Where I had last left off the world had come to its false end. From the ashes of mighty empires came the bizarre remnants of society too tenacious to fall. Strangely enough the glowing embers of civilization were kept hot by the Orc-things of the Kathraki Jungles, a savage peoples given a savage intelligence and awareness of their own imperfect state. Many sought to rectify their situation through perpetuating the millennia-old violence that had long kept their species barbarian. Others questioned the point of this violence, though their ponderings were cut short by the savage intervention of the behemoth Berengei Ape-beasts. Brutal subjugation of the Orc-things began and before long much of 'civilized' Kathraki bowed to Berengei overlords, who proved surprisingly benevolent and so civilization marched on.
A few Orc-things, four-armed like their Berengei masters, but far more intelligent than them--and, in fact, any of their kind--sought freedom. A number of exoduses out of the Kathraki Jungles saw the proliferation of far-flung Orrachni states, among them United Kanarka and the strange tribes of Orrakenal.
Lead by a strong chieftain called Zagrok, many Orrachni fled to the east where they settled by human ruins after earning the grudging respect of the ruins' original inhabitants, the Suth-Swiech. Swiech are known to all corners of Hos, but only the Suth-Swiech can claim to be true warriors for they are sturdier than their feeble cousins and are practically war-machines in of themselves. Yet, they lack chiefly in intelligence and this caused them to eek out a violent existence till the Zagrok-lead Orrachni introduced the idea of peace, and more importantly, a common enemy. Zagrok played upon the hatred between the Suth-Swiech of his new home and the Suth-Swiech of more distant ruins in the eastern hills of the Atil Mountains.
A small band of Orrachni followed a philosopher and self-proclaimed prophetess by the name of Urzrah. Urzrah did not lead her people to a promise-land like she had dreamed, but into the maw of the bizarre flesh-golems called Kharlkallenal--relics of the magical decadence of the world before the Fall. When the Kharlkallenal ate Urzrah and her followers they too gave a new home for the Orrachni minds, which proved problematic for the older Kharlkallenal whose minds also housed the voice of their creator, the mad gnome-thing wizard Gallazza. Torn between their master's insanity and the pleading of the Orrachni, these older Kharlkallenal were driven even more mad then they were before, but among the younger, the 'emptier' flesh golems the Orrachni found yielding hosts who came to identify with Orrachni culture, society, and thought, creating the first Orrakenal. These bizarre, newly sentient constructs quickly abandoned their mad parents for life by the River Senn, though time can only tell what fate in store for them.
Far from the savage southern jungles were the once civilized man, dwarf, and elf-things who were turned strange by the Fall. Much more effected than the orc-things, who in truth had little to lose and much more to gain from their mutations, the civilized-things of the north reverted to largely tribal existences. Among the dwarf-things of the extreme north, called Akkalik in their own tongue, a small kingdom arose on the Isle of Akk mostly for protection from the enigmatic Tabbuk, which were once elf-things. War was frequent, though victory for the Akkalik was equally as frequent till the onset of the Melt--a strange disease which warped the minds of older Akkalik and the bodies of their younger sons and daughters. Increasingly large chunks of each dwarf-thing generations were lost to the Melt until the Great Death saw a whole generation turned into frozen monstrosities. Not things given to despair and defeat, the wise King Addak II abdicated from his throne to lead a coalition of the surviving nobility.
On the western sister island of Akk, Suinias, the Dohtel once possessed the greatest kingdom of magicians. Truly bLEsSed with an understanding of aRt they were torn from their powers by the Pop, which also tore their island apart and flung it across various other realms. Beset by all manners of strange extraplanar horrors, the Dohtel found themselves not without means to survive--even thrive. The magic they once commanded began to command them, infusing in each and every elf-thing a singular purpose in life that he would excel at. A highly regimented, highly guarded tribe emerged under the leadership of an unbroken line of 'marked' chieftains and the broken Dohtel were able to eek out existences in the shadow of their greatest city, Suin. However, MaGIC seems to have abandoned them as more and more Dohtel were born 'unmarked' and no heir was born to the chieftains.
The man-things who once held tempestuousness border-realms on the northern edge of the greatest elf-thing empire saw all their petty squabbles suddenly ended when the Pop eradicated nearly 2/3rds of the man-thing population. The straggling remnants broke into two groups: Bodomen and Karinthians. The former a slave-owning collection of post-apocalyptic princedoms and the latter a disorganized collection of nomads whose bodies were turned inside out at the same time as their world. Initially weak and harrowed by the strange Akonai wolves, the Karinthians led short, fearful lives till they were saved by a four-armed-thing who called himself Laorth and brought with him religion and metallurgy. Strengthened by their arms and the recently domesticated blood-steeds, unsettling beasts whose fate was much the same as the Karinthians', the Karinthians beat back to Akonai and established thriving, independent tribes that would later be united by the greatest prophet since Laorth, a man-thing called Syztos.
Their southern Bodomen cousins suffered quite an opposite fate. Long profiting from their brutal enslavement of the foreign gnome-things called the Sheol, the Bodomen managed to continue their pre-Pop society due to the exploitation of the Sheol. However, overtime the Bodomen came to take on animalistic qualities, both physically and mentally, till they could hardly be called man-things at all. The collapse of their own society, however, came with the sudden appearance of the Puca, extraplanar river spirits forcibly brought to the Hossian plane by things yet known. Rivers all over the Bodolands swelled up and destroyed the Bodomen and Sheol alike, even carrying a few of the gnome-things off to the region west of the Bodolands where the displaced Sheol would create a fledgling kingdom of their own. Yet, the Sheol took the manifestation of the Puca as divine providence and all throughout the Bodolands they rose up in revolt.
Elf-things of the greatest elf-thing empire suffered fates no better than the squabbling man-things. Where the man-things knew disunity from the inception of their kind, the elf-things would know it through the racial rifts caused by the Fall. High elf-things, near-gods in many aspects including arrogance, fell far when their forest empire was destroyed by the rise of the Sno Mountains and expansion of the Sentet Desert. Most fled their former home, but the High elf-thing nobility clung desperately to their ruined cities despite disaster after disaster. Perhaps the most devastating, and ironically what saved the haughty elf-things, were the Kraw, a race of hyper-intelligent creatures spawned from pre-Pop eagles. The Kraw forcibly incorporated the straggling high elf-things into their growing domain as slaves and even went so far as to breed with their captives. What resulted from this union was no monstrosity, but the angelic Malachim who were called 'low' by their pure-blooded parents despite the presence of no flaws save for their fragility.
Cast out, the 'low' Malachim were lead into the nearby desert by one of their kind, a man called Ophanim, who established a self-serving religion that placed him--and all Malachim-things--as the pinnacles of mortal perfections. With these delusions of grandeur the Malachim created a small realm for themselves along the River Senn. The realm knew little struggle till the greed of a spurned noble resulted in exile of the rightful heir Princess Nessa and the usurpation of her throne. Nessa did not find death in the deserts as her cousin Khadis had hoped; she instead found a Hitash lizardess who was just emerging from her bestial slumber.
An inquisitive race of hyper-intelligent beings, the Hitash had existed long before the Fall and were only altered by it in the form of their ever-lengthening 'sleep'. When resting, the normally wise and calculating lizards revert into monsters capable of terrible destruction, and the lengthening of this period posed a great problem for all Hitash of the younger generations. Nessa provided her lizard savior with an avenue, however: Ophanism, as interpreted by Nessa. Preaching that all beings could rid themselves of the changes brought on by the Collapse, Nessa converted the Hitash Lizardess Dmurth, who in turn converted a small clutch of like-minded lizards. Dmurth and her compatriots undertook a willing exile and traveled back to the Malachim kingdom with Nessa in order to help the princess reconquer her kingdom. The mighty lizards fought back the Malachim army with disturbing ease, subduing roughly half of the once united realm within the space of mere weeks, and now Nessa and Dmurth stand ready to subjugate the southern half.
The 'Low' Elf-things of the greatest elf-thing empire scattered to all corners of Hos, but the only ones to have formed a new society are the Bladvenn. Immediately the Bladvenn came under influence of their environment, taking on amphibian qualities so as to survive in the 'Strip', a marshy region east of the Centet Sea. The Bladvenn initially kept small, familial clans, but were brought together by contact with the Etet-Swiech, a member of the prolific race of rat-men-things. Bladvenn are curious creatures, not fully vampires, but bearing the cornerstone trait of these undead lords: an inclination for blood. Blood to a Bladvenn creates a narcotic-like high that quickly proved important to the Bladvenn's spiritual practices, but was utterly blown out of proportion when the Bladvenn first drained the Etet-Swiech. The euphoria experienced would cause the entire Bladvenn race to hunt the Etet-Swiech down to near-extinction, in the process creating hunting 'leagues' that quickly went to war with one another when the Etet-Swiech became less numerous.
With their society imploded, the Bladvenn wandered the Strip in small, scattered clans till one of their kind, a treacherous being called Agorta, happened upon an expedition of Muroid-Swiech--cousins to the Bladvenn's decimated prey. Unlike the Etet-Sweich, the Muroid-Swiech bore an intelligence that had seen them rapidly rediscover a great number of innovations lost during the Fall. This was partially forced upon them when the Muroid-Swiech were attacked by the numerous beasts living in their homeland, causing them to band together far more quickly than they would have normally. In search of a new homeland, the Muroid-Swiech noblewoman Mefi instead found Agorta, who coaxed his way into her inner council till she let her guard down and he struck. The resulting battle saw the death of numerous Bladvenn, but ultimately they proved the victors and the surviving Muroid-Swiech were taken as slaves while Mefi escaped into the nearby forests.
Playing upon his people's racial addiction, Agorta established the Great League of Agorta by dangling his Swiech slaves in front of every clan he met. This coupled with his uncanny mind for politics and infectious charisma created the first sizable realm the Bladvenn had ever known.