks from the Calacis, ultimately resulted in the end of Ilirîn, Nathilkal, and Ilithân's priesthoods, and nearly the end of Yuardêa's. The last surviving priestess of Yuardêa managed to escape the slaughter of her fellows, and that faith was kept barely alive, but passed out of history for many years.

The Churches of Rava and Vargoth managed to survive both the war between the Six and the wrath of the Nommèdetè, but the Blade of Six was lost forever, and they were greatly weakened. The priesthood of Rava withdrew to the deserts of Jiran, ruled by the Graem family, where the Nommèdetè's influence was weak, while the priesthood of Vargoth withdrew from warm lands back to icy Lamira, which had always been their center of power. The Calacis itself cursed forever the vanquished Dawn Elves, so that their children became lesser than they were, some being frail and dying of old age, others becoming vulnerable to the magic their parents casually wielded. The Deep Elves and High Elves were born of this curse, and all but one Dawn Elf perished finally by the end of this Age. The High Elves in Iniuth established the Senate, to preserve what remained of Elven power in the lands.

Conflicts slept uneasy for the rest of the Age of Gods. The survivors of the Six and the Nommèdetè alike were left to rebuild their numbers, while the new powers established by the Calacis grew great, independent of the rule of any god.

The Age of Gods was brought to a sudden and cataclysmic end with the rise of the Red Tower.

[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 09:24 PM).]

Here are described the priesthoods of the Six Gods, deemed a cult by the Calacis but apparently too powerful for even the followers of the Nommèdetè to destroy. The clerics of these deities can perform miraculous things, but differently from the ways of Calacis priests.

Yuardêa is the goddess of the living earth and the things that live upon it. She lays Her blessing over those who develop their innate gifts to greatness. She has power over living things and the solid earth, and Her followers believe that those that live should be free to enjoy their lives as they may.

Beliefs - Followers of Yuardêa believe that all living things are sacred. Nature is beautiful, and all the peoples should be part of Nature, being but sentient animals themselves. They thirst for knowledge of the natural world, for the purest joy is to be part of the gods' great masterpiece. Truth and faithfulness to what is promised and what exists are key to living a fulfilling life. One who follows these tenets has reached Enlightenment¹, and that is reason itself to follow them - one does not need reward in the hereafter, and Yuardêa promises none.

One who is Enlightened should make an effort to share it with others. Yet Enlightenment must be chosen - to force it upon another is to cause terror instead of wonder, and therefore those who impose such terror in the name of Enlightenment are not themselves Enlightened.

Birth - Life begins at conception, not birth. The faithful believe that the creation of life is a most holy act, and that it should be perpetrated liberally (although problems of inability to support one's offspring should be taken into account before reproducing). There are, however, no actual ceremonies surrounding birth or conception. Children are taught a scale of morality by their parents, but they must choose the faith for themselves.

Coming of Age - Coming of age for a Yuardêan basically amounts to being able to tell right from wrong. Before this point, one cannot choose to be Enlightened or not. When a child reaches this point depends on the child. However, a child has to not only accept the faith (or follow its beliefs, knowingly or not), but also has to be an adult in order to become a knight or priestess. An adult is somebody who is considered eligible to marry by their family.

Marriage - To marry is to commit to one's spouse for genuine love, for the rest of one's life. Frequently, the actual marriage is celebrated, but does not need to be. It is understood that true spousal love represents an inseparable mixture of intellectual, emotional, and physical attraction (to the mind of a Yuardêan, it's all physical, since mind and body are considered inseparable). Desire for one's spouse is greatly encouraged - one's body (and one's spouse's body) is an example of natural beauty, and the appreciation of natural beauty is sacred. Interestingly, however, followers of the goddess only seem to concieve when actually trying to.

Death - Followers of Yuardêa regard death as the end of continuous existence, and as a natural part of life. They do not go out of their way to recover and give rites to the bodies of the dead. Their preference, however, is to offer their bodies to the ravens when they die.

Powers - Followers of Yuardêa have a number of powers, the most universal being that all members of the faith, even the lay-people, have 'perfect' bodies. This does not mean that they are all the same, for perfection exists in many forms and combinations, but all are perfect physical specimens, and since their physiology produces their minds, they also tend to be very intelligent, aware, and have excellent senses.

Priestesses, as a reward for their devotion and a tool to spread Enlightenment throughout the land, are granted special powers over nature by Yuardêa. Each priestess's given powers are unique, though some or even most may have certain similar abilities. Many priestesses, for instance, possess the ability to speed the natural healing process. Another common power is the gift of summoning lightning to smite foes - though this only works well outdoors. A priestess of Yuardêa must be resourceful and call on natural forces at hand. This makes them extremely powerful under the right circumstances, but essentially powerless inside of an artificial building, for instance.

Organization - The Temple of Yuardêa consists of a hierarchical set of circles (councils of priestesses). Each circle of a given level sends one representative to a higher circle. Any given circle has between eight and twenty members, usually. Higher circles are formed by representatives of lower circles, as well as by standing members of higher circles. The highest circle of all is called the Circle of Voices, which currently has four members (not counting the High Priestess). The Circle of Voices elects one of their members to be the High Priestess of the Temple, who presides over the actions and doings of the Circle of Voices and is understood to speak, if not directly then at least more knowledgeably, for Yuardêa Herself.

Each circle is based out of a particular area, and its first task is to look over the faith in that area, but members can be involved in activities of the Temple anywhere in the world - though they are discouraged from doing anything that might disrupt the affairs of other circles. More inclusive circles preside over greater areas. The Circle of Voices is based in the Wind Temple in Lenace. There are Great Circles (under the Circle of Voices) on each of the continents, besides Iniuth itself.

The knights of the faith are associated with circles (usually the same circles upon which their wives sit), but do not actually sit on them.

Usually, the only times in which the Temple directly gives orders to the priesthood are times of war, in which a previously selected captain is given command by the highest relevant circle - should the fighting in question threaten the whole Temple, the High Priestess will choose a champion with the Circle of Voices, or take the lead herself. Generally, however, higher members of the Temple hierarchy do not consider it godly behavior to give more than 'suggestions' to lower-ranking members. The Yuardêans are intensively individualistic, and it is not considered wrong for any given person to do whatever he or she feels is best.

In order to become a priestess of Yuardêa, one must accomplish a quest in the service of the faith. This quest must be chosen by the aspiring priestess, and cannot be ordered by a superior; Yuardêa alone is the judge of what constitutes a qualifying quest or not. This quest usually tests both the character and resourcefulness of the aspiring priestess, and can be highly dangerous. Any individual displaying both capacity and heroism will typically be able to fulfill such a quest (althogh being able does not necessarily mean success). If she succeeds, she recieves her powers, and joins a circle. Once on a circle, she can be voted to be a representative to a higher circle, with the potential of one day being voted by that circle to an even higher station, and so on.

To become a knight, one must take up the cause and desire that he believes in; his character will be tested frequently, but there is no clear distinction for who is a knight and who is not.

There is one individual in the Temple who is set apart from the rest of the Yuardêan priesthood. This is the Prophetess. The Prophetess is a truly special individual who is the chosen of Yuardêa for some truly great task. There has only ever been one Prophetess at any given time, and there has often been none at all. The Prophetess is a continual member of the Circle of Voices, but is not necessarily the High Priestess at the same time. The miraculous powers of the Prophetess are greater than those of any other priestess, though some may have unique abilities that she does not.

Centers of Strength - Most minor Yuardêan circles hold their meetings out of doors in forests, meadows, or hills, or occasionally at the dwelling place of one of the members. Larger circles, or circles with the need, build temples.

The Yuardêans build temples to their faith in areas of natural beauty. These temples are normally built out of stone or wood. The inner sanctum of temples is always open to the air and stands upon the living earth. Usually, temples consist of a ring of pillars supporting a ring of stones, which support a roof which slants off in all directions. There are usually no walls, although in harsh climates some enclosed rooms under the roof can be built for indoor conference when the weather is inclement.

The primary temple of Yuardêa (where the Circle of Voices sits) is the Wind Temple in Lenace, so named for its being built upon a the top of Mt. Nimered, where the winds are strong.

Another important location to the Yuardêans is Glacier Vale, amidst the mountains of Gardran. A sanctuary for followers of Yuardêa in increasingly hostile times, the Paladin Gilwë, husband of the late Prophetess Ilisclimë, is nominally in charge of the community there, in cooperation with the Dwarves, who are working to assemble a new Skadrael.

History - The worship of Yuardêa began during the Age of Gods, though the exact details of their beginning have been lost to history. When the prophesied struggle between the Six over the Blade of the Six erupted, the priesthood of Yuardêa was nearly wiped out, reduced to only a single lost survivor. From this one priestess, their numbers slowly began to increase.

By the end of the Age of Gods, faith in Yuardêa was exclusively an Elven religion (particularly High Elven), worship of the Six having mostly replaced the priesthood of Mordraug in Iniuth, but still so weak that they dared not reveal themselves openly to anyone for fear of persecution from the powerful followers of Yuardêa's enemy Vargoth.

It is now known that truly the greatest enemies of the Yuardêans of that time were the Eludinites, a cult formed by the Elf who would become the Red Queen, Alêna. The Eludinites were hardly more numerous than their prey, but they had influence over the Senate and strange magical powers that allowed them to hunt Yuardêa's followers almost at their leisure. While it was some time before the Yuardêans became aware of this threat, they acted more quickly and decisively than the Eludinites expected, starting a short and fierce secret war that ended with the deaths of all the Eludinites. Shortly afterwards, however, came the infamous Night of Murder, when a mysterious, horrible force stalked its way across Iniuth. It somehow tracked down all the Yuardêans who had ever come into contact with the Eludinites and brutally killed them. It is thought that Aga'mannixx was responsible for the Night of Murder, but no one can say now. When the Red Tower rose in Yorun, only two members of a single family of High Elves in Iniuth still practiced the religion: a sage by the name of Iliwë, who lived on a mountain in Lenain, and his mother, who was unfortunate enough to be in Yorun when the continent was blasted by the rise of the Red Tower, leaving only her son. Iliwë would subtly guide a young woman named Ilisclimë to her destiny as a priestess of Yuardêa, though he perished before she finished her first quest on behalf of the Goddess. Ilisclimë was to become first the high priestess, and then the Prophetess of the Temple, and would rebuild it from nearly nothing. The Circle of Voices was established in the 314th year of the Queen's Age. The Wind Temple was built on Nimered a few years after.

Over the course of the Queen's Age, the Temple fought tirelessly against Alêna and her plans. Towards what would be the closing days of the war, it is thought that the Red Queen and Feyd planned to make overtures of peace to Yuardêa and Rava, resulting in the Dissent of Shadows. Vargoth's high priest, Marcille Dendural, succeeded in capturing Ilisclimë with Feyd's help, only to be killed by the Prophetess, who, thanks to Feyd, was able to assassinate him in the midst of his own stronghold. The Calacis proceeded to annihilate the reeling priesthood of Vargoth. Feyd's betrayal of the Red Queen resulted in the fall of the Red Empire, and all seemed well for Yuardêa. Only one loose end was left to deal with; a shade of the hated Arch-lich Aga'mannixx, nemesis for centuries of the Temple, gathered what remained of the Red armies, as petty lords and barons divided up the Red Empire and its forces between themselves, and returned to the sealed Red Tower. What it was seeking inside may never be known. Ilisclimë and Gilwë fought what would be their last battle together against the remnants of the Red Empire with their ally, the Dwarf-lord Barondar, an army of High Elves, and many Yuardêan priestesses and knights. Aga'mannixx was at last utterly destroyed and the last Red soldiers defeated, their leader captured by Gilwë, but the cost was staggering. Many thousands lay dead in the blasted plains of Kral-Gorthak, and Barondar with all the Skadrael's champions and Ilisclimë with many of the greatest priestesses and knights of Yuardêa had been slain.

The numbers of the Yuardêans recovered from even this loss, the tale of their brave but tragic battle to destroy Aga'mannixx and forever rid the world of its legendary evil earning them much admiration and making Ilisclimë into one of the greatest folk heroes of the Queen's Age. The Temple simply focused on rebuilding its strength until the War of Wolves nearly halved its numbers in a religious schism. The rogue knight Reckard Falstaff led a great many of the Yuardêans of Glacier Vale to wage war upon the soldiers of the East Empire occupying Orcant at the time, gathering many more followers from among their fellow Yuardêans, hard-bitten mercenaries, and abolitionists who objected to the enslavement of the Odessi. In the end, Falstaff fell to greed and bloodlust, abandoning Yuardêa, and he and his pirates were hunted down and killed by Falstaff's former friend, the Paladin Gilwë, and Ander the Dark.

During the Last War, the Circle of Voices were among those who stood firm against the Guild, and who paid the terrible price for their defiance. The best of the Yuardêans were killed by the Dura Maranel, the soldiers of the Guild, and the religion's traditional homeland of Iniuth was occupied by the Guild's forces despite even the greatest priestesses' best efforts (the High Priestess and most of the Circle of Voices were killed in the fighting, leaving the Wind Temple abandoned for years). Their popularity destroyed in Iniuth, and the influence of the Guild and the Calacis robbing them of any hope of gaining many converts almost anywhere in the world, the priesthood has been in steady decline since the beginning of the King's Peace. Many temples and circles have been destroyed or abandoned, and even the Temple's message of Enlightenment seems to have been co-opted by the Guild, who use the term to mean the spread of their own brand of knowledge - the Guild's dubious Enlightenment is the only kind most people are familiar with anymore.

The Temple of Yuardêa at present has, at most, perhaps about a thousand each of priestesses and knights, and perhaps ten thousand more lay-people.

Relations - Despite that the Circle of Voices is based in Iniuth, the most hostile government to the followers of Yuardêa currently is the Senate. The Senators were once unsure about how best to deal with the growing religion in their lands, but the Last War changed things dramatically, and not for the better. The Dura Maranel's occupation of Iniuth, with a significant portion of the island continent still under Guild control even today, shook the people's faith in the ability of the Senate to lead. To deflect the anger of their citizens, the Senators took advantage of some bad feelings towards the Yuardêans, whose Wind Temple had survived the war unscathed. Ignoring the fact that many Yuardêan priestesses and knights who had given their lives in the hopeless war to defend their homeland, the Senate soon passed several edicts severely limiting the religion, banning Yuardêans from public assembly anywhere in the Senate-controlled regions of Iniuth and forbidding the performance of 'false miracles.' There are very few new converts for Yuardêa in Iniuth anymore, and most of the priestesses and knights who survived the war departed for friendlier lands. The Circle of Voices is the only significant Yuardêan presence in Iniuth at the moment.

The domain of the former North Kingdom, stronghold of the Calacis, once looked upon all 'foreign' and 'Elven' religions with a degree of hostility. Towards the end of the war of the Red Tower, the weak king Dirm even banned all religions besides the Calacis from the kingdom, but his successor, Ander the Dark, undid this law. Ignoring Dirm's brief relapse, however, the North Kingdom had generally enjoyed a certain friendship with the Yuardêans after their revival in the Queen's Age, since the Prophetess helped save Tirin Kal from the Mad Lord Ansqar. After the Last War, the Calacis regained a tremendous deal of influence in the land of the North Kingdom, but they generally ignore Yuardêans out of respect of the many sacrifices Her priesthood made in the war against the Red Queen. As in Iniuth, however, there are few actual members of the religion and even fewer potential converts to be found in northwest Jiran.

After the downfall of Empress Keino Wakanabe in the East Empire, a debased form of Yuardêa's worship spread among the decadent nobles and generals who took over the nation to take the place of Yinwa no Deimosharu. The only thing this religion has in common with the real Yuardêans is the name of their goddess. The new 'Yuardêans' worship only pleasures of the body, ignorant, deliberately or otherwise, of the majority of the teachings of Yuardêa. It is an embarassing experience for a real Yuardêan to run into one of these cultists, and combined with the harsh feelings against the Temple lingering from the War of Wolves, the East Empire is almost devoid of true Yuardêans.

The Guild is unceasingly, though non-violently, hostile to the Temple of Yuardêa, which it sees as a dangerous band of religious fanatics who worship trees, and the Yuardêans likewise find the Guild's propagation of technology and industry with no regard for the consequences on the natural world reprehensible. Few Yuardêans dare to proclaim their faith aloud in Guild-held lands, and most simply leave entirely to be among friendlier people.

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Rava was the most popular of the deities of the Six. Mages, soldiers, and travelers of all kinds often offered prayers to Rava, since Hers is the fire of nature and the fire of spirit, and She can kindle a flame of bravery in even the meekest heart. Most important to the Ravans, however, is inspiration and artistry, for Rava is the patron goddess of creativity and inventiveness.

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Centers of Strength - The primary holy site of the Church of Rava was the Morning Temple in Tirin Kal, where the High Priest lived. It was a grand structure of circular shape with ten levels, the outside of each level being a great stone ring supported by wide pillars of black marble and decorated with red and yellow banners. The temple was capped with a vast domed roof of solid gold, supported by an arch of polished iron spanning the distance between every series of pillars girding the walls of the structure and the series on the opposite side. The structure, besides the gold and iron of the roof and the black marble of the supporting exterior pillars, was made of huge, perfectly-fitted whitestone blocks, like most other richly-made buildings in Tirin Kal. The structure was considered one of the most beautiful in the city, especially at dawn when the sun's rays strike the golden dome. The Morning Temple stood some two hundred feet tall, with another thirty for the domed roof. It was destroyed along with the rest of Tirin Kal in the Last War. There is currently no single primary holy place to the faith left - if, indeed, there are any churches dedicated to Rava remaining anywhere in the world.

History - Like the rest of the Six, the Church of Rava was founded during the Age of Gods. In Rava's case, the goddess came to Therin in person to give a sacred black medallion to Her chosen first priest. This priest established the laws and rites that still govern the Church ages later. He led the Church in its most desperate hour against the forces of the Nommèdetè and the evil Mordraug, finally aiding in the creation of the Blade of Six wielded against that false god.

It was this artifact that caused Ilirîn, Vargoth, and Nathilkal to betray the other three deities, their supposed friends and allies, out of desire for it. The resulting prophesied holy war resulted in the deaths of all the remaining first priests and decimated all six churches. Nonetheless, the Blade of Six slipped out of the grasp and knowledge of all six deities' remaining worshippers.

The Church of Rava was always very popular among the common people, comparable even to the Calacis, and it weathered the calamity relatively well. Rava's friend and ally Yuardêa, on the other hand, nearly totally vanished from the world. Rava vowed that She would do whatever was necessary to return Her old ally to greatness. She sealed this vow with an item of powerful magic, a white staff that formed the prison and a means of control over a powerful lich, and was used to save the last Yuardêan priestess. Because Rava had placed the seals over the lich, which had taken the name Tau'kirin, they required the sacrifice of splinters of the destined wielder's very soul to control the lich within. What Rava did not anticipate was that the lich could cast its thoughts out of its prison, able to tempt mortals into trying to take it from its rightful owner and setting it free. The girl to whom Rava had given the staff kept it when she could not give it to the last priestess as was meant, and it was passed down in her family generation to generation, waiting faithfully for news of the prophesied heir of the Yuardêan priesthood. At last, the final daughter of that family faced great peril and finally sacrificed her life in bringing the staff to Ilisclimë daughter of Miliriel, the chosen heiress and soon-to-be Prophetess of her religion.

With the return of Her ally and the fulfillment of the vow, Rava was nonetheless dismayed at the information Her new High Priest Gileth conveyed to Her. He had learned that the Red Empire had made a deal with the Church of Vargoth, Rava's bane of old and now Her most powerful foe. Consumed with fear for the future, Rava directed Gileth to move to the nation of the East Empire to improve strained relations between them and the North Kingdom, and immediately threw the support of Her priesthood behind those against the Red Empire.

The Church of Rava's unceasing efforts against the Red Empire and its allies endeared the religion even more in the eyes of many of the common people, tolerated even by the Calacis. With the end of the Queen's Age, it was thought to have been finally strong enough to possibly challenge the Calacis, but nothing ever come of this in the Church. The clerics played some minor part in events in the beginning of the Dark Age, and the High Priest perished in the first battle of the Last War.

Over the course of the Last War, many priests were killed fighting the Guild, and still more gave up the religion, their faith shattered by the sight of the wondrous, terrible creations of the Guild. The Church of Rava has dwindled almost entirely out of history in the days of the King's Peace, its former strong places either abandoned or lost to the Guild. There is not currently a High Priest, and what clerics are left have little hope for the future. The quiet ending of the worship of Rava upon Therin and the ending of this history may be near at hand.

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Formerly the ruler of the continent of Lamira and now only a bad and fading memory, Vargoth was the most feared of the Six, god of ice and cold. A cruel master, Vargoth's own followers hated and feared Him almost as much as His enemies did, and His prophecies of the unfolding of the world's destiny are the bleakest to be found among the Six.

Beliefs - In all the various rites of the church, the underlying theme was one of blind, fanatical dependence on and obedience to Vargoth. Priests of Vargoth were expected to carry out Vargoth's will regardless of their own feelings, and their individual beliefs and desires were considered secondary to those of the church. Self-sacrifical activities were discouraged, however, as usually a living priest of Vargoth was worth more than whatever a dead one could accomplish in dying. Most Vargothian priests lived for a very long time, but at the same time they had few tales of heroism or moral rectitude to attract new priests. Above all, discipline, power, and obedience to Vargoth were idolized in the church. Priests of Vargoth who failed in performing His works were often brutally punished by the church, and it was very difficult for a priest who had failed even once to regain any kind of standing within the church. The priests of Vargoth loathed and feared their god more than their foes.

Coming of Age - A child of Vargothian parents was considered to be an independent adult as far as the Church was concerned when he or she underwent a journey to Daranlir, the mead hall of the vosfathens and dwelling place of Asvarn in Lamira. A very holy pilgrimage to the Vargothians, meeting the divine giantess was intended to reinforce the low and pathetic nature of merely mortal followers of Vargoth, and remind them that they existed only to ease the hardships of their betters. It was considered an excellent means of determining whether a child was worthy of being an adult or not because Asvarn enjoys eating children, and those who underwent the journey too young could expect to be captured by the giants and kept in mortal terror until their queen was ready to eat supper.

Marriage - Vargothian marriages existed for the sole purpose of bearing and rearing children to add to the ranks of the priesthood. Those entering into a marriage solemnly swore before another priest to produce a set number of offspring who were acceptably healthy in mind and body to join Vargoth's Church. When this preset number of satisfactory children had been raised, the marriage was over. Due to the treacherousness inherent in Vargoth's teachings, there was usually very little love in any 'family' that grew from this joining. The parents generally did it only to curry some favor with their god when they had no other, more useful abilities to contribute. A priest was forbidden from marrying non-priests, even if the non-priest was a follower of Vargoth, and priests would not perform marriages among mere laymen. Children of Vargothian laymen and slaves were considered property, like their parents.

Death - Vargoth's prophecies foretell that even ageless Elves in His service will perish in the last battle that will herald the fall of Thimbadratha and the end of the world as it currently exists. Since death awaits all the mortal Vargothians and they believe in no afterlife, they are intensely wary of it. When it does finally befall them, the dead are accorded no dignity or respect. They are left to the wolves or buried in mass graves.

Organization - The Church of Vargoth had a very loose hierarchy, and an individual's status within the church could fluctuate from day to day. At the top was the voskaden, or 'warden of frost,' who was the high priest of Vargoth and voiced the god's will. At the bottom of the hierarchy were those enslaved by the church but who were not necessarily actual believers and were not priests. All those in the span between these levels were, while considered priests of Vargoth, not necessarily in possession of blessings or supernatural powers. Individuals rose and fell in standing constantly based on their every single action. This meant that Vargothian priests were extremely reluctant to champion any particular cause of their own volition for fear it would end up displeasing Vargoth.

Powers - Those priests who possessed a high enough standing to earn their god's blessings may have possessed a number of special granted powers unique to Vargoth.

Firstly, all Vargothian priests who attained high enough standing in His eyes gained an immense tolerance for extremes of temperature, feeling comfortable in both extreme cold and extreme heat. Higher priests were also able to chill their surroundings with a simple act of will, if they chose. More powerful priests could control the weather around them, to summon up blizzards or bring a dead calm as they wished.

Priests with high enough standing in the church struck any weapon used against them with a sudden, terrible cold, so bitter that it could shatter steel in an instant. This was known as the Armor of Ice in the church. Priests of Vargoth could also call upon the aid of Ice Elementals, intangible spirits who could only be harmed by tremendous heat and who used cold as a weapon. Vargothian priests could also call upon their god's power to 'freeze' the use of magic around them, making it immensely difficult for nearby magic-users to use their powers. Vargothian priests could also choose to slip into a kind of waking trance, in which their mind could not be affected by hostile magic and their body could not be harmed by poison or disease. This also slowed down their train of thought, however. The mere presence of a priest of Vargoth could slow the movements and thoughts of Vargoth's foes.

Centers of Strength - The base of the Vargothian priesthood was the Citadel, a tower composed entirely out of frozen ice constructed in Therin's northernmost regions, rising out of the side of a mountain. The Citadel was not as tall as the Red Tower, but it served as a majestic headquarters for the Vargothian priesthood in Lamira. It was in the Citadel that the voskaden Marcille Dendural lived. The architecture of the Citadel, seemingly frozen still forever, actually changed constantly according to Dendural's whims. Walls melted away and new ones froze in place to form new rooms and arrangements as the voskaden wished.

History - The priesthood of Vargoth, like the rest of the Six, was founded during the Age of Gods. At that time, Vargoth was yet the ally of Rava, Ilirîn, Ilithân, Nathilkal, and Yuardêa.

Vargoth's first priests established the religion in the frozen lands of Lamira, converting or enslaving the few people who lived there before them. Vargoth descended to the earth in physical form at this time, choosing six of his priestesses to bear His half-god children. The first of these six to be born was Asvarn, who bore a strange and frightening birthmark on her forehead that distinguished her from her brothers and sisters. Asvarn grew impossibly quickly, already the size of a ten-year old when she was only six months old. Soon after she turned half a year old, she murdered her smaller, weaker siblings and ate them, growing even more quickly with the gruesome nourishment. More intelligent than any of the priesthood from birth, possessing all the knowledge of her divine father, Asvarn was worshipped as a goddess in her own right as she aged, soon becoming the chief enforcer of Vargoth in the material world. Standing half again as tall as a grown Elven man by the time she came of age, Asvarn bore four sons and three daughters by an unknown mortal mate. These seven would be her only children despite her immortal life. Asvarn is the first and greatest of the vosfathens, or 'frost lords,' the most feared and terrible servants of Vargoth and prophesied to inherit the world in Thimbadratha, the Last Winter.

The name of the first high priest of Vargoth has been lost to history, but he helped those of the other gods of the Six to forge the legendary Blade of the Six. When it came into contention, Vargoth, Ilirîn, and Nathilkal turned their followers against the other three deities in an attempt to gain possession of the artifact for themselves. The resulting holy war decimated all six already battered priesthoods and wrought ruin to many of their holy sites. In the end, the priesthoods of Ilithân, Ilirîn, and Nathilkal were scoured completely off the world, and Yuardêa's priesthood nearly suffered a similar fate. Vargoth's aims, however, were not achieved, and the artifact he had fought for passed out of history. Left fuming over His failure to attain that which He desired most, Vargoth dedicated many of the years spanning between then and His final destruction attempting to hunt down the sword and to finish off the priesthood of Yuardêa.

In the early years of the Queen's Age, consumed with the desire for revenge against Yuardêa and Rava, Vargoth turned to the then-fledgling Red Empire for aid, offering the support of His followers in exchange for the Red Queen's help in destroying His enemies forever. Alêna agreed to his terms, but little came of it for centuries.

After the reconstruction of the priesthood of Yuardêa, Vargoth withdrew His support from the Red Empire, angry that they had not come any closer to their goal and that the man he had chosen to become his next voskaden, Marcille Dendural, had not joined the priesthood in his childhood as He had planned. About two hundred years later, however, Dendural was nearly murdered by a priestess of Yuardêa, and then became a Vargothian priest as Vargoth wanted. Dendural, as voskaden, negotiated a new alliance between the Church of Vargoth and the Red Empire. Rallied by their charismatic new leader, the church soon conquered all of Lamira in Vargoth's name and enslaved those who would not join the priesthood. Employing the aid of the mighty vosfathens, the church began to raid the northern shores of the Red Empire's enemies; the East Empire, the Skadrael in Gardran, the North Kingdom, and the Senate in Iniuth. Asvarn and her children committed many bloody atrocities in these fearful times, especially in coastal villages friendly to Rava and Yuardêa. More powerful than ever, the church of Vargoth stood a good chance of finally achieving their god's ultimate victory.

This was unraveled, however, when Dendural heard that Feyd, the Red General, planned to try and make peace with the Yuardêans and worshippers of Rava, trying to bring the war to an end as quickly as possible. Enraged, the voskaden secretly sided with Edwin Bellikos in what would become the Dissent of Shadows, while he set into motion a scheme that would finally allow him to personally kill his nemesis, the Prophetess of Yuardêa, Ilisclimë. She was eventually brought before Dendural, but not as the helpless prisoner he had expected. The Prophetess had a dagger, passed to her by Feyd, which warded away magic and godly powers alike, and she used it to pierce Dendural's protections and strike him down. His High Priest dead, the Prophetess brought Yuardêa's wrath crashing down upon the reeling ice god, striking down the Citadel of His priesthood. Having lost many of their most powerful priests, the church was quickly destroyed by a series of ruthless attacks from the Quivenantè of the Calacis. Asvarn, however, was never slain, and she and at least a few of the vosfathens survive still in the harshest cold of Lamira, biding their time until the prophesied return of Vargoth.

Mythology - More than any of the other of the Six, Vargoth's followers had a complex and thorough body of tales and prophecies concerning the entire history and ultimate fate of the world, in which mortals largely play only incidental parts. According to the Vargothians, the Six cooperated to make the world and govern it as it is, in harmony. In time, however, as the prophecies go, they would grow angered at each other in contention over their greatest creation, the Blade of Six, and their followers would wage bloody wars for the artifact, but it would be lost. The immortal demons and monsters from before the dawn of time who had been subjugated and imprisoned by the Six would meanwhile take advantage of this infighting to escape their bonds and prey on the gods themselves. Vargoth would ultimately be captured Himself by these demons, His earthly legions being defeated by Rava and Yuardêa, and His eyes would be torn out by the greatest of the demons, Algil. Algil would then take the form of a mortal sorcerer to beguile Rava. Despite belatedly perceiving Algil for what it was, Rava in a mortal shape would bear his living child - half-demon and half-god, this abomination would be forsaken by its mother, too merciful to destroy it, and raised by its devilish father. This creature, who bears only the name Eän, or 'Seven,' will be a shapeshifter and trickster, the embodiment of chaos and the seventh of the gods. He will steal Nathilkal's ability to see in the dark, leaving Her to fumble blindly forever in the midst of Her own realm, helpless. Grim Ilirîn will be moved to mad, unstoppable laughter at Eän's antics, finally laughing Himself to death. Eän will find the Blade of Six and marshal an army in which all mortals and demons will join, save only the remaining faithful of the Six.

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God of the winds and storms, Ilirîn's domain is the sea and sky. The grimmest of the Six, it is said that Ilirîn's first and only fit of laughter will be a sign that the end of the world is at hand. Ilirîn is the judge of all souls and, due to His honorable and honest nature, was often the mediator of disputes between the Six. Ilirîn is thought to be the most merciful of the Six, willing to forgive any trespass if only the sinner in question has an honest desire to repent.

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God of Light and maker of the sun, moon, and stars, Ilithân is the kindest and gentlest of the Six. His followers sought to do as much for others as they could, ignoring whatever sacrifices their work demanded of them. It was the first priest of Ilithân who wielded the Blade of Six against the Mordraug, probably because he would not allow anyone else to take the risk. Worshippers of Ilithân are taught to be infinitely self-sacrificing and to neither expect nor demand rewards for their good work.

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The night and all secrets are the domain of Nathilkal, Goddess of the Dark. The most impulsive, at times the cruellest, and the most selfish of the Six, Nathilkal is capable of both great evil and great good. Her followers love Her greatly, for She is the mistress of their pleasure and their power. Nathilkal's priests often have little care for others, dispensing both curses and blessings with little thought to the consequences.

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[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 09:23 PM).]

Here is described the smallest and least populous of the three principal realms of Jiran.

History - The Calacis first ordained the Kingdom of Diirje, like its contemporaries Wakanabe and Graem, in the tumult of the Gods' Age. Erain Diirje became the first King of the land ceded from the Calacis, in exchange for his support in their wars. King Erain I established many laws and customs that continue to govern what has become known casually as the North Kingdom. He was deeply impressed by tales of the Dawn Elves in their glory, and wished to emulate the power and majesty of the Queen's court, but also saw fit to make many changes he saw as improvements, and others he saw as simply necessary, for better or worse.

The North Kingdom's first battles were actually fought against the Goblin Tribes, from whom they wrested the lands of northwestern Jiran they rule now. It is largely for this reason that the realm is divided between the various noble families under the King. Of the lands the Calacis gave him, King Erain I parceled out territories to noble families who swore fealty to him and helped him to fight the Goblins. Of these families, the most powerful were the Darks, the Essens, the Aelfscyllds, and the Demains. The Darks, of high-born Southerner blood, were the lords of Darkhall. The King let the Darks continue to rule that gateway to the southern deserts, while he gave the coastal fortress city of Soundinghall to the Demains. To the Essens, rulers of Castle Winefirth, he entrusted the fertile lands of the Kingdom's guarded interior. To the Aelfscyllds, he charged the defense of the Kingdom from eastern invasion, and they founded their city of Mirgard athwart the river of the same name for this purpose.

King Erain's wars against the Goblins lasted many years, as the Tribes were gradually pushed out of the Diirje lands. Reeling from a series of particularly costly defeats, the Tribes were called upon to surrender by Erain I. The chieftain of the Bloodeye Tribe, Kroge, took advantage of the Goblins' desperation to unite the Tribes under his banner, earning himself the name Kroge Who-Would-Not-Kneel when he led the Tribes to slaughter the Essens and their soldiers and raze Winefirth, going on to put countless farms and towns to the torch as King Erain rushed to stop them. Kroge's rampage was not halted until Erain I's forces cornered him in a cleft of the Rogue mountains in the east of the Kingdom. There, the mighty Goblin-lord stood atop what is now called the Grey Hill and rallied his warriors to stand their ground against the King's army. This massive battle left many of the fledgling North Kingdom's greatest champions slain and the King himself mortally wounded, but the power of the Tribes in Jiran was wholly shattered. Kroge himself fled with the survivors eastward, finally sailing to Gardran to escape the wrath of the Human realms.

Erain I's death left no male heir to take up the crown, so his daughter Eithia was allowed to sit the throne as Sovereign as per the King's dying words, until such time as she produced a male Diirje heir. Eithia was made largely powerless by her nobles - many, including the Lords Dark and Aelfscylld, refused to swear allegiance or fealty to her at all, so that Eithia had no authority at all over many regions of the Kingdom. The Demains, ever proud and honorable, were a notable exception, but even they paid homage to the Sovereign only to uphold their reputation. The Kingdom became fractured, and some nobles began to think they were better off with no King at all. This spreading belief would be halted in bloody fashion by the arrival of King Segram I to the Diirje throne.

Segram the First claimed the crown by marrying Eithia, who accepted him as her husband only after he threatened to butcher her like a pig if she refused. In less than a year, the new King fathered a daughter on his unwilling bride and united the North Kingdom under the Diirje banner once again. Those nobles who refused to swear allegiance to him, or questioned his right to rule by unwanted marriage, he made bloody sport of. Possessing deep contempt for Elves, Segram I went on to decree that all of Elven blood in the Kingdom were to rounded up and exiled. At this, a general uprising among the people, led by the outraged Lord Aden Dark, sought to dethrone Segram I. Unimpressed, the King hired a force of foreign mercenaries to aid him in putting down the rebellion - he took the opportunity to personally execute the would-be usurper Dark himself. Segram I then organized the secret society of assassins and spies known as the Bloodied, as part of his plan to brutally curtail the influence of the Calacis over the Kingdom. His final act as King, in fact, was to order the execution of one of the three Alsecrantè for suspected treason.

Segram I left four daughters only upon his death, and the Diirjes were left again without a male heir. Unlike the circumstances of Erain I's succession, however, the nobles were well-tamed after Segram's death, and they allowed the crown to pass to a woman: Queen Melanie I. Sharing her father's bloodthirsty nature and lust for battle but possessing not even so much restraint as he had, she squandered much of the Kingdom's treasury on wars with the South Kingdom and East Empire - at one time even sailing to invade the eastern coasts of Iniuth, where her armies butchered many High Elves. The Northerner soldiers often scalped dead Elves to keep their blond hair for a trophy. Without any care for conquest beyond the fighting, however, what lands Melanie I claimed in battle quickly fell into the hands of their original owners, and the Kingdom was quickly withering with the strain of supporting her great armies. Melanie died suddenly in the twentieth year of her reign, of unexplained causes, and it is generally suspected that she was murdered by her own knights, who had been growing increasingly disgusted by the excesses of her rule. The crown passed, to the relief of the people, to Melanie's eldest son Archael. Rumors that Archael was a bastard begotten of one of Melanie's nights of drunken debauchery went ignored, probably because Archael was the only one of Melanie's children who did not share her ruinous bloodlust.

King Archael I was as renowned for his silver tongue and beauty as he was infamous for his vanity and hedonistic private life. Possessing a genius for diplomacy, Archael treated the duties of his reign as bothersome chores that distracted him from his 'hobbies,' but nevertheless contributed more to the North Kingdom than either of the two preceding Diirjes. He managed to repair relations with the nations his mother had alienated with her wars, and this proved important when the Bloodied told him of the threat the Redfang Tribe posed him. Massing to the southeast of the kingdom, the Redfangs had assimilated many other Tribes into their swelling ranks, led by one of the Calacis's most hated foes of all time, the Goblin War-witch Klazag Redfang. Promising to lead the Tribe to glorious victory over the North Kingdom and retake the ancestral home of the Goblins, Klazag further enflamed her followers' passions by preaching of a crusade that would sweep over the world, purging Therin of the accursed other races that had done nothing but harass and annoy the Goblins, rulers of the world by right of strength. King Archael's first attempts to deal with the problem by dispatching the Bloodied to assassinate Klazag only resulted in his agents' contemptuous slaughter by their target, to the derision of the Goblins. Deciding that the best way to deal with the threat would be to have someone else do it for him, an idea that appealed to him far more than having to march to war, Archael deftly convinced the Graem King to the south that it was the South Kingdom the Redfangs were planning to march upon. The power of the Redfangs was broken by the Southerners before it could fully gather, though Klazag escaped to continue her plots. Archael contracted a disease soon after, from one of his numerous mistresses according to popular rumor, and grew gravely ill in the tenth year of his rule. Knowing that his time was over, Archael's many bastard children gathered over his deathbed to hear who would be named King next, as he had no legitimate heirs. For unknown reasons, he instead named his sister Tilaen to be his heir. Fortunately, agents of the Bloodied and some of the King's knights were in the room with Archael, or his bastards might have murdered him where he lay and lied about his dying words. As it was, Tilaen was informed that she was now the Diirje Queen. Folk legend has maintained ever since that the new Queen's immediate reaction to the news was to faint dead away, to be revived only by a dash of cool water.

Queen Tilaen I was such a baffling appointee to the throne that many nobles were too staggered by the unlikelihood of it all to offer protest to her taking the crown. Tilaen I remains to this day the only Sovereign who was never acknowledged by the Calacis - a priestess of Rava who actually bore the goddess's medallion openly, the gates of the Nommèdet were shut to her when the procession for her coronation approached. Outraged by the Calacis's lack of respect for her dead brother's wishes, if nothing else, the new Queen famously swore on the spot that she would build a royal palace next to the Nommèdet temple that would not only outshine the Nommèdetè's proudest church, but outlast it. Queen Tilaen founded Tirin Kal around the Nommèdet, and her royal palace was indeed taller and more splendorous than the temple. The three Alsecrantè of the time would not set foot in the streets of Tilaen's city, even choosing to be buried within the Nommèdet. Queen Tilaen is remembered fondly as one of the North Kingdom's kindest and most beloved monarchs, her embarassing status as a priestess of Rava and her shameful treatment of her husband (at one point, the story goes, Tilaen I actually turned her husband out of their own bed so she could share it with one of her lovers) often conveniently forgotten. Regardless, she governed an age of growth and strengthening of the Kingdom, and this prosperity would be upheld by her heir and many of her descendants after her. Tilaen I is generally considered the true founder of what is now the North Kingdom.

Tilaen's heir, Aegis I, followed her example with pride, founding the Most Charitable Order of the Hearth in her honor. He continued the expansion of Tirin Kal, exploiting its location in one of the few passes through the Rogue Mountains to attract traders and immigrants. In remembrance of his mother, the Church of Rava gifted him with a banner blessed by the goddess of fire, which he is said to have treasured above all his other earthly possessions. In the twelfth year of King Aegis's reign, the North Kingdom was invaded by the armies of the Dawn Elven sorcerer Sathannë, who rallied the forces of the High Elves in Iniuth and the last of his Dawn Elven kin in an attempt to recapture at least a little of the power of the Elves of old. Aegis met the Elven host in battle and crushed the invasion with the steadfast determination and bravery of the Northerner armies. After Sathannë and most of his remaining Dawn Elves were slain, the survivors of his forces retreated to Iniuth. Fresh from this victory, Aegis travelled to Orcant at the advice of the highest priests of the Calacis, never to return. What happened to him is a mystery. His eldest son Dirm took the throne some years after his disappearance, when it became clear he was never to return.

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Organization - The government King Erain Diirje I devised was an aristocracy where wealth, heritage, and land were the chief factors in one's station. The rule of the King (the more formal and gender neutral term is Sovereign) over the numerous lesser noble families of the North Kingdom is technically based on four factors. First, the Sovereign is the one person who is proclaimed and backed by the Calacis as the best possible ruler of the realm. Second, a significant majority of the nobles have sworn oaths of fealty and service to the Sovereign. Third, the Sovereign exhibits and encourages chivalrous and moral behavior throughout the Kingdom. Last and considered most important, the Sovereign must live up to their titles of Chief Protector, Supreme Judge, and Highest Benefactor of the common people of the North Kingdom. In practice, the Sovereign is usually simply accepted to be the eldest direct male descendant of King Erain I.

The court and their Sovereign are expected to govern wisely and fairly, and the commoners of the North Kingdom have quickly grown restless whenever they feel they are being mistreated. There are five distinct classes of the population of the North Kingdom, all dependent on the family of any given individual, though members of one class can aspire to another and may be very different from each other.

The Royal Household - Exactly who is and is not a member of the royal family is ultimately up to the current Sovereign, depending on blood relation, shared ancestry, marriage, adoption, and their personal disposition. Since the regal class is composed generally of only one extended family and the monarch's closer friends and consort, it is the smallest. They are considered above the law and command the fealty and allegiance of all the vassals and villeins of the North Kingdom. There have only ever been two different ruling families in the history of the kingdom - the Diirjes and the Darks.

The Diirjes: Founders of the North Kingdom and its rulers for the vast majority of its existence, the Diirje dynasty usually maintained close relations with the Calacis, and waged several significant wars against its neighboring powers. Dirm II, the last widely-acknowledged Diirje King, was too weak-willed to hold his realm together in the face of the horrors befalling the lands at the end of the Queen's Age, and his death left three of his squabbling would-be heirs to nearly destroy their kingdom with a terrible civil war. The fighting was ended by Lord Ander the Dark, who was crowned King Ander Dark I.

The Darks: Largely responsible for saving what is left of the North Kingdom in the Last War. The current Dark Sovereign is Queen Senay Dark I, only the second of the Darks to hold the throne. Queen Senay is even more beloved by her people than King Ander was, if such is possible, considered to be a fierce and strong ruler who refuses to let the Old Powers' other members to marginalize the diminished North Kingdom.

The Noble Households - The aristocracy of the North Kingdom, a noble is granted a sizable fief by right of inheritance or as a gift from the monarch. A noble is subject only to the Sovereign's laws, and even so is usually beholden to the throne only in matters of war and taxes, otherwise left to their own devices. The power of the Sovereign is based upon the support of his or her nobles - part of the coronation ceremony is that all the noble families of the kingdom pledge oaths of fealty to the new King or Queen. For even one family to deliberately refrain from swearing allegiance is a terrible slight, and means that the monarch's power is incomplete. The distinction between some knights and nobles is a somewhat arbitrary one, largely a matter of titles and technicalities.

The Chivalrous Orders - The knights of the North Kingdom are warriors and crusaders, constantly seeking to prove their worth in the service of some greater cause. To be considered a 'proper' knight, an individual must be inducted into one of the numerous knightly orders. Any knight may be a member of any number of different orders, and the Sovereign is considered the ultimate voice of authority to all knights. Some nobles join knightly orders as well, and some knights may become nobles in their own right, but the nobility and the knights are generally considered to be seperate powers in the kingdom. The names of the highest orders begin with 'the Most' - these are orders personally founded by a Sovereign, and generally have a maximum limit of knights at any time.

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Royal Heirlooms - As with all Human royalty, the North Kingdom's rulers pass a set of special treasures from generation to generation. They are considered talismans of great power, even those without overt blessings or magical enchantments, and their symbolic importance to the people of the North Kingdom is tremendous.

Krisayegrim - Possibly the single most powerful weapon ever made, even in this modern age of bombs and guns, and certainly the most storied and famous one, the Krisayegrim is an ancient blade of legend and immense import. Wild tales of its power can be heard all over the world; that an army which bears the Krisayegrim with it cannot be defeated in battle, that its edge can cut down mountains and level hills, that to even touch its hilt is good luck, that it can extinguish the most powerful magicks with a thought from its wielder, that even the flat of its blade can kill with a blow, etc. The Krisayegrim is said to be the greatest creation of Alêna, the most powerful mage of all time and daughter of Lûth the Elven Queen, who forged it with magicks born of arcane secrets unknown to even the other Dawn Elves. It was taken from the Emperor's own armory after the fall of the Elven kingdom by Erain Diirje, who would become the first Sovereign of what is now the North Kingdom. This blade may have been the primary reason Segram I stole the throne, and the reason his daughter Melanie I never lost so much as a single battle in all her bloody wars. The blade also cut down the sorcerer Sathannë when in the hands of Aegis I. It has taken (and, perhaps, saved) thousands upon thousands of lives in its history. Only one known wielder of the Krisayegrim has ever been killed in battle: Ethaen, the Golden Prince, who fell in combat against Feyd. The Krisayegrim was recovered from the battlefield, but vanished after being returned to King Dirm II. It is rumored that the king, grieving the loss of his son, hid the sword away, dying without revealing its location. Ander the Dark spent years searching for the blade, without success. It is said that the Krisayegrim protects Tirin Kal still, and it is true that even the Guild, with all its might, failed to capture the city in the Last War. The people of the North Kingdom still believe that if the Dark wielded the Krisayegrim, the Old Powers could smash the Guild into dust.

Sathannë's Ring - A ring of a metal found nowhere else in Therin, this band glints with colors that are not to be seen in nature, and bears a glowing inscription in Gilrim which reads simply, "ARANETH," or 'together.' It was forged by the spells of the great Dawn Elven mage Sathannë, who waged a war against the North Kingdom in the early years of the Gods' Age in hopes of reversing the Calacis's curse upon his people. King Aegis I defeated this invasion, his soldiers and knights killing most of the last Dawn Elves. The Sovereign himself cut down Sathannë with the blade Krisayegrim, in single combat, and took the ring from his corpse. It is said that something of Sathannë's power lives on in his ring, and Aegis I and the monarchs after him often donned it before entering battle, helping to ensure victory.

Kroge's Claws - The viciously clawed, spiked iron gauntlets of the Goblin-lord Kroge Bloodeye, Kroge's Claws drip eternally with the red blood of all those he slew in his bloody reign of terror. Wrought over with crudely etched runes and symbols sacred to the Bloodeyes' war god, they bear an incredibly powerful enchantment, and will suffer the touch of none but one who has gained them through bloodshed. They will turn aside even magic-honed blows, and their cruelly-sharpened, jagged edges allow the wearer to tear foes apart unarmed. It is rumored that Kroge's Claws bestow upon their wearer all the prodigious physical might of their namesake - which, indeed, may be attributable solely to the magicks of the gauntlets. This rumor seems to have at least some truth to it, as it is known that Queen Daeren Diirje I famously defeated the High Elf Dentamë Peldris in an arm-wrestling contest while wearing them. No Goblin of the Bloodeye Tribe has ever stood their ground before a wielder of Kroge's Claws, being in awe and terror of any who could bear the storied gauntlets.

The Aegis Banner - A famed standard born by the Sovereign into every battle they entered since its making, the sight of the Aegis Banner alone is enough to inspire even the most despairing of Northerner hearts, and strikes a chilling fear into the foes of the North Kingdom. Thought to have been blessed by Rava Herself in honor of Queen Tilaen Diirje I, the Aegis Banner is emblazoned with a grey hill bearing a white crown on a blue field, wreathed in flames. It is said that the flames on the banner writhe in all-too-real fashion when it is brought into battle, and it becomes haloed in light, hurting the eyes of enemies and lifting the spirits of allies.

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[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 09:22 PM).]

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[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 09:22 PM).]

Here is described the largest and second most populous of the three principal realms of Jiran.

History - The lands that would become the empire of Wakanabe were ceded from the Calacis to the now-legendary first eleven heijin of the east: Masamaru, Wakanabe, Fe, Anaph-Ta, Zhang, Noileau, Kanatau, Ridgird, Silthan, Moramune, and Moora. The eleven realms thus formed resisted unification until the coming of the first Empress, Kemo Deimosharu Wakanabe, preferring independence to submitting to the rule of one sovereign. Each of the first heijin led his or her own army in war on behalf of the Calacis against the Dawn Elves, often stubbornly refusing to work together or even fighting amongst themselves. They became legendary for their amazing victories against the forces of Helseth and his false god Mordraug - their particular listed feats are numerous, and many of them are probably untrue. A few which are probably true, and important to the formation of the Empire to come, follow.

Anaph-Ta and Masamaru fought together long enough to defeat and kill Mordraug's feared champion, the Immortal, an Elven warrior who was said to be filled with the power of Mordraug and therefore invincible. It was only by harnessing the forbidden magicks of necromancy that Anaph-Ta and Masamaru were able to win, however, and their future dabblings in those sorceries would lead to their destruction decades later.

Kemo Wakanabe, considered one of the greatest swordsmen in history, attacked Helseth himself at a crucial point and dealt him severe injuries before he could escape her, resulting in a string of important defeats immediately afterward for the would-be Emperor's armies. For revenge, Mordraug is said to have caged a demon spirit within her body to devour her from within and steal her identity and birthright. Wakanabe, suffering unimaginable agony, wandered out of history and became a hermit, never to return.

Fe and Kanatau, long-time rivals, nevertheless worked together to halt a circle of Dawn Elven mages from casting a spell that would destroy Jiran in a tremendous magical cataclysm, finally sacrificing their own lives to stop Helseth's wizards from completing their work. Their descendants have become the only heijin to earn their title solely by inheritance, out of respect.

Moramune defeated the Dawn Elves' forces in countless naval engagements, hampering their attempts to invade Jiran and utterly preventing them from landing any sizable force in Yorun.

Noileau, the only one of the first heijin to really follow the Calacis, was a powerful priest of the Nameless Gods. After he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of one of Mordraug's high priests, he went into a frenzy of righteous vengeance, single-handedly hunting down and slaughtering hundreds of the false god's clerics. Finally captured by the Dawn Elves only when he collapsed from sheer exhaustion, Noileau awoke to find himself a caged prisoner, the main attraction of a feast in Mordraug's greatest temple. Said to have become a pure conduit for the wrath of the Nommèdetè for the briefest instant in his outrage, the land was torn open beneath the temple's foundations and it was blasted by lightning and from the skies even as it sank into the burning depths of the earth, taking Noileau and many of Mordraug's most powerful worshippers with it.

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[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 09:21 PM).]

The Calacis was at its weakest since its establishment thousands of years before. New Human, Dwarven, and Odessi nations sprang up across Jiran, hardy and independent of the rule of any higher power, and the descendants of the Dawn Elves languished in Iniuth. The remaining deities of the Six, Rava and Vargoth, licked their wounds in lands far removed from the power of the Quivenantè. Therin seemed to be on the brink of a time of relative peace, as the Goblins were driven out of northern Jiran to make way for the Calacis's ruling races.

It was in such a time that the Red Queen, last and greatest of the Dawn Elves, emerged from hiding to avenge herself upon the usurpers of her people and restore the rule of the Dawn Elves. Thus began the Queen's Age, shorter and bloodier than any previous Age of Therin's history.

The Red Empire was born only a few short years after the rise of the Red Tower. The Red Queen's unholy servant, the Arch-lich Aga'mannixx, raised the structure from the frozen wastes of the southernmost edge of the world, ending its uneasy slumber which had lasted since the downfall of the Dawn Elves ages before.

The next nine hundred years saw the greatest war ever to be waged across Therin. The Red Empire grew in power, its ruler quickly converting many to her allegiance, awing her enemies and allies alike. Her greatest servant, the Arch-lich, became a figure of nightmares and tales of horror, a creature of pure malice that wrought death and destruction upon any who dared stand against the Red Empire. Countless battles were fought, as the High Elven Senate set itself against the Red Queen, to be joined by many Deep Elves and Fair Elves. For the first time, Elves fought alongside the Calacis. Many others joined the service of the Red Queen, and the ruling races of the Calacis were divided. While the Red Queen and the Nommèdetè sought to destroy each other, this was not a war of Dawn Elves against the Calacis. New, proud, and strong nations had arisen, such as the North Kingdom, and the War of the Red Tower was their great test. Countless atrocities and acts of purest nobility were committed, millions perished, and once-mighty countries toppled. And yet the war remained largely undecided, until its closing decades, when the Red Empire steadily gained in power while its foes grew desperate and weakened.

It was in these years that the man who would become the most awesome and terrifying figure in all of Therin in his later life was found in the South Kingdom, taken to the Red Tower, and groomed by the Red Queen into her mightiest general. Feyd proved to be the greatest student of the Dawn Elves. While he had little use for magical study, he became the greatest warrior ever to walk the world, the greatest master of all the Blessed Disciplines. He was a cunning and crafty tactician and diplomat, an achieved inventor and scholar, and he became the key to the Red Queen's victory. It was Feyd who secured an alliance with the newly united Goblin Tribes under Tanis Bloodeye, and it was Feyd who killed the Golden Prince of the North Kingdom, Ethaen, the only man who could have rallied the Red Queen's foes against her. It was also Feyd who uncovered the truth of Aga'mannixx by the machinations of the Arch-lich, and it was Feyd who was manipulated through his pride and ambition to exact revenge for it against his master and friend, the Red Queen. Feyd betrayed and murdered the Red Queen and abandoned her Red Empire, and the Dawn Elves came at last to an end. Aga'mannixx itself was destroyed, though not wholly, by Tanis Bloodeye, who swore to kill Feyd for his treachery.

The Queen's Age is not truly held to have ended until some months later, however, with a vicious battle in the blackened land of Kral-Gorthak between an army of the High Elven Senate and a splinter of Aga'mannixx, parted from itself in case of the greater whole's destruction. What this shade of the dread Arch-lich was seeking may now never be known, though most think some key to regaining all of its power lay within the Red Tower. The Prophetess of Yuardêa, Ilisclimë daughter of Miliriel, and her Paladin, Gilwë, led the High Elven force, aided by the Dwarf-lord Barondar and his retinue of mighty champions from the Skadrael. The former Warlord of the Shadow Council, Lillith Dendural, bastard daughter of Marcille Dendural and supposed lover of Feyd, commanded the Red Army in what would be its last battle. After two days of bloody fighting, Dendural was captured by Gilwë, and Ilisclimë, Barondar, and Aga'mannixx had all perished, along with countless soldiers of the destroyed Red Empire and the Senate.

The deaths of Ilisclimë, Aga'mannixx, and Barondar are held to mark the end of the Queen's Age. The world was never in more ruined a state at the time of their demise. The North Kingdom was torn by civil war, the throne disputed among three Diirje heirs; the nobles of the East Empire overthrew their Empress to usher in an age of poisonous decadence; the throne of the South Kingdom was usurped by Feyd, who declared himself King and conscripted many of his new subjects into an army intended to fight the Goblins; and the Dwarves were decimated, uprooted from their homeland and forced to flee to the hidden holdfast of Glacier Vale, leaving behind an entire way of life. The lands of the Red Empire fell into internecine warfare as the Red Queen's creation splintered into countless squabbling realms. Everywhere, neighbors turned against neighbors and friends against friends. The only true bastion of stability left, ironically enough, was Tanis Bloodeye and his Tribes.

[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-24-2007 @ 09:05 PM).]

Here is described the Red Empire, the domain of the conquering Queen Alêna.

History - The Red Empire's official beginning is marked not by the rise of the Red Tower, but rather by the capitulation of the League of Freeholds in Yorun to the rule of Alêna. This would be the first of many significant nations to fall to the control of the woman who would one day be known as the Red Queen, but the fall of the Freeholds is also considered important because in adopting the crimson of the League's emblem and honor guard into her own growing army, the first mentions in official records of 'Red' blades, soldiers, and banners in regard to Alêna appear. The manner of the League's conquest would also foreshadow Alêna's policy in countless future wars. Followers of the Calacis were rounded up and offered at swordpoint a choice between renouncing the Nameless Gods and death. Those leaders who had been particularly troublesome were imprisoned or summarily executed, replaced by Alêna's favored servants. Oftentimes, the property of mortals slain in battle would be seized and given to High Elves or Deep Elves who did not cause trouble. Each household was required to offer up at least one new recruit for the Red army's ranks, and weapons, supplies, and armor were confiscated en masse by Alêna's officers.

The fledgling Red Empire now controlled the central regions of Yorun. Hamlets and small countries along the coastlands, along with a few colonies operated by the East Empire and the Senate in Iniuth, posed no serious challenge to Alêna's aims. There was only one other significant force on the continent which could oppose her - the sorcerers of Lèth, a feared sect of mages who worshipped a lich called Mau'kalnar. Lèth was composed of a series of monasteries on some of Therin's tallest, coldest mountains. Since conventional armies would be useless against the sorcerers of Lèth, Alêna went herself, alone, to war, leaving Aga'mannixx and her generals to finish taking the rest of Yorun. Of what terrible contest of magical forces decided the fate of Lèth, there is no record, though there are tales of burning lights that scorched the snowy peaks black. In the end, Alêna returned when Lèth and its people were no more, bearing only a featureless ring upon her finger to mark that that land of sorcerers had ever existed.

In the 16th year of what would come to be called the Queen's Age, even as the last free vestiges of Yorun fell to the growing Red Empire, Alêna's greatest nemesis, Armande Gael, would be born in the North Kingdom. The impossible offspring of a High Elf and a Deep Elf, tainted from conception by Outside, Gael was perhaps the only being ever to rival the last of the Dawn Elves in magical prowess. Gael was orphaned when only an infant, taken in by a childless couple, a kindly priest of the Calacis and his wife. Cursed with a demonic appearance that only grew worse as he matured, Gael shut himself away from other people. Eventually he began to delve into the occult, seeking to understand where he had come from and hoping to find a way to conceal his unnatural appearance. His adoptive parents were none the wiser until several other priests of the Nameless Gods visited them and sensed the aura of forbidden magicks about their home. Confronting an unrepentant Gael, ignoring his father's pleading, the priests finally smote the youth with the power of the Nommèdetè and burned a telltale scar, shaped like the three-pointed star of the Calacis, into his forehead. Now declared anathema to the Nameless Gods, to ever after live in fear of the Calacis and their Quivenantè, Gael fled. He would live in seclusion until the 39th year of the Queen's Age, before appearing before the Deep Elven mage Dennia Edhel, begging to become her apprentice. By that time, his appearance had become truly fearsome - he had ragged, leathery black wings, crystalline blue eyes without pupils, and smelled of brimstone. Taking pity on the ragged young man, and having little fear of the grotesque anyway, Edhel agreed.

The Red Empire, by that time, ruled all of Yorun. Emissaries from the other, increasingly worried nations of the world were not allowed to see Alêna and forced to leave empty-handed and none the wiser as to her intentions. Rumors that construction had begun on a fleet of ships in the proceeding years only intensified fears of what the last Dawn Elf had in mind, compounded by the fact that ambassadors sent to meet with her were no longer being sent back alive. In this, the atmosphere of paranoia of the 61st year, Armande Gael, an increasingly masterful mage, decided to investigate what the woman who would, he might have already guessed, one day be his greatest foe was up to. Taking the fanciful name of Lea Gednamra, he disguised himself as a Fair Elven woman and travelled to Yorun, ostensibly to join the Red Empire. Such was his power and skill that he quickly rose through the ranks of Alêna's soldiers, until he finally warranted a meeting with the Dawn Elf herself. Unfortunately for Gael, Alêna perceived who and what he truly was upon first laying eyes on him, and stripped from him the illusions he had disguised himself with. Though he fought valiantly, he could not escape the Red Tower against the will of its master, and she subdued him and broke his power. Imprisoned and brutally tortured, Gael became a favored amusement of Alêna's when she learned from his agonized screams that, far from acting as a spy on behalf of one of her foes, he had sought to infiltrate the ranks of her agents and learn her most closely-guarded secrets on what amounted to little more than a whim. Forcing the demon-touched man into acting as something of a court jester for her enjoyment, she reportedly took great pleasure in extracting from Gael his deepest secrets and hopes and mercilessly mocking them, when she was not subjecting him to more conventional and physically painful forms of torture.

Armande Gael spent five years as a prisoner of Alêna. Despite many attempts, he could not escape the Red Tower, and finally the Dawn Elf released him herself, apparently deciding that she had derived enough enjoyment from his torment. Before he left, she tore his wings from his back with her bare hands, going on to nail them over her throne, leaving him to drag his profusely bleeding frame away from the Red Tower. Alêna was sure Gael would perish in the long frozen plains of Yorun that lay between Kral-Gorthak and the nearest piece of civilization. How Gael crossed those merciless wastes alive will never be known. Several weeks later, he turned up in a coastland town, nearly dead. Convinced that he was some form of monster, the villagers stoned his battered, bloodied frame, wrapped him in a burlap bag, and hurled him into the sea. Gael would surely have perished then if a fisherman, feeling guilty over what had been done to him, had not secretly rescued him, drawing him from the water and nursing him back to health. The mage would bear the terrible scars of his severed wings ever after, besides all the numerous lesser scars Alêna's hospitality had left him with. When he had regained some of his strength, he travelled to Iniuth with a spell and offered what he had learned of the Red Empire up to the Senate and then disappeared, travelling Therin in search of lore and artifacts that would allow him to combat Alêna. His desire for vengeance would ultimately drive Armande Gael to the ends of the world and beyond.

While not entirely sure that Gael was trustworthy, the Senate decided that the information he had provided was too troubling to ignore. After nearly a month of secluded deliberation, the Senators made an unheard of decision - they would call for a meeting between all the peoples of the world, to form an alliance that could resist and defeat the Red Empire. Despite this grandiose language, however, in reality they were interested only in themselves and the Calacis's so-called ruling races. They forged their alliance, which the Goblins derisively gave the nickname 'the Free Races.' Perhaps spurred on somehow by this slight, a new War-witch arose to power over the Tribes in this time, Vurja the Stonehammer. In what has since been called the most destructive Goblin rampage of all time, Vurja and her fanatical hordes proceeded to lay waste to much of western Jiran. They were so assured of their victory over the North and South Kingdoms that Vurja sailed to Iniuth and made war on the Senate. The threat was finally ended with the siege of the High Elven city of Nelamonae, where the Stonehammer was finally killed. In death, however, she would take Nelamonae and many of the Senate's finest warriors with her.

Outraged by the destruction and bloodshed caused by the Goblins, the Free Races rounded up the beaten Tribes and exiled them all to Gardran, provoking the anger of the Dwarves and leading to the withdrawal of the Skadrael from the alliance. Nevertheless considering themselves better off, the 83rd year of the Queen's Age saw an overwhelming surprise attack from Alêna's forces in Yorun. Too exhausted by the Goblins' crusade to put up much of a defense, the Free Races' armies in southern Jiran were annihilated and countless leagues of territory fell to the Red Empire. It was this first battle of what would ultimately become the War of the Red Tower that earned Alêna the title 'Red Queen,' so called because she was drenched in the blood of her enemies by the time the fighting was done.

The victory of the newly-christened Red Queen was tempered by an outbreak of insurgent groups in Yorun. Former soldiers and die-hard loyalists of the Freeholds, supported by the Free Races, roved the frost lands, murdering imperial officials and putting whole towns to the torch. Not wanting to risk losing her foothold in Jiran, Alêna commanded Aga'mannixx to deal with the problem as it felt best. The great lich left a trail of corpses as it travelled Yorun, slaughtering the insurgents wherever it found them. The resistance was severely weakened, but it did not falter, going underground and curtailing the efforts of the undead. Aga'mannixx was forced to retreat to the Red Tower entirely when Armande Gael resurfaced in Yorun and ambushed it, dealing it a terrific amount of damage before vanishing into hiding. The insurgents, rallying to the lich's defeat, moved back into the open, their numbers swelling from fresh recruits among the common people, and largely dismantled the Red Queen's occupation of the Freeholds, culminating in the liberation of Torinvar in the 96th year of the Queen's Age. Finally angered into taking the risk of leaving her conquests in Jiran unwatched, Alêna took much of her strength back to Yorun. The resistance, dubbed 'Shriekers' by their foes, prepared futilely for her return.

Alêna's slaughter of the Shriekers is considered one of her most brutal acts throughout the war. Backed by her peerless sorcery, her battle-hardened soldiers massacred the Shriekers wherever they tried to fight. Many hamlets and villages that had supported the Shriekers were looted and burned to the ground, their populations tortured and slaughtered wholesale. Almost every single insurgent was killed, the few survivors forced to flee the continent entirely. Furious that her rule had been so defied, the Red Queen literally decimated the population of Torinvar, executing every tenth citizen. Her crushing of the rebellion was so brutal, in fact, that a number of her soldiers, shocked and disillusioned by her cruelty, plotted to 'avenge the dead' by murdering her in her sleep - one made it as far as the door of her bedchamber in Torinvar before her ferocious Isgythina bodyguard Feriox tore him to pieces. The Red Queen would remain in Yorun for 7 years, trying to ignore news of her holdings in Jiran slowly slipping away as she built the secret imperial police force that would come to be known as the Calmers.

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Organization - The Red Empire's official government was composed primarily of Alêna's court, tightly controlled by the last Dawn Elf. Members of the court were hand-picked by the Red Queen herself and often had very limited powers to act of their own accord. Towards the latter years of the Queen's Age, much of the court would be inducted into the secret society known as the Shadow Council, part of the Red Queen's ultimate plan to control all of Therin as directly as possible. There were numerous distinct factions within the court that constantly struggled for power and Alêna's favor, behavior she encouraged to an extent. When the imperial court was first assembled, the primary factions were the Freeholders and the Blackcaps, the distinction between them a largely geographical one - Freeholders were court members drawn from the conquered League of Freeholds in Yorun while the Blackcaps were those who had sworn fealty to Alêna immediately after the rise of the Red Tower. The Blackcaps were so called because of their preference for the black they had donned upon entering Alêna's service, disdaining the scarlet livery of the Freeholds that nevertheless eventually came to dominate the Red Empire. The Blackcaps and Freeholders were short-lived, to be replaced by a number of other factions, most of which were organizations within the government in their own right.

The Children - An infamous Outsider cult, the Children broke off from the Arcane Keepers of the Void in the 201st year of the Queen's Age to pledge their allegiance to the Red Empire, or more specifically, the Arch-lich. The Children worshipped Aga'mannixx as the true embodiment of chaos and nothingness, rejecting the Keepers' beliefs concerning Veltenfarthan. Their powerful magicks and zealous loyalty to Aga'mannixx earned them a strong presence in the court, though they were strangely underrepresented in the Shadow Council later. The Children were often called upon to perform the most unsavory tasks for the Red Queen, including collecting those with magical potential for the Arch-lich's consumption and assassinating political enemies. In tasks of the latter sort they found themselves to be rivals of the Calmers, and the two groups held each other in the deepest contempt. After the fall of the Red Empire, the Children are thought to have largely been wiped out by the Calmers or, disenchanted by the destruction of Aga'mannixx, rejoined the Arcane Keepers. The Children often proclaimed their status as such by wearing red robes emblazoned prominently with a black claw, their symbol.

Legion - The most enigmatic of the Red Empire's political factions, Legion refers both to one of the worst demons ever to touch Therin and the cult that worships it. Also called, more ostentatiously, 'the One and the Many,' 'the Dead Wailer,' and 'Hell's Choir,' the only recorded instance of anyone encountering Legion in physical form and surviving to tell the tale comes from the adventures of Ilisclimë, before she became Prophetess of Yuardia. Thus, exact details concerning Legion's nature are hard to come by. Legion is apparently a multitude of minds bound together into one monstrous will, a scourge from Outside that seeks to destroy all living things. Legion's greatest, but by no means only, power is in terror, able to put such fear in its enemies that it destroys their minds, allowing Legion to absorb them whole. When choosing to travel in physical form, Legion covers itself with a writhing mass of the dead, its coming heralded by the shrieks and screams of the rotting corpses. Legion has many unknown powers, and the Calacis considers it the most dangerous Outsider to roam free across the lands since the Devil, Mordraug. How or why a cult worshipping such a creature was able to rise so high in the Red Queen's regard is unknown, but it is likely that Legion and Alêna simply felt they shared common enemies. The followers of Legion always appeared together, and never revealed their faces. They are said to have spoken with one voice. Since they did not deign to associate themselves with any of the more mundane concerns of the Empire, it is thought that Legion served the Red Queen as something of a liason to unknown powers Outside.

The Calmers - Master assassins and spies, the Calmers were the secret police of the Red Empire and counted among their ranks some of Alêna's deadliest servants. It is thought that it was a number of elite Calmers who assisted the Red Queen in training Feyd in the ways of battle. Even so, they were dreaded more than they deserved, and it is now known that many deeds attributed to them over the course of the Queen's Age were actually committed by unrelated agents. The Calmers were most infamous for their acts against the Red Queen's foes, but they were really most commonly occupied with rooting out insurrection and dissension among the ranks of her own people with brutal efficiency. The Calmers had carte blanche to imprison, torture, and murder anyone in the world, with the sole exceptions of Shadow Councillors, when they came about, and the Red Queen herself.

The Isgythîna - Thought to be some rogue pack of demons forced into the Red Queen's service by her powerful magicks, the Isgythîna were deadly, immense monsters of terrific might and unparalelled skill in battle, utterly loyal to their Dawn Elven master and serving as her personal bodyguard in countless battles. They could not speak, but communicated in raw thoughts and emotions. The chief of the Isgythîna, Feriox, acted as the Red Queen's majordomo in many respects, and was responsible for overseeing much of the day-to-day routine of the Empire's governing. The fate of the Isgythîna after the Red Queen's death is unknown, but it has been remarked on as very strange that they apparently did not or could not help Alêna against Feyd and Aga'mannixx. Most scholars believe that the Arch-lich must have destroyed or incapacitated them all before setting out after the Red Queen with Feyd.

The Order of Gethenna - Many of the Fellows, whose religion is explored in more detail below, were accorded places in the imperial court and later Shadow Council. They and the Isgythîna formed the Red Queen's staunchest supporters in the government.

The Stewards - The faction which Edwin Bellikos dominated, in his time, the Stewards distanced themselves from the occult and magical in favor of the lifeblood of civilization: wealth. The Red Queen is known to have held the Stewards in contempt for their 'lack of imagination,' though they wielded perhaps the most power in the Empire and formed the largest contingent within the court and Shadow Council. The Stewards were the most diplomatic and peace-minded of the factions, seeing bloodshed as bad for business and worse for morale. They were thought to be, to an extent, the voice of the middle class in the Red Empire. Their most infamous member, Bellikos, instigated the quiet internal struggle for domination of the Empire that is now called the Dissent of Shadows, when he conceived and executed a complex and subtle scheme to overthrow Alêna, murder Feyd and Tanis Bloodeye, and make peace with the North Kingdom and other nations. After his plot was foiled, most of the Stewards in the Shadow Council were executed, silencing one of the few moderate voices in the imperial government - this is thought to have contributed greatly to the dramatic speed of the nation's collapse after the Red Queen's death soon after.

The Fools - Generally thought to be the last significant faction in the Red Empire's history, the Fools were founded by Feyd and Lillith Dendural. A somewhat eclectic group, they were united largely by their devotion to the Red General and the Warlord. The Calmers and Isgythîna were recorded to have been very suspicious of the Fools, whom they felt were more loyal to Feyd than their Queen. These worries were intensified by their rejection of the Warlord after she joined the Order of Gethenna. The principal Fool beneath Feyd was Eramus, who would go with him to the South Kingdom after the fall of the empire and help him usurp the Graems and establish the Guild. The Fools were notable for their devotion to science and 'pure' technology, eschewing magic as a dangerous and unpredictable force. Though their work produced promising results, resulting in numerous inventions that would not be seen by most of the world until after the Last War, the Red Queen considered them at best an amusing waste of time and energy. A famous story relates that Eramus asked Alêna for a sample of her blood so that he could study it and so discover the biological nature of Dawn Elves - the Red Queen not only flatly denied his request, but made the scientist act as court jester until her death.

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The Order of Gethenna - A cult that worships the Red Queen as, if not the one true God, then as close to it as existed in the universe, the Order of Gethenna was founded in the 336th year of the Queen's Age by a High Elf named Lura Peldris, not long after the Day of Dragons, and endures in one form or another to the modern day. Also called the Crimson Knighthood and the Sanguine Fellowship, the Order was the dominant religion of many places throughout the Red Empire on a time. It is notable among Therin's religions for being monotheistic, and also for restricting its membership based on gender and race - only female Elves of pure descent were allowed to officially join the Order (though after the death of Alêna this is no longer true), but anyone could nominally be a believer. Its full members called themselves Fellows, but they were often nicknamed the Red Princesses, particularly Lura Peldris and Lillith Dendural, for whom the title was considered nearly appropriate, as they were as close as the Red Queen ever had to a conventional heir.

The Fellows were culled from all ages and social levels - some came from the wealthiest and most powerful families, seeking to curry favor with the Red Queen, others with 'potential' were dragged forcibly from dens of vice and filthy alleys, but all were made equal in the Order. Once indoctrinated in the ways of the religion, they underwent a pilgrimage to the Red Tower, where they met Alêna in seclusion. No Fellow has ever revealed what happened in these meetings, but whatever the Red Queen did to those who came to her, it seemed to break the curse of the Calacis over them and restore to them the full power of their Elven blood. The Fellows possessed all the immortality, physical might, and awesome magical power of their ancestors. Of the many rumors suggesting how the Red Queen was able to thwart the Nameless Gods in such a fashion, the most popular is that she had the Fellows drink her blood, somehow using that as a medium to purify them of the curse; this has resulted in the nickname 'Sanguine Fellowship.' The Fellows were thought to be the Red Queen's chief weapon against the Calacis - for unknown reasons, such full members of the Order terrify members of the religion, who cannot offer an explanation as to why.

The teachings and doctrine of the Order of Gethenna were handed down from the Red Queen herself, forming a body of mythology which details the history of the world and each Fellow's place in it. After her death, it was altered and expanded to include the facts leading to her betrayal and the destruction of the Red Empire, as well as a prophecy regarding her return. According to the Order, the cosmos as we know it was once reeling and numb in the void that is called Outside. Gîl, the first Dawn Elf, inverted the writhing chaos and made order. Nature sprang up in this place, and the Elves were drawn to it from where they languished Outside.

The new domain was no better than the old, however. Horrible Dragons, the abonimable things that call themselves the Nameless Gods, and mortals in all their variety and graceless ignorance were among the dangers that dwelt Inside. The Elves were also pursued by those who had hated them Outside - demons and other unnatural creatures. Despite the hopelessness of their situation, the Dawn Elves took up arms and fought anyway to secure their rightful place as masters of the world, even though they knew they were doomed to failure and ultimate defeat at the hands of their innumerable foes, making war in simple denial of despair. In time, though Gîl herself was slain in the wars for the world, the Elves found themselves rulers of the world, and Lûth was their queen. Lûth would mother Alêna, who would be the greatest of the Elves, and for a long time there was peace even with the unknowing mortals, who spread across the world now that the greatest dangers had been quelled and subdued in forgotten struggles by the greater race.

In time, as it was fated, the Elves fell. By the machinations of treachery, the cruelty and pride of the usurper Emperor, and the delusion of the mortals by the monstrous Nameless Gods, the Calacis was born and the Elves were ruined. Alêna suffered still the curse of the Emperor, preventing her from using her magicks. Out of love for his sister and out of desire to redeem what he could of his damned traitor's soul, her brother Aerev used his own spellcraft to transform himself into Aga'mannixx, the Arch-lich, and culled the magic of mortals so that it could shatter the curse over its queen. It was successful, in time, but it came to appreciate the taste of power, and finally it existed only to satisfy its ever-growing thirst for it. Knowing that it could never hope to defeat Alêna fairly, Aga'mannixx lay a doom over its own bloodline, that one day, one of its descendants would have the strength to help it kill her and take over her empire, so that it could feed forever on a world of decay and suffering, becoming more and more powerful until it could eat everything and become omnipotent.

Who or what 'Gethenna' is has never explained. Many surmise that it is intended to be another name for the Red Queen herself, but there are records of another Dawn Elf entirely whose name was Gethenna, among the kindred of Kili, a friend of Alêna's who was killed along with most of those Elves loyal to Lûth in the Emperor's betrayal. Generations of historians and scholars have scoured over every reference and mention of Gethenna, wondering why the Red Queen would name something so important after her (if it is named after this Gethenna at all), but have never come up with anything compelling.

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[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-24-2007 @ 09:16 PM).]

Chowguy, please delete this!

[This message has been edited by Beren V (edited 04-22-2006 @ 01:12 AM).]

Here is listed those important persons who participated in and precipitated the culmination of the Queen's Age.

Alêna Daughter of Lûth, the Red Queen - A terrible shade of a long-dead people, Alêna was born to Lûth, the first Dawn Elven Queen. Dispossessed of her rightful throne not once but twice, Alêna was exiled by the Emperor from her home, and she vanished from history. For many ages, as her people dwindled away to a mere shadow of their former selves, accursed by the Nommèdetè and interbred with the other races, she remained absent from the affairs of the world, almost utterly forgotten. When she finally did return, it was to crown herself the Red Queen, last of the Dawn Elves and heir to their power, and wage the longest, most terrible war in the history of Therin. In the end, however, her greatest student and her most terrible servant betrayed and killed her, destroying all that she had made.

Even before she was born, prophesies were laid over Alêna. The first of the Dawn Elves foretold that she would be the greatest of their people, even when she was but a quickening in Lûth's womb.

Lûth adopted the son of Kili in memory of her friendship with his mother, and he became like a second brother to the crown princess Alêna. He was a precocious boy, though he lacked both his adoptive sister's skill with magic and the Queen's might at arms. Rather, he took after Alêna's blood brother, Aerev, a carelessly sardonic man who was deeply loved by his mother and sister.

...

Ilis and a few of her most loyal soldiers, meanwhile, escorted Alêna and Aerev out of the tower and away from the battle, seeking to escape into hiding should fortune turn against the Queen. Things did go ill for Lûth, and far quicker than anyone had expected, for the son of Kili's mortal horde fought with a skill and zeal that terrified their foes, and unsettled even the Emperor himself. Seeing her forces wavering, Lûth led a desperate drive of her bodyguard against the Emperor's vanguard, the fury of her sudden attack driving back or smashing down the warriors in her path until her hammer rang against the son of Kili's own blade. Roaring that he was an accursed traitor each time her mace crashed into her foe, three times, the Emperor was saved only as the Queen's bodyguard fell around her, his own troops forcing them apart and finally hewing her down as he reeled from his wounds.

Seeing her mother cut down, Alêna broke from Aëril's fleeing band and raced to the battleground, the coming of her wrath scattering loyal and rebellious warriors alike. Her peerless magicks blasted away many of the Emperor's soldiers, one spell or another bringing the son of Kili himself to the brink of death, hurling him from the midst of his forces, and the Queen's army almost rallied as his wavered. Then, Alêna was assailed by a band of Human sorcerers, bending the full force of their combined power against her and nearly slaying her outright, wounding her terribly, though she dispatched all of them. She would have perished there if Ilis and Aerev had not come back for her, reaching her fallen form just ahead of the Emperor's soldiers. Ilis and Aerev fled through Kral-Gorthak's streets, carrying Alêna and fighting off the pursuing warriors as they ran.

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Feyd Son of None, Traitor, Usurper, and Tyrant - Called the greatest warrior of all time, feared and revered the world over as something touched by the divine (or the devilish), Feyd was the greatest servant of the Red Queen. From a mere street urchin, he became the most dangerous champion of the Red Tower, though in the end he proved just as destructive to his would-be allies as to his enemies.

Born into abject poverty and soon abandoned by his parents, Feyd relied upon his wits and charm to survive on the streets of Canthana, in the South Kingdom. In his late teens, the Arch-lich Aga'mannixx, who 'coincidentally' happened to be passing through the town, met the young man. Impressed at the potential already evident in the Jade Elf, the Arch-lich took him to Yorun. There, he was put under the guardianship and tutelage of the Red Queen herself.

Under Alêna, Feyd was instructed in the ways of war and statesmanship. His mistress quickly discovered that the young man had physical and mental strengths that even she had never imagined possible in a being of lesser descent than herself. In a matter of years, he had achieved deeds not even the Red Queen herself was capable of. He mastered all the Blessed Disciplines with ease, and by the time Feyd was twenty years old, even his queen could not defeat him in a duel of blades.

To see what her student was capable of, the Red Queen soon dispatched him eagerly to kill Tanis Bloodeye and undo his growing control over the dangerous Goblin Tribes. To her surprise, Feyd instead befriended the Goblin leader and brought the Tribes under the rule of the Red Empire. Her desire to see him achieve glory in battle in her name, however, was finally fulfilled when Feyd traveled west and led the forces of the Empire to victory after devestating victory against the armies of the North Kingdom. His proudest moment came when he met in battle the heir of the Kingdom, the famous Golden Prince Ethaen, and killed him, leaving the North Kingdom heirless and broken.

Soon after, Feyd learned that Marcille Dendural, supposed ally of the Red Empire and voskaden of the Church of Vargoth, planned to betray and murder him out of fear that Feyd would negotiate for peace with the High Elven Senate and his arch-enemies: Prophetess of Yuardêa, Ilisclimë Lenace, and high priest of Rava, Ardaen Indarion. Feyd, with the nominal help of the Red Queen and Tanis Bloodeye, and the unintentional help of Ilisclimë herself, cooly annihilated both Dendural and his greatest priests. Most of the Shadow Council, who had conspired with him, were soon to follow at Feyd, Tanis, and the Red Queen's own hands. The Church of Vargoth did not survive its leader by long, succumbing to a devestating assault on Lamira by the Calacis. This internal conflict is known as the Dissent of Shadows, and it is considered to have been one of the primary reasons that the Red Empire fell apart so quickly and completely with the loss of its remaining leaders later.

Having secured his own power within the Red Empire, and having awoken the beginnings of fear in his former mentor, Feyd now planned to loose Tanis Bloodeye and the Goblins on the North Kingdom. Then he first heard whispers from his spies that Aga'mannixx plotted something against Alêna. Suspecting treachery from the Arch-lich, Feyd confronted it, only to be told an astonishing tale. The Red Queen's true past and Feyd's own true nature were revealed by the creature: Aga'mannixx had been twisted into its current monstrous form by none other than Alêna herself. Once her brother, he had betrayed her and her allies in her short-lived bid for the Dawn Elven throne. Her friends and compatriots were made to suffer and die at the hands of the vengeful and cruel Emperor. But the Emperor was no less merciful to the traitor himself, and sent him into exile with his disgraced and accursed sister.

When the Emperor later perished at the hands of the first Rault Aladant of the Nommèdetè not long after, however, Alêna's immense magical powers were restored. In revenge, she transformed her own brother into the creature that would become the Arch-lich - the perfect servant, until it became powerful enough to resist her spells of control. Only able to act against Alêna subtly at first, Aga'mannixx gradually guided the destinies of those descended from who it had been. Finally, when the ultimate result it had sought for, for ages, was born in Feyd, it dared oppose the Red Queen openly.

Feyd was shocked, but he came to believe the story, and called Tanis Bloodeye to the Red Tower with the intention of enlisting his help. Whether it was lust for power, or the influence of the Arch-lich, or some desire to help Aga'mannixx achieve its long-delayed revenge for the sake of their relation, the Red General sided with the undead abomination. Alêna, learning that Feyd now planned to help Aga'mannixx destroy her, fled the Tower, sealing its doors forever behind her. Tanis Bloodeye, contrary to both Feyd and the Red Queen's expectations, lent his aid to her when they met by chance there in the plain of Kral-Gorthak, and the two fled into hiding.

Aga'mannixx knew where they had gone, however, and led Feyd there. Feyd confronted his former teacher, and there was a mighty duel. While Tanis Bloodeye attempted to aid his Queen, Feyd overpowered and overmatched both of them, and the Goblin fled after Feyd murdered Alêna. Bloodeye destroyed Aga'mannixx with an ensorcelled dagger given to him by the Red Queen when the Arch-lich attempted to stop him from escaping.

Afterwards, Feyd traveled to the South Kingdom and overthrew King Sadiir Graem IV to establish himself as King of the deserts of Jiran.

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Tanis Bloodeye, Chief of the Tribe-of-a-Hundred-Tribes - The most unusual of Goblins, Tanis Bloodeye was the ruler of the Tribes and greatest warrior of the Beastfolk.

Tanis Bloodeye was born of the Cloud Breed in the Bloodeye Tribe, the largest and strongest of the various Tribes. The Tribe's Shaman proclaimed that the stars showed that the newborn Tanis would be a great warrior, but only weeks after he was born, the Tribe was attacked by a force of knights of the North Kingdom. The Tribe was forced to flee, and the young Tanis Bloodeye was left behind. A young woman of the knights took pity on the mewling Goblin-babe and adopted him, and for twenty years Tanis Bloodeye was raised among Humans. Knowing only that he was born of the Bloodeye Tribe, the knight gave him the name Tanis, and raised him as her own son.

From his youth until his dying day, Tanis Bloodeye held an adoration for the ideals of knighthood, chivalry, and honor. Growing up a Goblin in Human lands, Tanis nonetheless was tolerated among those of the Calacis who knew him, but he rarely left his mother's house, and never alone. His adoptive mother taught him the rigorous lifestyle of a knight of the King in the North. Growing up a quiet and scholarly young man, Tanis was taught the ways of knightly combat by his mother. Mighty even for a Goblin, Tanis's masterful, proud attitude served him well in all his pursuits.

In time, some years after his coming of age, Tanis Bloodeye felt a stirring in his blood. He spent hours poring over chronicles and tales of the North Kingdom's battles with the Goblins, learning all he could about his people. At some point, his studies brought him to the tale of Kroge Who-Would-Not-Kneel, a mighty Goblin-lord who gathered the Tribes together under him when the king called for his surrender, and razed the great castle Winefirth and its lands to the ground, prolonging the war for many more years. Tanis knew his people were considered enemies by all, but also that they had the power to rise up and carve a place for themselves in the world, undoing the damage the North Kingdom had wrought in breaking their power and taking their lands in western Jiran. All they had to do was reunite under a single leader, as they had done under Kroge. Feeling sick in his heart that he must betray his adopted people, but feeling bound to the fate of the Tribes, Tanis left Tirin Kal, never to return.

Venturing to the continent of Gardran, where the Goblins dwelt in exile from their homeland of Jiran, eternally contending with the Dwarves, Tanis rejoined the Bloodeye Tribe. While his almost-Human mannerisms earned scorn and ridicule from his comrades at first, his skill in battle proved so awe-inspiring that they named him Death-Hand, after the mythological hero of the Bloodeyes who chopped off his own hand and stole the hand of Death to replace it, and thereafter could not be defeated in battle. Under his new moniker, Tanis struck down the chieftain of the Bloodeyes and declared himself Goblin-King. Many of the other Tribes paid him fealty, and those who did not he conquered and subjugated as slaves to his own Tribe. The Goblins still sometimes call the Bloodeye Tribe the Tribe-of-a-Hundred-Tribes.

Now established as the ruler of the united Tribes, Tanis approached the king of the North Kingdom, asking that they make common cause against the Red Empire. He did this for the sake of his mother, even though many Goblins believed that they should join with the Red Empire and smash the North Kingdom to retake their old lands. Tanis was refused by King Dirm, however, and while he considered what to do next, he met Feyd, General of the Red Empire and greatest servant of the Red Queen. The young Jade Elf befriended the Goblin King, and convinced him that the Red Queen was the only person who would accept an alliance with the Tribes. Tanis made obeisance to his new monarch, and while Feyd went to Jiran to crush the rallying forces of the North Kingdom under the Golden Prince, he threw the fury of the Tribes against the Skadrael, decimating the Dwarves and sending their remainder into hiding deep under the mountains. The Red Queen brought Tanis from Gardran to the Red Tower after his victory, leaving his protege and heir to prepare the Tribes for the journey to Jiran and the final annihilation of the North Kingdom.

In the seat of the Red Empire's power, Tanis became the close friend of both the Red Queen and Feyd, and the three saved each other during the Dissent of Shadows, when the Red Queen's Shadow Council attempted a coup d'etat, intending to replace their ruler with Edwin Bellikos. The Shadow Councilors and their followers were executed or forced to flee. While the Red Empire's hierarchy was damaged, the Red Queen, with the help of Feyd and Tanis, held her nation together, much to the disappointment of her foes.

It was not long after, however, that Feyd and Aga'mannixx betrayed the Red Queen. Tanis stood by his queen as a knight should, enraged and aggrieved by the treachery. His bravery and skill in battle, and even his mastery of the Blessed Discipline Setaal, proved too little before the might of the Red General, and his queen perished. Wounded and forced to flee, Tanis did strike down Aga'mannixx with a dagger given to him by the Red Queen. Returning to the Tribes with anger and sorrow in his heart, Tanis brought the withering might of the Goblins against Emperor Feyd.

Edwin Bellikos, Master of Shadows - The Red Queen organized the Shadow Council to govern her empire for her, preferring to focus her own energies on studies of magic and the secrets of the Red Tower. A ruling body wrapped in mystery, the Council ruled in secret, lest they undermine their mistress' authority. Edwin Bellikos, self-styled Master of Shadows, became the greatest of these hidden advisors of the Red Queen - and ultimately, he sought to depose her and rule the Red Empire himself through his loyal followers, of which many were Shadow Councilors. The resulting secret struggle was known in days after as the Dissent of Shadows, and it ended in Bellikos's death at Feyd's hands, who went on to take Bellikos's place as unquestioned chief of the Shadow Council - a position he forsook after he betrayed and killed the Red Queen.

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Ander the Dark, Usurper of the Throne of Diirje - The Darks are considered the black sheep among the noble families of the North Kingdom. Named after their ebon complexion, they governed the gloomy fens adjoining the South Kingdom. The Darks are strange among the northern families for more than their skin color - their subjects hail them as 'the Darks of Darkhall' rather than any accepted title of the nobility. Assembling the assorted nobility of the war-torn kingdom, Ander forged an alliance to stand against the squabbling would-be heirs to the throne and marched to Tirin Kal, into legend. Ander's retinue in his battles to win the crown entered into fame alongside him, including such illustrious names as the twin Grandmasters of the Blessed Discipline Meldoth, the Horned Knight Dame Draena Endraluth, the deposed Empress Keino Wakanabe, the Songbow Raine Aelfscylld, and the grim Lord Curth of Soundinghall. First King of the new Dark lineage, having broken the Diirjes' claim to the throne, Ander the Dark was a figure of near-mythical quality to his subjects.

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Marcille Dendural, Voskaden of Vargoth - Highest priest of the dreaded god Vargoth, Marcille Dendural was truly the single most feared man in all the world at the height of his power. Possessed with a drive to conquer and a vision of a world united under Vargoth, Dendural organized the hated followers of the God of Ice into a veritable war machine, allying himself with the Red Empire, and took back Lamira in the name of the church of Vargoth. Finally perishing due to his own pride and the treachery of Feyd, Dendural's death would mark the end of Vargoth's power in the world for the foreseeable future.

...

Dendural considered Yuardêa's Prophetess, Ilisclimë, his ultimate enemy. It was this single-minded drive that both drove him to the peak of his power and brought about his downfall, as he picked the wrong side to back in the Dissent of Shadows. When his ally Edwin Bellikos was slain by Feyd and the attempted coup against the Red Queen defeated, Dendural's destruction became the new focus for the Red Empire's greatest general. Thinking himself safe in Vargoth's tower of ice in the frozen wastes of Lamira, Dendural foolishly let his guard down when Ilisclimë was delivered into his hands under circumstances he should have investigated more carefully. Feyd's scheming had brought the Prophetess well-armed into Dendural's keeping, and in an opportune moment, she struck down her arch-nemesis. With the loss of their leader, the Church of Vargoth was thrown into utter confusion, and Ilisclimë not only escaped, but returned soon after with a combined force of Yuardêans, Ravans, and the Quivenantè of the Calacis to forever destroy Vargoth's power in Therin.

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Dirm Diirje II, King of the North Kingdom - A quiet, reserved figure, many in the Kingdom, even in Tirin Kal, regularly forgot King Dirm II's name, and he vanished entirely from his people with the death of his beloved eldest son at the hands of Feyd. Allowing the Calacis to nearly take over the North Kingdom entirely in his misery, Dirm II is also thought to have hidden the legendary blade Krisayegrim somewhere in Tirin Kal, to wait for a day that it was needed once again to defend the Kingdom. His death marked the beginning of the end for the Diirjes' rule over the North Kingdom.

...

Never a strong man and only a nephew of the King, Dirm was never expected to inherit the throne. Content in scholarly pursuits and having no great skill in battle, nor a mind for coins, nor even much popularity among the nobles, it was the greatest of surprises when those ahead of him in the royal bloodline were rapidly extinguished in only a few years, and he became King Dirm the Second. Much of the actual governing over the Kingdom he left to trusted advisors, wise veterans of his uncle's retinue, while the war with the Red Queen he left to his fiercely popular heir Ethaen.

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Ethaen Diirje, the Golden Prince - The eldest son and heir of King Dirm II, Ethaen was hailed as the greatest scion of the royal family ever born. Immensely valiant and honorable, beloved by his subjects, fellow nobles, and family alike, the young prince rallied the beleaguered forces of the North Kingdom and its allies, becoming the single greatest threat to the Red Empire in hundreds of years of war. Instructed in battle by the Rault Aladant Oswin Gonden, himself, the prince led an army against the Red Empire's forces in northern Jiran, sending them fleeing in a battered mess. All his potential was left unfulfilled at last, however, as he perished at the blade of the Red Queen's greatest servant, Feyd.

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Sadiir Graem IV, King of the South Kingdom - As wily a man as ever sat the throne of the sands, King Sadiir IV was one of the Red Queen's most exasperating foes in the closing years of the Queen's Age. Directing his realm's war against the forces of the Red Tower and never sacrificing so much as a league of the desert to his foe, he outmaneuvered and outthought some of the greatest warlike minds of the Red Empire, including Edwin Bellikos, the Arch-lich Aga'mannixx, and Feyd himself. As adept at ruling his people as defending his lands, he is remembered as one of the finest of the Graem Kings. Upon the death of the Red Queen, however, King Sadiir lost at last. Feyd abandoned the Red Empire and, with a loyal following, entered the South Kingdom and murdered the last Graem King, seizing the crown for himself.

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Ilisclimë Daughter of Miliriel, the Prophetess of Yuardêa - Born an unremarkable woman in the High Elven land of Iniuth, Ilisclimë underwent many trials and hardships on her path to achieving her destiny as the goddess Yuardêa's herald and chief servant. While she was the leader of the following of a goddess of the Six, Ilisclimë is an immensely popular and beloved figure the world over, already the brave and wise heroine of many a song and tale. Ilisclimë finally perished from an assassin's poisoned arrow soon after destroying the last sinister shades of her bitter enemy, the Arch-lich Aga'mannixx.

Ilisclimë befriended the last priest of Yuardêa, Iliwë, and began walking the path of her destiny without even knowing it. The sage Iliwë knew what the young woman's fate would be, perhaps from the whisperings of the Goddess Herself, and subtly guided her on the way to becoming a priestess of Yuardêa. The two of them began discussing the beauty of nature and many issues involving religion. Ilisclimë was shocked to find one day that the harmless sage had been brutally murdered. In his house, for reasons that at the time she could not understand, she found that he had left a note, and two pendants, for her. She took these, and, deciding that she had a thirst for adventure, she tracked down the murderers to a small sect of what she would later learn was the Eludinites, and eventually directed the local constabulary there. Only upon the capture of the murderers, who took their motives to their graves, did Ilisclimë realize what she had just done - completed the quest to become a priestess!

Ilisclimë became a veritable amateur archaeologist, searching ruins in Jiran for what she could find of the bygone days of her religion. It was not easy - contending with looters, ancient traps, and demons still imprisoned in former Eludinite strongholds, she was faced with what she was sure to take her life many times, but somehow, her wits were able to save her each time. The most important of these encounters was in the great temple of Tristion, where she was caught by a freedom fighter by the name of Gilwë, who was searching for loot to pay off an ally to stop a shipload of Odessi eggs from becoming slaves. Gilwë was about to kill her when she managed to charm her way out of a certain and very painful death. Instead, Gilwë decided to travel with her and, some years later, married her.

Gilwë and Ilisclimë were thereafter an almost inseparable team, Gilwë fighting as a mercenary outlaw to causes he deemed noble to support his wife's archaeological studies (Gilwë, unknowingly, became Yuardêa's then one and only knight). Together, in the year that the legendary Queen Iliaen of the North Kingdom died, they became involved in an adventure that started with the Red Empire's redoubled attack on what was then called Iliaen Kal. In the span of a few days, Ilisclimë nearly died, was revived, was brought the white staff of the imprisoned lich Tau'kirin by a sorceress apparently named after Ilisclimë's mother, and was delivered to the dying High Priestess of Rava in Tirin Kal. There, she was ordained as the new High Priestess of Yuardêa.

The next day, she set out with the new High Priest of Rava to avert an utter catastrophe that was brewing in Tirin Kal. All of the pieces having fallen into place, however, a true miracle happened: Ilisclimë ascended to become the first Prophetess since the days of the Dawn Elves. She summoned a gray Dragon, defeated the Mad Lord Ansqar, and played an instrumental role in saving the North Kingdom from collapse and civil war (just as the Red Empire was resuming its attack).

Ilisclimë returned to Iniuth and found that she possessed charisma that she never imagined she had before, and many flocked to her call.

...

She ensured her status as a living legend by striking down the infamous and loathed High Priest of Vargoth, Marcille Dendural, in the heart of his power. Not long after, in the time of upheaval and chaos following the death of the Red Queen, the Paladin Gilwë, her chief servant, saved many of the Dwarves of Gardran in miraculous fashion, sneaking them from under the noses of the Goblin invaders to found the sanctuary of Glacier Vale.

The fighting lasted only two days, with the fiercest and decisive fighting coming in the second, when Dendural, overcome by the desire for vengeance against Ilisclimë, her father's killer, led a recklessly vicious charge at the center of the High Elven battle lines. Even though priestesses of Yuardêa and High Elven archers, having scaled the cliffs of Kral-Gorthak to gain the high ground against the foe, raked her troops with fire, lightning, and arrows, the Prophetess's soldiers were shattered beneath the fury of Dendural's charge, and for a moment it seemed that the Red army's foolhardy move might prove triumphant, if incredibly costly to both sides. Gilwë, leading the High Elven cavalry, bravely drove into Dendural's flank before she could reach Ilisclimë's position, however, and though it did not stop the Red charge, it did slow them and force them to fight on two fronts.

Ignoring the distraction, Dendural hewed down many of Barondar's warriors when they formed a protective wall of shields before their leaders, wounding the Dwarf-lord himself, and briefly crossed blades with Ilisclimë. The High Elven cavalry broke in through the thinning Red troops behind their leader, however, and Gilwë, with other mounted archers, pierced Dendural with countless arrows. The former Warlord's armor deflected most of the shafts, but enough found flesh that she finally collapsed. Ilisclimë took her prisoner and spared her life, hoping to convince Dendural to surrender, but at that moment Aga'mannnixx itself descended upon them, scattering the soldiers of the Senate and Empire alike in dread fear.

Through sheer force of will, Gilwë managed to keep the High Elven cavalry from retreating, staying at his wife's side, so the Arch-lich blasted him aside, along with most of the Senate's horsemen. Ilisclimë and Barondar summoned all their power and fought the Arch-lich, and the rock plains shook and flashed with the force of their contest. The surviving High Elven soldiers bore away the barely alive Paladin and the prisoner Lillith Dendural, fleeing the scene of the battle in abject terror. The Prophetess and the Dwarf-lord forced the Arch-lich back with every exchange, until it finally drew up at the doors of the Red Tower and retreated no more. Of the final blows of magic traded at that penultimate moment, no living person can claim to have personally witnessed. Barondar perished, and Ilisclimë was grievously wounded, but she destroyed that last shade of her greatest foe. When the Arch-lich was finally utterly defeated, the force of its death rattle tore the great doors of the Red Tower from their hinges and flung them across Kral-Gorthak, crashing into the ground with such force that they remain half-buried where they struck.

Whether the Prophetess entered the Red Tower afterwards or merely turned away to rejoin the army of the Senate is unknown. A few sharp-eyed High Elves told Gilwë later that they had seen Ilisclimë's figure limping toward them, until an arrow flew from the Red army's fleeing ranks and struck her, felling her instantly.

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Barondar kaz Skadrael, Master of Dwarves - Chief of the Skadrael and wisest of the Dwarven scholars, Barondar is the one who discovered the secret passage by which the survivors of the Goblin invasion escaped to safety. Summoning his friend Gilwë when he made the discovery, the two led the Dwarven refugees and many Yuardêans to safety in the land that became known as Glacier Vale. Also long renowned as one of the most powerful magic-users in the world, Barondar perished helping the Prophetess Ilisclimë defeat a 'splinter' of the evil Arch-lich, Aga'mannixx. It is widely agreed that without his help, however, Ilisclimë herself would surely have been defeated by the monster and it would have regained all its terrible power. Barondar most renowned deed, however, was the crafting of the wondrous airship Ironwing, a great ensorcelled flying machine that now hovers protectively over Glacier Vale, an ever-present reminder that the works of the wisest of Dwarves continue to watch over his people.

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Keino Wakanabe, Empress of the East Empire - A proud, even arrogant, ruler, the last of the Wakanabe rulers of the East Empire, Empress Keino sat the Saffron Throne for over thirty years before she was overthrown in the tumult following the death of the Red Queen. Refusing to aid the other foes of the Red Empire or accept their help, it was perhaps Empress Keino's pride that contributed most to the fall of the Dwarven halls in Gardran. The fleets of the Empire could have done much against the Goblin Tribes, but the Empress chose to remain largely independent. This decision did ultimately mean that the East Empire survived in better shape than the other Human realms, even with the internal struggle that resulted in Empress Keino losing her place on the Saffron Throne. Traveling to the North Kingdom with her remaining followers rather than suffer remaining in a homeland that no longer wanted her, Keino was welcomed into the retinue of Ander the Dark, and became the most renowned and accomplished of his allies in the civil war of that realm. All of the land formerly governed by those nobles who erringly supported the squabbling Diirje heirs was handed over into now-Lady Wakanabe's keeping, making her the most powerful of the nobles in Ander's kingdom.

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[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-21-2007 @ 04:40 PM).]

The Red Tower was sealed shut by the binding sorcery of the slain Red Queen; the Goblin Tribes marshalled under Tanis Bloodeye to destroy the self-proclaimed first Dendural King of the deserts, Feyd, and the Goddesses and the Nommèdetè moved fast to regain their strength in the chaos-stricken lands of the shattered Red Empire. The North Kingdom's monarch had perished an impotent old man, and his famed heir, the Golden Prince, was dead. The throne was hotly contested between his two younger brothers and nephew. The Empress of the Saffron Throne in the east was overthrown by her own generals, and the halls of the Dwarves of Gardran were lost to the Goblins. Terror and lawlessness now ruled Therin, held at bay only by such feared or respected leaders as survived the final death throes of the Queen's Age.

King Feyd attempted to recruit a cadre of magic-users to aid his army, but this proved a fruitless pursuit. Those with the gift fled the deserts when they learned of Feyd's plan, finding the thought of serving a tyrant, traitor, and usurper repulsive. Becoming desperate as his people grew more rebellious and fearful at his inability to bolster his armies against Bloodeye's approaching hordes, Feyd turned to his chief advisor, Eramus, who suggested that an organization be founded that would seek to find new weapons to bring against Tanis Bloodeye's horde. Feyd agreed.

A collection of tinkerers, dreamers, scholars, and inventors was gathered and indoctrinated into a fearsome secret society, with Feyd as its leader. The names of the Graem kings were forgotten and their government and armies reorganized to best serve the new King and his 'advisors.' The Guild was born. As Tanis was suddenly drawn into internal squabbles among the Tribes and their progress towards the deserts stalled, the Guild began its work, bringing industry and the rule of logic and science to the deserts. In time, Feyd passed over much of his power to Eramus and the other thinkers of the Guild, and was subsumed into its ranks; still their leader, but ruling from the shadows rather than a throne. He was King Feyd Dendural I to his subjects, but not to the Guild.

When the Goblins finally brought themselves against the Guild, Tanis Bloodeye himself led the ferocious charge at the first of the defending forts in his path. From the rampants, unaware even that he was aiming for his former friend, Feyd raised his rifle and fired a single shot through the head of the Goblin in the vanguard. Tanis was dead, and the union of Tribes he had dreamt and bled for disintegrated in days. After a vicious push from the Guild's armies that left countless Goblins slaughtered across the dunes, they retreated in defeat and disarray. Even as news of the short war spread across a shocked Therin and the Calacis took counsel on it, Feyd was betrayed in his one moment of greatest weakness by his own creation. Resistance to the Emperor's rule had always been greatest among his fellow Jade Elves, who despised him as a treacherous monster. One who thought as such infiltrated the ranks of the Guild and gained the leader's confidence. When Feyd turned to this 'friend' in sorrow and despair over Bloodeye's death, he received a nearly mortal bullet wound as solace. While he recovered, the Guild apparently seized almost complete power in the nation, dissolving the South Kingdom entirely. When he finished recovering, Feyd is said to have departed from the Guild, leaving his magic sword with Eramus. This is the official story, though there are also rumors that Feyd died of his wound or was murdered by the Guild.

The former South Kingdom became a collection of provinces tightly controlled by the Guild, which first embraced anonymity after Feyd's disappearance. The leaders of the Guild are known casually only as 'the ruling party;' they have no official name, and their identities are a complete mystery. The Dura Maranel and Elan Dirin were assembled into their current organization, and remaining dissentors against the Guild along with Feyd and the Graems' few remaining loyalists were jailed or executed. It is now known that Ander the Dark had planned to preemptively attack the Guild in this relatively unstable time, but was stopped or convinced to wait by unknown influences. The Guild began to grow in popularity as they used their technologies and power to improve the quality of life for citizens.

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[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 09:17 PM).]

Here is what little is known of the Guild, the mysterious organization that usurped the Graem Kings of the deserts and went on to take over much of the world in the Last War, as well as the Guild's public government and servants.

One of the first changes made by the Guild once they took over the South Kingdom was the formation of the Dura Maranel ect Esgoth and Elan Dirin ect Sigoth (the Steel Fist of the King's Wrath and the Noble Shield of the King's Mercy, respectively) forces from the soldiers and civil officials of the nation.

The Noble Shield of the King's Mercy - Broadly, the Elan Dirin is responsible for enforcing the Guild's laws and edicts in its territory, upholding justice, and defending civilians. Members of the Elan Dirin are garbed in white greatcoats (see note on Guilder greatcoats below) to represent the purity and honor of their station. The Elan Dirin is organized into numerous largely autonomous groups, called Sects, which operate in specific regions - not all of which are under even nominal Guild control - and which all have a different color scheme for their uniforms under their greatcoats. The Elan Dirin Sects in Tir, for instance, wear dark red under their coats to symbolize the blood shed by both sides in the fighting over the city during the closing days of the Last War. The elite Sect of Elan Dirin based in the Guild province of Canthana, on the other hand, dress all in white, marking their status as guardians of Feyd's birthplace.

The Elan Dirin do not draw distinctions between citizens of the Guild and citizens of other nations - they try to help everyone they can who is not openly hostile to the Guild and its agents. The Elan Dirin are also trained in the ways of war, and in fact their officers hold authority over those of analogous rank in the Dura Maranel, in certain circumstances. They are instructed to above all minimize casualties and property damage when fighting, and in fact are encouraged to attempt to peacefully negotiate with the enemy or retreat when odds are against them. All Guild diplomats are part of the Elan Dirin.

The Sects of the Elan Dirin recruit from only the most honest, incorruptible, and honorable candidates. Those few who make even this initial cut are subjected to further rigorous screening procedures to ensure that they will live up to the high standards of the organization. Loyalty to the Guild is only a small part of this; all members of the Elan Dirin are expected to follow the precepts of Clean Habit and Noble Conduct. They should at all times abstain from drinking, gambling, prostitution, and other vices, and keep themselves physically clean and healthy. They are expected to set a good example for their fellow members by never lying, cheating, or abusing their powers. As difficult as it is to enter the ranks of the Elan Dirin, it is all too easy to be removed from them. Even a hint of breach of conduct will result in a thorough investigation by the ruling party itself - any violation at all can warrant being immediately and permanently expelled from the Elan Dirin, and more severe crimes can result in prison time or even summary public execution.

The Steel Fist of the King's Wrath - The soldiers of the Guild that conquered much of the world in the Last War partly retained the doctrine and organization of the South Kingdom's armies. The Guild made numerous changes and alterations to the military that Feyd had commandeered, even as they reinforced and retrained it. The South Kingdom's army was already considered the finest in the world, superior even to the forces of the Senate in Iniuth. The Graem Kings were among the few rulers in the world who were willing to pay for a trained, well-equipped standing army even in peace time. The Guild's changes only made these soldiers deadlier, more loyal, and more effective in battle, forming the body of fighting men and women called the Dura Maranel.

The Dura Maranel is composed mostly of volunteers, who form the professional standing army of the Guild. Whereas discipline and loyalty in the Elan Dirin is assured by quality of recruits alone, the soldiers of the Guild are further kept in line by the dreaded Corennari (Guardians of Honor). The Corennari are men and women hand-picked by members of the ruling party itself to complement and assist the officers of the Dura Maranel by enforcing obedience among the common soldiers. The Corennari used whatever means necessary to ensure there was no risk of desertion or insurrection in the ranks, and that loyalty to the Guild and its doctrine was paramount. They had the power of life and death over the soldiers of the Dura Maranel, and there was no large-scale battle in the Last War where they did not judiciously use this power. The Corennari themselves were often veteran fighters themselves, but were not typically expected to engage in battle. On those rare occasions when Corennari were harmed or killed by their own troops, the Guild was vicious in exacting retribution - hundreds of soldiers could be imprisoned or even executed, if they did not give up those responsible.

The Dura Maranel is subdivided into three echelons - Atathes Vethis, Atathes Elris, and Atathes Marthis (Army of the Foot, Army of the Wheel, and Army of the Sail, respectively). Atathesi Vethis and Elris focus on battle on land - the former encompasses all infantry forces, while the latter is composed of support troops and Combat Automatons. Atathes Marthis is made up of soldiers and Combat Automatons stationed on ships - sailors and the ships themselves are not technically considered part of the Dura Maranel. The three Atathesi are ultimately controlled by a single set of high officers, themselves subordinate to the ruling party of the Guild.

Regardless of which echelon they are part of, all soldiers of the Dura Maranel are thoroughly indoctrinated in tactics and the Guild's overall strategy for war. The ruling party and the high officers rarely make tactical decisions - it is expected that the soldiers on the field of combat will decide for themselves how best to achieve their objectives and, more importantly, best serve the interests of the Guild, whatever their orders, while the Corennari and Lagos officers regulate them. Despite often having the advantage of numbers over its foes, the Guild generally preferred decentralized warfare to outright destruction. They often worked to wear down enemies' fighting spirit, and fomented political subversion to decrease civilian morale until the natives of a region rose up in favor of the Guild and helped expel, capture, or destroy enemy armies. There were few times when the Guild contemplated battles of attrition, and fewer still when such fighting was actually attempted. The Battles of Tirin Kal and Darkhall are two such instances of the Guild employing this style of warfare, and neither was considered a Guild victory. When they did choose to draw up battle lines and simply slug it out blow for blow with an enemy army, Guild troops would lace the land with barbed wire and dig out intricate networks of trenches, using machine gun and artillery fire to rake enemy positions. Since the enemy often countered with the exact same tactics, such battles could drag on for years at a time, with staggering numbers of casualties and complete devestation of the land being fought over for no appreciable gain on either side.

Each of the echelons of the Dura Maranel is organized by Lagosi (a word indicating a group of roughly 1,000 soldiers in the armies of the Graem kings, though the Guild uses the term more loosely), each Lagos being formed of a body of recruits from a particular city or region. Thus, the 57th Canthanes Lagos Atathes Elris would be the 57th Lagos drawn from Canthana, serving in Atathes Elris. The various Lagosi varied greatly in size, since each was composed of all the volunteers from a particular area over a certain period of time. Canthana was remarkable for the number of Lagosi it provided to the Dura Maranel - 70 in all, by the war's end. This reflects the combination of high population and, even moreso, tremendous zeal towards the Guild's cause still very much in evidence there. The Canthana troops rarely worked well with those from other regions - they were so much more fanatical and strict about regulations that less patriotic soldiers found them irritating. Rivalries and disagreements between Lagosi were a common, though minor, discipline problem of the Dura Maranel, but as the troops tended to operate in small groups anyway the Guild took no major efforts to deal with it.

Each Lagos has a commanding officer called a Decos, elected for life by his or her troops once their training is complete (though the Corennari have the authority to remove any Decos from their station and select a replacement of their own choosing), and possessing near-total authority over their Lagos. A Decos has a much greater allotment of independence than any analogous officer on the OP side, though always under the watchful eyes of the Corennar assigned to the Lagos. Each Decos devises a uniform (besides the ubiquitous brown greatcoat), unit organization, and motto for their Lagos. The 57th Canthanes Lagos Atathes Elris, for instance, chose the reverent motto 'Feydë est Canthana inden goth,' going so far as to paint it out beneath the Lagos marking on their Automatons. Every Lagos has at least one Corennar assigned to it by the ruling party.

Most feared of the Dura Maranel are the Nazannari, (Guardians of the Guild). The deadliest servants of the Guild, Nazannari are hand-picked by the ruling party like the Corennari, but for a very different purpose. Armed with the most powerful weapons in the Guild's arsenal and possessing the authority to commandeer entire Lagosi (unless another Nazannar or a Corennar intervenes) for their own goals, the Nazannari are the most fanatical devotees of the Guild, thought to possibly be members of the ruling party itself. A Nazannar is sanctioned to execute whoever they feel is necessary in the pursuit of their missions, with the sole exception of members of the ruling party itself.

Culled from only the most experienced and zealous veterans of the Lagosi, the Nazannari operate even more completely outside the military hierarchy than the Corennari. They are entrusted with duties too sensitive or crucial to the ruling party to be given to even the best found among the Lagosi. While they are most infamously thought to be called upon to perform assassinations for the ruling party, they are known to have undergone many other varied kinds of missions for their masters, not all of which are so morally questionable. Among those widely suspected to have been murdered by Nazannari are Lady Raine Aelfscylld (head was blown nearly clean off in the Battle of Darkhall by a sniper at such a range to make it unlikely the killer was anyone but a Nazannar with a Lightning rifle), Lord Curth of Soundinghall (an extremely talented swordsman, nevertheless cut down while engaging the Dura Maranel in hand-to-hand combat in the Battle of Darkhall - more debatable: he may have only happened to come against a Corennar or some unusually skilled foe in the fighting, whether he was specifically targeted for assassination or not, or he may have simply suffered bad luck), Aeran Diirje (there are many people who believe she was poisoned somehow, rather than dying of the White Plague), Feyd (many believe his disappearance after being wounded by a traitor was simply due to the Guild taking advantage of his weakness to overthrow him), and even the ruling party of the Guild (there are a few people in the Guild and OP who believe the ruling party itself was overthrown by the Nazannari and Corennari at some point, explaining their baffling preference for anonymity). No Nazannari have ever been known to be killed or captured by the OP, and even the highest ranks of the Guild know next to nothing about them. The Nazannari seem to possess many uncanny and mysterious powers, and many seemingly impossible deeds have been attributed to them.

The uniform of Atathes Vethis is a brown greatcoat. Appropriate insignias of Lagos rank are sewn onto the sleeves of this garment. A soldier's Decos dictates the rest of the uniform for their particular Lagos. Soldiers of Atathes Elris often wear brown, one-piece uniforms with a great number of pockets, making their mechanic work easier. When working as engineers in the field, they may dress in greatcoats so as not to stick out in the ranks. A soldier of Athathes Marthis dresses in a dark blue jacket with white cap, shirt, and pants. Corennari are marked by their Lightbrand swords. If the Nazannari have a uniform of any kind, it is unknown.

War Equipment of the Dura Maranel - The army of the Guild took full advantage of their technological superiority over the enemy to make each soldier as deadly as possible for any given situation. A greater emphasis was placed on the living element of the army, however, and the soldiers of the Dura Maranel do not rely on their advanced and exotic tools and weapons to the extent that some among the OP have since.

Guild Greatcoat - The trademark of a Guild soldier, the greatcoat is a long-sleeved coat that hangs down to the ankles of the soldier. When fully buttoned up in front, it completely covers the soldier except for their feet, neck, and head. All are mass-produced in the same fashion, and they come in only two official colors - brown and white. The greatcoat eliminates the need for any other clothes, except boots and socks. Minor enchantments are laid over each one, with the effect that they do not obstruct the wearer's movements or make a sound. The wearer is also shielded from extremes of temperature to an extent, preventing hot or cold climates from affecting the soldier's effectiveness or even personal comfort, although the spells do not have the power to guard against extreme conditions, like the fire of a flamethrower or the chill of an ice elemental. The greatcoat also fits itself magically to its wearer, and does not wear out like mundane clothes. It is even reputed that Guild greatcoats will deflect glancing fire from small arms, though few are willing to test this rumor. Guild greatcoats were favored prizes of the battlefield to enemy soldiers, though few people who were captured while wearing one could expect kind treatment from Guild soldiers.

King's Wrath Rifle - Overall the most widely-used weapon among the infantry of the Dura Maranel, though not issued to the troops until the closing years of the war, the King's Wrath had the longest range and greatest accuracy of any commonly-used small arm in the war. Most important to the troops was its trustworthiness in battle. The King's Wrath could weather impressively bad conditions without malfunctioning, and generally required far less maintenance than most weapons. It was also semi-automatic instead of single-shot, boasting six rounds per clip of ammunition.

Lightbrand Sword - A weapon issued to each of the Corennar, each Lightbrand is said to contain a piece of the enchanted steel of King Feyd's personal blade, melted down and reforged into the shining swords of the Guild's enforcers. It is rumored that something of Feyd's fighting spirit lives on in each of the Lightbrands - whether true or not, no one has ever faced a Corennar in close combat and lived to tell the tale.

Lightning Rifle - The Lightning rifle (not be confused with the class of weapons called thundercasters, which actually shoot lightning bolts) is the single deadliest handheld weapon ever created in quantity, and is the weapon most associated with the Nazannari. Over seven feet in length, the Lightning earned its name from its combination of unmatched range, accuracy, and stopping power - those it kills often have no more warning of their impending death than if they were struck by a bolt of lightning out of a clear sky. Crafted with a combination of arcane magic and equally arcane science by the most expert of the Guild's weaponmakers, each Lightning is the culmination of many months of work and decades of training and experience on the part of its makers. The Lightning's maximum range is unknown, but it is believed that, if its wielder's aim could be guided somehow by an accomplice near the target, it could put a shell through an inch-wide bull's-eye from six miles away. It certainly possesses a greater accurate range than the actual visible range of any normal person. The Lightning's exact measurements are 2.15"/35. Its ammunition consists of shells of spell-forged steel, each one custom-made by its Nazannar or at their instructions. Thanks to its heavily-enchanted, largely automated mechanisms, it can be reloaded in less than a minute by a skilled user. It is thought that when a Nazannar decides to carry out an assassination with a Lightning rifle, they will make a shell specifically empowered to defeat whatever protection the particular target might have. High Elven general Gwaithë Malyn was shot through the left eye and instantly killed by a Lightning shell in the 31st year of the Dark Age - all the more remarkable since the shell pierced the magic protections over him as well as the armor of his sealed Automaton transport from miles away.

Doomfist Combat Automaton - A weapon somewhat incongruous with the Guild's tendency towards subtlety and precision, the Doomfist is an immense killing machine of terrific power and durability. Looming some fifteen feet tall, a Doomfist is forty-five feet long and over twenty feet wide, weighing in at a staggering 350 tons. Each Doomfist bears an intimidating and awe-inspiring arsenal - four .302 caliber machine guns, one on each corner of the 'deck' of the Automaton, three 60mm autocannons firing from inside the hull on the flanks and rear, an immobile 100mm cannon set in the front of the hull, and finally a turreted 220mm main cannon with a coaxial 85mm gun. This armament is supplemented by the Automaton's crew, who are armed with small arms and grenades. With the aid of powerful enchantments, the Doomfist is actually far more maneuverable than its size would suggest - it could cross wide enough bridges, for instance, despite its weight, and it could move at a terrific pace (nearly 20 mph). The Automaton bears 300mm-thick armor, every inch of steel imbued with immensely powerful protective spells and decorated by the makers with Lagos sigils, praise of the Guild, and some more playful or enigmatic markings. Forming the cornerstone of any large-scale Dura Maranel battle line, the Doomfist's near-invincibility combined with the unapproachable might of its weaponry made its appearance on a battlefield a truly terrifying experience for enemies of the Guild. Capable of blasting even the most well-fortified enemy positions into rubble and shrugging off even the most withering artillery barrages, the Doomfist is nevertheless begrudged by many Decosi for its sheer cost. Only three have ever been constructed, each the result of thousands of man hours of work, with many of the more arcane pieces of technology requiring attention from the Guild's best experts and mages. None of them were destroyed or even significantly damaged throughout the entire Last War, though one was briefly captured by the OP in the chaos of the final hours of the siege of Tirin Kal (it was later reclaimed by a Nazannar and a team of elite Dura Maranel operatives), contributing to their reputation as the ultimate war machines, but all three are currently out of service and will probably remain that way, as most of the Decosi who did favor their use have since retired.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 09:14 PM).]

Here is described the Old Powers, the decaying and corrupt alliance that is nevertheless the world's best, last bastion against global domination from the Guild.

Organization - The OP's structure is very unwieldy, and even its basic organization can change from year to year. They are not a truly unified front; only their opposition to the Guild holds the alliance together at all. Otherwise, power is intensely decentralized, with most of the power belonging to the leaders of the component nations.

Unlike the Guild, which ruthlessly, if non-violently, regulates and reorganizes all its territories to conform to the standard doctrine1, the overarching government of the OP is relatively uninvolved in the affairs of the average citizen. Quarrels between the member states over countless issues are common - the largest political issues of the day are the economic and scientific stagnation, racial prejudice and discrimination, and accusations of widespread corruption in the higher echelons of the government. The latter have been raised in particular against the current Arbitrator, Lustriel Endraluth, recently, due to concerns that she is abusing her position to unfairly further the careers of her family and furthermore got her post only by riding her surname - her mother is Dame Draena Endraluth, knight champion of Ander the Dark and one of the most beloved figures of his legend.

The OP's problems are compounded by the image, if not the fact, that they are incapable of outdoing or even matching the Guild in anything but outright war. The constant infighting between the various factions and widespread civic problems have jaded most Elders when it comes to the government. The term 'Elder' itself is often considered to be a misnomer, except when used solely in contrast to 'Guilders' - the majority of people in the OP identify themselves by region or member state far more than as a citizen of the OP. Even among many people who acknowledge that the rule of the OP is necessary and does more good than harm, there is little respect or love for the government itself. The politicians of the OP are often stereotyped as selfish, greedy fools out to ransack the people for as much as they can get away with, taking advantage of the reputations of people like Ander the Dark to justify their own positions. So, the people of the former North Kingdom still consider themselves loyal subjects of the Darks before citizens of the OP, the people of Iniuth still trust in the Senate first and the greater government second, and so on.

The only constant political office so far is that of Arbitrator. Otherwise, the hierarchy and the relative power of the various positions within it are in constant flux, as the balance of power shifts between the member states. In past times, things were far more stable, or at least the fluctuations were not so disruptive, but the stagnation and growing poverty is exacerbating these problems.

The Arbitrator is an elected official, nominated by the people and voted into office or re-elected every five years by the Council of Old Powers, or OP Council. The Arbitrator, in theory, is responsible for getting the various member nations to work together harmoniously. They are not technically a leader of the people or the leader of the OP. There are no powers of office explicitly given to the Arbitrator, beyond a vague statement in the OP Charter to the effect that they may do whatever they feel necessary to get their job done. In effect, the Arbitrator is a largely powerless figurehead. Lustriel Endraluth, in particular, is criticized for simply acting as the Senate's mouthpiece on many occasions. It should be noted, however, that even during Ander the Dark's short stay in the office, before he resigned in utter disgust, he was regularly criticized for doing little to assimilate the Goblins into the OP and for turning a blind eye to the Calacis's propaganda against Elves and mages.

There are only two cities in all of the OP's territory that are governed by it directly - Soundinghall and Tir. Tir is often considered to be in a class all its own, however, and the local officials there operate with almost complete autonomy. Soundinghall is the meeting place of the OP Council but is currently even more run-down and poverty-stricken than Tir, as it lacks Tir's unique trading opportunities. The city is often characterized as a thick shell of urban decay and petty crime around the small core of the government center, where politicians come to argue.

The former East Empire, North Kingdom, Senate, Gardran, and Lamira all generally govern themselves. Each retains its own leaders, who represent them at the OP Council, and they claim power no differently than before the Last War. The remaining territory of the former North Kingdom, for instance, is represented and ruled by Queen Senay Dark I. Orcant is ruled by Sslith Fireclaw. Lamira is not represented at the OP Council because of their problems organizing a government. Fireclaw is a devout member of the Calacis and despises the Elves, often fighting anything the Senate's representative tries to get done. Dark rarely attends Council meetings anymore, having inherited her grandfather Ander's contempt for the politics of the OP.

History - ...

With the King's Peace established, King Ander went on to organize the Old Powers from the alliance he had established against the Guild in the 41st year of the Dark Age, elected to office as the first Arbitrator for five years before stepping down and retiring to a quiet private life.

...

The OP continues to exist only by relying on fear of the Guild to hold itself together. And even this once-powerful unifying force is beginning to wear away, as people see that the Guild successfully abolishes racism, fosters altruistic practices, protects its citizens, and generally does what a good government is supposed to, where the OP does not. Tir is probably the greatest achievement and symbol of the OP's positive power, and the Guild has done as much for the city as anyone. When people learn that the discontented Goblin Tribes, in defiance of the OP, have wormed their way into the heart of the city and are essentially building up a modernized army right under the nose of the police force, it will no doubt mark a second end for Tirin Kal.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-18-2007 @ 09:12 PM).]

Gartrim - The most widely-spoken language in the world, Gartrim, is a tongue spoken originally by the Goblin Tribes, and is the lingua franca of Therin. Because it is relatively easy to learn, compared to the more Elven-influenced languages, and yet complex enough to communicate effectively, Gartrim is often used as a diplomatic and trade language. All quoted texts and dialogue given in English in roleplays can be assumed to be Gartrim. Examples of untranslated Gartrim can be seen in the names of Goblins (with the notable exception of Tanis Bloodeye). Examples include Kroge ('Fight' or, more generally, 'Violence'), Shrughmek ('Despoiler'), Klazag ('Ill-born,' a common name for female Goblins), and Kurdagz ('Hellfire'). In the days of the King's Peace, Gartrim has been instated as the official state language of the Old Powers.

Lordraem - The dominant of the two native languages of the North Kingdom, Lordraem was generally used only in conversation by nobles and the educated, and to name cities. While many Lordraem words and the grammatical rules of the language remained unchanged since the days before the Dawn Elves enslaved Humanity, a substantial part of Lordraem's vocabulary is influenced by Gartrim and Elenrim. Most Northerners had a reasonably good grasp of Lordraem, but Gartrim is generally preferred by commoners and merchants for everyday conversations. After the Last War, in the days of the King's Peace, it has fallen almost entirely out of general use, although there is a ridiculed movement among pretentious writers to use it exclusively in their works. Examples of Lordraem can be seen in the names of many cities and towns in the North Kingdom, including Tirin Kal ('Whitestone City') and Mirgard ('Eastguard'), and also in the surnames of many noble families, like Aelfscylld ('Elfshield') and Demain ('Singer'), and finally the first names of the Diirjes, such as Ethaen ('Promise'), Dirm ('Dragon'), and Segram ('Bright-eyed').

Arnet - The less commonly-spoken native language of the North, Arnet (pronounced 'ar-nay') was most famously used by the first Human high priest of the Tribunal, who used it in writing up the original plans for the organization of the religion. While many of the terms he used have since been translated to Gartrim, some, like Sancris ('Holy-mind'), remain unchanged. Arnet is still used in the ceremonies of the Tribunal, in noted defiance of many other organizations who use Elenrim for similar occasions. Further examples of Arnet include laquelle ('water'), Calacis ('Goodfaith'), Nommèdet ('Nameless'), and dant ('lord').

Elenrim - One of the three languages spoken by the Dawn Elves, Elenrim was once the most widely-used language in the world, and its influence on most other languages is obvious. Elenrim was spoken by the people of Narth, who were the most numerous of the three Dawn Elven kindreds, and rose up against the Queen Lûth to put the Emperor on her throne. The Emperor banned Kalrim and Gîlrim from official and legal use, so the only experience most mortals had with any Dawn Elven language was with Elenrim alone. Elenrim had a less strict sentence order than the other two Dawn Elven tongues, and had grammatical gender. Some examples of Elenrim include Narth ('Wanderer'), Helseth Bericë ('Far-seer' 'Little Crown'), Endraluth ('Sword-singer'), Ilisclimë (contraction of Ilis dil Climë, 'Lord of the Little Sea'), Gilwë (masculine form of Gil, 'First'), and Aëril ('Strength').

Kalrim - One of the three languages spoken by the Dawn Elves, Kalrim was the tongue of the people of Kili, unique among the Dawn Elves for their dark hair and total disdain for the natural world. Kalrim was softer and more melodic in sound than Elenrim or Gîlrim, and had a very strict sentence structure. Kalrim was notable for the ambiguity and double meanings many of its words possessed as spoken by Kili's people. They were very fond of playing with words and posing riddles, to the extent that many phrases could have very different meanings in different contexts. The Deep Elves, who descended from the people of Kili, speak the language in a more straightforward fashion. Examples of Kalrim include Danathel ('Star Blade') and Anya ('Beautiful').

Gîlrim - One of the three languages spoken by the Dawn Elves, Gîlrim was spoken by the people of Gîl, including Queen Lûth. The original tongue of the Crimson Throne's court, most reliable historical texts written by the Dawn Elves are in Gîlrim. Gîlrim was notable for being more gutteral than Kalrim or Elenrim. Despite being repressed by the Emperor later, many Gîlrim words remain widely in use in modern times, though it is no longer spoken as a language in and of itself. -rim (a suffix adding the meaning of 'language of _____'), Jiran ('Dawnlands'), Alêna ('without fear') Yorûn ('Nightlands'), Yuardêa (colloquial derivative of Yuar dil Inêa, 'Protecter of the Wilds'), Rava (contraction of Rav-Ka 'Life-fire'), Nathilkal ('Voice in Dark'), Ilithân (a contraction of Ilis dil Thân, 'Lord of Lights'), Vargoth ('Death-chill'), and Ilirîn (a contraction of Ilis dil Rîn, 'Lord of Winds') are all Gîlrim words or derivatives.

Detrim - The native language of the desert peoples of Jiran, Detrim in its modern form is removed from its ancient day ancestor. It is more heavily-influenced by Dawn Elven (Elenrim, to be exact) than other Human languages due to the population of High Elves who traveled to the South Kingdom and intermingled with the Southerners, producing the Jade Elves. Detrim is the official language of the Guild. Examples of Detrim include Feyd ('Fool'), Dura Maranel ect Esgoth ('Steel Fist of the King's Wrath'), Elan Dirin ect Sigoth ('Noble Shield of the King's Mercy'), Corennar ('Honorguard'), Canthana ('Stony Field'),

Manyi - The language of the East Empire, Manyi remained largely uninfluenced by Dawn Elven, though several Elenrim words entered into colloquial use. In the days of the first Empress, Manyi nearly replaced Gartrim as the common tongue of the world. It remains the dominant language in eastern Jiran, and in modern times it is not unusual to hear it as far west as Tir and Canthana. Names in Manyi are properly spoken with the surname first, though westerners tend to ignore this rule to avoid confusion, since Gartrim has the surname at the end and most people have come to consider this normal. Some examples of Manyi include Deimosharu ('Dancer in Battle'), Wakanabe ('Golden-crowned'), and Keino ('Thunder').

Selassrim - The language most widely-spoken in Orcant, Selathrim is an Odessi tongue. It is distinctive for its abundance of sibiliant 's' sounds, giving it a rather reptilian bent, but its vocabulary also includes many Elenrim words. Examples of Selathrim include Odessi ('Fire-lovers'), Sagessini ('Crowned Peak'), Lamira ('Badlands'), and Orcant ('Old Home').

Borakazgard - The dominant of the various Dwarven languages, the sound of Borakazgard (literally 'Words of the Sea,' referring to 'Gardran') is synonymous to many with the Dwarves themselves. Borakazgard is thought to be most popular among the Dwarves because it is relatively uninfluenced by Dawn Elven. Borakazgard's runes are also considered to be the most attractive in shape by many Dwarves. Examples of Borakazgard include Barondar ('Ironshaper'), Skadrael ('Council of the Skad'), skad (no exact literal translation, this is a specific term for a member of the Skadrael, generally equates to 'wise one' when used elsewhere), Gardran ('Sea of Stone'), and Baronazgil ('Ironwing').

[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 02-22-2007 @ 00:55 AM).]

Here are gathered several pieces of literature of note, culled from various sources.

The Account of Blake Dunlock - Found among the files of the eminent Psychologist Dr. Arthur Wallach, sadly deceased, by his son James, this strange document was one of the few papers not burnt to ashes in the house fire which the doctor himself kindled and was consumed in. Relevant notes excerpted from Dr. Wallach's casebook along with some related papers precede the primary text.

The tragic suicide would seem to be connected to this very text, to judge from James Wallach's own words on the matter. He claimed that Blake Dunlock was a patient of his father's, referred to him by a friend and former pupil, Professor Silke Kinsmund. Dr. Wallach began a gradual, terrible transformation no sooner than his meeting Dunlock, whose troubles seemed to grow on the Psychologist's mind with disquieting intensity; the doctor, formerly an amiable and harmless personage, became at all times restless and anxious, at times shaking with dread and yet seeming more fearful of company than being alone. The climax of this change to the doctor's personality was an abrupt and awful emotional breakdown in public and a subsequent retirement from society until his death. The date of Dr. Wallach's suicide corresponds exactly with that of Dunlock's total disappearance, but no plausible connexion between the two events has ever been made. The Elan Dirin gave up the search for Dunlock five years after his vanishment, with no clue as to his whereabouts. Certain scenarios which might be concocted from the late Dr. Wallach's notes have largely been ignored by officials, and James Wallach's entreaties to certain contacts in the Jirandî have fallen on deaf ears.

- 3rd Flame, 66 DA
Cloudy today, very humid. Too warm for sitting in a closed room, but unfortunately Silke has my number this time. Must get revenge someday.

Patient's name is Blake Dunlock. Sedentary young man of Southerner stock, could do with sun and exercise but otherwise physiologically healthy. Short of breath and obviously in great anxiety about something, could not seem to sit still, gaze constantly vacillitated between door and window, which he demanded I shut. Very intelligent and coherent, somewhat defensive about the nature of his obvious disquiet. After initial questioning, convinced him to open up somewhat. Lives as a bachelor at 255a Bell Street with fellow student and boarder Alfred Lestrade, but remains tightly attached to his father's family, visiting often. Refused to speak of his mother. Was apparently cleaning the attic of his family's home when he came across a solid old locked box, something like a jewelry case, which his father professed no knowledge of. Only possible clue to its contents the inscription 'G.D.' over the lock, could not find a fitting key and attempts to force it utterly failed at first. Knocked up friend of the family, a magecrafter by trade who, after having no luck with box, managed to divine the location of the key: mother's grave. Upon opening the box, Dunlock found certain documents which have gravely upset him ever since reading. I encouraged him to bring these papers in, hopefully put to rest his fears. Might yet be able to clear my calender in time for trip to Tir with James.

- 10th Flame, 66 DA
Clear sky, unpleasant air. Find part of myself dreading the onset of night. Dunlock's fears are contagious.

Dunlock brought in the papers today as I had requested. Seemed even worse than last time. From circles under his eyes and shortness of demeanor, I doubt he has been sleeping. Very worrisome. Immediately suggested that I hold the documents for him for a time, if it would give him some relief - indeed seemed to jump at the idea at first, but quickly repudiated initial acceptance with air of resignation. Did allow that I could hold them overnight to read them. Inconsequential questioning, soon sent him on his way. I was rather distant with him today, I am afraid. Eager to read these papers which have caused him such stress.

(The papers to be found at this page of Dr. Wallach's casebook would seem to be those mentioned - words are scrawled across them in careless fashion, appearing to take the form of a journal, though no dates are given or even mentioned)

- Arrived in Eislin. Robin and Sarah seem pleased, but something about this place seems off. It's nothing to do with the people, or the buildings, but the ground. The ground isn't right. I don't like it. Keeping this journal as Faith recommended, but my heart isn't in it. Robin, that harpy, has been hounding me. Wouldn't put it past her to set some crony on my trail. Well, she hasn't the brain to figure anything out. Doesn't have the stomach to do anything about it even if she did. I do worry for Sarah. Would that I did not need the wench's money! Would that Sarah had sprung from the loins of any other woman! Faith is the very soul of grace. No other should raise my daughter. I cannot write more today. I shall go to the pub and seek some solace at the bottom of a bottle.

- First day looking for work went as expected. Robin has begun as governess to that foul elf Waldemar Creel's children. Had a row about it. Infernal woman, she can be so stubborn sometimes. Creel simply wants to fumble at her with those grubbing spidery fingers of his, but she must enjoy his moneyed attentions more than mine, for she banged out of the house with poor squalling Sarah in tow. Damn her! What could I have ever seen in that wyvern? She claps cuffs on my wrists with her cursed coin, and her words pierce my very heart, my manhood, with envenomed fangs. No pub tonight. I seek the solace that only Faith can give me now.

- Everything has changed. I could never have imagined...

- God's own blessing must have driven me to this place. I must make some effort to make order of all I have been told and seen and heard, or I shall go mad. Faith confided in me as we lay together - God, has it truly been a month since that row with Robin? She is one of the very Fellows, and sees the Talent in me. Me! She has taught me much of the great art, but I think I shall surpass her. Odd that she who shares in the blood of Alêna herself - indeed, who sipped of it, if the stories are true - should have so little inclination to explore its power. I have no such weakness. I feel more like my old self than I have since I first met Robin. She has noticed it, too. We no longer quarrel, and she has come to accept my unexplained absences from time to time. Perhaps she is no longer faithful. Well, I was first, and Faith has become everything to me, so the woman who took my surname may carry on with her cuckoldry so far as I care. I have entered the Order of Gethenna and become a mage. I have traveled to far distant places with my true love and seen many strange and wondrous things, and met with my fellow Jirandî twice now. They are all impressed by my achievements so far, and excited by my potential - Faith parades me like a prized pet, and only smirks when some sorcerer or another makes an effort to win me away. They say they can feel my power, thrumming in their veins, burning in their eyes. And I thought it was only me.

- Betrayal! Treachery! I am victorious, of course, if scarred. Makes me shake with fury nonetheless. Faith -damn her name- took me to show me something 'new.' If I had not taken my new ring I surely would have died. 'New' place was a crumbling stone temple in the midst of a jungle - I recognized certain sigils on the doorway, of course. It was a temple of Garmundûr, the foul false god of the evil Keepers. Would that I had recognized then what Faith intended. She had lied to me all along, of course, I know now. She was only some Keeper witch with demon blood, no true Red Princess. She meant to spill my potent blood on an altar to the Keepers' god. I never expected the knife to my back - my ring, donned in absent caution for the event that we were attacked by witch-hunters, turned aside the blow. Before I even thought, just as well, I blasted down the betrayer and tore her life away. The Jirandî are impressed by my power but laugh at my naiveté. If I had only investigated any of Faith's claims, I should have been forewarned. I will not suffer their mockery. I will venture in search of the true Order of Gethenna - Canthana is my destination, and if Lillith Dendural has abandoned the true God, I shall seek Her in Yorun, where She long dwelt. My standing is such now that I may leave Robin and Sarah for any time and yet be assured of their safety and prosperity, for which they are rightly appreciative and unquestioning. I have hopes that Sarah will inherit my power, and I may pass my knowledge through my own blood. It cannot be told for sure yet.

- 'Home' again. Dendural was understanding when I spoke to her, and I could see in her the true power and grace of Gethenna, that which was missing from the counterfeit who mentored me. I have learned much of the true teachings of God, and it has set my heart at ease. I came away from Canthana with this peace of mind and a new apprentice, who has become wife to me in all but name. I tolerate Robin to keep the last, for I enjoy seeing her seethe with useless jealousy at my happiness. Sarah has demonstrated her loyalty to me amply, and accepted my apprentice as her true mother. I am well-pleased. Though she does not, after all, possess the Talent, she may yet make a fine servant, and she redeems herself of her mother's blood. I believe I shall leave Robin to sulk in the filthy flat which we inhabited when I first came to this place - only two months ago, amazingly! - and begin my household rightly, in a place of my own construction. After the fashion of all great sorcerers, my tower shall be wrought from my power alone, and it shall resonate both Inside and Outside.

- My apprentice, who shall remain nameless so far as this trifling journal is concerned, has progressed rapidly. Sarah has also learned much of my trade, and is surprisingly adept at handling my new servants. As my apprentice and I have more important concerns than haranguing demons about their chores, I have made her my head of household, with the appropriate bits of magic. I have come farther than I ever thought possible. Always my mind is roving on the possibilities stretching endlessly before me now, not moping over the past. I write with an aim toward posterity now - what would be said of Gilbert Dunlock, sorcerer of legend, if these pages were read? Will my name still be held in awe a century from now? Or perhaps I will yet live to see the return of God. All my success is in Her glorious name.

- Disaster! I am betrayed again, though this time from no unexpected place. I should have dealt with Robin long ago. The foul, bitter woman set the witch-hunters upon me. They came in secret, under her direction - how I regret ever letting her into my life! My manful pride is stricken that I should suffer so from the efforts of so tiny and inconsequential a creature. The foul Quivenantè slaughtered my poor apprentice and all my servants. Only Sarah is left to me now, and I write this on the road. It sickens me that I must flee from the disciples of the great enemy, the false Nameless Gods. Robin is dead, at least. I can take some small solace in that I killed her with my own hands, at least, and left many witch-hunters slain for their efforts as well. I go to others of the Order for help.

- Weakness! Idiocy! Always I am beset by the stupidity of others, where only I can see clearly. I am refused help. I could see the fear and outrage in their great cow eyes - so what that my 'wife' is dead by my hand? So what that I left the witch-hunters as broken and cold as they meant to make me? Murderer, they call me, who murdered in self-defense only. I am cast from the Order for my crimes - not that I would associate myself with those puling infants anyway. I must find new allies. The witch-hunters are on my trail - and the police as well. I fear the Elan Dirin more than any chattel of the Calacis. I have abandoned Sarah in some town. I will have this journal sent to her when I perish. I shall try to take enough with me that a book of mine is worth something to my poor daughter. I regret no deed of mine, but that it has caused her grief.

- I shall look into it. I must. After long search, I finally found the temple. It has no name, and it is truly nowhere. It is of a darkness of the soul, not to be found beneath the sun. I made the sacrifice there. The infant was not hard to obtain, but for a long time I could not put it to the knife. Then I thought of the witch-hunters drawing close behind me, and mercy passed. It is a weakness anyway. The thing - I know not for all my studies what it was, for which I am thankful - came forth and took its prize, and gave me mine. I must look into it. Of all the fools and weaklings who have walked this path, none have come so far as I. And I am a weak fool. I know now how small I am. But I no longer care. It promises me that that shall be no more, but that I shall have glory eternal. I shall look into it now.

- HE gives me strength even in these dark times. The witch-hunters are tightening their noose, but I'll slip it yet. These other FOOLS, pitiful hedge-wizards and dabbling conjurers, cannot fathom the depths of the power I have discovered. Amateurs! They were afraid to even gaze into the THING, and I stepped through it wholly. I am not afraid of DEATH. Indeed, I would almost welcome it, though I do not seek it. Such horrors as I have seen almost outweigh the wonders. Even now that the worst is behind me and the best soon to come, my hand trembles when I think of what I must do and what I have done. As for my mind, only the cocaine needle gives me respite and calm anymore. Well, SO BE IT.

- HE speaks to me more as the TIME approaches. Even the oblivious idiots of the newspaper comment on the SIGNS. The summons is very strong now. It is all I can do to set pen to paper, and not gaze listlessly off at where I know HE waits. The witch-hunters are growing restless, HE says. Soon will be my time, and then the TIME. My thoughts grow disordered until I put them down, but I begin to enjoy it. MANY SHALL BE AS ONE IN THE DEATH THAT IS NOT DEATH.

- HE speaks to all now, though most do not know. HIS voice is now very strong and clear. HE speaks of HIS wrath, that will SCOUR this world like fire until NOTHING is left. The clamour of HIS coming rings through time, and the earth quakes in expectation. The very stars shall hide, and the sun will avert its face from the silence that will cover the world as HE arises in HIS might and glory. The MANY that are ONE in HIM shall make quiet the irksome noise of the puny inhabitants of this dim celestial sphere. The DEAD THAT ARE NOT DEAD shall TREAD on those who call themselves living, until HE pulls the world into HIS true home and all HIS faithful will know ETERNAL REWARD.

(The last paper has only a single entry, scrawled weakly along the page and spattered with what might be blood)

- No TIME. Witch-hunters slain. Must leave for where HE waits. Must leave. HIS shrieking loud, so loud. If I can wal CREEL

- 11th Flame, 66 DA
Smoggy, but otherwise fine weather. Will change when new factory is finished, I'm sure.

Easy to see why the papers would shock Dunlock so, but I cannot understand the continuing and even increasing anxiety. Endeavoured to engage him in some conversation when he dropped by to pick up the documents, but he gave no useful answers. I think I shall have him followed this week. Silke says he is no longer attending classes, so where is he going?

- 18th Flame, 66 DA
Rainy. Thick grey clouds. Matches my mood, at least.

Missed his appointment, which is not surprising. James reported that, daily visits to the library aside, Dunlock remained in his flat. Did not emerge yesterday, and shows no signs of doing so today. Have asked James to figure out what he was reading. May make a house call. Dunlock worries me. I hope he has done nothing drastic in this funk.

- 25th Flame, 66 DA
Hatefully sunny.

Did not visit Dunlock at home after all last week, as his roommate told Silke that he had taken ill. Made his appointment today, surprisingly. Seems more worn than nervous now, has lost weight. Looks sunburned, which must have to do with his illness as he says he has not been outside all week. Despite obvious exhaustion, mind seems sharper than ever. Confronted him about the material James learned he'd been reading, which seemed to amuse him. Baffling. He insists he is alright now, and I am prepared to take him at his word. Books were part of his research into his father's side of the family, in an attempt to corroborate the story in the papers - successful attempt. Gilbert Dunlock, the dread sorcerer of Eislin, is his maternal grandfather. Says he is now at peace with this fact, I have released him from my care with the counsel that he seek a physician about his illness. He has promised to do so.

(Dr. Wallach suffered his nervous breakdown on the 3rd day of Song - it was only after looking at his casebook that James Wallach realized he had written another entry the day after)

4th Song, 66 DA
Why should there be stars?

I think I shall kill myself. Better such a death than that death which is not death. HE is coming, after all. Dunlock has returned for one last visit, before he goes off to die a fool. But we are all fools. His words speak for all - they will be my last to you. I am sorry, James.

(Here is transcribed Dunlock's apparent final words to Doctor Wallach, taken on the 4th day of Song - this is his account)

"I liked to hear myself speak, Doctor, but that's all I can do now. The only action I can take is - well, just write what I say, would you?
"Now, this business with my grandfather. He was an evil man, alright, but only the servant of a greater evil. This is what he spoke of in his last ravings. No, I won't open it. I'm sorry, but it would destroy you. Of all the evils in the world, this is one of the greatest. Perhaps the greatest. I'm going to step through it when we're done here, and whether I'm successful or not, you won't see me again. I've made peace with that. My father's father died for the Dura Maranel in the Last War - I won't shame his memory by being a coward when even more is on the line. No, I'm not going to kill myself. Let me explain.
"My grandfather got this thing from an even worse thing - be glad whatever it was didn't linger here long. I know that doesn't explain much. Believe me, you don't want to know. I don't think things like that like being here longer than they have to. It's like a window, but it can also be a door.
"Sometimes, maybe when the stars wander into the right alignment, Doctor, things beneath and outside and above what we know and can see squirm and stir. Creatures or cosmic forces - I don't know. No one does. Maybe they're one and the same. Maybe we're flecks in the eye of a cosmic impossibility. But when certain stuff happens, I've come to learn, things that should be silent are heard. I've heard it. The voice that my grandfather wrote of. It's hungry, Doctor, hungry like a fire for a forest. I learned its true name. No, I won't tell you. Such knowledge can be dangerous, I've learned.
"I'm going to pass through this door, and if I do it right, it'll stay hungry. If I fail...
"I won't be back, so tell my father good-bye. I couldn't bring this to him. I don't have many friends, and you've been kind to me, so I'm warning you.
"If It comes, everything is over. Don't let that happen to you, even if it kills you.
"Good-bye, Doctor."

(Scrawled after these words is a single line of frantic text, which must have been written just before Dr. Wallach set his house afire)

I hear it pitiless world the dead voices hell's choir it calls itself LEGION

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The Last - The 238th year of the Queen's Age saw the Day of Flames in Yorun. The mighty armies of King Segram Diirje III and his allies were utterly annihilated in Kral-Gorthak, scoured from the face of Therin by a flight of ninety berserk Dragons whose scales were a conspicuous crimson in hue. This massacre would also mark the destruction of the alliance called the Free Races, as the various member nations instantly lost all thirst for battle, blaming each other for the disaster. Still, the Red Empire was in effect totally destroyed, loyalists of the Red Queen at least temporarily bereft of a leader, and Yorun remained under the nominal control of the North Kingdom. For a precious few months, at least, a calm fell over Therin. Those who hoped the war was at last over would be disappointed, but in the all-too-brief interlude, a group of mercenaries would undertake a strange adventure on behalf of an enigmatic stranger.

This account of the Nine-penny Brigade's final job, penned as a short story by award-winning historical non-fiction writer Lawrence d'Arnor in the 49th year of the Dark Age, is dedicated both to his wife Amanda. Although d'Arnor was making no particular effort to follow the historical record in this, one of his less serious efforts, it is broadly accurate.

Aëron the Fire-eyed lived dutifully up to his namesake, his glazed, blood-shot stare leveled dully at the wall opposite him as he choked down another mugful of the swill they called ale in Aesfylend, the filthy hamlet that also happened to be his hometown. He thought, no commonplace thing, that this might be the one he died in at last. He was quite sure that even he could sink no lower. He lacked even the coin to pay for the drink in his hand, no mean feat considering that it was priced appropriately for something that was mostly water. He had left Aesfylend to seek his fortune in the army of the King with eight boon companions, and returned to bury seven. He had nothing to show for his pains except for a dread of fire and a distaste for the smell of burning meat that bordered on nausea. When he was sober it was too hard to forget. When he was asleep it was even harder. He didn't sleep much anymore.
The one fellow soldier to return with him had been his wife, before the last battle. After that, they hadn't been able to bear the sight of each other. She had left, gone somewhere, and Aëron was glad. He'd buried the last of his family ten years before. He had no friends and no kin to keep him from drinking himself into merciful oblivion, and he was profoundly thankful for that small favor.
There was only one other in the tavern besides the barkeep, a gaunt, ghostly man who eyed Aëron with faint apprehension. His piercing eyes were set in a thin, lined face discolored by dark stubble. Those pale eyes gazed steadily, almost without blinking, at the man drinking himself ever closer to death at the bar. There was a poisoned pity in that gray stare, a feeling twisted with loathing. When he saw Aëron gesture listlessly for another drink, he pushed up from his seat and walked over to the counter, dropping onto the stool next to the former soldier's. The warrior watched him with dead eyes, obviously waiting for him to say something.
When the almost-spectral figure did speak, it was with mellow, musical tones. His eyes never left Aëron's, their nearly-hypnotic intensity forcing the warrior to simply sit and listen intently to every word.
"You've come a long way to end up back where you started, armiger." The soldier closed his eyes at the stranger's last word, a scowl crossing his face. The sing-song tone continued heedlessly. "The war's over but men like us never stop working. To stop is to look back, armiger. Don't look back."
Aëron lifted a gloved hand to run his fingers through his hair, opening his eyes to glare suspiciously at the stranger. "Who the hell are you?" His own voice was a hoarse grunt.
"Feyd." The stranger shrugged. "Just Feyd. Look, armiger, I've got a job up. Tough, I'm sure, but it'll pay well. You'll need a crew-"
"I'll need?" Aëron laughed humorlessly. "I'm through with that-"
"You don't believe that any more than me, armiger." Feyd suddenly smiled, but there was no warmth in it.
"Why do you keep calling me that?" Aëron's voice was exasperated, but he didn't deny Feyd's words.
"It's what you are, armiger. What you'll always be."
The warrior shook his head, face drawn in weariness, but he could say nothing to that. After a moment, Feyd spoke on, voice softening faintly.
"I'm here to help you, armiger. To save your soul, such as it is. I'm here on behalf of a higher power, one that sees to it good deeds get done on this benighted little world."
"Higher power? What-"
Feyd chuckled. "If I knew, I'd tell you. It was a shining light, a voice in my head. Told me certain things can be set to rights, if we only bother ourselves to try. I was in a bad way, armiger. I wanted to believe that, then. Now I do believe."
Aëron stared at the strange man for a moment before breaking into laughter, shaking his head. When the fit subsided, he looked Feyd in the eye and said, "You're mad. Utterly mad. But I wasn't doing anything anyway." He pushed to his feet, missing the triumphant look that covered Feyd's face for an instant as he glanced at the sword hanging from his belt. "Alright, let's get moving."

A thousand thousand voices rang out in cheer, the noise echoed back in mocking, distorted likeness from the jagged black walls of the great pit. The blasted vale of Kral-Gorthak had played silent host to a vast army for nearly six months now. A panoply of bright banners thrust defiantly up against the eternal stormcloud that brooded over the dark valley; their brave forms fluttered over a steely sea of armored soldiers. These invaders were dwarfed into insignificance by the monolithic structure that reared its lofty head above the clouds, into infinity, in the center of the valley.
The whole army could have bivouacked comfortably within the titanic walls of the tower's fortress base, and it swallowed the impotent noise of the soldiers with its sheer, impossible scale. Though they had marched far to drive the remnants of the hated Red Queen's forces into this, her last redoubt, and had at last achieved victory, there was no question that they could press no further. Surely no siege weapon could harm or force of sorcery deform those ageless red walls.
Aëron licked his dry lips as he gazed up at the tower which dominated the earth and sky. The men and women around him were similarly quiet, now. How long they stared, no one afterward could say. They were stirred from their mass reverie by a booming roar that shook the stony pit and reverberated powerfully throughout the valley. The half-elf pressed his hands to his ears with a wince, looking about in search of the sound's source. A hand tapped his shoulder - Maël pointed into the roiling gray clouds overhead. Aëron saw nothing at first, but he trusted his wife's sharper ears.
What happened next dropped at least one man by the couple to his knees in awe. A scene from legend, so majestic that its horrific significance was almost lost on Aëron, played out above their heads. A brand of fire sheared through the stormclouds, cutting free a neatly circular shaft of sunlight to illuminate a diving beast that bore a blazing star between its folded wings. A pathetic few darts shot up from the besieging army at the magnificent creature falling towards them, with no apparent effect. Aëron's mouth gaped open as its wings snapped out to their vast full span, drew nimbly up just above the banners of the soldiers near the tower walls, and swooped in his direction. Thinking only that it must be driving for the King, some last bit of treachery from their accursed foe, Aëron broke into a run for his liege, pushing aside the soldiers around him. He crested a small, jagged rise of rock in time to see the monster draw up above the monarch of the North Kingdom, tiny but defiant beneath the banner of his forefathers. Even his honor guard fled from the terrible beast's wrath, but King Segram III stood fast, even loosing an arrow at the creature's bright rider. Then the red Dragon belched forth a coursing stream of flame, and the stench of scorched flesh fouled the air.
The Dragon let its bulk crash to the ground, serpentine tail sweeping idly behind it to scatter the soldiers there as its wings gave a powerful beat. Aëron could not restrain a moan of despair when one of its poisonous yellow eyes lit upon him, and its long neck twisted toward him, smoke already curling from between its jagged teeth. For an instant, he could only stare in horrified fascination as his doom let its blaze kindle once again - then Maël jerked him bodily backwards, thrusting him behind herself under the cover of the small rock spur and her broad shield. For an instant he was intensely aware of his wife's heavy breathing, and then the roar of the flames burned away all other sounds. He thought Maël tried to shout something into his ear, but he couldn't understand it. The very air was sucked out of his lungs by the hungry fires, but their cover was enough to deflect much of the heat.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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The River that Bled - In the year 194 of the Queen's Age, the Red Empire attacked the fortress of Mirgard, to the east of Tirin Kal. This important town bears the name of the mighty river it bridges, the only way to cross for many leagues to the north and south. This recounting of the resulting battle was part of a chronicle penned by Scribe of the Court of King Ander the First, Leyton Quiss, at the bidding of King Ander, himself, on Gilwë son of Ainilor's service to the throne as a mercenary during the Queen's Age.

This account was painstakingly extracted from the works of one Berwin, styling himself 'the Crusader,' but lacking a surname so far as I can determine. Scarcely any of the original words have survived my revisions, a service for which I will not demand my rightful thanks from you.

From some of his other works, I suspect that this Berwin may have had heretical sympathies, not least his friendship with the man who would become the husband of the woman calling herself 'Prophetess' who even now spreads further ignorance and hatred among the accursed Elves of Iniuth. Gilwë has never given to the quill-scratchers an account of himself. So, when His Majesty feels a passing curiosity about him, we lowly sages must needs leaf through the dustiest tomes for the long-forgotten ramblings of long-dead sellswords, half-afraid to breathe, much less sneeze, for fear of shattering the brittle parchment, to drag out some crude rendering of his actions. The battle of this record was a paticularly brutal, ghastly affair, where a great many more soldiers perished than was altogether usual for the time, among them an entire Red army. King Ander's rise to power was nearly bloodless by this measure. I had to update and correct many archaic terms, a task which by its very nature will pass without notice. So now that you know how difficult it was, read.

It was midday before the Red horde stopped trickling in from the horizon, a great crimson flood flecked with glittering iron spearheads. I gave a low whistle at the sight; even from leagues away, atop the walltops of Mirgard, it was impressive. But it was as we had expected.

The officers had had word; they knew exactly what was marching at us, this time. Gilwë was not with me, just then. He was praying yet that we would all win through victorious and alive, or so he had told me. He could have been sleeping in, as Garí suggested in his grinning, half-contrite way. The boy, or so I considered him, anyway, was a slight, wispy thing, built like a girl to my mind. But he had bright blue eyes, an easy smile, and a deft tongue that endeared himself to women. Put a sword in his hands and a man in red armor before him, however, and you would have to drag him kicking and screaming from the corpse. He had lost his farm and his family to the Red army. I did not care for him, nor for half the other men of soft loyalty and hard greed that made up Gilwë's band, but I kept my peace for our leader's sake.

"Beatiful sight, ain't it? Though I wager it'd look a might prettier if it was their arses we was lookin' at, eh?" Aleth's lazy drawl drew me from my thoughts. I glanced over at the pale, long features with the torn, ragged ears and hair like brittle straw, and felt the same mixture of revulsion and pity the Fair Elf always gave me. Men like Gilwë were not afraid to conceal their Elven heritage in Human lands; men like Aleth no longer needed to. I knew of his true heritage only because Gilwë had told me.

When he was young, some particularly heinous fanatic of the Nameless Gods had seen those pointed ears and set his dogs on Aleth, just passing in the street or somesuch. Before his horrified parents could drag the beasts off, the boy had lost that mark of his Elven heritage. He kept the knowledge to himself. He had revealed the truth to Gilwë only because the High Elf had pressed all his men to be sincere with him, but few would guess from his actions. No one was quicker to the sword or the tankard than Aleth. He had no god in his heart, and no peace in his soul.

A few hours later, the meager thirteen of our company were assembled on the plains before Mirgard's walls to face the armies plodding toward us. With sure knowledge of the enemies' plans, our own strategy was simple. Draw them towards the walls with a show of seeming weakness, and they would rush in eagerly, hoping that their ladders and catapults could bring the walls crashing down without the need of a long, costly siege. Meanwhile, from behind, the best part of the east's mounted knights and horsemen would follow the Rault Aladant, hidden by the blessings of the Nommèdetè, and crash into the foemen's rear, driving them west into the river and against the town walls where our archers lurked in wait. It would be a glorious spectacle for the king to hear of later, no doubt, but at the moment we were more concerned with being part of the charade. Among other mercenary companies, we had been hired for our motley sellsword appearance. Few of the kingdom's actual soldiers would appear in our ranks. Thus, ours was the most dangerous duty. To his credit, the lord of Mirgard's defenders, the stolid Dapplebrook Aelfscylld, stood with us, under his own banner.

Aleth was adjusting his coif nervously. Garí leaned over and handed him a pike with a murmured word, all hint of mockery gone for a moment, and the fair elf nodded gratefully. Gilwë himself stood by alone, watching us all with the eyes of a leader. When Lord Dapplebrook's soldiers passed along that the enemy was coming, though, the High Elf straightened somehow, and turned. We fell silent, watching him for his orders. The approach of the Red cavalry was a distant thunder in our ears, but growing more urgent with each passing second. Men's hands clenched on their weapons, whispered prayers escaped thinned lips, and the officers drew authority over themselves like hooded cloaks, booming orders with a confidence and surety that seemed beyond mortal men. And then they were upon us.

"Take the left flank!" shouted Gilwë. We trotted around the side of the North Kingdom's front line and up onto a knoll on the right. "Castle Formation!" he called as we scaled up the hill, iron rings rattling. Gilwë's own left flank took up along the side of the knoll, spears at ready, but leaving a narrow space between Gilwë's troops and the army on the right. The woods stood on Gilwë's left; we knew that the Red soldiers would not try to come through the forest. Not, at least, after what the Leaf-warriors had done the day before.

"I hope this works," I said to Gilwë. Gilwë nodded back. I held my horn to my face under my pointed helmet and blew it: Mirgard suddenly appeared half-deserted, our meager forces straggled before its walls the only defense for the scant few archers above, or so I hoped.

The Red Cavalry advanced. "Bowmen, aim for the horses!" cried Gilwë. We drew our bows or set pikes in the grass. My arts made the pikes seem to stick forward, to force the cavalry through the gap. "Loose at will!" cried Gilwë as the horsemen came into range. Arrows whizzed foward, and one took down the Red Knight at the head of the advancing troop, his horse taking him to the ground before his comrades trampled him. The cavalry continued their charge. "Succulent!" called Gilwë. We assumed the new combat formation at his book-code command, and prepared to use the pikes. Gilwë set down his bow and was ready to reach for his own. I was behind him, concentrating, as I reached for my own, trying to make the gap between the bands seem larger, or the pikes seem shorter.

The crash followed as the cavalry struck the middle of Lord Dapplebrook's front line. Then the plunge of cavalry charged through the gap. Gilwë called his battle cry, and the men set their pikes sideways at a diagonal, using the height advantage to attack the riders. Garí took a lance to his face and fell. Aleth felled Garí's killer with his pike, roaring in anger. The men to the right realized what was happening and returned their pikes, and horses fell. Other sellswords joined from behind to hem in the hole. Charging into pikes on all three sides, a great many Red horsemen fell. Gilwë and I released our splintered pikes and together drew our swords. Gilwë clove one horseman's hammer from its haft before hewing through the man's leg. He was just in time to lift his shield to stop a second swordblow, and stepped back, swiping as he did so. A hail of arrows fell among the bunched horsemen trying to exploit what they thought was a gap in the lines, but was really Gilwë and mine's trap. Aleth's head was beaten in with a hammer from another rider, before I could paralyze the rider's hand and shove my tip through her armor, up into her body cavity, killing her. Another stroke with a lance from a horseman in back took me, but not hard, before an arrow took the rider in the shoulder. The illusion seemed to collapse, but by now the Red cavalry had been encircled by the infantry that had not been engaged but had been planned to be overswept.

There was a great horncall, followed by a growing chorus of shouts and cries of surprise and fear, and we knew the Rault Aladant had arrived. Many of the other bands knew not what it portended; each leader had been given some knowledge of the battle-plan, but only a few, like Gilwë, trusted his men enough to share that knowledge with them. The horror of the Red army was met by growing jubilation among the soldiers and sellswords of the king; "The east! The east! Dawn comes again!" was a common cry. The cavalry upon us peeled back in the confusion, and we were free for the moment to bury our dead. We learned later that old Lord Aelfscylld himself had died, bravely meeting the vanguard of the Red knights' charge with the great shield of his family, saving many a man behind him.

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The Dawn Elves' Beginning - Collected and translated from various ancient texts and set down at the bidding of His Majesty, King Ander the First, by his humble servant, Urius Septinus, Second Scribe of his court.

I served King Ander when he was yet only Lord of Darkhall, that lonely castle of his forefathers overlooking the gloomy moors and ancient hamlets of his subjects. It came as no surprise to me when almost no sooner had I arrived at Tirin Kal, after he summoned me to take the office of Second Scribe to replace that of the last of the dead Diirje dynasty, that he was urging all the Scribes to assemble and organize the kingdom's wealth of lore and knowledge. To me, with my particular knowledge and new rank, came the imposing task of compiling some comprehensive words on the subject of the eldest people's religions and mythologies, and their origins, as well as is known to scholars.

The Dawn Elves originally had a richly-detailed mythology and history of their people, but as they grew more conceited and prideful in their power, they twisted their own legends and tales to fit their growing opinion of themselves, belittling all the other peoples and casting the distant past in veils of lies and omissions. The only Dawn Elf the Kingdom has known for years uncounted was the accursed Red Queen, who is rumored to have taught to the self-styled king, Feyd, ancient and dread secrets of the Dawn Elves - secrets, perhaps, concerning the true birth of life and civilization upon the world, and the nature of the Dawn Elves. Unfortunately, Feyd is a murderous madman, and hardly a good source for such information. The most ancient legends of the Dawn Elves concerning the creation of the world, the oldest texts by far ever found by mortal hands, have been examined at length. A tentative summary of their contents follow.

In the beginning, there was the Roaring Void. The Dawn Elves awoke amidst the deafening clamor of millions of roaring, shrieking, unseen voices, and the dark was complete. The Dawn Elves were different, for they knew silence, and thought. But they were left drifting alone in the chaos, for there was neither land nor sea, but only a chill and dark emptiness. They wandered for others like them, who could be felt and who were warm to the touch, but they could not find each other. Then one uttered the first word amidst the senseless noise of the void, and no sooner had she spoken than she felt the blood thrill and flow through her veins. That word was 'amel,' or 'light.'

The first of the Dawn Elves to be thus awakened, she spake the word, and thus it was so. The void was pierced by the first light, and the darkness was dispelled. The other Dawn Elves stumbled numbly towards the source of the light, amazed, for the light had revealed that the cacaphony which had tormented them for unknown ages had no substance or shape in the light, not even so much as a shadow. The first, meanwhile, could hardly name the things she saw in the first light fast enough, and the joy of the Dawn Elves at the beauty and substance of their surroundings after ages of emptiness was pure and primal. They were the first living things, and they were the first to shape the land after their desires, working stone as they liked. Yet even these simple, unheeding works exemplified the greatness of thought and piercing wisdom of their makers.

There came a time when the first of the Dawn Elves called her people together, for they had wandered far, and all heeded the call save three only, who journeyed into reaches unimaginable and were forever sundered for their kin, who mourned in silence for them. Little did they know the grief and pain this sundering would cause, in the ages to come.

The first of the Dawn Elves proclaimed that they had now named all the world around them, and made new things of it, and named the new works, and now they should make names for themselves. She made for herself 'Gîl,' which means 'first.' The others chose names as they wished. Thus endowed, desire first woke in the hearts of the Dawn Elves, and the first children were born in the world not long after. Gîl herself bore a daughter, 'Kili,' or 'green.' Kili was special among her people and the others marvelled at her, for she alone among them had eyes of deep green, rather than the gold of the sun that shone over them. Kili was forever set apart from her people for this, in nameless, foreboding fear and awe, and she took to wandering with her mother or alone far away.

One day while wandering alone, Kili came to the shores of a great sea. It was the first time a living thing beheld water, and for a long time, she sat on the sand and watched the waves. She stirred then, and whispered 'kal,' which means 'dark.' The sky deepened overhead, and the sun went down, and night reigned for the first time. But Kili laughed, heedless, and dove into the sea, and passed out of the knowledge of her people for many years.

The Dawn Elves ran to Gîl in fear, and she soothed her people that the dark was without fear, for now they knew it for what it was. Indeed, some time later the sun rose again, and they wondered at this strange thing, and what it forebode. For they had seen the first sunrise, and the beginning of time. Soon after, Gîl went away from the people for a little while, to think on all that had happened, and found herself in strange, green places. In surprise and joy at this new thing, she ran back to her people and entreated them to come see, and they were amazed. There, under the sun, grew the saplings of the first forest. In the hearts of all the Dawn Elves was pleasure at the sight of other living things, but in some was a pride and joy especial, and they lingered and dwelt there as the forest grew up around them, and they passed out of these tales for a time.

Gîl and those who did not stay, who were most, went back to where they had been, and grew afraid suddenly, for in the time that had passed, night was drawing near. Gîl calmed her people by gathering them before her and singing the first song, recounting their journey and the wonders they had found, and they were lulled by her beautiful voice, and night came and went before she finished, and they hardly noticed. And so, for many nights after, the Dawn Elves gathered, and listened to Gîl's song. A great time passed, and the world changed around them, hearing the notes of the first Dawn Elf's melody and waking up.

There came a day when Gîl grew sick, and found she could not sing. While her people worried over her and the coming night, which would be without the comfort of the song, a stranger came from outside. In fair words, he introduced himself as Kal, and at the sound of the word they shivered thoughtlessly, and they wondered darkly at his black hair and strange eyes, which flashed with a light of their own, but coy and deep instead of bright, so unlike themselves. He told of a far distant place, where his people had raised from the sea things of stone, where his people dwelt. They struck down the trees of the forests with axes of flint, and made of them rafts to float on the sea. The horror of the dark night, they warded away with fire, kindled from more trees. Gîl's people were amazed, yet no less was Kal surprised when he heard them speak of her song and how they feared a night without it.

Gîl herself spoke to the stranger, and finally asked that Kal take her to see his home, for he spoke of the good feelings that the breezes of the sea brought, and she was afraid for her people to suffer another night without her song. And so Gîl left the Dawn Elves, and they waited for her return. The night drew close, and she still did not come back, and they grew afraid.

Then, Lûth remembered what Kal had told them of fire. She ventured far into the mountains her people had shaped from the stone, with her sister Ilis, until she found the flint she sought, and they made sharp axes of it and went to the forests they had seen earlier. They brought felled wood back to their people, and made piles of it as Kal had spoken, and made flame. For the first time, the Dawn Elves felt masters of the land, and there was much joy. Night came at last, but around their fires, Gîl's people were comforted. A child was quickened in Lûth's womb that night, and when it was known, those who had first stepped from the void said that child would be the greatest of the Dawn Elves. It was also that night that the first cold wind swept in from the outside, and chilled Gîl's people, for it reminded them of a nameless fear. They huddled closer to the warmth of their fires, and when the sun rose again, they shaped the first houses from the stone of their mountains and the wood of the forest to shut out the cold.

Many nights and days passed, and there was no sign of Gîl or Kal. By now, there were whispers that Gîl's own daughter, Kili, may have been responsible for her ominous disappearance. Lûth, great with child, asked her friend Ilis to go seeking their leader, for so they had come to think of Gîl. Ilis agreed, and took many of the women and men of Gîl's people with her, armed with their axes of stone. "Cant jelin eth menethë eth utha ent hath, lin geth el¹," she spoke darkly, and then departed.

Ilis and her party ventured far into strange lands, far from their home, hearts steeled bravely against the cold and unfamiliar country as they pursued the rising sun whence Kal had departed seemingly ages before. They passed into the deep forests, where the feet of animals and people had never before disturbed the ground, and the ancient trees reared their heads proudly high. No edge of flint could break the bark of these eldest of trees, and strange noises pursued the wanderers, so they quickened their pace to leave the shadow of these first woods. From the deep forests, they came to the edge of a great plain, where grass taller than the Dawn Elves' heads grew, rippling in the cold breezes that wafted over the lands. On the border between forest and plain they paused in dismay for a time.

At last, Ilis stirred and started through the grass, and the wanderers followed. Many cold days and nights passed before the edge of the plains drew near, but now the shores of the sea lay before them. Upon the sandy beaches of this thing that was wondrous and new to them was great work of wood-craft, but those working were Dawn Elves and not like the stranger Kal. The meeting between the two kindreds was wary, but in short time they accepted each other as friends and allies. Ilis learned from the strangers' leader, Aëril, that they had once been of Gîl's people, but had left before the first song. They did not fear the night, for under the growing forests they loved it was always dark, and the trees' limbs and trunks sheltered them from the cold winds from outside when they blew. They named themselves the people of Narth, father of Aëril, who had been first to speak to the trees and understand their answers. In time, others of their people had found this gift, and even while Gîl sang for her followers amidst the mountains, Aëril asked the forest for its bounty.

When Aëril heard from Ilis the reason for their journey, she offered to aid them in their search by ferrying them across the sea in their rafts. The seekers of Gîl gratefully accepted, and they passed over the waters, in search for the Stone Isles. The kindred of Narth had known of Kal and his people for some time, but hid from them in unthinking fear whenever they came to shore. From listening to their talk, they understood where their home was, however. They sailed for a long time, farther than even Aëril had ever dared go before. Great things of the deep shadowed the water beneath them, while even the skill of the rafters of Narth could not keep some from foundering in the fierce storms that swept over them, where no land could be seen. Ilis and Aëril and their followers passed into ever-colder seas, and the days grew ever shorter. Finally, as the pale, warmthless sun drew close to the horizon on her right, Ilis saw its rays strike something bright at the edge of her sight from her perch at the bow of her boat.

Sailing to the thing Ilis had seen, the Dawn Elves arrived at a wall of ice looming over them from the sea itself, and a deadly chill lingered in the air as frozen rain fell over their bodies. Supposing they had reached the ends of the world, where even the sun's fire was too far away to warm the blood, Aëril said they were near the Stone Isles, which lay past even the world's end. Some of the Elves were afraid that they drew near the Roaring Void, but Ilis reminded them of their duty, and they disembarked and began to climb the glacier.

Reaching the frozen heights without trouble, the Elves carrying an enchanted warmth with them, beginning their long trek across the plains of ice and snow. They saw no other living things in the dead white, and the wind that blew eternally over the lands sang of death. Sometimes in the distance, they espied jagged mountains that thrust up from the flat iceland, and other times they could see nothing but blowing white, huddling close together to keep from straying but never halting in their march. The farther they went, the longer the nights lasted, until they walked into a land where the sun never rose. "Ellë oth eran dil kellen, let araneth ellë dath elu jiran esten²," Aëril said.

After a time, they came to a place where the air grew warmer, and then the ice fell away beneath them to a great inland sea. They scaled down the cliffs, knowing they would have to swim the rest of the way to the Stony Isles. It was not far.

Lofty towers of dark stone, rearing like great pitted teeth from the waves, loomed before them. Black caves pierced the rock in places, with no way made between them - at least, for those without wings. Shapes like lizards, but that must have been far larger, crawled over the isles like maggots over rancid meat. Others soared through the air in lazy spirals around the spires, occasionally ducking in and out of the caverns. It was thus that the Dawn Elves first laid eyes on the true form of Dragon-kind, and many were filled with revulsion and fear. Some even called out that they should turn back, but Ilis quickly silenced those voices. They had come for Gîl, and there would be no return without her.

The Dawn Elves' approach did not go long unnoticed by the far-seeing monsters, but the Dragons were ignorant of the power that their small, wingless foes carried with them, and too confident in their own iron hides and deadly breath. Only when the Elves began to scale their spires from the sea, using their flint axes to help them climb, did a few of the winged creatures swoop down upon them. Seeing one of these bearing down on her, Ilis drew her axe from the rock and hurled it at the slit-eyed beast, piercing its eye. The wounded Dragon crashed into the stone in its throes of agony and fell into the sea, where Aëril and her people, waiting for their turn to climb in the water, fell upon it, leaping up on its writhing body and tearing off its scales with their bare hands to hack and tear at its soft flesh beneath. When its dying breath blasted the water, a great steam issued up and covered the climbing Elves, hiding them from the Dragons above as they beat off the few who had attacked them.

Suddenly filled with fear and doubt, the Dragons flew and crawled to their eyries, thinking to wait for the Elves to climb to the caves and then dislodge them without risking falling into the sea. So the Dragons killed many brave Dawn Elves, through fire or trickery, but never in fair battle, because the Elves feared darker and vaster things than Dragons, and their love for the stolen Gîl drove them on, and the Dragons saw only the promise of death, not fear, in their fell enemies, and were afraid. When the Dragons were dead or sent fleeing through the air, Ilis and her followers were infuriated when they could not find Gîl or Kal.

¹ - Elenrim; "Flint may cut flesh as easily as trees, if need be."
² - Elenrim; "We have passed beyond the edge of the world, but together we shall return to the dawnland."

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The Fall of Tirin Kal - On the siege and final capture of Tirin Kal by the armies of the rebelling Nobles of Diirje, and the death of self-styled King Adain Diirje.

Ander the Dark is a hard man. Few people would claim to know him, and fewer still claimed to like him. He was born old, so the story went, forced to grow up fast in the gloomy moors of Darkhall. His father died at the Battle of Rivenwind, felled by Red swords, and his mother did not survive Ander's birth. He was hardly an hour old when he was the Lord Dark, only child of a sadly-diminished household and ruler of a land emptied by the King's calls to war. He was ostensibly raised by his father's bastard brother Mir, a bitter, foppish man but deadly with a blade. Ander's only real tutor was the Dark library, however, and the books there, including the journals of his ancestors, inspired neither softness nor kindness in their pupil. Knowledge was his only passion. He had no use for the more 'practical' gifts his uncle had to offer, swordplay and the like. Mir is said to have been afraid of his nephew, saying that he was "Cold, cold like no living thing should be, and even when he's right there talking to you, he's as far away as a cloud," and increasingly avoided the youth.

When he was nine, Ander the Dark put his first man to death, a horse thief who had knifed a man in cold blood and who spat on the young Lord before the sentence was carried out. When he was fourteen, he coldly had his soldiers burn a plague-infected village to prevent the disease from spreading, watching without emotion from atop his horse as the flames consumed his subjects. When he was fifteen, the Lady Raine Aelfscylld, called the Songbow, his betrothed and a decade his elder, met him for the first time. She stayed in Darkhall for a week before breaking their engagement and returning to Mirgard, rejecting the idea of spending the rest of her life bound to a man who was, in her words, "A singularly lifeless, unpleasant fellow, who can't so much as smile." Ander the Dark was seventeen years old, a tall, lanky, humorless youth, master of a grim and cheerless home and a cold, unfeeling ruler to a land that feared and hated him, when he met Draena Endraluth.

The Elf who would become known one day as the Horned Knight first came to Darkhall in search of a bounty: a man who had freed slaves in Iniuth and whose head she had come for, to return to the Senate. Ander, despite his personal distaste for slavery, dispatched courtiers to search for word as to the fugitive's location, intending to curry favor with the High Elves. While they waited for word to get back to Darkhall, the Dark offered Endraluth his hospitality. The first night she spent in Darkhall, she was attacked by Mir, Ander's uncle, in a drunken fit, and she killed him in the resulting fight. The High Elf was wrestled into the throne room of the Dark in the small hours of the morning, who pronounced his penalty of death without emotion when informed of what happened.

When dawn and the time for her execution arrived, Draena was escorted to the cutting block where the lord's headsman would carry out the sentence. Unfortunately for the Dark, his servants were not accustomed to dealing with Elves. Endraluth broke from her chains and, seizing Ander for a hostage, escaped to the south, escaping pursuit and finally making her way into the sands of the southern deserts.

Of what happened between the Dark and his captor there, neither has ever spoken. They returned only weeks later, Ander bearing a sword and leading a subdued Endraluth in chains. The Dark's servants were surprised to be told by their lord that it was Endraluth's fervent wish to serve him, and he had been so moved by her pleas that he had decided to spare her life and knight her.

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[This message has been edited by Black Hound (edited 03-08-2007 @ 09:05 PM).]