NutraNESIV.5: Fantasy Remastered

Thanks to instant email updates, I have what he posted in my inbox. Mwa-ha-ha-ha.
 
Curses!
 
It starts about Bragaash, then goes into the Narados and Sheol. Some stuff happens, most of it violent.
 
It's known as the interesting times for a reason.

Who's up for some World War Action?
 
Seon said:
It's known as the interesting times for a reason.

Who's up for some World War Action?
Click to expand...

I'm guessing Bragaash tribes are at war with any tribe that we border. After all, probably many small orcish kingdoms were enstablished. So, does that count as World War?
 
Yes, but only if the kingdoms ally themselves against every other nation and every other nation ally themselves against you.

That would be an war deserving of an epic such as the likes of Illiad.
 
Seon said:
Yes, but only if the kingdoms ally themselves against every other nation and every other nation ally themselves against you.

That would be an war deserving of an epic such as the likes of Illiad.
Click to expand...

Okay, it's chaos then. Does not matter, chaos shall burn like a fire. And From fire, true steel is born.
 
Not a complete world war. And sorry I did not get the update out last night, it's my 21st birthday today and my girlfriend and friends surprised me (I thought they had all gone home) and took me out to the bars. Getting right on it now despite the hangover. Dedication!
 
nutranurse said:
Not a complete world war. And sorry I did not get the update out last night, it's my 21st birthday today and my girlfriend and friends surprised me (I thought they had all gone home) and took me out to the bars. Getting right on it now despite the hangover. Dedication!
Click to expand...

As recently reached the age of 21 aswell, Congratulations! World is open to you now.

Edit: The thread is open aswell.
 
Update 1
The Silver Age
•??E??-1E113•
BT​

Key:
⌂-Domestic/Diplomatic Events & Results
¤-Economic Events & Results
☼-Magickal Events & Results
†-Military Events & Results

Kor-Fiol's recorded history did not begin till the Low-Malachim script was introduced to the rest of the peoples living in the region. It was purportedly called Low-Malachim due to it being a simplified form of the winged elves' complex, high pitched language. Quite simply the Malachim did not believe the ground-dwelling races were intelligent enough to communicate on the same level as them. Arrogance aside, the adoption of the Low-Malachim tongue as the de facto trade language was indicative of a new era; one of trade, politics, war, and magick on a larger scale.

•Framing the First Years of the Silver Age•​
†☼¤⌂The Celestium Crisis⌂¤☼†
The Silver Age was named after the silver metal that was most widely used for tools, weapons, and armor: celestium. During the Forgotten Ages the metal primarily mined by the Ikkir underneath the Ilonmol Range and traded by their winged neighbors, the Malachim. With a monopoly over the only known metal, the Malachim grew wildly rich and they brought these riches with them when they returned to Ilonmol after the star-storm.

The trouble was these riches ran out.

The great stores of celestium seemed to be destroyed when the cavernous home of the Ikkir was destroyed by the star-storm. At first the Malachim were slow to realize this, but as the years turned to decades and only small amounts of celestium were extracted by unwilling Malachim miners, the avian elves knew that they were facing something dire.

The celesitum crisis was not a grand, cataclysmic event. It was more so a period of economic gloom, numerous petty wars, and a general sense of darkness that dominated much of the years leading up the rediscovery of rich clelestium veins in 1E110. Beginning in 1E1 with the collapse of Tir'Ilonmol into a shadow-war between the richest Malachim as they vied for control over what little celestium was left and ending in 1E100 with the violent rise of High Mage Kushiel to the leadership of the Tir'Ilonmol's council.

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Celestium Ore;
By 1E100 the Malachim and Swiech would become fierce economic rivals due to their access to celestium ore veins.​

Elsewhere in the world the celestium crisis saw the rise of once minor peoples to major status. By 1E10 the Swiech ratmen of Hunting-Hole had struck their first meager vein of celestium ore, and not long after they became the second largest traders of the precious metal. The free Ikkir dwarves of Ikkanaya-Kekteikan provided a small supply of celestium, the richest of them eventually forming the city of Ikkanaya-Teidedka. Between the elves, dwarves, and ratmen enough celestium was being pumped into the economies to the south to fuel the petty wars between the Bragaash and Narados horsemen; The Narados and the Sheol; the Bragaash and the Icarans; and the Bragaash and the other Bragaash tribes.

Other peoples less reliant on the metal were not as drastically effected, and in their stability grew to be major players of regional politics. The Telric successor cultures, the Telmar, Terlan, and Icaran, hardly needed the metal when they had their powerful magick to see out their plans. The Star Goblins entered an age of new unity in thought and state upon their great discovery of astrology. The Dohtel lead a revolution in the application of magick and understanding of mana, not to mention their discoveries of the furthest reaches of Kor-Fiol. Their discoveries would slowly work their way north till the Malachim were able to employ them in their celestium mining efforts, resulting in the end of the crisis.

¤⌂Low-Malachim & The Malach⌂¤
By 1E100 any aspiring merchant, politician, or general spoke Low-Malachim. The language was hardly a testament to the superiority of Malachim culture—for they were a terribly insular peoples—but to the superiority of trade. On the wings of the Malachim came commonality between peoples in the name of profit. Knowledge too prospered with the introduction of a shared written and spoken language, as many cultures began to, for the first time in their history, write down the oral histories they had passed down from generation to generation.

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Low-Malachim;
So great was the Malachim's scorn for other cultures that the Low-Malachim script became a subtle insult to the non-Malachim intellect.
Thinking that no one but a Malachim could grasp the intricacies of the High-Malachim script, the Malachim reduced their written language to simple lines and dashes.​

When celestium grew scarce the Malachim—and numerous other races—began to value the metal far more than before, which lead to the rise of a currency centered around the precious, silver metal. Beginning in the Bragaash Clanial Union the 'Malach', as they called it, became a common stand-in for goods. The idea spread so rapidly that in 1E50 when a Narados shepherd was asked the size of his herd he would say "50 Malach-worth." Barter systems still, by in large, dominated economies, but a currency-based system was on the rise...


§§§​



†☼¤⌂The Ratmen Cometh⌂¤☼†
No race other than the Swiech ratmen seemed to profit more from the economic depression of the early Silver Age. When the Malachim began to record the going on's of the world shortly after the star-storm two powerful Swiech warrens had arisen: Glitterfangs and Hunting-Hole. Of the two Glitterfangs was initially more prosperous due to its location at the confluence between the Amber and Glittergem Rivers. It was more commercially inclined than its sister warren to the east, and fast began to overshadow Hunting-Hole in population, prosperity, and politics. The only reason Hunting-Hole held onto its existence in the first few years of the Silver Age was because of its wealth in magick. Hunting-Hole lay just a few miles from the mana-well called Blood-Wail Hill.

Prior to the Dohtel's discoveries mana was hardly understood, though most mages knew that the strange, glassy substance somehow amplified their spells. Among the first to realize that a spell cast with a piece of mana in-hand was exponentially more effective were the Swiech vivificationists of Hunting-Hole. The mage cabal of Hunting-Hole successfully pushed back no less than three attacks launched by Glittergems' greey mage-rulers between 1E1-5. Hunting-Hole's population, though smaller, was far more obedient due to the fear they had for such powerful mages of Hunting-Hole, who quickly earned the name 'Harm's Hand'.

⌂+Hunting-Hole Faction "Harm's Hand"⌂

The Hand had five fingers, and most prominent of them was the one called 'Thumb', though his real name was Havrik Skree. Havrik's ascension to power was emblematic of the highly mobile Swiech society and the effects magick had on this social mobility. He was born to a litter of over twelve—though he was the only to survive—and his childhood was spent bruising his knuckles as a merchant's guard. The star-storm sparked something in the young Havrik, the same something that allowed the other Swiech mages to tear at the life force of those around them. Havrik fell into such a group of mage-thugs and was among the first in Hunting-Hole's vivificationist's cabal.

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A Swiech Mage;
By 1E55 Vatha, daughter and murderer of the great mage Havrik, had discovered thaumaturgy due to her father's cruel punishment that saw her banished to the Blood-Wail Hills.
The new magick gave the Swiech mages unparalleled control over their population.​

Havrik lacked the sense of superiority that many of his mage-fellows had when it came to Hunting-Hole's teeming masses. He had been one of them, after all. When Havrik looked upon the gleaming Glitterfangs warren he saw a gilded path for the Swiech to follow. Though he prized his magick, he knew that coin and commerce was what truly made Kor-Fiol a magickal place. While the other members of the Hand fretted over the slackening supply of celestium to arm their few soldiers and turned to Blood-Wail Hill's mana deposits, Havrik funded an expedition into the Green Peak Mountains looming over his warren. There the Swiech struck gold.

To be more accurate the Swiech found a vein of celestium so rich that Havrik's descendants still grow fat off of profit a century later. In 1E8 Hunting-Hole's first celestium mines were constructed—again, with Havrik's financial backing—and by 1E10 the celestium they unearthed was sold all across Kor-Fiol. Glitterfangs was still more prosperous than Hunting-Hole, its fertile position between two rivers simply rendering it better suited for trade, but Hunting-Hole was its fierce rival.

¤+Hunting-Hole Livelihood "Celestium Mines"¤

Over the next few decades, between 1E11-35, the two warrens attracted dozens of rural tribes. Even a small population of Star-Goblins migrated east to the warrens after the fallout surrounding their 'Astral Union', forming small enclaves within the massive cities. More over, the introduction of these new populations saw an increase in the number of magick-capable Swiech. The established cabals could hardly afford to see their already deadly politics become deadlier with the infusion of new, younger mages, and so the first settling expeditions began. Both city states sought to out-do the other by claiming more land, beginning in 1E36 with Hunting-Hole's brazen establishment of Amberblood where the Amber River flowed into Lake Deep.

Soon thereafter, in 1E38, Glitterfang established the dual-colony of Twin-Eyes on the islands of Luck and Luckier just off Lake Deep's western coast. Though as luck would have it Twin-Eyes was destroyed in 1E45 after the island's mer-goblin natives rose up and reclaimed their home. Glitterfang was not hindered by this setback, though, and under the direction of Vatha the Exile (see Appx. I)—Havrik's disowned daughter and the first Swiech thaumaturgist—a flurry of colonization ensued. 1E47 saw Glitterfang extend its reach north along Lake Deep's coast and first attempts at their own doomed mining operations with the colony of Blood Hope. 1E50 was the year of Hunting-Hole's counter-parry with the establishment of High-Rock, a mining colony doomed to a diminished population due to the hard terrain of the Green Peak Mountains. Glitterfang struck its first vein of celestium ore in 1E59 when North-Tail was founded in the hills far to the north. A forty year lull in colonization efforts then followed, largely due to the strain that was put on Glitterfang and Hunting-Hole by supporting their colonists. Occasionally some colonies would endeavor to secure their own political freedom, but such rebellions were quickly quashed by the powerful 'capital' cabals.

⌂+Glitterfang Factions "Blood Hope Colony"; "North Tail Colony"⌂
⌂+Hunting-Hole Factions "Amberblood Colony"; "High Rock Colony"⌂

These forty years also marked the time when the Swiech truly came into their own politically and economically. The renewed wars between the Bragaash and the northern Narados-Rochir clans saw the increase in demand for celestium, and with their new mines the Swiech were more than ready to supply the orcs than any other peoples in Kor-Fiol. The Dohtel's discovery of artification magick in 1E21 and the creation of the Malachim's first golem in 1E100 saw an end to the Swiech's relatively unchallenged economic might, though their dominance was not toppled till the Half-Tail War and the subsequent Six Blades Rebellion in 1E105.


Extent of Swiech Warrens & Colonies c.1E113​

As the two sprawling warrens saw their might slowly fall off the intensity of their rivalry increased. After Hunting-Hole's successful defense against Glitterfang attacks early in the Silver Age, no further large-scale campaigns had been launched by either city-state. Skirmishes and raids had continued, however, and in 1E103 one skirmish saw the death of a prominent Hunting-Hole magician as she was travelling between Hunting-Hole and Amberblood. The magicians of Hunting-Hole would not allow their Glitterfang rivals to go unpunished, and so they launched a massive attack on the outlying villages around the massive warren. Always the more magickally inclined of the two, the mages of Hunting-Hole sought not just to kill the Swiech peasants, but to destroy the land itself by salting the land with harmful curses. By in large these curses failed, as the mages hardly understood the differences between the life force of the land and the life force of those that lived on it, but the few successful attempts outraged Glitterfang's populous.

By the dawn of 1E104 both warrens had mobilized for war; hastily drafting armies and preparing inexperienced mages for battle. The two grand armies did not clash, however, for an entire year, as the generals on both sides sought to win the war by strangling the economy of the enemy. Caravans were destroyed, roads upturned, farmlands ravaged—all in the name of profit. A proper battle was not had till the first wintry months of 1E105, resulting in a sound defeat of the Hunting-Hole army when they were caught unawares by the Glitterfang warbands. A route ensued almost immediately after the battle began, and a great many Swiech did not run back home, but ran far south under the leadership of Saur the Blade.

Saur was not a very capable magician, but he made up for it in spirit and charisma. His grasp of vivification was tenuous at best, and thaumaturgy was utterly beyond him, but he was so well liked that he drew more powerful figures to his side. The aimless war had only bolstered Saur's support, and by the bloody battle in 1E105 his subversive following numbered more than 1/4th of Hunting-Hole's army. Some said that the Hunting-Hole route was nothing more than a ploy on Saur's part, but none were able to prove it. Not that it mattered, Saur and his followers went on to form their own warren along the coast far south of 'civilized' Swiech territory.

⌂Six Blades Formed⌂

Six Blades was named after its six leaders, five of which were utterly devoted to Saur the 'first blade'. Among the six was a wealthy merchant's equally wealthy son, two formidable and feared bandits-turned-soldiers, a prodigious vivificationist, and Skivas Grey—the granddaughter of Vatha the Exile through the illegitimate line that would make Vatha an exile. Saur and Skivas were something of a couple, and their union only added to Saur's regal persona by tying him to the Havrik's beloved line. Nominally the Six Blades ruled as a council, though Saur thoroughly dominated the sessions and his will was law. It should come to no surprise that within months he was proclaimed a king, and not long after that he lashed out at a wounded Hunting-Hole by seizing Amberblood as the leaders of Glitterfangs and Hunting-Hole were hashing out a peace.

Six Blades Rebellion would ultimately be a misguided and abortive effort. By the end of 1E106 Amberblood was back in the hands of Hunting-Hole mages, albeit the warren-colony was emptied of its lower classes who flocked to King Saur's side. No retaliation was made by the Hunting-Hole cabal, loathe as they were to simply sit and twiddle their thumbs, as they had put all their efforts towards rejuvenating the countrysides by exploring the restorative applications of vivification. In their stead Glitterfang launched a doomed foray to quell the Six Blades rebels, but the army was soundly defeated when the Blade vivificationist Gorleg rent no less than five enemy mages in the beginning stages of the battle.

In years that followed no further attacks were made by Glitterfang, Hunting-Hole, or Six Blades, though all watched each other with their blades drawn.

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King Saur;
Even though King Saur was the wealthy son of a middling mage and prominent merchant and the leader of the increasingly rich Six Blades Kingdo, saur was hardly distinguishable from a common pauper.
His apparent humility stemmed from his efforts to model his life after the earlier hero, Havrik Skree.
So great was Saur's hero-worship that he sought out, wooed, and married Havrik's spurned granddaughter, Skivas.


§§§​


¤⌂Short Men in Tall Shadows⌂¤
To define the Ikkir's fates during the first century of the Silver Age their southern neighbors, the Telmar, have to be explained first. Jointly the two different-yet-alike peoples explored a new world that they hardly understood. For the Ikkir survivors El-Or's surface may well have been the same alien environment that the Telmar perceived. Perhaps it was this shared unfamiliarity that lead to the forging of strong political and economical bonds.

Not long after settling in the Ikkahakka-Ozni Hills and establishing Ikkanaya-Kekteikan, the Ikkir began their first celestium mining operations. Simply put, the Ikkir looked at the western Elven neighbors and saw the wealth and prestige the metal brought. Not all the Ikkir were willing to commercialize their once collective efforts, however; ,any Ikkir simply could not grasp the notion of profit without the whole community partaking in the prosperity. This collectivist outlook lead to the creation of the first Ikkir 'investment companies' that would come to dominate the dwarves' economy. Strangely enough, the Ikkir celestium-based economy only began to soar after the efforts of a single dwarf, Uteizoha.

Uteizoha was a new breed of Ikkir. The later economic and religious pioneer came to Ikkanaya-Kekteikan in 1E52 after spending a few harsh years in the Telmar-Ikkir colony of Ikkadedka-Zihak—or Shortwood, as the Telmar colliquially referred to it. In 1E1 the Telmar [void]kin set aside the whole northern swath of their territory, called Yewlough, for their dwarven population. The decision was not born out of any particular kindness: Yewlough was poisonous to the Telric humans and their [void]kin overlords.

Nominally Zihak was ruled by a [voidkin] prince, but in reality few [void]kin or mortal Telrics ventured into Yewlough. Whether it was out of some natural dwarven hardiness or a Telric biological unfamiliarity with El-Or, the black barked tress of Yewlough could only safely be interacted with by the Ikkir dwarves. The wood itself was not poisonous. Once cut a black yew would bleed sap profusely, and this sap acted as a potent toxin that resulted in the deadening of a being's nerves. The Ikkir were hardly immune to this, but their fortified constitutions saw the sap's effects working at a much slower rate over decades. For the shorter-lived humans, and strangely for the near-immortal [void]kin, the sap's effects worked over the course of a few days and the process was unbearably painful. Deaths rarely occured, though by the end of the process a man's mind was mad from the pain. No such physical or mental afflictions plagued Yewlough's Ikkir, but by 1E113 those dwarves who had worked in the woods for the better part of the century could no longer feel.

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Bough and Berries of a Black Yew;
Equally poisonous, albeit on an entirely different level, were the red berries of black yews.
The berries, when eaten, could cause severe convulsions and even death.​

Yew wood was but one of the numerous goods produced by the Telmar. Telric craftsmen in Greymark worked the wood the Ikkir chopped down into all kinds of beautiful pieces. By 1E100 owning Telric furniture was a Kor-Fiol-wide symbol of wealth and status. Fish were caught in abundance along the northern coasts of Lake Deep, and in the western hills of the Ilonmol Range small amounts of celestium were mined. The true function of the Telric economy, however, came from its role as an intercessor between the celestium rich Ikkir polity to the north and the rest of the world. The Telmar [void]kin were loathe to leave their homes to dally with other races for extended periods of time, and so the shadow-princes would sponsor groups of Telric merchants and—more importantly—Ikkir merchant companies.

¤+Greymark Livelihoods "Yew Wood & Finished Yew Goods"; "Celestium Trade"¤

When Uteizoha settled in Ikkanaya-Kekteikan he was already a moderately wealthy dwarf and well-known for his commercial acumen among a few [void]kin princes. A thing to understand about Greymark's shadow-princes is that they were highly willful beings who were ruled by restlessness and boredom. El-Or lacked the special 'something' that the [void]kin had enjoyed when they lived in 'Between'. Many [void]kin—and even more mortal Telmars—turned to the teachings of Teiken, having convinced themselves that he was [Void]'s El-Orian manifestation. The dwarven religion spread rapidly in the new Telran state; as early as 1E30 the majority of the [void]kin princes ascribed to Teikenism in some shape. The Telmar, however, lacked the religious unity of the early Ikkir peoples, and over the next century dozens of sub-beliefs, or 'monasteries', popped up in Telmar-controlled Kor-Fiol.

Monasticism were a direct result of the highly individualistic nature of Telmar society. Though Greymark remained a political and economical center, most [void]kin would lord over some small settlement in the far-flung wilderness. These places essentially were 'projects' for the [void]princes, allowing them to test out new economic, religious, and magickal ideologies. Uteizoha had been a member of one such monastery, one of the largest and most prominent settlements. It's name was Opulent.

Opulent was founded in 1E10, shortly after Uteizoha had left his family to labor in Yewlough in order to pursue his dreams. It's ruler was a [void]princess called Vetta, a Once Removed and fanatical Teiken convert. In Vetta's mind the primary evidence of [Void]'s manifestation in El-Or was the world's wealth, if not in magick, then in material goods. She remembered 'Between' and its stark, barren landscape and saw only abundance in El-Or. To her and her disciples the magick of this new world lay in the wealth that could be made off of the land, and that amassing wealth would lead to harmony. Vetta was widely regarded as utterly deranged by the [void]kin, her brand of Teikenism being too worldly and El-Orian, and by 1E20 she had been ousted from Greymark's politics. However, her rhetoric became incredibly popular among the more adventurous and enterprising Telmar mortals—that is to say most of them—and a number of Ikkir who faced a religious crisis after the collapse of Ikkanaya-Teiken.

Uteizoha had never known his ancestor's fabled home, but he had always felt that its destruction had bored a hole where harmony should have been. By all accounts the city was Kor-Fiol's first wonder, making the present status of the Ikkir even more forlorn. The young dwarf came under Vetta's spell almost immediately upon hearing them, and between 1E20-50 he spent his youth climbing the ranks of Opulet's mercantile population. He also became a prominent priest, even acting as Vetta's close religious advisor and friend before his departure for Ikkanaya-Kekteiken in 1E52. During this time Opulet evolved from a fanatical convent to an economic powerhouse in the southern Telmar territories. Nominally it was still under the Greymark princes rule, but shadow-princess Vetta was fast becoming a political power without proper voice.

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The [Void]kin Princess Vetta;
Were it not for her apparent break from traditional [void]kin disdain for worldly connections with El-Or, Vetta likely would have become a powerful voice in Greymark.
As it stands she is virtually a queen in Opulent, and an incredibly rich one at that.​

⌂+Greymark Faction "Vetta & Opulent"⌂

It was not as if Vetta and her rich monastery-turned-city was the only rising political force outside of Greymark. The more welcomed Prince Orri—one of the eldest [void]kind known to exist and second to Cliavin & Nievele for [Void]'s love—had established his own monastery of Jalderhall in the eastern hills of the Ilonmol Range. By 1E94 the monastery was a prosperous affair pumping out the entirety of the Telmar's meager contribution to the Celestium trade and was the center for Greymark's magickal research—though it would eventually be overshadowed in both respects by the Malachim's university built not far to the south-west. Orri was no less a Teikenist than Vetta, but he espoused a more spiritual, meditative understanding of [Void]-as-Teiken. Beginning in 1E66 those [void]kin, Terlic, and Ikkir who followed Orri participated in the 'Glorious Moment' movement that sought to recapture the utterly magickal environment of 'Between' (by this point Orri's Ikkir followers had been convinced of 'Between's divine nature) through intensive meditation.

⌂+Greymark Faction "Jaderhall"⌂

Numerous other monastic orders popped up around the Telmar countryside, each espousing its own belief and reflecting the quirks of the patron shadow-prince, but these were contained to the so-called 'heartland' of Telmar territory. For aforementioned reasons Yewlough was avoided, and the Rott Woods to the south were no more hospitable because they were populated by the violent, less civilized northern clans of the Bragaash. Between 1E45-80 there was a great north-eastern movement of monastic populations into the Darkholm Hills. This resulted in the creation of numerous petty order-settlements, though none were as prominent as Opulent or Jaderhall. The greatest effect of this movement was that it brought monastic traditions to the Ikkir to the north, and Uteizoha would become the mouthpiece for these new traditions.

 
Though the free-Ikkir city of Kekteiken had eked out a small income as minor Celestium miners, their operations were by no means as extensive as those of the Swiech or Malachim. The most impressive feat the Kekteiken Ikkir had done by 1E52 was send explorers into the warmer forests north-west of their home. The ruling class of Kekteiken were the survivors of the Teiken-Collapse over half a century ago, but the city had not advanced past a mindset of the insular Ikkir who existed centuries ago. As mentioned above, a few bold Ikkir had set about making 'companies' to reconcile the Ikkir's collectivism to commercial profit. It was not until Uteizoha arrived and introduced Vetta's teachings of Teiken-Opulence that these companies truly began to thrive.

The Ikkir of Kekteiken did not take to Vetta's brand of their faith as quickly as the Ikkir of Greymark, though those few who did just so happened to be in key economic positions in society. Furthermore Uteizoha managed to revolutionize the way celestium was mined in the Ozni Hills by recognizing that celestium was commonly found underneath sandstone or a much harder type of rock that had commonly been mined by the Ikkir when they lived underneath the Ilonmol Range. While the sandstone-celestium was of slightly lesser quality, it was far easier to reach and numerous deposits of it could be found in the hills south of Kekteiken. Within a little over a year, in 1E154, Uteizoha had founded the mining city of Keknaya. By 1E101 it had become such a prosperous settlement due to its massive celestium output, that a bloodless revolution occurred and the nation of Keknaya Oznisai was formed under Uteizoha's leadership. Keknaya remained the economic capital, but seeking to placate the conservative Ikkir of Kekteiken the older city remained the nation's political capital.

⌂Keknaya Oznisai Formed⌂
⌂+Keknaya Oznisai Factions "Opulent Teikenists"; "Traditional Teikenists"⌂


Extent of Telmar & Ikkir Settlements c.1E113


§§§​


†☼¤⌂Magickal Machinations: The Kritta & Terlan⌂¤☼†
By 1E113 the Terlan humans were the only known peoples of Kor-Fiol to employ mana differently than the Dohtel's method. The secret to the Terlan's success came from their unlikely friendship with the strange elven peoples across the Dalisini Ocean, the Bladvenn Kritta. Both peoples did not meet until 1E56, when Kor-Fiol was very much in the grips of the turmoil caused by the Celestium Crisis, the Terlan included.

Terlan's involvement with the world began almost immediately. Unlike their Telmar and Icaran brothers to the east, the Terlan's leadership was largely comprised of short-lived humans who sought to do as much as possible in the brief flicker of time that was their lives. To the longer lived elves that the Terlan primarily came into contact with, the humans desperately scurried after success in their endeavors, often ending in unexpected results. This same view extended to the Terlan's Goddess-Queen/High-Priestess, who were divine in name only due to the 'curse' they had put on themselves during their early experimentation with vivification in 'Between'.

When Queen Rosore, 2nd reincarnation of Cliavin led her people into El-Or and she came battered, bruised, and exiled from the main body of [void]kin. She was not, however, despairing, and by 1E1 she and the Duo Deae priestesses were hard their work to unravel the mysteries of magick on El-Or.

⌂+Salastasi Faction "Duo Deae"⌂

The role of the Duo Deae in the advancement of the Terlan to their position as some of Kor-Fiol's most capable magicians cannot be understated. Long before the Terlan arrived in El-Or the human priesthood surrounding [Void]'s favored [void]kin princesses, Cliavin & Nieleve, were proficient mages. In fact, the Duo Deae priestesses were the only humans capable of casting magick in 'Between' before the Icaran king, Xanthus the White, stole knowledge of magick from the two goddesses. On El-Or they, like their Goddess-Queen, found that their magickal abilities were diminished due to El-Or's seemingly magick-scarce environment. To compensate for this, the priestesses began to organize mass ritualistic sacrifices of the Terlan male population, knowing—much like the Icarans did—that there was always power to be harvested in life forces.

It was with these first bloody spells that the Terlan capital of Salastasi was built.

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A Ritual of the Duo Deae Priestesses;
Most blood sacrifices only see the deaths of strong males who have already mated with one or two Terlan women.
Thus, to be chosen for a sacrifice is a great honor among the Terlan males.​

The Terlan's female population was largely able to engage in more skilled pursuits due to Salastasi's reliance on male slaves, living and undead. Life for a Terlan male was a short brutal affair, and the highest point he could look forward to was his possible chance to copulate with a Terlan women. Among the women it became a thing of status to keep 'stables' of healthy males whose strong seed would result in strong children. Daughters born from these unions could expect a wealth of opportunities; sons would know only servitude and were raised in Salastasi's great orphanage. The Terlan society was a highly mobile of skilled female artisans dominated by the Duo Deae church; the highest occupation a girl-child could attain was to become a priestesses as it meant she had the rare gift of magick.

The Duo Deae never numbered more than a few hundred, which was never a problem as Salastasi's magick-capable population rarely was any larger. Each priestess was committed to a 'coven' that was dedicated to researching some aspect of El-Or's magick; each coven was expected to regularly create or optimize rituals every few years, least they earn Rosore's scorn. Politics in these early years were minimized by the rigor of Rosore's demands, and between 1E10-50 dozens upon dozens of costly rituals were fabricated.

☼+Salastasi Research towards "???" magick☼

The Terlan's magickal efforts were stymied by the increasing lack of acceptable male sacrifices and mates. As early as 1E33 Rosore toyed with the idea of child sacrifices, but the results were underwhelming to say the least. The coven in charge of these experiments narrowed the problem down the children's inability to understand the finality of death. Rituals done with virginal blood were even less effective due to the impossibility of male 'purity'—a face so great that when the coven researching virginal rituals brought up the question they were laughed out of the room—and the equally impossible task to find a Terlan woman who was still a virgin past her early teens. Sexual dalliances—though seen as a base act—was common pastime, and childbearing seen as every woman's sacred duty. Only the priestesses of the Duo Deae maintained their chastity, as it was a requirement to stand in the presence of the Goddess-On-El-Or and thought to heighten the magickal ability of the caster. Curiously enough the reincarnations of Nievele and Cliavin were allowed to mate with man, though often refrained from doing so due to their intense disdain for the human male sex. This changed when the Rochir Narados rode into Salastasi.

1E3 marked the first lasting contact between the Narados and the Terlan. In spring months of that year a northern tribe fresh from their skirmishes with the Bragaash brought herds of goats to the Terlan and traded them for the salt gathered along the Dalisini coast. Over the next century the Narados would continue to play an important part in the Terlan's economic interactions with the world, acting as middlemen and merchants. As the Terlan expanded up and down the coast, creating 'salt-slave' villages comprised entirely of men, living and undead, these northern tribes grew nearly as rich as their southern cousins. The difference between lay in political unity. The southern Narados' pursuit of wealth would cause them to go on to form the Rochir's first unified kingdom, Elendrel. The northern clans, however, lacked the violent climate that forced the southern Rochir to coalesce for mutual defense—the Terlan were simply too inviting.

¤+Salastasi Livelihood "Salt"¤

Strangely, the Narados Rochir—male and female—were regarded remarkably fairly by the Terlan. Salastasi's idle women could hardly see the brutish features of their males in the slighter, genteel elven horsemen. By 1E40 man Terlan women had come to see the Narados as more desirable partners, and a middle-aged Rosore was the first Terlan to take a Narados horseman for a consort. Always quick to please their queen by mimicking her every move, the majority of Terlan women followed suit. These relationships had a greater sense of permanency than those between humans—which still occurred in the name of breeding. By 1E70, some twenty years after the Terlan had made contact with the Kritta, there was a small population of half-elven Terlan women with all the grace and ambition of both their parents. The trouble was they had no chance at meaningful social advancement because they were barred from the Duo Deae priesthood, regardless of their magickal capabilities. The aged Rosore, fearing the ramifications that mixed blood could have on her peoples' magickal efforts, rebuked even her own daughter, Asophe.

Terlan magick underwent a tremendous leap after making contact with the Kritta who sailed across the Dalisini Sea. Until 1E56 the Terlan had muddled in their researching, always just shy of something great, but limited by their limited approach to magick. Rituals were costly affairs; either involving a few incredibly skilled priestesses spending hours to perfect each step or relying on the life force of thousands who channeled their power through a single, sacrificial being. When the Kirtta made contact with the Terlan they did so on the eve of a massive annual ritual meant to strengthen the Terlan flocks by killing dozens of slaves. The Kritta understood the Terlan's aims somewhat, but found the execution too ham-fisted compared to their understanding of magick.

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A Bladvenn Warrior;
The Bladvenn were given their name by the Terlan, who found it curious that the amphibious elves consumed blood.
Amongst themselves the Bladvenn were divided among numerous cultures and subcultures, the most prominent of them in 1E113 being the Kritta.​

If there ever has been evidence of magick in El-Or prior to the star-storm the elves of the world would be it. Like their distant Malachim cousins, the Kritta belonged to a species of amphibious elves seemingly blessed by magick and made physically exceptional because of it. Kritta belonged to a race the Terlan would later call the Bladvenn due to the elves' predilection to consuming blood. A Bladvenn could easily sustain himself on blood alone, though he would hunger for more substantial food. This ability lead to the Bladvenn expanding all across their home, a peninsula which they called Kirritia.

Kirritia was a wet land. From the Mountains of Tavvk ran no less than three mighty rivers, and from Mount Jarri flowed the Uvirruna Rivers that created the wetlands where the Kritta made their home. Other Bladvenn peoples made their homes in the wetlands to the north, though by all Kritta accounts these Bladvenn were savage. What was not wet was flat and grassy. Savage Anaamu goblins roamed these swaths of plains with their wolfen mounts. These goblins easily outnumbered the Bladvenn, and prior to the star-storm the elves were limited to living in the marshes and wet forests.

For a long time the Kritta lived in small, semi-sedentary tribes in the wetlands and along Kirritia's coasts. Most Bladvenn movement was spurred by the fast-moving Anaamu who could strike at a moment's notice, necessitating that villages be able to be quickly dismantled while the Bladvenn retreated into the deeper swamps or off the coasts. Occasionally a few of these tribes would unite into a league in order to ward off a large Anaamu attack, or even strike out at the goblin hordes, but these unions were short and rarely lasted longer than they needed to. The star-fall changed this by the magick that followed in its wake. The Kritta that introduced themselves to Queen Rosore and the Terlan had only recently united under a great magician-warrior called Agorta.

The rise of Agorta began when the star-storm flung a large meteor just off the coast of the Vennera Wetlands. This meteor was not unlike the one that decimated the Dohtel Amos' home, large, fiery, and bringing death to those Kritta nearby. No tragic tale followed, however, as the majority of the Kritta were more in-land due to a lull in Anaamu attacks. Agorta was the first Bladvenn to explore the impact site, and he found himself unable to leave the area for long. Within days Agorta began to hear voices speaking hundreds of names, and in the weeks that followed some say that Agorta went mad. During this time more and more Kritta came to investigate the strange flash that they had seen on the horizon—and behind them came the Anaamu.

So quick was the attack that within the first minutes of battle a third of the gathered Kritta were killed. Without the element of surprise, the Bladvenn warriors floundered. It is likely that all the elves on the beach would have died that day were it not for Agorta. In a fit of madness and fear he began to shriek the words he heard in his head, and the meteor out at sea began to glow. A great wave rose up and crashed into the beach, sweeping away Bladvenn and Anaamu alike.

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The Sea Tooth;
In his dreams Agorta saw a great symbol, and upon waking the next day he ordered his people to carve that symbol upon the Sea Tooth.​

Not every Kritta survived the tidal wave, though those that did saw Agorta's madness differently. Some among them understood his words, and these Kritta would spread out all over the wetlands to tell the story of Agorta's strange powers. Most were skeptical, though curious enough to travel to the beach where they witnessed all kinds of miraculous displays. The great mage could hold the seas afloat, cause the earth to shake, and make the winds howl with little more than a few, strange words. Each time he cast such a spell the meteor, now called the Sea Tooth, glowed.

By 1E5 the Kritta of the Vennera Wetlands hand made the beach by the Sea Tooth their semi-permanent capital. The city that arose was like no city that any races on Kor-Fiol could imagine. It was a collection of shanty huts, stilted sea houses, tents and tarps set up wherever—all vestiges of the former Kritta life ruled by their fear of the Anaamu. In Agorta and his powers many of the elves saw a chance at striking back at their goblin foes. The elders of the assembled tribes formed a league around Agorta, and though they tried to invest leadership into the mage he refused. Instead Veneka, chieftain of a larger tribe, took up the role of league-leader and planned out a cunning attack that would see the Bladvenn feign retreat back to their beach, whereupon Agorta and the Sea Tooth could destroy them. The Anaamu, hardly being very intelligent creatures, fell for this ploy no less than three times and thereafter they avoided the wetlands and the coasts south of it, believing the place to be cursed.

⌂League of Agortal Formed⌂
☼League of Agortal Discovers Geomancery☼

Over the next century the League of Agorta would persist, though under Veneka's leadership. As he would find out himself, Veneka was something of a mage and could understand a few of the words Agorta spoke—however whatever magick Veneka summoned was mainly employed to dazzle and frighten. Many others followed down Veneka's path by apprenticing themselves to Agorta and spending months at a time listening to the mad mage speak. A true city rose up around Agorta and the Sea Tooth, and the Kritta called it Agortal to honor their magickal savior. Agorta, however, could care less; he was more times than not incoherent and listening to the voices.

1E14 marked the beginning of the league's conquest of the tribes living in the Vetkhara Woods and the remainder of the Vennera Wetlands. Veneka and his mages found that their powers worked even when away from the Sea Tooth, albeit on much smaller scales, and the Kritta were able to successfully subdue the southern tip of Kirritia by 1E28. In opposition numerous Bladvenn to the north organized leagues of their own, mostly out of self-defense and they lacked the unifying presence of Agorta. As early as 1E25 magick had spread to the other tribes, though not the powerful geomancery that the League of Agorta commanded, but a subtler thing that built off of longstanding traditions.

Among the many gifts the Kritta brought with them when they met the Terlan were potions, salves, and poisons—all potent and all infused with magick. For as long as any Kritta could remember they had used almost every part of El-Or's plant and animal life to create primitive medicines and poisons. On the eve of the star-storm the Kritta' herbal traditions had not advanced further than it had for centuries; in fact, the Kritta's methods would remain very much the same over the first century of the Silver Age. What changed were the ingredients.

Something in El-Or awoke when it was struk by the falling stars. More than ley lines and geomantic magick, the art of alchemy was the manifestation of the world's power. Seemingly overnight the plants that the Kritta included in their potions took on new properties and for nearly fifty years between 1E5-50 Kritta shamans, herbalists, and, curiously enough, blacksmiths created a new body of alchemy still in use today. In the other leagues the herbalist, not the shaman, began to assume positions of power. The most common potion was a mixture of blood and various once-poisonous flowers that now only drugged an elf's mind till they became a mad, raving beast. With these berserker Bladvenn behind them, the northern leagues first struck out at the Anaamu, taking their former foes as slaves, and then launched attacks onto the League of Agorta.

☼Bladvenn Discover Alchemy☼

With the help of his geomancers and Agorta, Veneka successfully beat back each of these attacks. Those non-Kritta Bladvenn who survived were most frequently taken as slaves, where they were treated as being only marginally better than the Anaamu slaves that would later be captured. By 1E55 Veneka had built the League of Agorta into a formidable power, and Agortal had begun to become the Bladvenn's first permanent settlement. He sent explorers east across the Dalisini Sea where they met the Terlan, and immediately trade between the two polities commenced.

¤+League of Agorta Livelihood "Alchemic Goods"¤

The next half-century for both the Terlan and Kritta could be summed up on one word: progress. Queen Rosore, and after her death in 1E75, Queen Manil, 2nd reincarnation of Nieleve, sent numerous priestesses to Agortal to learn more from the Kritta, and Veneka did very much the same. One of the most prominent scholars on magick during that era was neither priestess or shaman, but the daughter of a Goddess and a wayward Narados horseman: Asophe.

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Asophe;
During the second century of the Silver Age the Terlan half-elf maiden would come to be known as the 'Black-Eyed Maiden' for her peculiar black eyes.
Supposedly this was a birth defect stemming by her 'divine' originator, Rosore.​

It was 1E70 and Asophe was only 20—though she looked five years younger than that—when she left her home for Agortal after her queen-mother censured her for attempting to entire the priesthood. The half-elf Terlan possessed a great capacity for magick, though none of the discipline or blood-purity that was a necessity to join the Duo Deae priesthood. In a fit of rebellion she fled on a Terlan ship taking salt and finished goods to sell for Kritta alchemic goods. When she arrived in the Bladvenn city she was all at once overwhelmed by its stench, its foreignness, and its magick.

By this point many of the Kritta had come to see Agorta as some kind of mad-prophet and speaker for their traditional animistic deities, though it was not until 1E80 that his disciples would officially establish a cult. Nonetheless, chanting and rituals were a common sight in Agortal, and they seemed to be made strong when done in the shadow of the Sea Tooth. Asophe recognized that the gleaming Sea Tooth was made up of the same stuff found in the Howling Plains that most peoples of Kor-Fiol avoided. The plains had been bombarded by stars during the star-storm, and as a result became a desolate land of ghosts and half-seen shadows. Under Rosore's leadership there had been a few expeditions into the plains, but those who returned only brought stories of terrifying shapes and creatures that hovered just on the edge of view. A slave settlement was built despite these ominous warnings; the slaves living there became so addled and disturbed that the Duo Deae—in an uncharacteristic act of mercy—had them all killed. A few years prior Asophe had visited the plains briefly while attempting to seek out her birth father—to no avail—and had even taken up one of the supposedly cursed rocks as a souvenir. She held that rock up to the Sea Tooth during one of her many audiences with Agortal, and between his words and the Sea Tooth she made a leap that would define Terlan magick thereon forward.

⌂+League of Agortal Faction "Disciples of Agorta"⌂

Asophe spent the next ten years studying under Agortal, though try as she might she could not grasp the nuances of geomancery. She could cast the spells, but they were unfocused, brutish, and not nearly as powerful as those cast by the Bladvenn shamans. She did, however, link the amplification of the Kritta's magick to the strange stuff that the Sea Tooth was made out of. Upon returning to her home she immediately went into the Howling Plains and set herself to researching. In the end she determined that the rock, which the Dohtel would call mana, somehow made magick exponentially more powerful. Unlike the Dohtel, however, she came to the conclusion that to amplify magick it would be necessary cast on top of a mana-rich site, a theory which proved mostly correct. According to Asophe and those she would attract, magick spells were layered and mana provided a sturdy foundation for spells to be built up higher than ever before.

It was not as if the Duo Deae sat idly by while Asophe revolutionized the way Terlan magick was cast. Upon realizing what her predecessor's daughter was doing the young Queen Manil had the half-elf watched closely. On the eve of Asophe's discoveries Manil ordered the half-elf arrested and be brought to Salastasi's interrogation chambers. After a few hours of creative questioning the Duo Deae had gotten all the answers to their questions and knew all that Asophe knew. They released her and she fled the kingdom, disappearing among the Narados tribes. Immediately Manil and the Duo Deae set out to capitalize on their new understanding of magick, and in 1E100 the Terlan's 'Glasrock Tower' was well underway to completion.

☼Salastasi Constructs Mana-Well Augment "Glasrock Tower"☼

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†☼¤⌂Let's Make War On Everybody! Also, Everyone Is A Slave⌂¤☼†
The bloodiest effects of the Celestium Crisis could be felt no where better than in Kor-Fiol's southern birthplace of civilization, culture, and wide-scale war. By in large the majority of these conflicts involved the Bragaash fighting against another kingdom, and sometimes with themselves.

At the end of the Forgotten Ages the Bragaash had gone from a belligerent group of tribes to becoming a vaguely unified polity—some of them at least. Only the Bragaash of the Ruut Woods could truly call themselves civilized, and this was due to many of the ham-fisted efforts of the tribal union called Clanial.

In the years leading up to the star-fall the orcs of the innermost parts of the Ruut Woods found themselves blessed with southern trade and culture. Rochir slaves propelled these Inner-Ruut Bragaash even higher, so much so that their Outer-Ruut, Gir, and Thôn-yFel cousins still would not have attained the same level of sophistication even a century into the Silver Age.

Clanial was a potent fusion between military leadership and rabid consumption of foreign culture. Most elders and high elders of the tribal union were warriors or merchants—which were one in the same among in Clanial. In the times of relative prosperity young, male Clanial orcs would go off as mercenaries, and by 1E113 most kingdoms could boast to have some small amount of mercenary orcs in their armies. Upon returning home most of these grizzled warriors too up either military posts or became merchants. Those orcs who remained in their villages, though they lacked the adventure and experiences of mercenaries, could enjoy somewhat comfortable lives as artisan apprentices, slave overseers, and low-level soldiers. By far, the most unique contribution Clanial made was the creation of bee-keeping, and Bragaash honey was sold far and wide. Like many of the slave owning polities of the Silver Age, Clanial relied heavily upon forced labor to produce their food, though arguably the Clanial still employed a great deal of unskilled labor as the Bragaash overseers often could be found in the fields with their charges. Agriculture was a collective effort in rural villages, and each village had to contribute a large portion of their food in taxes meant to maintain Clanial's army. In order not to starve virtually all members of a village, regardless of their occupation, were expected to labor at some point in the year.

¤+Clanial Livelihood "Honey"¤

In their commercial endeavors the Clanial were highly individualistic, greedy, and utter opportunists; they treated trade as if it was war. Brawls between shopkeepers was not an uncommon sight in their capital of Riverflor, and many of the more prosperous merchants had once been skilled mercenaries whose bloody fortune was the foundation for their later attempts at 'peaceful' enterprise. Over the Silver Age's first century Riverflor became a commercial mecca alongside its role as the Clanial legal capital, eclipsing the Sheol river-city of Hi yFel in importance as early as 1E70. In Riverflor a plethora of goods made their way down through Lake Deep and its many rivers were traded. The Malachim, Ikkir, and Swiech sold their celestium to Bragaash blacksmiths; Sheol plied fruits and vegetables; Telmar peddled Yew woodworks; and the Dohtel unloaded their strange, magickal devices. In fact, the only peoples that truly had no presence in the markets of Riverflor by the end of 1E100 were the Narados and Icaran, who were near constantly at war with the orcs.

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Riverflor c.1E113;
Though Riverflor was a testament to Bragaash prosperity, it was also a testament to their pragmatisim.
Riverflor was not a pretty city. What little proper architecture it had was limited to poor mockeries of Dohtel and Sheol buildings, and were limited to the main marketplace and meeting hall.
Everywhere else was sprawl. Houses were haphazardly set up, streets littered with filth, and a sour stench washed over the entire city.​

The Narados Rochir had good reason to despise the prosperous Clanial orcs—and all orc-kind for that matter. It was with the sweat, blood, and tears of enslaved Forest-Rochir that the Bragaash were able to make their wealth. Even among the less commercial tribes of the Outer-Ruut Woods, Forests of Gir, and Thôn-yFel forests enslaving elves was an integral part of maintaining their ramshackle societies. Worse still was the fact that the Bragaash frequently stole into the Sullôs Plains to steal Narados herds, women, and children.

In 1E34 the southern Narados tribes took their first step towards becoming an actual nation, and it was a large one. Maerron, son of the recently dead Narados lord of Lof yFel, took up his father's nominal role as 'King' of the Narados and immediately made three decrees. The first called for the scouring of all Bragaash lands in order to free Rochir slaves. These 'liberation' parties were composed of young, fleet-footed, and sure-saddled riders who stole into the forests and returned with haggard bands of freed slaves. More often than not the abolitionist parties failed in their endeavors, but rarely were the Narados themselves captured due to their extreme penchant for mobility.

The second decree mandated that all tribes contribute a number of their best riders to serve under Maerron for a period of ten years to provide Lof yFel with a proper army. Now, only roughly half of the tribes answered this call initially. Those that did had few notions of unity or nationality, and were the ones with vested commercial interests in keeping Lof yFel in Rochir hands. Maerron's third action, and perhaps his most ill-advised, sought to change this indifference to political unity. He changed the name of Lof yFel to Minra Draor.

What is in a name? In the case of Lof yFel-Minra Draor it was the ire of an entire species. Though their beloved King Szandor had given away the Sheol cultural capital in the years prior to the Silver Age, his halfling subjects did not forget their loss. The river-lords of Szandor's cities impressed upon their megalomaniacal king that while the Narados occupation of Lof yFel-Minra Draor could be tolerated, the rebranding of the city as Narados was an affront that could hardly be suffered. Szandor himself would have preferred peace—he and the young King Maerron were even friends, despite the fact that Maerron's people held numerous Sheol in bondage and continued to raid river villages for slaves. In Szandor's eyes the Narados made up for all their violence with the trade they brought to the halfling cities.

As much as the river-lords were loathe to admit it, the Narados were more reliable agents to transport goods than the barges that skirted up and down the La Vey River. Part of the river-transport's problems came from the grim necessity for most southern Sheol goods to pass through the wild—perhaps the wildest—part of any Bragaash held territory: the forests of Thôn-yFel. More so than the Gir and Outer-Ruut, the Thôn-yFel orcs were brutal beyond belief. When the Bragaash waged their war on the Rochir during the Forgotten Ages, the Bragaash met the strongest resistance from the elves of Thôn-yFel and in turn were broken by the strongest orcs. The losses the orcs suffered were tremendous, and out of hate the new occupants of Thôn-yFel debased their elvish slaves so utterly that the more civilized races claimed the orcs debased themselves. They were not far off. Well into the Silver Ages the Thôn-yFel orcs managed to terrorize both Clanial and Szandor traders with guerrilla tactics and a complete lack of mercy. Clear indication of the depths of their savage rage stemmed from the fact that these orcs did not even keep the goods they plundered—what they could not eat they burned. Prisoners did not exist, as the orcs of Thôn-yFel adhered to a hyper-violent understanding of Bragaash honor. To lose even one battle was to lose everything that made an orc an orc, and so the Thôn-yFel Bragaash fought accordingly.

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A Band of Thôn-yFel Orcs;
The most terrifying thing about the Thôn-yFel orcs was not their brutality, but the cunning hidden behind their unequivocally violent natures.
The southern forest-orcs did not exist in a vacuum, and much like their civilized Clanial cousins they adopted certain aspects of Sheol, Dohtel, and Narados culture.
These things, however, all exclusively dealt with war, and when they were combined with relentless cruelty it created a culture of hyper-capable, hyper-violent orcs.​

1E23 marked a year of near-constant warfare between Clanial and the Thôn-yFel orcs. The Clanial lost, and paid a large tribute to their feral cousins. The next year the feral reavers turned on the Sheol cities to the south, and again were successful in extracting food, wealth, and arms from their supposed betters. Truthfully, the only thing keeping the Thôn-yFel in check were their small numbers and the Narados horsemen, whose equally ruthless attacks kept the orcs in their little forest.

The Narados allowed for river-traders to pass along goods across the vast Sullôs Plains. Furthermore, the Narados' tribes brought down Terlan, Malachim, and eventually Kritta goods reliably, and in large amounts. The cries, however, of the river-lords were too much for King Szandor to ignore, and in 1E35 he declared war on the elves, and it would not end until Szandor's death in 1E50. The War for Lof yFel began when Szandor launched a surprise attack Maerron and Lof yFel-Minra Draor, killing the Narados 'king' with his magic, which created outrage among most of the Narados clans. Szandor had counted upon the fractured nature of the horselords to play to his kingdom's benefit, and it did during the early years of the war. However, in 1E44 the northern clans finally heeded the calls of their southern brothers and brought their magick to the war.

Magick was a new thing to the horsemen, having only been taught to a few women of the northern clans by Duo Deae priestesses during a short-lived attempt to reap more souls for the priesthood. Though the Terlan taught only the most rudimentary aspects of vivification, it was all that the horselords needed to begin their foray into the magickal world. Due to the initial target of the Terlan's teachings, most of the Narados mages before 1E80 were women who viciously guarded their knowledge as a means of social advancement. During the War for Lof yFel these women played crucial roles from 1E44 onward in keeping the Narados army healthy and constantly prepared to fight. When facing Szandor's powerful magick the Narados knew that they could only stand to win if they could overwhelm the Sheol army, thus negating the halflings' sole capable magician. The plan succeeded and by 1E48 the Narados had beaten the Sheol in the long-run by raiding the halfling villages and supply caravans. Though Szandor won virtually every battle in the field, he was ultimately defeated due to attrition. Ever an arrogant man, Szandor refused to admit defeat and continued to press his army till he was finally killed in 1E50 by an errant arrow shot by an unknown Narados horseman. Upon realizing the death of their king the Sheol army dissolved, and over the next fifty years the Kingdom of Szandor was bound together by only a thread.

King Szandor was a prolific man, having sired over fourty-two children by half as many women. When he was first cementing his reign the young halfling king had taken numerous brides from each of the ruling merchant families of the river-cities he conquered, partly out of arrogance and party out of lust. Upon his death, Szandor's libido threatened to undo all of his conquests and revert the prosperous Sheol kingdom back to its days of petty politicking. Almost instantly the various heirs to Szandor's throne asserted their claims, and the War for Lof yFel was forgotten—the Narados had won by default.

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A Homeguard Rider;
Perhaps one of Loran's most admirable achievements was the establishment of the Homeguard Riders, the Rochir's & Narados' first permanent army.
The Homeguard would answer only to Loran, despite whatever clan ties they had elsewhere, thus strengthening the young king's rule.​

The Narados, however, did not rest on their laurels for long till they too fell into infighting. The northern tribes, having once again fought in southern wars, demanded some kind of honor payment for their aid. The southern tribes refused and between 1E51-3 the Narados fought a vicious war against themselves. There was a silver lining to all this violence; in 1E52 the southern lords came together and elected a new king, a young chieftain and mage called Loran.

Loran was one of the few southern Narados to have a grasp of vivification, and one of the few males to even be able to conjure up some much as a whisper. Under his guidance vivification magick would come to be a common feature in the new Kingdom of Elendrel. Although King Loran would ultimately lose the war and in 1E53 submit the southern tribes to the dominion of a newly created council of northern chieftains, he did unite his people, and by 1E70 the rule of the northern horselords was nominal due to pressure from Gir Bragaash.

⌂Kingdom of Elendrel Formed⌂
☼Elendrel Discovers Vivification Magick☼

From its inception Elendrel was a rich kingdom. Not as rich as Sheol, or Clanial, or any of the northern celestium mining peoples, but rich nonetheless. Much of this was due to the fact that its capital, Minra Draor, lay at the mouth of the great La Vey River and was one of the few major ports in all of Kor-Fiol. When the Dohtel expanded the known world with their discovery of the Kelofkinde and the Nephilim Giants of the Kulo Peninsula and the Kritta's expeditions from Kirittia to Kor-Fiol, Minra Draor promised to be a major conduit for world-wide interaction.

As Loran united his people and formed the Rochir's first real kingdom, the Sheol were hard at work dismantling theirs. In 1E152 four claimants rose above all others. They were Oldor the Bard, a particularly handsome halfling hailing from Singodia, the easternmost river-city in the kingdom; Karun the Blue Maiden, an aspiring merchant who had the backing of the largest Sheol river-fleet and came from the capital of yFel; Szandor II 'the Strange' was Szandor's second-eldest and by far his least liked children due to the 'voices' that haunted the poor child; lastly was Tarbrand the Warrior, who was not born of any merchant-noble's daughter, but a servant to the ruling family of Hi yFel. Understandably Tarbrad's claim was the weakest, but his reputation as a fierce soldier, commander, and one of the few halflings to have successfully mounted a horse gave him more than enough credit during those trying years.

1E53 saw Tarbrand's 'Valorous Company' capture and kill Oldor, causing an outrage in Singodia. Oldor's grandparents and mother were prepared to send an army to combat the vicious Tarbrand, but skrimishes with the Icaran forced the halflings to abandon revenge for the time being. Between 1E54-8 Tarbrand tried to bolster his reputation by making war with the nomadic Narados, though in the end he put too much stock in his horsemanship and his 'Valorous Company' was broken and enslaved in the first month of 1E59. This left only Szandor II and Karun the Blue Maiden, and it only took a year before Karun realized that it would be far more profitable to yield the kingship, and so Szandor II became king. Almost isntantly his reign was challenged, and Hi yFel rose up against their new king. Within months Szandor had put them back down, and he did so all by himself.

Though Szandor II lacked his father's charisma, he certainly possessed his capacity for magick. The new Sheol king was arguably insane, but when the time came for him to cast spells lucidity dawned upon his addled mind and the world trembled. Most, if not all, of Szandor I's children had some small capacity for magick. The Sheol's special brand of geomancery was tied to the bloodline of Szandor, as only his children could see the ley lines that other races could simply guess at. For Szandor II the ley lines constantly thrummed around him, even when the closest ones were miles away. That thrumming had turned to voices in his early childhood and ever since then he seemed haunted by what they said. The voices did, however, whisper to him words of power and it was with these words that he brought the river-lords of Hi yFel to their knees in 1E60.

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King Szandor II;
Though he seemed sickly, King Szandor II was an incredibly healthy man and would live well into old age.
He claimed that his prodigious health was owed to the 'voices' that kept him from ever becoming sick or injured.​

For all of his oddities, Szandor II was a much kinder man than his father and his punishment of Hi yFel was light. It seemed as if the king was not at all interested in exerting central leadership, and between 1E60-113 the river-cities of the kingdom began to exert more political influence over domestic and foreign politics. Perhaps this was all part of Szandor II's plans, as during these years his kingdom grew more and more profitable—if decentralized—regaining much of the wealth it had lost during Szandor I's rule and the war with the Narados. Furthermore, Szandor II advanced the magickal research of the kingdom, plucking his nieces and nephews from their families in order to teach them the things he heard.

☼+Kingdom of Szandor Geomancers☼

The Clanial orcs and Icaran humans did not simply sit idly by while the Sheol grew richer. In 1E64 the Clanial high elders saw fit to alleviate some of their budgetary woes brought on by fortification over-extension with war against the Sheol. The war as a short one, lasting only the remainder of the year, and by 1E65 the Clanial retreated back to their borders after being soundly defeated by Szandor II's magicks. The high elders recognized their society's weakness due to its lack of magick—even the wild Narados could cast spells while the Bragaash orcs lagged behind. Through vaguely peaceful contact with their Gir cousins, the Clanial orcs knew that magick had come to the Narados through the strange Terlan humans who lived beyond the even stranger Howling Plains. No amount of spooky voices and disturbing half-shadows would hinder the Clanial's lust for progress, and in 1E66 they paid numerous Gir clans to steal into Terlan lands in order to kidnap a Terlan mage. As luck would have it, the Terlan's efforts to settle the Howling Plains had led to the creation of a small outpost inhabited by slaves and a few Duo Deae priestesses. When the ferocious Gir orcs stormed into the outposts the priestesses were caught by surprise and their magick spells, though curiously more powerful, went awry and did more harm than good. They were captured and brought back to the Clanial. Over a torturous three years the priestesses were broken and they revealed their secrets to the orcs.

☼Clanial Union Discovers Vivification☼

The Bragaash knew how to harm, but not how to heal, and vivification became a thing taught to most of their warriors. In 1E86, when the Icaran skirmished with Clanial scouts, the humans were surprised to find that the orcs lashed out at them first with spells and swords second (though the Icaran still won the battle, being more powerful mages). During the war that followed the Icaran were soundly defeated when hordes of Clanial warriors rent apart the necromancers' undead soldiers with both blade and magick. The Icaran had aimed at striking deep into the Outer-Ruut Woods in order to capture new, stronger slaves from the Bragaash clans. After three years of successful slaving efforts, the Outer-Ruut clans appealed to Clanial in 1E90 and Clanial responded by sending a large army to beat back the humans. Though defeated, the Icaran were still ostensibly victorious. They had achieved their goal and took thousands of Bragaash slaves back to Abyss' dreaded pits.

During the first century of the Silver Age the Icaran Kingdom of Abyss solidified its hold on the Gravewoods and expanded out into the grasslands they called the Obsidian Fields. Abyss remained the only true city in the whole kingdom, as the Icaran king Xanthus the White was wary of entrusting his people with too much of his power. He did, however, send out his loyaler subjects to conquer new lands and enslave new peoples, even allowing them to set up rural manors which they could retreat to whenever the king was annoyed. Between 1E10-60 the Kingdom of Abyss exploded all throughout the Obsidian Fields, rapidly conquering the independent Sheol and Rochir settlements and tribes. In response the the huge influx of slaves, Xanthus ordered the creation of large, deep pit in the center of Abyss where slaves would be held, broken, and bred.

¤+Kingdom of Abyss Livelihood "Slaves"¤

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Pits of Abyss;
Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the Pits of Abyss was the fact that death clung everywhere.
During the days light would stream down the great hole and illuminate the walls made up of skeletons of past slaves and zombies.
At night captured slaves were left in total darkness unable to sleep due to the moans of the dying and already dead.​

Male slaves in Abyss could expect to be carted off once they had submitted to Icaran authority. Sheol were easier to break than the Bragaash and Rochir, so they were the most prominent slave population away from Xanthus' watchful eyes. When they died they were resurrected by Atorani mages and sent right back to work. Orcish and elven slaves had significantly different fates. The Icaran preferred to keep their longer-lived slaves alive due to the natural physical prowess of the Bragaash and Rochir. These slaves underwent a terrifying process that resulted in the breaking of the slave's mind and a disturbing loyalty to his Icaran 'liberators'.

Despite their wealth in slaves, living and undead, it was not as if the average Icaran was not free from thralldom. All power in the Kingdom of Abyss was concentrated in King Xanthus and whatever Atorani nobles he happened to favor on a given day. The Dark Council, Abyss' clergy, nominally held power as well, though the only truly powerful councilman was a woman by the name of Korinna—and she was exiled very early during the Silver Age in 1E33 due to her miraculous replication of Xanthus' closely guarded resurrection process. Most other Icaran outside the Atorani and Dark Council were either merchants, artisans, or peasants. Every Atorani could boast to have a great number of peasants serving underneath them as well as a horde of slaves. Social mobility was minimal, but the rigid strictures placed on society kept Abyss relatively stable even in the face of its many wars.

In 1E50 Xanthus made it known that all Sheol were to be targeted for enslavement, and various Atorani nobles, Dark Councilmen, and all other slaves sought to please their fell king by bringing back whole villages in chains. Singodia was even besieged for a short few months during 1E59 by a few overeager Atorani. 1E86 saw the beginning of Abyss' efforts to expand into the Outer-Ruut woods—which they did successfully, and at the cost of a great number of Bragaash tribes.

Orcish slaves proved to be the greatest boon that could come to the Kingdom of Abyss. Not only were the green-skinned brutes capable of great feats of strength, they were amazing servants when turned into undead monstrosities, lasting far longer than any other race before rot took them. Xanthus' interests were piqued, and even after his kingdom's defeat at Clanial's hands in 1E90 he continued to send slaver parties into the Outer-Ruut woods.

In Abyss the Atorani and Dark Council labored to advance their magickal abilities. In 1E53 Xanthus revealed to his peoples the power of thaumaturgy by ordering dozens of Sheol slaves to commit suicide with a wave of his hand. Immediately a flurry of research began, and not all of it for the benefit of Xanthus and his chosen Atorani. The Dark Council, recognizing their limitations in vivification due to the secrets Xanthus kept to himself, found new hope in thaumaturgy and over the next few decades became a major force in the magickal field's exploration. Their main mode of casting was through their sermons that ironically praised Xanthus as a god while enveloping the lower classes in fits of passionate rage, love, and sadness. The Dack Council had stumbled upon something great.

☼+Kingdom of Abyss Research Towards ???☼


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☼⌂The Astral Union⌂☼
While most peoples of Kor-Fiol toiled under economic depression and spilled blood during needless wars, the Star Goblins slowly coalesced around the Cavern of Stars to form the Astral Union under the leadership of the Star Council. In 1E9 the Star Goblin mage called Mega had reached the absolute height of his popularity and power. Over the past decade since the star-fall he had begun to amass a group of ardent followers who saw the blind goblin as a prophet and seer. Very little of his power-grab was of his own doing, as Mega was far too simple of a goblin to really want power—he was also too simple to just say no.

Mega was the first being to summon extraplanar forces into Kor-Fiol (barring the humans, as they were extraplanar to begin with). The ethereal black stag he summoned by tracing the constellation of the hunt proved to be but one of many creatures that existed beyond. Mega and his disciples quickly began to catalog what constellations they could call upon and what was brought forth, and by 1E3 their fervent efforts yielded a great list of summons. A year later Mega became to speaker of the Cavern of Stars, ousting the last speaker, Gasghar, with a show of his powers. Soon thereafter the other Star Goblin colonies began to produce mages similar to Mega, though none were as powerful. In 1E6 all of the most powerful of these mages had become speakers of their colonies by one way or another.

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A Star Goblin Warband;
Though the mages came to lead the Astral Union, warriors, hunters, and other non-magickal Star Goblins still had considerable power due to the Star Goblins' inability to apply their magick to offensive purposes.​

Though he was the most powerful and most respected mages of the Star Goblins' new leadership, Mega was not the one who called together the Astral Council that would see the creation of the Astral Union. The mage-speaker Dgeba of the Cavern of Moons impressed upon her fellows that they should come together and deliberate over the new course in their peoples' history. The other speakers agreed and in 1E7 they began the first of what would become many meetings.

The speakers discussed a great number of topics, though again it would be Dgeba who would bring up the most important topic. Since the star-storm the star goblin colonies had shown signs of not being as self-sufficient as they had once been. With the expansion of Malachim trade during the Forgotten Ages, the colonies had become somewhat more reliant upon the outside world for the finer aspects of life. Even the Swiech, for all their savage ways, traded extra food and lumber to the increasingly larger colonies situated in fairly rough hills. The celestium crisis had removed the Malachim from Kor-Fiol's trade as they warred among themselves, and the Swiech suffered a very similar fate, leaving the Star Goblins economically stranded.

Dgeba proposed two things. The first asked for the Star Goblins to abandon their homes and move east to live between the coasts and the Forests of Luga. This was shot down almost immediately, though within the next decade Dgeba would lead her own expedition through the woods to establish the city of Dgebed. The second called that the colonies form one great colony under the leadership of a great council of astral mages who would periodically elect a non-magickal 'king' to maintain a balance of power between magickal and non-magickal Star Goblins. The other speakers erred at this proposal, and it would take a year of arguments before Dgeba finally prevailed at the Astral Union was formed.

⌂Astral Union Formed⌂

For almost half a century, between 1E10-50, the Astral Union enjoyed a period of economic and political growth. Rapid expansion of the Astral Union's borders along eastern hills of the Green Peak Mountains occurred as numerous far-flung colonies submitted to the Astral Council's authority. In fact, it would be from one of these distant colonies that the first astral 'king' was chosen, a goblin by the name of Snakhur.

Snakhur was born in the Caverns of Clever Skies, though he would rarely remain there as he was one of the few merchants the Star Goblins produced before their unification. Before the star-fall Snakhur had grown incredibly rich from trade with the Swiech, and was the only Star Goblin to actually sell goods between the colonies. For this he was initially branded an outcast, and he lived his life between one colony to the next, but he was well-known and his genius was also begrudgingly acknowledged. Snakhur had an uncanny talent for mapping the stars, and relied upon star charts to guide his caravans rather than geographical maps. When Mega had revealed magick to the Star Goblins Snakhur was one of those who resisted the rise of the mages, albeit secretly.

Leading this 'resistance' was the Cavern of Stars' former speaker, Gashagr. After Mega's ascension to power, Gashgar was cast aside by the entirety of his colony save for those few who felt that something sinister lay behind Mega's magick. Gashgar did not necessarily share these feelings, but he was jealous and certainly far smarter than Mega. Why had the stars not chosen him to lead his people into a new era? Why the blind buffoon? Such questions only multiplied as Gashgar witnessed mages rise up all over the colonies, including females such as Dgeba. In 1E4 Gashgar gathered together the most capable members of his little resistance and formed an inner-circle he called the All-Seers, Snakhur was among them.

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All-Seers' Eye;
The All-Seers would carve their symbol upon trees, engrave it into stones, and trace it into the dirt to let other members know what places were enclaves to their research.​

The All-Seers had very few seditious aims, only scholarly. They were a collection of non-magickal geniuses who felt slighted by magick's strange selection process. Rather than rally against a force they acknowledge to be the future, they sought to bend magick to their whims through ample application of their collective minds. Like all Star-Goblins, the All-Seers looked to the stars for their answers. They felt that if the astral mages took their powers from the stars directly, then there much be more magick elsewhere in the heavens. In 1E10 Snakhur found the answer in the movement of the stars. Over a long, detailed study of the constellations Snakhur found that the spaces between the stars formed strange messages in what looked to be Low-Malachim.

☼Astral Union Discovers Astrology☼

When he spoke aloud what he saw his world flickered, dimmed, and re-illuminated itself in a place that he had never been before. He saw himself sitting upon a throne, goblins, elves, orcs, Swiech, dwarves, and humans bowing to the he-that-was-not-him, and a great, terrible, red shadow standing behind where the not-him was sitting. Snakhur saw the thing reaching for the not-him's throat and drawing its hand tight around the not-him's neck, and suddenly Snakhur was back in the Bolga Hills, staring up at the stars. The next year the Astral Council elected Snakhur as the Union's first king, calling him a goblin of progress and the one who would lead them into the future.

King Snakhur's reign was long and peaceful. The most controversial event was when Council-Mage Dgeba abandoned her duties and lead her followers to found the small city-state of Dgebed. Dgeba had gotten into a disagreement with the council over the role of women in the Star Goblins' new future; she was the only voice calling for equality between the genders, and ultimately she would go unheard. In response she quit her position and gathered those few followers she had to trek through the Forests of Luga and live on the coasts of a sea they would call Lagdush. Dgebed was prosperous, but always lived in the shadows of the Astral Union. Despite the misgivings of its leader, the Dgebed Star-Goblins still maintained close ties with their western brothers. The All-Seers found a new enclave in Dgebed and though it was ruled by an astral mage, they made themselves a permanent home in the city-state and openly participated in its politics.

⌂Dgebed Formed⌂
⌂+Dgebed Faction "All-Seers"⌂

Under King Snakhur's patronage Gashgar traveled westwards between 1E40-5, seeking other minds to bring into the All-Seers fold. They established hidden conclaves in multiple realms, but in the Ikkir Gashgar found dozens of followers. So strong were Ikkir All-Seers that it is said they foretold the rise of Uteizoha and Keknaya Oznisai. They partook in the bloodless revolution of 1E101 and numbered greatly among Uteizoha's advisers and close-friends.

☼Ikkir Discovered Astrology☼
⌂+Keknaya Oznisai Faction "All-Seers"⌂


The rest of Snakur's reign was quiet, and old age, not shadow monsters, killed the first Star Goblin king in 1E55. Upon his death his son and chosen heir, Bast, took up the throne and continued his father's peaceful policy. When Bast died in 1E112 his nephew, an astrologer and secret member of the All-Seers, ascended to the throne, but unlike his uncle and great-uncle he looked outwards at the world and saw the makings of an empire.
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☼¤⌂The Discoveries of the Dohtel⌂¤☼
The Enlightened Great Tribe would not just go on to become simply 'rich' or 'prosperous' during the first century of the Silver Age—by 1E113 the Dohtel elves were masters of sea, magick, and much more. Their path down greatness began in 1E15 when the High Mage Council of Eyr sent ships to contact their brothers living upon the small island of Rial.

The Rial-Dohtel were not much unlike their Eyr brothers, save for the fact that the Rial seemed to lack outwardly manifesting magick. Before contact with Eyr mages, the Rial did not quite know what magick was despite the fact that they made and used it everyday. The Rial-Dohtel were artificers.

☼Dohtel Discover Artification☼

Artification is a magick that is very limited when not combined with another discipline, yet the Rial-Dohtel managed to unwittingly draw upon El-Or's magick by enchanting natural features. Many of the rocks, rivers, dirt, caves, grasslands, and forests of Rial bore some minor enchantment born out of the Rial's experimentation with magick just after the star-fall. It speaks to the prodigious natural talent of the Dohtel to know that the plethora of enchantments the Rial-Dohtel had created by the time of their inclusion into the Enlightened Great Tribe were all made in the two decades after the star-storm.

The Dohtel sent their flagship, the Sprite, to make contact with the Rial-Dohtel in 1E15, but it and its mages would not return for over five years. Part of this was due to the incredibly insular nature of the Rial-Dohtel, who had had very little outside contact and saw even their Eyr-dwelling brothers as strangers. The other half of the delay was born out of the mage sent to investigate Rial, Mage of the Fourth Circle Aliana.

Dohtel success in magick lay in the elves' organization of their whole society around magick as a thing for commerce, research, and politics. Quite literally as early as 1E20 every aspect of Eyr was magicked in some way, shape, or form. Every Dohtel magician belonged to one of six circles (later seven). True to the Dohtel's orientation towards caste, each circle fulfilled a certain role and each circle had divisions within them, creating the Kor-Fiol's first bureaucracy.

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The Sixth Circle Mages Gathered;
All aspects of Dohtel life was carefully monitored, tweaked, and held in check by the Dohtel mages.
The first two circles held no political influence and were simply apprentices and low-magick aids.
In fact, not every magick-capable Dohtel advanced beyond the second circle and took to other 'callings' instead.​

Part of a mage's training was spent among the general population of the Dohtel, aiding the non-magickal professions through any means they could. The Dohtel did not realize it, but their wide-spread manipulation of magick gave rise to a whole new discipline that drew upon the mind's power, much like thaumaturgy, but produced effects that were wholly real and not simply tricks of the mind. In 1E98 the High Mage Council would come to realize their inadvertent discovery and name the general form of magick: low magick.

☼Dohtel Discover Low Magick☼

Low magick is somewhat of a misnomer, as it was not 'low' at all. All that it lacked was the reality shattering potential that other more complicated disciplines had access to. Arguably, low magick was a more useful form of magick and allowed magicians to aid every elf from the poorest farmer to the richest merchant. These spells had practically no offensive applications, but could certainly keep an army's tents warm without the need for a costly ritual. Slowly, as the Dohtel fleets spread throughout the world the elves brought low magick to all peoples that they came into contact with. By 1E113 most mages of southern Kor-Fiol could cast a few cantrips.

☼Sheol Discover Low Magick☼
☼Terlan Discover Low Magick☼
☼Narados Discover Low Magick☼
☼Malachim Discover Low Magick☼
☼Sweich Discover Low Magick☼

The Dohtel were only able to contact these peoples in the first place due to their leaps in naval technology. In 1E34 the first elven galley was built in the harbors of Eyr, and most other nations would adapt the elven model for their own sea-faring ventures. Sheol river-skimmers were revolutionized when the Dohtel made their own river vessels lighter, longer, and manned by more oarsmen to combat the rapids. Dohtel ships successfully brought the islands of Rial and Eyr together in 1E20 when Aliana returned to her home with the loyalty and magick of the Rial-Dohtel. Over the next century the Dohtel worked tirelessly to incorporate their wilder kin into the growing magocracy, and did so successfully with the creation of a seventh circle between the fifth and the fourth comprised of 'smith-mages' whose skills in artification were employed for the production of numerous magicked goods.

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Dohtel Sunrods & Thunderstones;
The two most common magick items that were sold in foreign markets were sunrods and thunderstones.
Sunrods functioned much like torches, though illuminated a far greater area and ran off of small bits of mana.
Thunderstones were initially children's toys that created loud bangs meant to delight.
However Malachim artificers would reverse engineer the thunderstones and use themto more violent ends.​

¤+Enlightened Great Tribe Livelihood "Simple Magickal Goods (Fine)"¤

The magickal goods that the Dohtel produced were not complex, grandiose creations, but simple things with simple spells made for simple purposes. The goods hinged on and indicated yet another advancement the Dohtel made on their secluded little island: they puzzled out the application of mana.

While the Terlan puzzled out the nature of El-Or's magicks, the Dohtel were well on their way to understanding and using the great burning rock that lay in the center of their small island home. In 1E44 experiments on the Red Rock of Amos lead the Dohtel to realize that the eternally burning object was in of itself magick, and that it was not the only such mineral to have this nature. Mana was virtually everywhere. It was not until 1E110 that the Dohtel differentiated between the mana found in El-Or and the mana found in the stars thrown down from the sky, though in most respects the two types of mana had similar effects.

As the Dohtel understood it mana could amplify magic because it was magic itself; casting through a piece of mana simply caused the spell to take on some of the magick latent in the mana. Where Terlan and Kritta mages cast their spells on top of mana's magick, Dohtel and virtually all the other races of Kor-Fiol cast their spells through mana. There were, of course, positives and negatives to both methods, but the results were the same: spells grew more powerful.

When the Dohtel began to combine mana with artification they realized that magick had near-limitless applications when used correctly. Artificers of the new fifth circle would incorporate small shavings of mana into their already magical creations to increase the device's lifespan and potency. Though other races would go on to mimic Dohtel devices, only the island elves could truly claim to create masterpieces, and productions by other races were relegated to being cheap knockoffs.

In 1E76 the clever Malachim elves were the first race to reverse engineer the Dohtel's artification magick. Instantly the commercially-inclined elves experimented with creating goods similar to those of the Dohtel, though overtime they lost interest in these costly endeavors and their path went a completely different way. The Sheol, however, pieced together what they could from the northern and southern elven mage-merchants and emerged as a strong rival for Dohtel mage-goods if only because of their connection with El-Or. Sheol magickal devices, though crude, were nothing to scoff at. By 1E113 Sheol-made devices were beginning to display the curious nature of geomantic magick with the incorporation of ley lines.

☼Malachim Discover Artification☼
☼Sheol Discover Artification☼
¤+Kingdome of Szandor Livelihood "Simple Magickal Goods (Crude)"¤

Much of the Dohtel's continued success in its commercial, magickal, and political enterprises lay in its formidable fleet. It could be said that a Dohtel was one of three things: a sailor, a magician, or whatever else. The Dohtel society was somewhat regulated by a caste system, though it was a caste based upon 'callings' that spoke to individual elves and lead them on their life's journey. Dohtel elders and later the high circle mages claimed that these callings were a result of the innate magick that coursed through Dohtel veins, though in actuality it was an expression of their free spirits. Understandably, the freest a Dohtel could be would be when they were on the seas, exploring new worlds, making fortunes, and living life as they wanted it.

Initially the Dohtel navy was a rag-tag collection of captains who came from all over Eyr and later Rial. In 1E72 the Dohtel High Circle Council made their first move towards solidifying their navy as a cohesive unit by mandating that captains had to register their ships with the magocracy and be granted writs of seamanship. Of course there was a fair amount of grumbling over this measure, but the captains by in large bent to the whims of their magickal leaders. This immediately resulted in the launching of the Dohtel's first eastwards expedition to discover new lands, trading partners, and mana-wells.

Over the next 40 years the Dohtel would send three major expeditions across the Aitel Sea, each time claiming more land for the Enlightened Great Tribe. The first expedition in 1E72 skirted the coasts of the Obsidian Fields and doubled as a scouting effort to gauge the expansion of Icaran Kingdom of Abyss. The small fleet, once again lead by Spirit and the fourth-circle mage Aliana, landed on the small island of Saeldur where the first Dohtel colony by the same name would spring up some years later. Saeldur, however, was regulated to being a military outpost, a place from where they could watch the development of the human interlopers. In 1E84 a second expedition by the same fleet discovered the massive island of Tathdiir, where the second Dohtel city would be settled in 1E89 via waves of hopeful colonists.

Tathdiir was a great empty forest with a few hills on its southern side and a massive, glassy mountain at its very southern tip. According to the tests conducted by Dohtel mages the entire mountain was made from mana and was the largest mana-well to date. Strangely enough, however, it did not seem to radiate the same magnitude of reality warping effects that would be expected of a mana-well of its size; the only obvious oddity were the dark, ominous clouds that clung to the mountain's peak.

☼Mana-Well Discovered; Mount Maelstyr☼

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Mount Maelstyr​

From 1E89 till 1E113 Tathdiir would become the destination for numerous Dohtel merchants and magicians, both groups attempting to exploit the island's natural resources somehow. In 1E99, however, the Dohtel arguably made their greatest discovery when they stumbled upon the Kleofkinde.

Contact between the Dohtel and the Kleofkinde was not peaceful. The first elven ships that landed on the Isa Peninsula in 1E100 were attacked and seized by the tribal beastmen. Not only were these Dohtel outnumbered, they seemed to have been out-magicked too judging by the fire the Kleofkinde tribesmen flung. In truth, the Kleofkinde were simply throwing jars of a fiery alchemic concoction that masqueraded as magick.

Judging solely on the Kleofkinde's external features would see them labelled as savage horned cat-bears that somehow learned to walk upright. Even when the beastmen of the Isa peninsula were shoved into the greater politics of Kor-Fiol they kept their tribal vestiges, believing that their ancestors resided in the heirlooms passed down through the generations. Much of Kleofkinde society was tied to its past despite the innate curiosity the beastmen bore, and subsequently it was near constantly stuck between social revolution and stubborn traditions. The appearance of the Dohtel was the spark that would see the Kleofkinde adopt a whole new identity.

Prior to the elves' arrival the only other peoples the Kleofkinde had known were their mortal enemies: the Nephilim. Nephilim were giants, and so long as the beastmen of Isa could remember the two races had been at war. Some legends spoke of dark times before the spirits spoke and the Kleofkinde knew El-Or's embrace, times when the Nephilim were not limited to the NemMarklef Mountains and lived in the GartGarash Plains as the Kleofkinde's oppressors.

The Kleofkinde's liberation, if their legends can be believed, came when the spirits of their ancestors rose up and initiated the war against the giants. These spirits were said to have burned like pyres and brought death and destruction on the Nephilim. A massive revolt followed, and though hundreds of Kleofkinde died, the Nephilim were forced into the mountains.

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A Kleofkinde Shaman;
Even before the star-fall the shaman was the most powerful member of any Klefokinde tribe.
Though he had no magick to wield, he supposedly communicated with the earth and knew all the secrets that would later be known as alchemy.​

Over next couple centuries the Kleofkinde would become the tyrants. Once free it did not take long for the Kelofkinde to make war on each other and lesser tribes were quickly pushed out of the grasslands into the NemMarklef Mountains. These clans in turn continued their war against the Nephilim, effectively pushing them into the highest peaks of the NemMarklef and limiting the once formidable giants to conducting occasional raids on the lowland tribes.

The first Kleofkinde 'cities' began to spring up not too long before the star-storm. Mountain tribes had long made it a habit to wait out the harsh winters by living in underground caverns during the winter months. These cave-homes were simple affairs not meant for comfort, but for survival. Their plains-dwelling brothers created similar homes by digging into the ground, and nearly every Kleofkinde village that the Dohtel would stumble upon had a sprawling underground network.
 

The lowland clans were split between living in the GartGarash Plains and the Forests of SodRash. Upon the plains the Kleofkinde were semi-pastoral nomads herding great flocks of goats, tending to small farms, and fishing along the coasts and Isa's three rivers. Within the forests the tribes became stranger and lived off of the various mushrooms that grew in the forests. The shamans of these forest Kleofkinde were counted as the strongest in all of Isa, able to speak with the spirits well before the star-storm flung mana into the plains and hills.



At the time of the star-storm the Kleofkinde had come to form three vague political bodies based upon geographical divisions. The mountain tribes came together to form Almoot Marklef Warghemen, based around the southern mountain fortress of Almoot; the forest tribes formed the Cindor Rash Warghemen, and the city of Cindor was born from this union; and the plains tribes created the Garst Garash Warghemen. The three tribal confederations were virtually the same in terms of organization. Each member tribe could contribute one elder to the council of elders and those elders would choose one high elder from amongst themselves. The main function of these elders and the high elder was to maintain a semblance of peace between the member tribes and oversee the safety of the common city. High elders ruled for a period of 10 years; once made an elder a Kleofkinde would remain one for the rest of their lives.

⌂Almoot Marklef Warghemen Formed⌂
⌂Cindor Rash Warghemen Formed⌂
¤+Cindor Rash Warghemen Livelihood "Spirit Mushrooms"¤
⌂Garst Garash Warghemen⌂

The actual cities of Almoot, Cindor, and Garst were relatively recent constructions, though they have always existed at some point in one form or another. As wont as the Kleofkinde were to make war on one another, trade also played an important aspect to maintain their societies. Even during the distant times of the Forgotten Ages tribes would regularly bring goods to common meeting grounds. In 1E15 the Kleofkinde that would go on to form the Almoot Marklef Warghemen simply decided that it would be in their best interest to have a permanent place to trade, least the lowlanders get lost in the mountains. The other Kleofkinde followed suit not long after, and Cindor and Garst sprung up within months of each other.

When the Dohtel stumbled upon the Kleofkinde in 1E100 the Kleofkinde had gone through a century of unease and shadow-warfare caused by a simple question: what tribe should possess the cities? The permanent settlements concentrated most of Isa's riches in those few tribes who were re-elected to High Eldership consistently. Whatever balance the Kleofkinde had created among themselves was torn apart by profit and greed. Worse yet, the initially few Kleofkinde who had settled in the cities had grown into a large enough number to rival the tribes by 1E75. These 'urban' Kleofkinde were among the first artisans of the beastmen and were major proponents for change. The tribes, however, resisted these tribe-less Kleofkinde and gave them no voices in the elder councils.

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Garst;
Garst, unlike the other Kleofkinde cities, was not a single settlement, but a collection of numerous walled off villages connected via underground tunnels.
During the Forgotten Ages, when the Nephilim were more prominent, the Kleofkinde built towers all across the plains.
These towers would become the sites of the Silver Age settlements.​

Peaceful contact between the Dohtel and Kleofkinde was made in 1E102 when the High Mage Council some of the greatest warriors to Isa with gifts of magickal devices, exotic foods, and enchanted furs. The Kleofkinde did not attack quite as quickly, and when they did the mages were prepared and stupefied the beastmen with spells. From there on out the Kleofkinde regarded the Dohtel with a wary awe and trade began between the two people. For a short period of three years these relations held up, but in 1E06 a great Kleofkinde shaman rose to power among the Garst Garash Warghemen, and he called for a violent separation from the outsiders.

Magick held a special place in the Kleofkinde society as it had always existed in some shape or form. Perhaps even more so than the Dohtel, the beastmen of Isa were magickal beings, in tune with the mystic going-on's of El-Or long before the star-storm awakened them. Much of the Kleofkinde's magick revovled around contacting ancestor spirits, initially via the consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms that dimmed the borders between El-Or and elsewhere. Alchemy sprung from these experiments, and the Kleofkinde quite honestly believed that the strange potions they created were part El-Or part ancestor. Whether or not this was true could not be easily determined.

They did not know it, but the Kleofkinde shamans were astralists. Like the Star Goblins to the north, the Kleofkinde found themselves capable of summoning spirits from other realms, but unlike the Star Goblins they had found a use for these spirits: possession. A Kleofkinde shaman was part medium part invoker, and walked a dangerous line between worlds. When a spirit was summoned it was rarely ever seen by anyone other than the shaman—to look upon the face of an otherworldly visitor was considering sacrilegious in the Kleofkinde's primitive form of ancestor worship—as it almost instantly took over the host-shaman's body. Shamans would summon up spirits to suit their needs: great warriors on the eve of battle; famous orators when the elder council met; brilliant alchemists to make specific potions. These are just a few examples of how the Kleofkinde shamans turned their society into one caught between tradition and progress. Half the time a tribe's elder was possessed by the spirit of an elder who had died centuries ago.

The shaman who led the Garst back-lash against the Dohtel claimed to have the spirit of the mythical Gal Fazkind, the culture-hero of the Kleofkinde who sparked the war against the Nephilim. Gal gained the support of the Garst Garash Warghemen Kleofkinde, and by the summer of 1E105 he had abolished the elder council and proclaimed himself the sole ruler of the Warghemen. Gal was not a cruel lord and he appealed to the urban Kleofkinde by proclaiming Garst the permanent seat of all political matters. The plains-tribes attempted to resist, but were either subdued by Gal's army or forced to flee into the forests, mountains, or with the Dohtel Gal expelled.

The Dohtel, however, were not so quick to give up their hold on the lucrative trade route. They did not flee far and established a small military outpost on the island of Norovir in 1E107. Dissident Kleofkinde fled to the island, aided by Dohtel who would patrol the coasts for any refugees.


§§§​


☼¤⌂Malachim Machinations & The End of the Celestium Crisis⌂¤☼
The Malachim spent much of the Celestium Crisis flailing about as they struggled to hold onto the wealth and power they had achieved during the Forgotten Ages. It was not that the Malachim were weak—their language, their culture, and their money all became the standard for civilization in Kor-Fiol. No other peoples could claim to have amassed such a wide corpus of knowledge as the Malachim scholars, nor could they claim to have amassed the same amount of wealth. Despite this, the Malachim were not a major progressive force during the first century of the Silver Age. As a whole they were a non-entity due to the shadowy civil-war that consumed Tir'Ilonmol.

In 1E1 Tir'Ilonmol was the most prosperous kingdom and city in all of Kor-Fiol. Though its territory was small; though it had to import most of its food; though it had very few people actually living in it, the riches of the city were immense. Much of this was due to the fact that the Malachim celestium mines were controlled by the mage council of Tir'Ilonmol, who required merchants to pay taxes on the ore even ontop of selling it to the celestium-dealers. The traders, initially at least, did not complain. They saw that their wealth was enriching the wealth of the Malachim as a whole and that slowly Tir'Ilonmol was growing to be the most wondrous city in Kor-Fiol.

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Tir'Ilonmol;
The Malachim's first city was a testement to their wealth and power in both commercial and magickal aspects.
The famed towers of Tir'Ilonmol were carved from the very mountains that they lay next to, and their position between peaks, hills, and broken ground made the city almost impregnable.​

By 1E20 much of the construction on Tir'Ilonmol was complete. It was a city of spires, meant to emphasize the avian nature of the Malachim and further exclude the pitiable ground-bound races (that is to say, everyone else). The Malachim were not arrogant, simply unequivocally assured of their natural superiority and status as Kor-Fiol's most prodigious species. Small doors were built into the base of the spires to allow for the other races to enter Tir-Ilonmol, but the climb was so difficult that few of the doors were ever opened before the resurgence of the Ikkir in 1E76.

When the Swiech presented themselves as competitors on the celestium market in 1E10 the Malachim simply scoffed. Rats thought their tiny puddle of ore could outdo the sea of celestium that lay underneath the Ilonmol Range! The notion was preposterous and most Malachim traders did not give it a second thought. However, by 1E34 the surface celestium mines had begun to run dry and few Malachim wanted to dig deeper. Therein lay the problem that sparked the conflict that would dominate Tir'Ilonmol for the rest of the century: the Malachim had no one to mine their mines. What Malachim would wish to bind his wings and descend into the darkness when he could soar above? Most Malachim youths underwent a rite of passage that saw them leave their homes in Tir'Ilonmol in order to find some new thing out in the world and bring the knowledge of it back to their elders. The only Malachim left in Tir'Ilonmol were either students, elders, children, or mages.

Immediately factions began to emerge.

In 1E14 the Malachim had used their richest to construct the Silvery Tower, Kor-Fiol's first educational institution. Ostensibly the Silvery Tower was open to all races, though few prospective students without wings would bother to make the climb. Instead, it became a gathering place for the Malachim's best and brightest youths, magick-capable and non-magick-capable alike. Among them was a boy-genius called Raphael. Raphael's intelligence was a sore spot for him and his family, for everyone but him were leaders in Tir'Ilonmol's mage-caste. It was not that he lacked the gift of magick, he was just deaf to the voices howling in the magickal caves where the Malachim drew their powers from. Much to his parent's chagrin, he was also one of the first voices to acknowledge the dwindling supply of celestium and the unsustainability of the enterprise. His voice, however, was ignored because of his youth.

When the crisis dawned on Tir'Ilonmol and the older politicians wrestled with each other, Raphael lead something of a student's revolt that called for the abandonment of celestium. Again he was ignored, but this time he was openly rebuked by his father Uriel, one of the foremost mages on the elven kingdom's council. Uriel was of the mind that war was the answer. As unsavory as it was to admit it, the Ikkir had been the main diggers of celestium during the Forgotten Ages and Uriel recalled episodes in his youth when he aided his father's business by treating with the strange dwarves. If no Malachim would mine celestium, why not force the descendants of former miners to do so?

The other Malachim were appalled by the notion of enslaving another race, for no matter how highly the elves soared above other races all peoples were free. As the century went on and the crisis became worse their minds would change somewhat, but in 1E30 no such measures would be taken. For his proposals Uriel fell from grace among the mage council, and he departed Tir'Ilonmol for most of the first century—though he would return.

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Malachim Celestium Mine;
For all their superiority in thought, culture, and wealth the Malachim were utterly lost when it came to mining.
Few mines were actually dug during the Silver Ages, as the Malachim preferred to rely on the old Ikkir mines.
Those mines that were made by Malachim hands were barely more than holes in the ground.​

In Uriel's place two other Malachim arose: Azazel and Leliel. Together the two elves represented the most prominent modes of Malachim thought in 1E30. Azazel called for a rotation of labor to be established that would see all Malachim descend into the mines in intervals. He and his followers believed that all Malachim should bear the burden of their wealth as a humbling experience. He quite clearly went against the grain by advocating for more communal efforts in Tir'Ilonmol.

Leliel, on the other hand, and her followers called for the mines to be relinquished by the mage council and put under private control of the various merchant families. The council could still collect their taxes, but the merchants could run the mines however they wished. By 1E35 Leliel had prevailed and Tir'Ilonmol's celestium mines were sold to various merchants. Unsurprisingly Leliel's family were among the top buyers.

⌂+Tir'Ilonmol Faction "Merchant Miners"⌂

Leliel and the other families who purchased the mines soon found that their investments were sour. Very little celestium was left in the mines, and it seemed that Uriel and the other more prominent members of the mage council had kept this fact hidden. A period of panic ensued and in 1E40 the merchants began to steal into each other's mines to steal what little celestium was left. Matters were made worse in 1E44 when Terlan raiders began to quite literally walk into the hills and scare away the Malachim through fell magicks. When the Terlan raiding parties left there was scarcely anything for the Malachim to make their fortunes on. Desperate, Leliel and a group of other merchants turned to Tir'Ilonmol's geomancers whose efforts to tear celestium out of the ground brought an entire mountain down.

For the next thirty years Tir'Ilonmol was at war with itself. The war began in the spring of 1E41 when Azazel and his followers took flight from their beloved city to seek out a new home. They would found the Kingdom of Quarrion in the Quarmol Mountains to the east of the Tir'Ilonmol. Uriel's son, Raphael, left with Azazel, as did many of the students of the Silvery Tower. Tir'Ilonmol was left to cantankerous old elves.

⌂Kingdom of Quarrion Founded⌂

1E50 marked the beginning of open attacks between the merchant families. Supposedly Leliel was the first to use her magick to bring down the tower that housed a rival house, killing nearly all of its members. Only a young scion of the family remained, half-trained in magick. She attempted to bring down Leliel's tower, but the spell went awry and instead El-Or opened up where she stood and swallowed her up—taking with her dozens of other Malachim on the ground at the time. Leliel was brought before the mage council to answer for her crimes, but the cunning Malachim mistress left with only a warning due to the control she exercised over the dominant faction in the council. She was killed, however, in her sleep by a Malachim assassin—the first of his kind.

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A Malachim Assassin;
Assassination was a dangerous new concept that entered the Silver Age after the first assassinations were carried out by prominent Malachim against other prominent Malachim.
Though the number of assassinations severely decreased after Tir'Ilonmol regained their economic status, the assassins themselves did not simply disappear.
Many continued their actions elsewhere, ranging from simple mercenaries to crusaders against 'evil'.​

The next decade brought only more death and ruin, though nothing as devastating as Leliel's misuse of magick. Many Malachim fled Tir'Ilonmol between 1E60-70 and made their homes in the cities held by the Swiech and Sheol, establishing little enclaves near the market districts. These Malachim also took their wealth with them, and by 1E75 Tir'Ilonmol's coffers were near empty. The merchant families grew even more desperate and began to send their sons and daughters into the mines to maintain their fortune. The mage council was subject to numerous assassinations and threatened to dissolve by the end of 1E75, but would ultimately be saved by the reappearance of Ikkir.

Not all of the Ikkir dwarves had died during the cataclysmic collapse of their former homes, many continued to live horrible lives spent attempting to find their way out of the caverns they were trapped in. When the second emergence of the Ikkir began in 1E76 they had the misfortune to do so right into Tir'Ilonmol and the Malachim's hands. At first the remaining Malachim were unsure of what to do with the dwarves, but by the end of the year they had unanimously decided to send the Ikkir to work in the celestium mines. Some Ikkir resisted, but the Malachim killed these dissidents quickly and cowed the rest of the dwarves into submission. The crisis seemed to begin to be averted, but in 1E79 Uriel returned.

Uriel had not come alone. Behind him were numerous Malachim who had fled their homes and been found by the once powerful mage. When he heard from them all that had gone on in Tir'Ilonmol he was enraged and appalled, but his fury was tempered by his companion, an Icaran called Korinna. How Uriel and Korinna met is a mystery, but by 1E74 the two had been travelling together for at least a decade. Korinna—and all humans, really—disgusted and intrigued Uriel at the same time. He acknowledged their innate magick and was amazed by it, but the seemingly innate brutality of their species alarmed him. Upon learning that his people also had fallen to such deprave depths, however, Uriel made it his mission to redeem them.

Uriel did not bother to hear the words of the mage council or the Malachim families, he simply began his attack. Between the powerful magicks of him and Korianna the unprepared Tir'Ilonmol magicians stood no chance, but their fates were further sealed by the livid mob behind Uriel. Within a few days Tir'Ilonmol had been conquered and the most heinous of its citizens either killed or expelled with their wings clipped, a new punishment Uriel created on the spot to punish those he did not deem Malachim.

At the end of the conquest the people of Tir'Ilonmol hailed Uriel as a king, but he refused the title. As wroth as he was with his people, Uriel was a stickler for tradition. He recreated the mage's council, naming himself a member and choosing the rest from those mages who had aided him in the siege. Uriel displayed a surprising amount of benevolence to the surviving wealthy families—lesser merchants whose riches were only just enough to keep them from losing their towers in Tir'Ilonmol—by bestowing numerous celestium mines to them to earn their favor; he did, however, return the largest mines to the council's control. He also proclaimed an end to Tir'Ilonmol and renamed the city and kingdom Malash. which meant 'Homeland' in the High-Malachim tongue.

⌂Tir'Ilonmol→Malash⌂

Uriel did not grant freedom to the Ikkir dwarves, though he did not treat them as brutally as their former masters. They were to remain in the mines, but were allowed to create surface-side villages. Uriel himself even helped in the construction of many of them. The lives of Ikkir 'slaves' further improved with the invention of golems in 1E100. The first of these constructs were employed in the mines alongside the dwarves, easing the Ikkir's burden and making their lives tolerable.

☼+Malash Research Towards "???"☼


Update 1 Polity Map
Large #-Capital
Small #-Important Cities
*-Fortifications​
 
~Appendix I~
The Swiech Discovery of Thaumaturgy

In Hunting-Hole Havrik Skree's only child and daughter Vatha is regarded as a whore, a traitor, and one of the greatest mages of her time. The story begins with Vatha's doomed relationship with a simple Swiech brute whose name Havrik had expelled from Hunting-Hole's culture—even going so far as to personally slaughter every babe bearing the name. The two could not be in love due to the immense status gap between them, but that did not stop Vatha from bearing her lover's child.

Upon learning of Vatha's pregnancy Havrik was said to be so livid that he dragged her into the Blood Wail Hills and chained his daughter to the stone markers indicating the cursed site. She stayed there for three days and nights before managing to undo her father's binds. When she left she left with unwelcome guests in her mind.

To call Vatha mad would be an understatement. When she arrived in Glitterfang the cabal mages recognized her as Havrik's daughter and were about to kill her when she laughed, danced, and sang songs in a strange language none of them could understand. However, upon hearing the words of the song the mages imagined themselves to be in a great pit of fire, though it was all simply an illusion. Yet, so convinced were the mages that their bodies believed that fire truly licked at them, and the mages screamed out in pain, writhed around, and eventually died after a few agonizing minutes. It was not long before Vatha had become one of Glitterfang's foremost mages despite never belonging to any cabal.

In her rare lucid moments Vatha proved to be as capable a leader as her father, and an even better teacher. Through teaching the magick she had stumbled upon she hoped that one day someone might find a cure to her madness and rid her of the voices once and for all. No such cure came, and Vatha eventually flung herself from the highest tower in Glitterfang. No thaumaturgist since has been able to match her power, and none have desired to.

§§§​

~Appendix II~
The Lifespans of the Races

Elves : 350-400 years
Orcs: 300 years
Dwarves: 250 Years
Humans: 100-150 years
Kleofkinde: 100 years
Halflings: 60-70 years
Goblins: 60-70 years
Swiech: 60-70 years

Lifespans are a tricky thing to tackle in a fantasy environment, doubly so when they have an effect on how much people can remember from previous eras that I have defined as 'forgotten'. So here are some notes.

A few elves who are old enough recall the star-storm and even knew Amos before the elven hero disappeared over the sea's horizon.

Very few Orcs actually live over 200 due to the violent nature of their lives. And speaking of violent, short lives, if a race is listed as being [Slaves] then you can happily shave off 1/3rd of their natural lifespan, if not more.

Humans are a long-lived species in this setting because they are innately magickal beings from another plane of existence. This applies to any other humans outside of the Terlic species—assuming that there are other humans out there.

Kleofkinde rarely reach 100 due to the fact that they never stop growing, which creates an unbearable pressure on their organs. Most Kleofkinde opt for honorable suicide around 60-70, or die in battle long before then.

§§§​

~Appendix III~
Magick & You

A General Overview of Magick
Magick is, and probably will be for some time, a very, very, very new subject that is hardly explored at all. Though the mages of the Silver Age are capable of some very great things, they are in fact barely scratching the surface of what can be done. Part of what is limiting contemporary mages is that spells are costly. No matter how a mage approaches it, to cast a spell of even remote usefulness takes a lot out of them and requires the investment of a great deal of mana, life force, El-Orian force, mind-power, rituals, blood-sacrifices, bodies, or whatever medium the caster employs. Quite simply, on its current course, magick is an unsustainable practice.

There are, of course, glimmers of hope. Most of them come from the Dohtel, unsurprisingly enough. Two major advancements in the understanding of magick were born on the lonely island of Eyr: low-magick and mana-prisms.

Low-Magick consists of various 'shortcuts' in the form of spells to do very minor cantrips such as lighting fires, making a bed warm, moving small objects, etc. Rather than go through complex rituals, or waving hands in an arcane fashion, low-magick taps in on the ever-present magickal force surrounding El-Or. It takes nothing from the caster, only that he be magick-capable. This allows for a caster to not have to worry about expending energy they would use for larger spells on the smaller aspects of spells, and increasingly complex rituals are incorporating low-magick 'short-cuts' to decrease the strain of the spell.

Now, a thing to understand is that the El-Or's magickal force is a fairly thin 'atmosphere', and cannot be pulled on to do much unless you want to tear a hole in that atmosphere. It is not uncommon for apprentices to harm themselves by drawing too much power from El-Or's magick atmosphere, usually resulting in El-Or lashing out at the caster in some way. Exceptions to this, of course, are ley lines, but these will be discussed later.

Mana-Prisms are also a huge step forward, as they present an alternative to costly rituals, sacrifices, etc. Mana, so far as El-Orians currently understand it, is magick in a solid form. Most of the mana that they have come into contact with are the fallen stars that crashed into the world after the star-storm, however people have also begun to find mana beneath El-Or giving rise to the thought that two primary forms of mana exist: Star-mana and El-Orian mana. What the differences are between these two—if they exist—is not known, and most mages do not really care. When mana is incorporated in the casting of any spell the spell's power is amplified tremendously. The Dohtel discovered this after careful experiments on the Red Rock of Amos, and later discovered that when a piece of mana is cut into a prism any magick cast through it is empowered by the innate magick of the mana. Mana-Prisms rely on the exploitation of the magick latent in the mana. Overtime the mana will begin to lose its effectiveness, and spells cast through worn-out prisms become erratic or do not work at all.

The Terlan and Kritta Bladvenn rely on an alternate use of mana, though its effects are largely the same. Rather than cut up mana into small chunks, Kritta and Terlan mages build towers composed of the substance—examples of such towers being the hollowed out Sea Tooth just outside of Agortal and the Glasrock Tower in the Howling Plains. Such an intense concentration of mana allows for spells to have a stronger 'foundation,' and rituals, sacrifices, etc. conducted on top of these 'foundations' allow for the spell to be 'built up' much larger than it could have been normally. This use of mana is somewhat less exploitative, and the mana itself does not lose its innate magick through the process, though the 'foundation' does wear down after extended use.

The difference between these employments of mana lies in mobility and area of coverage. The Dohtel's prism method allows for wizards to carry about small chunks of mana to cast their spells wherever they please; conversely the Terlan and Kritta mages are limited to the confines of their towers. Prisms, however, concentrate spells so that they become almost surgical in precision, whereas towers tremendously widens the spell's covered range.

Geomancery
As players understand it, geomancery stems from the places in El-Or's magickal atmosphere that are thicker than most. To better describe these cites, called ley lines, you should imagine fountains that explode out and cause rushing rivers to run across the landscape—seemingly forever. There are three primary ways that geomancery is cast: through seeing a ley line and casting with its power; through guessing at where a well is and casting blindly; and through correctly speaking the name of a ley line. Geomancery directly deals with the manipulation of El-Or, i.e. the ground people walk on, the air people breathe, the water people drink, and the fire inside of the world. This has lead to it being—mistakenly—labelled as elemental magick.

Kingdom of Szandor-Geomancers in the Kingdom of Szandor are all related via a single common ancestor: King Szandor I. Szandor I was the first geomancer known to exist, and arguably the most powerful as he was the only geomancer of his time that was able to see ley lines. This trait apparently is hereditary, as his children and grandchildren can all see the ley lines. However, there are degrees to how clearly the descendants of Szandor can see the ley lines, causing some to be better at geomantic magick than others. These Sheol geomancers are wildly powerful, as they are able to directly tap into the power of a ley line without the need to guess its position. They are, however, limited to being within a certain distance to a ley line for their spells to be as effective as possible.

Kingdom of Malash-The Malachim geomancers of Malash draw their power from the mysterious Caves of Voices—a collection of caverns within the Ilonmol Range that speak the names of various ley lines in a strange tongue. The Malachim have yet to decipher this language, though they recognize the power it holds and Malash geomancers learn their art through spending time in the caves memorizing what they hear. The caves do not speak to all Malachim, nor do teach the same amount of names to every Malachim they deem as 'worthy', which has caused some Malachim mages to suspect that some of their peers are holding back knowledge—a taboo in the Malachim society. As a result of this paranoia, Malash mages tend to be very paranoid of other mages, though they nominally appear open and friendly. Malash mages are not as powerful as the Sheol mages, and the language of the caves is difficult for elven tongues to speak. Any mage who wishes to be proficient in their art must spend decades mastering a single word, and truly never cease learning.

League of Agortal & Northern Leagues-The Kritta and Northern Bladvenn geomancers of Agortal and the Northern Leagues cast magick much in the same way as the Malash do: through words.The difference is, few of the Bladvenn geomancers outside of the first Bladvenn geomancer, Agorta, actually learns from El-Or's voices. Instead—in Agortal at least—virtually every geomancer is a Disciple of Agorta, and hang onto every word the Bladvenn mage utters. The benefit to this ability to learn El-Or's language from a source other than El-Or itself is that most Agortal geomancers are capable of similar things, and few are better than the rest. This has created a dependable, if unexceptional, collection of mages.

The Northern Leagues are somewhat different, in that the words they know have been 'stolen' from the Agortal mages via capturing and torturing the poor Kritta Geomancers. As a result their corpus of known words is far smaller.

Astrology
Astrology has come to be a by-word for 'speaking with the stars', and is closely tied to religion due to its inception among the star-worshiping Star Goblins. In some places such as the Astral Union it is regarded as dangerous and is heavily regulated; while in other places, such as the Ikkir communities in Greymark and the Ikkir polity Keknaya Oznisai, it plays an important role in the observance of local religion. Beyond these rituals, astrology has yet to find any concrete use beyond making vague predictions about the future. A Kor-Fiol-wide organization of astrologers, called the All-Seers, exists and is the only organization of its kind. Most, if not all, astrologers are All-Seers, and due to the less overt nature of Astrological magick, it is difficult to identify just who is an astrologer. The magick is carried out through the creation of star-charts that attempt to map the stars in the sky. Studying these charts, supposedly, gives insights into the future.

Keknaya Oznisai-The Ikkir astrologers of Keknaya Oznisai are among the most numerous astrologers in Kor-Fiol and as a result the All-Seers have a very strong following in the nation. Most Oznisai astrologers double as Teikenist priests, specifically Opulent Teikenist priests, which leads them to pursue wealth in the effort to achieve harmony. They cast their star-charts primarily to search to the stars for where the best business deals are, and unsurprisingly the richest Oznisai merchant collective is the All-Seers'.

Astral Union-Astrologers of the Astral Union have fought a hard battle to gain the acceptance that they currently enjoy, and this acceptance is very much begrudging. Few astrologers of the union openly practice their art, leading to the creation of a great underworld that influences the politics of the astral mages.

Dgebed-Like in Keknaya Oznisai, the astrologers of Dgebed have a great deal of political clout, but unlike Oznisai the All-Seers operate openly. The city-state acts as the de facto headquarters of all things related to astrology, and its astrologists are among the most accurate in the known world.

Astral
Astral magick, thus far, has lead to the entrance of various extraplanar beings into this world. Arguably, the most obvious example of this is the Terlic humans' migration into El-Or from their strange home they simply call the 'Between', but other races, such as the Star Goblins and Ikkir, have made contact with extraplanar beings. The way Astral magick works is quite typical of a magick spell: you can wave your hands about like a madman, mutter some weird words, or prance about doing a 'ritual'. The most popular method is the tracing of constellations in the air, an approach created by the Star Goblins. The trouble is, no one has yet to summon a concrete being, only what the Star Goblins have deemed as 'star shadows'.

Keknaya Oznisai-Astral magick is a recent discovery for the Oznisai Ikkir, but many of the Ikkir astralists feel as if they have known the connection to the realms between for all their lives. Part of the Ikkir's obsession with astral magick (and astrology) stems from how alienated they are on the surface world. Though it has been more than a century since they emerged from their ruined subterranean home, the world above still seems strange. Many of Oznisai's astralists double as priests of the Teikenist faith, ranging from those who seek to find and summon Teiken himself to more tempered mages who would use astral magick to bring other beings Teiken has touched so they all can work together for harmony. Regardless, all are seen as radicals by the traditionalist Teikenists and are seen as misguided by the Opulent Teikenists. Ikkir astralists are no more powerful than their fellow Star Goblin astralists, though the Ikkir do benefit from close proximity with the 'masters' of astral magick: the [void]kin princes.

Greymark-Two main populations of astralists exist within Greymark: [void]kin nobles and Ikkir commoners. The latter outnumber the former, but the former are far more powerful than the latter. [Void]kin astralists were the mages who initiated the trans-dimensional migration from 'Between' to El-Or, which quite obviously makes them the most capable astralists in the known world. They have not, however, ever summoned other beings through their magick, and cannot quite understand why someone would. Their new home has not been a hospitable environment for the [void]kin to continue their astral feats. Many are lost, confused, and feel starved by El-Or's seemingly dire lack of magick. Some of the younger, more radical princes have begun to experiment with the El-Orian approaches to astral magicks, but the older [void]kin—who hold the majority of the power—are appalled to even think of practicing magick in such an un-[void]kin way. Ikkir astalists of Greymark are very much like their Oznisai brothers and operate as more radical priests. The lack of a concentrated Ikkir population, the lack of a strong central Teikenist doctrine, and the highly individualistic of the Telmar humans and their [void]kin masters has combined to create a great deal of opportunities for the Ikkir astralists to pursue their magick-augmented approach to Teikenism.

Astral Union & Dgebed-The Star Goblin astralists' understanding of astral magick is the understanding that dominates the practice of most Kor-Fiol astralists. Look up at the stars, pick out a constellation, trace it to utter perfect, and summon a creature. Since the first shadowy thing was summoned by Mega the Star Goblins have made quite a few leaps in what they can do, and have created a large list of summonable beings. The problem is these beings are simply shadows and lack concrete forms to interact with their environment. This has not stopped Star Goblin mages from using their summons in battle, however. No matter if it can actually hurt you or not, a massive charging black swarm is always terrifying.

Kleofkinde Warghemens-Kleofkinde astral magick is something special. Rather than call upon the stars, as most peoples of Kor-Fiol are wont to do, the beastmen of Isa tap into whatever spirit realm exists and bring forth their ancestors. Then they take it a step further by allowing these ancestor spirits to enter their bodies and possess them wholly. This is used to allow a shaman to best tackle specific situations, allowing for him to become a great general in the time of battle, or a brilliant orator when politics must be done. Sure, this may pose a problem to the advancement of Kleofkinde culture and politics, as the Kleofkinde are terribly entrenched in their traditions even without having their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandsires dictating their politics, but slowly some shamans are becoming able to exert their own wills over the spirits that enter them. Further advancing the Klefokinde to new heights are the new cultivation practices and application of spirit mushrooms. These mushrooms play an important role in making the border between El-Or and elsewhere softer, allowing for less talented shamans to summon great spirits irregardless of their skills.

Psychaturgy
Psychaturgy is one of the most commonly practiced magicks in the known world. That is not to say that it is the most understood magick—it is quite the opposite—but it certainly has the largest number of practitioners, and many nations have adapted psychaturgy's malleable magick to their own ends. In laymen's terms psychaturgy is 'mind magick'. Unlike the other magicks that rely upon external energies, psychaturgy, as it is currently understood, uses the power of a psychaturgist's mind. Most psychaturgists end up acting as illusionists, and the magick is well-suited towards creating phantasms. A psychaturgists can create an illusion via using his own mind's power to briefly overpower the minds of those around him and trick them into seeing something that they do not. The most powerful psychaturgists—of which there are only a handful—can even convince their victims that what they see is real, thus, for all in intents and purposes, making it so. The other half of known psychaturgy is the manipulation of emotions. Presently, it is a crude, but powerful form of psychaturgy that sees a mage bludgeon her victim's most basic emotions (anger, fear, lust) till it swells up and overshadows rational thought.

Enlightened Great Tribe of Dohtel
The Great Tribe's psychaturgists may not be the most powerful, but they are the most numerous. Much of the Tribe's sprawling magocracy is populated by psychaturgists whose capabilities differ wildly. The High-Mages of the sixth and seventh circle greatly stress the exploration of psychaturgy's ability to trick the mind, and most Dohtel psychaturgists are illusionists. The High-Mages, however, delve into the darker, more manipulative uses of psychaturgy and are able to influence the emotions of those around them.

Kingdom of Abyss
All mages of Abyss are either members of the Atorani nobility or are Dark Council members desperately attempting to become Atorani. Given the cruel nature of the kingdom and the necessity for complete control over the undead and slave-population, the vast majority of Abyss' psychaturgists do not bother with illusions, and instead use brute mind-force to sway emotions. Politics in the kingdom are conducted on this magickal level as well, with more powerful Atorani causing their rivals' sudden emotional outbursts to embarrass themselves in front of the king. The few illusionists who do exist are primarily low-leveled members of the Dark Council who 'initiate' newly captured slaves by torturing the new slaves until they are broken.

Salatasi
Most [void]kin are talented psychaturgists, and the exiled [void]kin-goddesses, Nievele & Cliavin, are no exception. Without fail the most powerful mage in the city-state is their queen and goddess-reincarnated, and considerable control over both the illusionary and manipulative aspects of psychaturgy are very much under her command. The rest of the mages are middling in comparison to their queen, and few dabble in the illusionary, instead preferring to aid in the subjugation of the male slave population through mind-manipulation.

Greymark
Greymark psychaturgists are all [void]kin princes. For whatever reason the gift for mind-magick has yet to manifest among the human Terlan population, though their [void]kin masters would prefer that it never does. Psychaturgy is one of the avenues the shadow-princes use in their efforts to recapture their lives in 'Between'. Many [void]kin mages use intensive meditation to access the deeper parts of their mind, allowing them to exert whatever they imagine over themselves—and as they ground in power over those around them. Emotional suppression and manipulation is another often practiced magick, although many [void]kin use it on themselves so that they appear more like [Void].

Glitterfang, Hunting-Hole, & Six Blades Kingdom
The ratmen are among the most viciously successful native El-Orian psychaturgists. To be successful in warren-politics a swiech mage has to be a powerful enough mage to not be killed by older, more paranoid mages, which has led to a kind of Darwinist natural-selection process thinning out those mages who could/would not dominate those around them via illusions or mental suppression. Once recognized as worthy by a cabal, the swiech mages turn their focus onto the population, generally terrorizing the rowdy ratpeople into obedience through a combination of scare-tactics and emotional suppression.

Alchemy
Kleofkinde Warghemens
Alchemy among the Kleofkinde is considered a 'lesser' pursuit of magick due to its inability to directly call upon the denizens of the 'spirit-world'. It is, however, no less a remarkable form of magick and Kelfokinde alchemists are second only to the Nirrodon Alchemists of the Kirrita lands. Alchemy among the Kleofkinde is what you would expect of alchemy: mix together two things and get another thing. Much of the Kleofkinde's alchemy, however, relies upon a single special component they call the 'Spirit Mushroom', as it acts as a catalyst for nearly every magickal potion Kleofkinde alchemists create. Understandably due to their increased access to spirit mushrooms, the alchemists of Cindor are far more capable than their Almoot and Garst brothers.

League of Agortal, Northern Leagues, & League of Nirrodon
Most Bladvenn dabble in the typical methods of alchemy that one would think. Two ingredients are mixed together and something magickal is produced. This is very much the case for the Northern Leagues and the League of Agortal, but in the League of Nirrodon blood holds a special importance in their alchemic creations. Nirrodon alchemists create potent potions that rely upon the psychedelic effects of blood when consumed by a Bladvenn elf, and a small amount of psychaturgy. Simply put, the only way Nirrodon potions work is if they render the consumer intoxicated enough that their latent psychaturgic abilities trigger and convince the consumer that his body is undergoing something magickal. Understandably, it takes a lot of practice (and consumption) for this to occur, and reliable Nirrodon shamans exist only at the very top of the Cult of Nirr and among the Nirrodon High-Blooded Nobles.

Vivification
Vivification is a broad magick that deals with life-forces. Most Vivificationists interact with other creatures' 'life-auras' that outline every living being. In order to cast spells a vivificationist will reach out and 'touch' these auras, and depending on whether or not that touch is a 'friendly' one the magick can either help or harm. Without the aid of psychaturgy to exert the mage's will via mental powers, vivification is a touch-based magick. It is important to note that vivification is life magick. Not death magick.

Kingdom of Elendrel, N. Narados Tribes, & S. Narados Tribes
Vivification among the Rochir elves comes from their interactions with the Terlan humans of Salastasi. Given the Duo Deae's focus on pain, the Narados do not have a very widely versed application of healing-magick. Only under King Loran's guidance have the first Narados begun to apply vivification for measures other than pain. Loran has taken to teaching farmers, shepherds, and other common non-warriors to feel out the life forces of plants and animals in order to repair what has been damaged.

Salatasi & Kingdom of Abyss
The vivificationists of Salatasi and the Kingdom of Abyss draw from the same common knowledge to cast their vivifcation spells: there is a life-force around beings and it can be manipulated. Most of their spells are to harm and few—if any—Salatasi and Abyss mages have bothered with the 'weaker' arts of healing. Instead they combine their mastery of psychaturgy in order to create shambling undead masses. The undead that the Salatasi create are not-true undead in the sense of beings made up of dark, necromatic energies. They are dead creatures that were rekindled with a faint spark of their former life so that the spark might be controlled by psychaturgic mind-bludgeons. Undead created in these ways are capable of carrying out simple orders such as 'attack, lift, drag, etc.', but no complex tasks.

Clanial Union & Gir Bragaash
Bragaash vivificationists, like the Rochir foes, take their understanding of life-magick from the Telric Terlan of Salatasi. As such, the Bragaash largely use the magick to harm and hinder rather than help and heal. Among the Gir Bragaash shamans are few and far between, though those skilled enough to grasp vivification are tyrants who keep their positions through liberal misuse of their powers. Within the Clanial Union two types of shamans have emerged: reavers and shamans. Unlike the bestial, violent reavers among the Thôn-yFell Bragaash, the reavers of the Clanial Union are an organized caste of mid-ranking officers capable of deadly vivification spells. Most Bragaash units contain at least two or four reavers—an oddity, considering the Bragaash's otherwise disinclination to magick. Clanial shamans are also a departure from the typical Bragaash's relationship with magick. Though the shamans are ostensibly as capable of harm as their reaver brothers, the shamans have sought to find more peaceful applications of vivification magick, but up until this point they have yet to do more than kindle a small plant back to life for a few short, but glorious, moments.


 
:eek:

I'm honestly amazed. Among several other questions I could ask, how many words was that?
 
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