Post by DM Aram on Jul 6, 2015 7:42:29 GMT -5
Timeline
Republic of Wessle
The heart of Wessle boasts hundreds of square miles of flat, lush farmland fed by a web or rivers and lakes that allow the country to serve as the breadbasket for the rest of the known world. Comprised of thirteen independent states, the Republic is ruled by a council that shares both power and responsibility for the nation as a whole, distinguishing it as the only true representative Democracy within the Five Kingdoms (even as a handful of the states without that freedom from their own citizens).
Aside from sharing matters of politics and trade, the states remain largely independent, each boasting its own currency, traditions, and laws. Several nations closely guard their borders, requiring travelers to carry various documents (or a purse full of golden bribes) in order to gain passage.
The capital of Tidewatch serves as both national government and major trade hub for the Republic, centering most of the nation's power in the north while the majority of food production (and resulting wealth) resides in the south. Beyond the verdant, rolling crests of southern mountains lies the Gloom, a largely uninhabited swath of rainforest and swampland stretching from coast to coast. Travel further south and grass gives way to rock and grit as the Sand Hills rise to meet the towering, ash-black walls of the Coalspine.
Sun and wind conspire to scour this land leaving it largely dry and barren, inhabitable only by the last tribes of Orcs that have sought refuge in its punishing bleakness. Of these outcasts, two majors centers of power have arisen: the relatively peaceful Orcs of Clan Flatrock, and the bloodthirsty raiders of Clan Deathhammer.
Kingdom of Brenus
The Kingdom of Brenus is united in name only. The Wild Elves and their Ironwood rest firmly within Brenus's eastern borders, though they pay no tax on their land and allow no official boot to tread within. It is the same story again with Rylend, a mountainous island nation of independent Dwarves and Elves just north of the Ironwood, while much of the south is wild and lawless.
The continent is is split into West and East by a narrow mountain range that itself is halved by a tranquil lake over 5o miles across at its widest. Below this freshwater inland sea lies the Great Southern Plain, a vast expanse of shrubs and King's Grass that stretches from coast to coast. The plains rise to meet a line of steep hills stained with rust from the thick veins of iron that run through them.
The nation's true might lies around the Sapphire Bay, a deep well of water surrounded by rings of dense coral and bordered by much of Brenus's western coast. The entire bay is rich with sea and plant life, enough to support a trio of powerful trade cities: Cape Tripletail, Oath Harbor and the capital Skyhaven, one of the oldest human cities in the Five Kingdoms. The palace within its brightly painted walls has been ruled by the same royal family for over five hundred years, its throne currently occupied by the young King Arion Vallis.
The lands South of the Crimson Hills are split again by the leading edge of Titan's Ridge, separating them into the rainforests of the East and the marshland tropics of the West, both populated with bands of savages.
Utea
A continent second only to Kadar in sheer mass, Utea was blasted down to its bedrock by Siforr in the last minutes of the Godswar, leaving a titanic slab of scorched stone that cradles a lush, primordial valley. The cataclysm that the God of the Sun unleashed upon Utea was so vast that it tore the very fabric of reality, opening portals to other worlds and times from which countless horrors spilled forth.
It remains to this day a wild, untamed place inhabited by barbaric tribes that cling to the valley and beaches, fortifying themselves against the monstrous creatures that have claimed this land as their own. Impossibly huge birds known as Rocs inhabit the steep cliffs while giant lizards long thought extinct roam the arid plains. The threats of Utea do not end at her shores, as scavengers descend upon unwary ships and brazen smugglers that stray too close to the jagged black rock forest of the Thousand Fang Bay.
On the Western End of the Great Plateau sits a temple forged from the same blood-red stone it rests upon. Four gigantic towers mark the corners of the structure, each dedicated to one of the original First Gods: Fire (Ytar), Air (Ather), Water (Emitaf), and Earth (Ogun). Infested with otherworldly creatures and surrounded by savages, the temple has sat abandoned since the Godswar, its treasure and knowledge yet unclaimed.
Rylend
Just north of the Ironwood, nestled in the claw of the Spine of the Sea sits a mountainous island nation known as Rylend. The fortified city in the clouds was the first built by Dwarven and Elven hands, founded by those who viewed human ambition as a grave threat to the entire world. This belief has only strengthened after the Godswar, leading Rylend to declare itself independent from the Five Kingdoms. Any Dwarf or Elf who seeks refuge within her walls is granted such - other races are tolerated, but humans are killed or captured on sight.
Once a mighty volcano Rylend has been dormant for nearly two millennia, her crater filled with water and rung with a forest of Ironwood. The city rests midway up the Southern edge of the island, snaking around to terraced paddy fields along the North and East, and the Snowspire to the West. The freshwater basin above runs in rivers around and through the city, plunging down tunnels and over water wheels crafted by Dwarven hands to harness the power of water and gravity.
The Snowspire sits at the top of a cliff to the West of the city, a 600' triangular spike of white marble resting atop a hexagonal base. A cascade of twenty glass balconies ring the tower, evenly spaced from the foot to the very top. It was constructed with the help of the Jacob Kladivo using raw, God-forged marble from projects left unfinished by Zavan, a gift to the people of Rylend for their help in thwarting the world-conquering ambitions of Gal-Hadir. The tower serves both as a repository for knowledge and a vault for some of the most powerful magical artifacts ever constructed, a shining counter to the coal-black walls of Barros's Union.
Gal-Hadir
The greatest Dwarven city ever forged sits carved from a mountain top in the far north of the Kadarian Empire. Her Dwarves were the first to be given magic, the first to build golems, and the first to set warships sailing among the clouds. Gal-Hadir is insular and xenophobic, run since her inauguration by a series of great houses with ancient family bloodlines.
Much as with Rylend, the Godswar has intensified Gal-Hadir's militant nationalism, a smoldering anger fed by the stinging rebuke at the hand of Zavan. Recently there have been reports that the mighty lavaforges, dormant as part of the peace accord set forth by Zavan, burn once again. Others have reported seeing airships in the sky and great constructs forged of steel and brass and powered by steam crashing through the frozen tundra.
The mightiest of all Gal-Hadir Houses is Clan Stoneburner led by King Thorrick, a brilliant scientist obsessed with thermal power and magic. He has led his people for two hundred years, tunneling deeper and deeper into the mountain his city rests upon while transforming the citadel above into a church of machinery and production. His people are complex, willing to sacrifice anything for progress while fiercely defending the traditions and histories of their bloodline. Outside art, philosophy and religions are considered to be propaganda from other Dwarves, blasphemy from the Elves, and laughably barbaric from all others.
The Shatterland
A great chasm tore apart the center of Kadar during the Godswar as Zavan and his lover Death fought desperately to defend the kingdom he had created from the burning hate of Sifforr. The lifeless, salt-encrusted canyon that remains is named after Mordukai for it was born from his destruction as the God of Death sacrificed himself to oblivion, giving Zavan the power he needed to end the Godswar and shield the Five Kindgoms from the resulting Worldstorm.
The canyon is deepest near the center of Kadar, a straight drop of over 20,000 feet to the rocky pool of brine below. High tide sends waves crashing over the edges of the canyon on both ends of Kadar as a narrow lake of seawater mixes with thermal vents to create a bubbling cauldron. Steam rising from this acrid brew carries a overpoweringly stench of sulfur and coats the walls and mouth of the canyon with a thick layer of bright yellow salt.
While the salt is highly prized, the caustic air disintegrates both metal and wood in short order, leading the majority of the harvest to be done by the hands of the poorest. The vapors are just as tough on men as machines, leaching color from the skin, hair and eyes and shredding the lungs with boils and lesions. A trio of rivers that empty into the maw provide the only lifelines to a cluster of villages along the northern rim.
The Void
South of the Five Kingdoms and past the walls of the Spear of Jarden sits the Void, a crater of rock and ash hundreds of miles across that rises in the center like an infected boil. Nothing lives in this forsaken place save for the massive Ash Worms - ancient, mindless creatures forced to the surface from deep within the earth's crust during the Godswar. They forever patrol the Void in solitude, swimming through the blackened rock as if it were water in lazy, counterclockwise circles, each beast inhabiting a ring of space as their territory that they fiercely guard against intrusion. The strongest of the worms claim the mineral-rich inner rings while the young and the infirmed battle for scraps along the edges of the crater walls.
In the center of the Void, shrouded by the swirling edge of the Worldstorm, sits the Union. A mighty citadel raised by Barros in the Old Land, the Union is a single column of twisted onyx at the peak of a coal-black mountain ending in a sharp, hooked point that forms the main tower over a mile above the surrounding land. It is said to be completely indestructible - even Ogun himself raining down rock from the stars could not sunder it.
Though the Union is mostly obscured by the Worldstorm, it can be witnessed yearly during the Great Calm when the Worldstorm suddenly ceases to exist. This period slings precisely with the start of the Godswar, ending after a short hour as the winds and dust roar back to life seemingly from nothing.
- The 1st Year of the Calm: The First Four, along with all of reality, are born fully formed in an explosion born of nothing (1-4)
- 1000: Ytar and Ather bear Siffor (5)
- 1003: Emitaf and Ogun bear Ius (6)
- 1470: Ather and Emitaf bear twins Yala and Morduki (7/8)
- 1471: The First Gods quarrel with one another, and retreat to the far corners of the universe, vowing to make no further Gods.
- 1475: Siforr and Yala bear Ova (9)
- 1476: Yala and Ius bear Ocarus (10)
- 1479: Siforr and Yala bear Radia (11)
- 1518: Siforr and Yala bear Wodea (12)
- 1519: Wodea creates the Elves to watch over her forests and the plants and creatures who dwell within them.
- 1616: Yala and Ius bear Etos (13)
- 1643: Yala and Ius bear Pelios (14)
- 1798: Wodea and Ocarus bear Xunos (15)
- 1891: Radia and Etos bear Lordros (16)
- 1893: Ova and Ocarus bear Vistrix (17)
- 1897: Ova and Etos bear Voara (18)
- 1901: Vistrix and Ius bear Ceto (19)
- 1904: Ova and Ocarus bear Epona (20)
- 1967: Voara and Ius bear Rapel (21)
- 1973: Vistrix and Ius bear Autna (22)
- 1988: Ova and Ocarus bear Shakti (23)
- 2001: Epona and Ius bear Kalos (24)
- 2003: Rapel and Kalos combine their Divinities and create the first Dwarves.
- 2006: Ova and Etos bear Tir (25)
- 2015: Ova and Pelios bear Gaidir (26)
- 2109: Ova and Etos bear Sah (27)
- 2197: Ova and Pelios bear Valhena (28)
- 2205: Ova and Etos bear Mivia (29)
- 2222: Vistrix and Ius bear Jodar (30)
- 2321: Ova and Pelios bear Cenos (31)
- 2469: The First Human City of Besa is founded.
- 2478: Ova and Pelios bear Udea (32)
- 2550: Ova and Pelios bear Aurras (33)
- 2778: Ova and Etos bear Vodon (34)
- 2986: Ova and Pelios bear Hilo (35)
- 3000: Radia and Etos bear Barros (36)
- 3013: The Dwarves grow jealous of the Elves millennia of life and demand the power of magic to compensate.
- 3018: The Dwarves create Goblins.
- 3027: The Dwarves create Orcs.
- 3346: The human kingdom of Ani is founded.
- 3511: In an effort to restore balance after half a millennia of Dwarven dominance, the Elves steal magic from the Dwarves and and teach their secrets to the lesser races.
- 3526: The Dwarves create Golems.
- 3750: Dwarven and Elven separatists found Rylend.
- 4019: After half a millennia of preparation, the Dwarves of Gal-Hadir declare war on the Five Kingdoms.
- 4020-4022: Dwarven forces overwhelm the North.
- 4023-4066: Dwarven forces invade the South.
- 4106: The millionth child is born inside Ani’s walls and Zavan, the First God of Man, is born.
- 4113: Siforr, Xunos, Vodon, Vistrix, Voara and Barros form a pact to kill Zavan.
- 4119: The Dwarves agree to peace on the terms of Zavan, the First God of Man.
- 4122: Zavan unites all the lands and races of Trilenea under his rule.
- 4123: Siforr, Xunos, Vodon, Vistrix, Voara and Barros enact their plan to kill Zavan, only to find that he has taken Death as a lover. The resulting war kills all of the Gods and destroys much of the Material Realm. At the end, Lordros and Mivia form a pact with Emitaf and Zavan to save the last of their creations, and the Stormwall is raised.
- The 1st Year of Godsfall: What is left of the world rebuilds after the great Godswar.
- Year 2-30: The Great Hunger
- Year 33: The Empire of Kadar is officially chartered.
- Year 38: Kadar declares war on the South.
- Year 41: Kadar establishes rule over the Republic of Wessel.
- Year 45: Kadar armies are turned away by combined forces at the Voiceless Peaks.
- Year 48: Kadar signs the peace accord and fifty years of peace begin.
- Year 98: Phyrane, Dorro, Torrvic, Xion and Pera meet in Port Bliss.
Republic of Wessle
The heart of Wessle boasts hundreds of square miles of flat, lush farmland fed by a web or rivers and lakes that allow the country to serve as the breadbasket for the rest of the known world. Comprised of thirteen independent states, the Republic is ruled by a council that shares both power and responsibility for the nation as a whole, distinguishing it as the only true representative Democracy within the Five Kingdoms (even as a handful of the states without that freedom from their own citizens).
Aside from sharing matters of politics and trade, the states remain largely independent, each boasting its own currency, traditions, and laws. Several nations closely guard their borders, requiring travelers to carry various documents (or a purse full of golden bribes) in order to gain passage.
The capital of Tidewatch serves as both national government and major trade hub for the Republic, centering most of the nation's power in the north while the majority of food production (and resulting wealth) resides in the south. Beyond the verdant, rolling crests of southern mountains lies the Gloom, a largely uninhabited swath of rainforest and swampland stretching from coast to coast. Travel further south and grass gives way to rock and grit as the Sand Hills rise to meet the towering, ash-black walls of the Coalspine.
Sun and wind conspire to scour this land leaving it largely dry and barren, inhabitable only by the last tribes of Orcs that have sought refuge in its punishing bleakness. Of these outcasts, two majors centers of power have arisen: the relatively peaceful Orcs of Clan Flatrock, and the bloodthirsty raiders of Clan Deathhammer.
Kingdom of Brenus
The Kingdom of Brenus is united in name only. The Wild Elves and their Ironwood rest firmly within Brenus's eastern borders, though they pay no tax on their land and allow no official boot to tread within. It is the same story again with Rylend, a mountainous island nation of independent Dwarves and Elves just north of the Ironwood, while much of the south is wild and lawless.
The continent is is split into West and East by a narrow mountain range that itself is halved by a tranquil lake over 5o miles across at its widest. Below this freshwater inland sea lies the Great Southern Plain, a vast expanse of shrubs and King's Grass that stretches from coast to coast. The plains rise to meet a line of steep hills stained with rust from the thick veins of iron that run through them.
The nation's true might lies around the Sapphire Bay, a deep well of water surrounded by rings of dense coral and bordered by much of Brenus's western coast. The entire bay is rich with sea and plant life, enough to support a trio of powerful trade cities: Cape Tripletail, Oath Harbor and the capital Skyhaven, one of the oldest human cities in the Five Kingdoms. The palace within its brightly painted walls has been ruled by the same royal family for over five hundred years, its throne currently occupied by the young King Arion Vallis.
The lands South of the Crimson Hills are split again by the leading edge of Titan's Ridge, separating them into the rainforests of the East and the marshland tropics of the West, both populated with bands of savages.
Utea
A continent second only to Kadar in sheer mass, Utea was blasted down to its bedrock by Siforr in the last minutes of the Godswar, leaving a titanic slab of scorched stone that cradles a lush, primordial valley. The cataclysm that the God of the Sun unleashed upon Utea was so vast that it tore the very fabric of reality, opening portals to other worlds and times from which countless horrors spilled forth.
It remains to this day a wild, untamed place inhabited by barbaric tribes that cling to the valley and beaches, fortifying themselves against the monstrous creatures that have claimed this land as their own. Impossibly huge birds known as Rocs inhabit the steep cliffs while giant lizards long thought extinct roam the arid plains. The threats of Utea do not end at her shores, as scavengers descend upon unwary ships and brazen smugglers that stray too close to the jagged black rock forest of the Thousand Fang Bay.
On the Western End of the Great Plateau sits a temple forged from the same blood-red stone it rests upon. Four gigantic towers mark the corners of the structure, each dedicated to one of the original First Gods: Fire (Ytar), Air (Ather), Water (Emitaf), and Earth (Ogun). Infested with otherworldly creatures and surrounded by savages, the temple has sat abandoned since the Godswar, its treasure and knowledge yet unclaimed.
Rylend
Just north of the Ironwood, nestled in the claw of the Spine of the Sea sits a mountainous island nation known as Rylend. The fortified city in the clouds was the first built by Dwarven and Elven hands, founded by those who viewed human ambition as a grave threat to the entire world. This belief has only strengthened after the Godswar, leading Rylend to declare itself independent from the Five Kingdoms. Any Dwarf or Elf who seeks refuge within her walls is granted such - other races are tolerated, but humans are killed or captured on sight.
Once a mighty volcano Rylend has been dormant for nearly two millennia, her crater filled with water and rung with a forest of Ironwood. The city rests midway up the Southern edge of the island, snaking around to terraced paddy fields along the North and East, and the Snowspire to the West. The freshwater basin above runs in rivers around and through the city, plunging down tunnels and over water wheels crafted by Dwarven hands to harness the power of water and gravity.
The Snowspire sits at the top of a cliff to the West of the city, a 600' triangular spike of white marble resting atop a hexagonal base. A cascade of twenty glass balconies ring the tower, evenly spaced from the foot to the very top. It was constructed with the help of the Jacob Kladivo using raw, God-forged marble from projects left unfinished by Zavan, a gift to the people of Rylend for their help in thwarting the world-conquering ambitions of Gal-Hadir. The tower serves both as a repository for knowledge and a vault for some of the most powerful magical artifacts ever constructed, a shining counter to the coal-black walls of Barros's Union.
Gal-Hadir
The greatest Dwarven city ever forged sits carved from a mountain top in the far north of the Kadarian Empire. Her Dwarves were the first to be given magic, the first to build golems, and the first to set warships sailing among the clouds. Gal-Hadir is insular and xenophobic, run since her inauguration by a series of great houses with ancient family bloodlines.
Much as with Rylend, the Godswar has intensified Gal-Hadir's militant nationalism, a smoldering anger fed by the stinging rebuke at the hand of Zavan. Recently there have been reports that the mighty lavaforges, dormant as part of the peace accord set forth by Zavan, burn once again. Others have reported seeing airships in the sky and great constructs forged of steel and brass and powered by steam crashing through the frozen tundra.
The mightiest of all Gal-Hadir Houses is Clan Stoneburner led by King Thorrick, a brilliant scientist obsessed with thermal power and magic. He has led his people for two hundred years, tunneling deeper and deeper into the mountain his city rests upon while transforming the citadel above into a church of machinery and production. His people are complex, willing to sacrifice anything for progress while fiercely defending the traditions and histories of their bloodline. Outside art, philosophy and religions are considered to be propaganda from other Dwarves, blasphemy from the Elves, and laughably barbaric from all others.
The Shatterland
A great chasm tore apart the center of Kadar during the Godswar as Zavan and his lover Death fought desperately to defend the kingdom he had created from the burning hate of Sifforr. The lifeless, salt-encrusted canyon that remains is named after Mordukai for it was born from his destruction as the God of Death sacrificed himself to oblivion, giving Zavan the power he needed to end the Godswar and shield the Five Kindgoms from the resulting Worldstorm.
The canyon is deepest near the center of Kadar, a straight drop of over 20,000 feet to the rocky pool of brine below. High tide sends waves crashing over the edges of the canyon on both ends of Kadar as a narrow lake of seawater mixes with thermal vents to create a bubbling cauldron. Steam rising from this acrid brew carries a overpoweringly stench of sulfur and coats the walls and mouth of the canyon with a thick layer of bright yellow salt.
While the salt is highly prized, the caustic air disintegrates both metal and wood in short order, leading the majority of the harvest to be done by the hands of the poorest. The vapors are just as tough on men as machines, leaching color from the skin, hair and eyes and shredding the lungs with boils and lesions. A trio of rivers that empty into the maw provide the only lifelines to a cluster of villages along the northern rim.
The Void
South of the Five Kingdoms and past the walls of the Spear of Jarden sits the Void, a crater of rock and ash hundreds of miles across that rises in the center like an infected boil. Nothing lives in this forsaken place save for the massive Ash Worms - ancient, mindless creatures forced to the surface from deep within the earth's crust during the Godswar. They forever patrol the Void in solitude, swimming through the blackened rock as if it were water in lazy, counterclockwise circles, each beast inhabiting a ring of space as their territory that they fiercely guard against intrusion. The strongest of the worms claim the mineral-rich inner rings while the young and the infirmed battle for scraps along the edges of the crater walls.
In the center of the Void, shrouded by the swirling edge of the Worldstorm, sits the Union. A mighty citadel raised by Barros in the Old Land, the Union is a single column of twisted onyx at the peak of a coal-black mountain ending in a sharp, hooked point that forms the main tower over a mile above the surrounding land. It is said to be completely indestructible - even Ogun himself raining down rock from the stars could not sunder it.
Though the Union is mostly obscured by the Worldstorm, it can be witnessed yearly during the Great Calm when the Worldstorm suddenly ceases to exist. This period slings precisely with the start of the Godswar, ending after a short hour as the winds and dust roar back to life seemingly from nothing.