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Roleplay: Useful Notes


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  1. 1. Was the first article Kiryn wrote any good?

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    • I suppose it was all right, but it wasn't really relevant to me.
    • Pretty good but could use some editing. (Comment on the blog and tell me what needs fixing!)
    • Yeah
  2. 2. Should there be more articles forthcoming?

    • No, Kiryn sucks.
    • No, it's just not that useful.
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    • Maybe with improvement.
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    • Maybe, depending on subject.
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    • Sure why not.


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Selarian Culture

Overview

The 'Selarian' race comprises the people centred around the continent of Selaria, generally a tall, broad-shouldered stock (however, individual sub-races tend towards different figures; generally speaking, though, 'short' for a Selarian is still at least average by anyone else's standards.

Selaria is technically five (later, six) distinct nations, but generally will put aside all differences to unite into one massive empire and beat up on other nations. Selaria is a sleeping giant; don't wake it up and it'll mostly just be internally squabbling and skirmishing. But if you prod it, you'd best get ready for the Legions to make landfall.

History:

The Selarians were originally a race enslaved to a mighty civilisation, as were the Khalonics in the northeastern islands. However, the empire overextended itself, and the Selarians revolted and overthrew their captors. Despite being seen as primitive, they fought with savagery and courage. One thousand, six hundred years later, and Selaria is almost on the cutting edge of technology, an innovative people who aren't averse to smacking a few nations down.

Granted, their fractious nature has lead to a few problems over the centuries. Immediately after securing their own freedom, the heroes had their personal differences out with each other and founded their own seperate nations. Since then, they've mostly been fighting each other.

But Furetchen, women are unrealistic!

To the Selarians, the warrior's call takes precedence over any concept of gender role. If anything, the women are somewhat privileged in that they aren't drafted, or scorned for remaining at home in times of war, but are still free to join the war if they desire. However, certain avenues may still be biased against them - particularly that of nobility, as women of the court generally exist to pump out children and to woo at least one powerful political ally.

Children

Children are expected to learn to fight at least at a cursory level. Brawling with other children is considered a playful and useful learning experience.

For the poor, children are not usually taught to read, although the merchant classes can usually afford to and often will buy tutelage for one of their children. Families are getting smaller of late due to the Blight, and usually families will settle for two or three children.

For the rich, an educated assessment is made of the child's character at the age of eight, and it is decided whether they are destined for the court or for knighthood. Generally, this can be rigged to have a nobly-trained firstborn, a backup who vaguely knows what they're doing in social situations, someone skilled with numbers, as many wives of the court as possible and at least one knight to gain glory for the family. Noble families tend to be large, as they can for the most part withstand the famine.

Clothing:

Loose and inexpensive. For men and women both, loose shirts, pants and tough leather boots are favoured, with a longer, thicker undershirt and/or a cloak in colder climates, with sturdy leather gloves. Women may also wear skirts, but full dresses are generally restricted for the court. Dark, muted tones are generally favoured. Underclothing consists of white linen.

Court fashion is, as it always has and always will be, patently ridiculous. However, in Selaria there can usually be found a modicum of sense, and doublets and leggings for men and long elegant dresses for women are favoured. Knights, however, dress much like common mercenaries, no matter how noble their birth, and generally carry their swords wherever they go. If one is destined for battle, it is seen as best to show it.

Warfare

Dear god, do Selarians love a good war. Selaria itself is a concept tied entirely to war; while individual nations may squabble and war against each other, when any of them are threatened from the outside a ceasefire is called and the legions of all Selaria are mustered. As for inner squabbling, generally speaking the republics of Dracia and Bernicia tend to side with each other, and everything else can turn on a dime. Borders within Selaria are... not exactly fixed, by any measure. Selaria is not averse to expansion, when it is sufficiently focused in a certain direction; Bahar immediately allied with them as soon as war became a possibility, and fighting Bahar's enemies can prove an exotic and thrilling experience in times of boredom.

The structure of the Selarian legions will be outlined in the following post.

Religion

To the pagan Selarians, every star is a god or goddess. This results in a pretty damn massive pantheon. The major gods, which tend to be either planets mistaken for stars or just generally really big stars (Selarians don't take much stock in astronomy) are in charge of broad aspects, such as the Red Lady, the goddess of death. Smaller ones include some remarkably situational deities, such as Cirrith, Master of the Doorway, a sacred tenet linked to ownership and welcoming. City temples are lavish and rural ones clean and well-kept; the gods are respected, and generally thought to give a kind eye to those who favour them, but in general it's not thought that they care all too much about human affairs beyond direct pleas for help from their followers. The temple guardians are called Paladins, and their duty is to fight as a sort of holy warrior and protect the common folk of their city or town.

That said, Selarians tend to be superstitious, and most tend to favour a specific god to watch over them and keep a pendant in their name with them as often as possible, generally taking the form of a beautiful stone on a loop around their neck. Prayer generally takes the form of a muttered oath or two; actual sacrifice, however, is all but unheard of. After all, who would waste good meat on the incorporeal?

Folklore

Generally, folklore involves heroic acts of bravery and daring extolling the core values such as fidelity and valour. There are few instances of the out-and-out supernatural in such tales; they tend towards being somewhat more colourful retellings of history; 'fought off three guys' can so easily became 'held back the tides of those wretches seeking to bring about the empire's doom'...

Language

Selarians share a common tongue, the closest Earth approximation of which would be German. Their language is markedly different from that of the Baharese and native Cirisites, but similar enough to nearby Khalon. Most Selarians don't bother with other languages, and prefer to just grow powerful enough as an empire to force others to learn theirs.

Questions?

Please feel free to ask; I'm not making (much) of this up on the spot, and should be in good stead to answer most queries and add them to the post.

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SUMMARY
Selaria is a highly militaristic nation that prides itself on its ability to beat up on their neighbours and swiftly turn them into a jelly with a national flag. Their aggressive nature is backed by a massive, highly oiled military machine that makes up in valour and leadership what it lacks in actual discipline.

THE DRAFT vs. THE STANDING ARMY
Selarian nations keep a standing army, but are not restricted to this; they can institute a draft in which one in ten men is drafted and the other nine pay for the cost of his equipment. In times of extreme stress, this can be extended to one in five men and one in ten women. Selaria sees no reason to keep women from the army; their general response to anyone who doesn't accept them is "Why do you hate having the numerical advantage?"

The standing army is exclusively volunteers, well-paid and with a promise of a small grant of land for twenty-five years of service. They fight for their own interests, and those interests are in the hands of their generals, leading to a strong sense of (largely selfish) loyalty. Regulars tend to look down on levies, seeing them as glorified meatshields, and this contempt has proven to be immensely useful as the legionaries barely flinch when the militia break and run all around them.

LEADERSHIP
The legions are kept in line by strength, not discipline. Every regiment is held in line by a number of respected sergeants, elected by the men themselves, and from the sergeants are drawn the captains. Captains, by the very nature of their election, are tough, respected men with experience, capable of getting the lads together even if it takes bashing a few heads together.
The captains answer to the commanders (usually five in a medium to large army), who lead sections of the army (First line, second line, third line, cavalry and archers/artillery). The commanders, in turn, answer to a general. The commanders and general are usually of noble birth in the monarchies, although trusted common commanders are still not uncommon, and usually drawn from iron knights in the republics, or promoted from captaincy (making commander is an automatic status upgrade to iron knight, so the military tends to attract the ambitious). Either way, generals are expected to fight when called upon and act generally as equals to the rank-and-file; all status is forgotten as soon as arrows start flying.

STRATEGY
The legions have a flexible army by its very nature, counting skilled longbowmen and heavy infantry and cavalry amongst its ranks. Their regiments are drilled to switch in and out of the front at the blow of a horn. Generally, unless something directly goes wrong, the legion archers fire off a few volleys of clothyard shafts to soften up the enemy, and unless the shootout doesn't favour them, will generally keep doing so until the enemy approaches to charging range. The heavy infantry of the legion precede their charges with two volleys of handaxes before drawing their massive axes and slamming into the enemy lines, aiming to break up their formation and close into individual one-to-one combat, where they fare best.

Cavalry are generally used to utterly crush a flank, and the concept of 'light cavalry' or even really 'subtlety' is lost to them.

IDENTIFICATION
Generally, identification is quite easy; pike militia, warriors and halberdiers bear towering standards and wear surcoats, and in the case of warriors, shields, with the colour of their nation on them and the individual insignia of their city emblazoned on top of it. Crossbow militia wear short surcoats, archers have hauberks in the appropriate colour and usually have undershirts in the colour of their city. Rural militia tend to wear capes or scarves. Identification is... really, never a problem. At all.

MILITIA
Militia are generally drafted from the common people using the doctrine that one man in every ten is press-ganged, and the rest pay for his equipment. Volunteering to be the one in the fight is accepted, provided that the requisite amount of men are taken. Militia come in three standard variations of equipment;

Pikemen
Equipment:
Pikemen are given a shorter surcoat, a leather breastplate, sturdy leather gauntlets and boots, and a cheap iron morion.
Formation: Tightly-packed, with as much discipline as can be managed. New but promising captains usually find themselves assigned to Pike Militia, as getting the fractious and ill-disciplined pikemen into shape can prove a struggle.
Position: Usually assigned to fill in the first line.
Combat role: They are effective against cavalry and, if they manage to stand and fight, reasonably effective in defence. Generally speaking, not particularly effective, but men are men.

Crossbowmen
Equipment:
Leather armour under a short surcoat, a light crossbow, whatever melee weapon the man brings.
Formation: Tightly-packed, making use of firing by rank. In melee, generally they just run for it.
Position: Just behind the first line.
Combat role: Most of the urban militia end up as crossbowmen, it being the simplest role to understand ("Just point and shoot"). In times of war, the merchants and about half of the working-class become crossbowmen.

Rural Militia
Equipment:
Varies, but generally light armour, a buckler and a shortsword, with a cape or some indication of colour. Usually some sort of light ranged weapon, a shortbow, crossbow or javelins.
Formation: Loose skirmishing formation.
Position: On the flanks or in heavy cover, such as a wood.
Combat role: Unlike the urban militia, the rural militia are actually somewhat specialised, and serve as the only real light infantry in the legions. They skirmish through rough ground, strike at vulnerable enemies, and can pepper their enemies with ranged volleys. Versatile.

SOLDIERS
The legionaries proper are assigned based either off of volunteering or off personal strengths; stocky people with better (aka, merely 'poor') discipline tend to be selected as warriors, taller people with better (aka, merely 'impetuous') control over personal bloodlust tend to become archers.

Warriors
Equipment:
A heavy broadsword, a kite shield, a surcoat, cheap chainmail. Leather boots and gauntlets. Plated cops, kneeguards, helmet and a greave on the forward leg. Two hatchets. It is rare, but not unknown, for an individual regiment of warriors to bear differing one-handed weapons due to tradition: the 17th Chenoworth Heavy Foot favour hammers after the legendary last stand of one of their captains who dual-wielded them.
Formation: Moderately tight, able to form a shield-wall when needed. Tends to break up and splinter off in close combat. Each regiment is sixty men lead by a captain, who is a hard-as-nails motherfucker promoted from the warriors himself, two sergeants and a standard bearer. These leaders generally succeed in keeping leadership tight and the generally ill-disciplined men barely in line.
Position: The first and second ranks. The senior legionaries take up positions in the second rank.
Combat role: The warriors pride themselves as the iron fist of the legions. Each man is a brave, violent bruiser who will tenderise foes that come at him, and a culture of warrior code and intense pressure not to cede ground leads to cowardice being rare; and if a warrior does falter he need only look to his banner for courage.

Archers
Equipment:
A yew longbow, a mallet (the soldier may bring his own melee weapon should he desire), a ringmail hauberk.
Formation: Loose line. Sometimes they put stakes ahead of their line, but usually not unless they can find some good terrain to hold.
Position: Between the first and second ranks, or holding key, complementary terrain such as hills.
Combat role: The longbowmen of the legion are skilled marksmen disciplined in one skill only; firing massive longbows equally massive distances and inflicting massive casualties. They fire off as many rounds over the first rank until the first shows any sign of breaking; the captains of archers must be extremely perceptive to changes in the flow of the battle, or he and his regiment will quickly end up crushed under the shieldwall of the enemy.

ELITES
Experienced warriors generally become halberdiers after fifteen to twenty years of service. Archers make the same transition into marksmen. Cavalry ... really just need to know what saddles are. These soldiers are expensive to equip and maintain, so taking up the halberd is a significant show of trust in your ability by your captains.

Halberdiers
Equipment: A halberd, a surcoat, leather boots and gauntlets. Half-plate and a sallet. Two hatchets.
Formation: Tight and disciplined, trained to fight in a slightly looser formation when it suits them. Each regiment is thirty men lead plus officers; a captain, a sergeant and a standard. The bodyguards of generals and commanders are either cavalry or double-strength regiments of halberdiers.
Position: The third rank, except for the command bodyguard of the first and second rank.
Combat role: Veteran warriors who pride themselves on their skill at holding a line, they mix the honour and brutality of the warriors with iron discipline and determination. The halberdiers are sent in at the most crucial time in the battle, to break the enemy lines and hold their own.

Marksmen
Equipment: A yew greatbow, a maul or flail, light chainmail, a light helmet with a feather.
Formation: Loose line behind stakes.
Position: Between the second and third ranks.
Combat role: Elite longbowmen selected for their strength and discipline; they fire faster and stronger and longer than the other archers. They follow the role you'd expect them to, firing volley after volley right into the foe.

Cavalry (Mainland)
Equipment: Precise nature varies on the wealth of the regiment. For poorer regiments, chainmail or even ringmail, with round wooden shields and leather barding. For the richer ones, particularly ones made up of knights, the riders wear plate, and the horses wear ringmail-and-cloth barding. Those in plate usually don't need shields, and favour longaxes and falchions; those with shields tend towards bastard swords. Mainlander horses are heavier and stronger than New World steeds.
Formation: Generally a loose rabble; there's a reason the infantry refer to them derisively as 'packs'. Lead by captains or First Knights, depending on the regiment's status, and always having a bannerman. Will often adopt a wedge while charging.
Position: Varies, but generally on the flanks.
Combat role: Shock cavalry to break lines; the hammer to the legionaries' anvil. If one were to compare them to a mediaeval knight, these men would be just as impetuous but lack the lances and crushing charges of the age of chivalry. That said, the cavalry is not the strength of the legions; they rely on their infantry and their longbowmen to hold out and win battles.

Cavalry (New World)
Equipment: The horses of the New World are a lighter, faster, more resilient breed than the larger brutes in the mainland. As a result, they tend to be light cavalry - either lancers or horse archers, for the most part.

Formation: Loose.
Position: Varies, but generally on the flanks.
Combat role: Light cavalry; elite, but inexperienced skirmish troops. The lancers are shock troops, but generally lack the armour or staying power of mainland cavalry.

LEADERS

Sergeants and Standard-bearers
Equipment: Sergeants and the standard bearer get a platemail cuirass, heater shields and a more impressive helmet with a single plume.

Captains
Equipment: Captains wear partial platemail and bear a morningstar as a symbol of their authority, and a lighter heater shield. They also get a three-plumed helmet.

QUESTIONS
This is largely drawn from resources I have in the background, not made up on the spot; therefore, I should be able to expand on this if you have anything you'd like... expanded upon.

Edited by Parrhesia
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  • 2 weeks later...

Below are some written works I've been working on for the past few weeks. They're specific to RotE so I'd only read them if you're in the rp, compelled for some reason, or found some other stuff I've written useful, despite the context.

Articles: (Posted 18 November 2013 - 08:19 PM)

[spoiler=The Flavor of Battle](A discussion about how I personally handle the connections and disconnections between stats and narration, and my more recent feelings on stat combat overall)

My views on character strengths, weaknesses, and various other elements, and my methods of using those have changed drastically over the few years I've been rping. Most recently, I've begun making post flavoring much broader. To start, my current methods for handling flavoring in battle has no name, so we'll just call it 'loose flavoring', and it's not a style I can recommend in good conscience even though I think it's extremely useful; if implemented carelessly, it will look as if written by a self important jackass. That doesn't mean it isn't worth talking about though, so I'll start.

Two combat results can be exactly the same, but be flavored in entirely different ways depending on the context established beforehand or during the fighting. For some key examples, I'll describe some scenarios in a fight between Gabbie and a generic enemy wielding a lance to match her:
Scenario #1: The generic enemy attacks and 'misses' Gabbie. The 'miss' is flavored as a parry instead of a dodge. I find it useful for keeping to Gabbie's style of combat, which relies primarily on parries for defense, as she has a hard time evading attacks while in her heeled greaves. In another instance, rather than parrying the 'missed' attack, she'll simply stop it cold, ending up in a weapon lock with her opponent. This is a useful starting point for the next round of combat and like parrying, fits Gabbie's style better than just leaning or leaping out of the way.
Scenario #2: The generic enemy KO's Gabbie. Instead of flavoring her as having been impaled and/or literally knocked out, she is flavored as having suffered a significant injury to a limb or non-vital area that will prevent her from continuing the fight (either physically or mentally). I've found this type of flavoring is useful in general, because it can allow for an easy transition from 'KO'd' to 'revived' and allows both PCs and NPCs to survive dangerous situations less by chance and incredibly inept enemies and more by resilience and a willingness to fall back. In this scenario, there's no question why Gabbie's still alive after being defeated by an enemy if she was never laid out in a pool of her own blood to begin with. I don't like being consistent with this one though.
Scenario #3: Gabbie attacks the generic enemy and finishes them off with one attack roll in that combat round. Instead of flavoring this as a single attack landing, Gabbie will be flavored as having overpowered the enemy with a continuous barrage of attacks that quickly break down their guard and expose them for the actual KO (just like in the Bert spar). This is useful for creating more drawn out fights and showcasing a character's battle techniques and/or strategies in more detail instead of matching move totals with roll totals and severely limiting my options. In another version, they could both be attacking each other repeatedly until Gabbie lands the first and final hit. It's just one roll, but nearly a half dozen attacks from both units, which can help fill up, fill out, or at least expound on the ambiguous amounts of time stat fights take up.

While these types of flavoring are useful for both characterization, smooth battle progression, and a bit of fantasy or realism, they can also make a character appear more or less resilient than their stats would suggest, which can help free an rper from some of the less helpful limitations and implications of stat combat, and especially in the case of PCs, allows any abnormalities (Raquel's emblem powers) to be written in without influencing the actual battle results. This can be used to more strongly reflect a character's strengths or weaknesses or be used for ... less inspired things. If every fight a character gets into, win or lose, is flavored heavily in favor of the writer's character, it's a good sign they're taking this style of flavoring way too far. It's not meant to turn characters into BK/Ike style recurring FE bosses, but to allow the writer more room to express the flow of a battle, but that's also why I can't personally recommend it. Even I find myself tempted to abuse the crap out of this loose flavoring style from time to time. Still it's preserved a small bit of my interest in stat battles of and by itself.

To try and conclude this one, I'll now go into the second part of the discussion, my personal feelings on stat combat. It's obviously darkened over the years, but that ever souring feeling is just that, a feeling. It's got little to do with the fights themselves. Frankly, I've come to loathe stat fights as a whole. In concept they work just fine and to this day I enjoy the idea of stat fights, but actually being in them, actually going through the petty arguments, complaints, and pleas for handouts, has made it all so unattractive. It's all just bad memories and being loath to adding on all new ones, but that seems to be what makes rpers leave, so I'm certainly not immune to it.

I keep thinking 'there have to be good times too, good memories of stat fights'. For the life of me I can't readily recall those (speaking of things happening in the channel). I can of course, easily recall major arguments, complaints, and other petty things, but there's nothing, or at least not enough to counteract all of the negativity in there. What I do recall, was timed specifically to counteract the negative, and while I wholeheartedly appreciate comments like those, the fact that they have to be brought up to make a situation less of a BS nexus is just plain sad.

Fighting seems to just be a part of human nature, so I'm sure some people will read this and just shrug as if nothing's wrong here. Well, the reason all of the negativity and insanity surrounding stat fights bothers me so much is because I'm one of the GMs of the rp. I actually do care, and rather deeply, about everyone's experience here, even individually. If someone can't see that, then they simply aren't paying attention. Whenever people are abusing their 'right to free speech' in order to berate me or others about something, I'm torn in two, into the phee that wants to sweep away all of their problems, and the phee that wants to show them just how petty they're being, by pointing to all the other rpers who are at least trying to enjoy themselves, despite the inconveniences (disruptive individuals being among those inconveniences). So, yes, the flavor of battle has become so bitter that I can't help but keep my distance as a whole.

On a lighter note, I haven't given up all hope for stat battles. Despite how dangerous it is to my own mental health, I still do plan to run any challenges and arena battles that are necessary (Party vs Phee!units). Taking my own advice, I'll be positive and hopeful that as time goes on, people will look at the bigger picture more often, and gripe less so that we can focus on addressing problems when we find them, and less on pacifying those doing the griping.


[spoiler=The Canon Conundrum](A discussion about magical lore, its effects on society and other factors that may make life difficult at times.)

I often get asked, "Is so and so possible?", and every time I do, I know I've got a real issue on my hands. Granted, it's a self imposed issue, but an issue nonetheless. The reason (and my internal reaction) is because I've developed a style of lore and world building that's heavily intertwined; everything that exists in the lore, has, and should have, the ability or potential to affect everything else in that same lore, otherwise it becomes a compartmentalized setting. I always take a minute to consider how a given element might affect major parts of the world. It's an honest attempt at realism that I strive for despite having a minimal--at best--grasp of most relevant topics affected by any changes I make or 'authorize'. It's also far from perfect given it's generally only done from a perspective and a half, but it's still my favorite approach thus far.

Because things such as religion, agriculture, economics, politics, etc, are likely already 'set' when an RP starts (even if they aren't established onscreen yet), new additions to the lore that change these, or should change these if implemented, in significant or dramatic ways, simply should not be there. That is, they shouldn't 'exist' unless they are either a part of the progression of society within that setting, part of 'the plot', 'a plot', or a subplot, or occur in isolation. There are still new additions to lore that do make sense and may even 'belong' depending on who you ask, but a 'cool idea' is not inherently a good or fitting one, and so often I end up saying 'no' on a lot of these for various reasons, but each time I do, it's because one of the above is adversely affected by this idea. In the long term, it mainly comes down to things that should alter the course of or methods and/or results of wars between Ursium and Neviskotia, or the Kigenese and Fallen empires. In the midterm, it comes down to how the rp itself is evolving. In the short term, it comes down to GM preference and the preservation of class validity.

The question, "Is so and so possible?" also strikes me on an emotional level, because when the question comes up, I often feel as if a simple 'yes' or 'no' is expected right then and there, despite how much actual thought I need to put into that type of question to answer it truthfully and remotely 'confidently'. I've seen first hand what split second decision making, regular decision making without the consideration of other factors, and a combination of the two can do to a fantasy setting. I've actually done this myself at least a dozen times, and a few lingering elements of those split second canonical decisions are in RotE to this day and remain completely inexplicable, despite my best efforts to rectify them. Because of this, I'll rarely give a quick 'yes' or 'no' to any of these types of questions no matter how small they might seem at the time.

When I actually begin tackling the question itself, my main focus is mainly on much if not all of the following:
(I'll be using the term 'item' to mean anything anyone is asking about, be it a literal item, or a bit of magic or other element in the rp)
The function of a new item ("What it is it meant to do?")
The potential function of a new item ("What can it potentially do?" and "Does this actually work in the first place?")
The availability of a new item ("How readily can anyone access it?" and/or "How difficult is it to acquire/learn?")
The general desire for the new item from an in-character perspective ("Who would want this?" and "Why?")
The effects the new item would have if implemented ("How does this change things?", "When was this invented/discovered?", and "Would this affect the course of history in any significant way?")
If I get to criteria I can't (or the person can't) quite rectify, I normally won't approve a new item.

It's impossible to be completely certain just how history would unfold with or without a given element (stupid butterfly effect, always turning sneezes into hurricanes), but when it's my call, I try to do my best and take as much as I can handle into account. This is my canon conundrum, and it's a major part of the evolution of RotE's lore and overarching plot. Take a closer look and you can see it all over the place. For a few actual examples of these, see "Anachronisms, Anachronisms Everywhere." Hell, I'd consider it a continuation of this if anything.


[spoiler=Anachronisms, Anachronisms Everywhere](A discussion about anachronisms, both good and bad, those both in IC and in the actual narrative.)

I've been thinking for awhile, about anachronisms. The word basically means something that doesn't belong in a given time period that happens to be there. Normally this wouldn't mean much in RotE because the year is currently 4999 A.R., four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine years after a previous five thousand year timeline, the latter centuries of which were rather advanced technologically. However, the reason the year is 4999 A.R. (After Rebellion) and not 9999 A.R. (After Redemption) is because in 0001 A.R. (After Rebellion) the God of Wrath 'loosed his judgment' on the world and Sardius was sent back to the stone ages in a grand crescendo of magical chaos. This reset the 'tech tree', or at least that's one way to put it, and significantly set back or eradicated all cultures.

That brutal conclusion allowed for a setting very similar to the Fire Emblem style of setting 'to an extent', but still lends itself to all sorts of uncertainties and 'what ifs' thanks to factors not mirrored in the Fire Emblem series or the real world. Before going any further I want to state a couple of thing for the record. The first is that I don't think all anachronisms are bad, though to explain this, it's better to say that these 'good anachronisms' aren't actually anachronisms at all, at least not where RotE is concerned. I'll explain this more as I go on. The second is that elements are only anachronistic when they don't fit into the guidelines I initially set, which were 1600s-1700s(AD)+100 years for magical influence, though this is primarily a technology guideline meant to preserve the validity and themes of the current classes in the setting.

Now there are three types of anachronisms I want to talk about here, the first kind are setting anachronisms. The second are lingual anachronisms, which are closely tied to setting anachronisms. The third are narrative anachronisms.

Setting Anachronisms:
These are elements that wouldn't belong in the setting, either due to the way society has developed thus far, or due to the tech tree guidelines above. An example of a tech based setting anachronism would be a modern assault rifle, because it would drastically change the way warfare is conducted and had been conducted depending on its induction. Another, but less extreme example of a setting anachronism is any kind of myth, legend, or other lore that doesn't have any foundations in the actual setting. These only come up when rpers start referencing other media or make things up for convenience. Any dumped reference can potentially be rectified, but some are removed 'in favor of' and 'for the sake of' existing lore and themes.

Lingual Anachronisms:
These are things said by characters that the setting offers no frame of reference for as of yet. "Good day, canine-esque fellow. It has been brought to my attention that you enjoy anachronisms. Therefore, my colleagues and I have inserted anachronisms into your anachronisms, so that you might apply more anachronisms whilst enjoying your anachronisms." There's no ye olde english in RotE, at least not as a staple anywhere, but if the setting has no frame of reference for something, it's better to at least try and make some if you intend to use it anyway. That is, to tailor a quote, term, or phrase to the setting it's being used in. Lingual anachronisms would be some of the easiest to address, but are actually some of the worst to deal with in my experience, mainly due to their relevance, or rather, lack thereof.

Narrative Anachronisms:
Similar to lingual anachronisms, but never encountered by the settings or characters therein, narrative anachronisms are basically explanations or phrases in narration that have no apparent connection to the setting. Using a laundry machine in an explanation for something happening in a setting where they don't exist is an extreme example of this. A minor example and the most common occurrence is the use of modern phrases that wouldn't have any meaning or origin in the setting. In general, these are the most frequent, but the least harmful, and so only glaring, jarring, or disillusioning narrative anachronisms are ever dealt with. This isn't to say they're good, but usually isolated and ineffectual, and therefore not inherently bad. After all, narration is for the readers as a whole. Like lingual anachronisms, it's best to tailor something otherwise anachronistic into something that at least fits the setting.

Now that the types I've noted are out of the way I'd like to go back to my bit about not all anachronisms being bad. To start, RotE is not the 1600s-1700s. I feel I need to say this at least twice so there's no confusion about this; RotE is NOT the 1600s-1700s. Those centuries didn't have vasili running around, or dragons, avians, fallen, or devastatingly tangible magic. It is not some spin off of an existing fire emblem setting, and it is not another version of real world history (or 'alternate history'). That said, the tech guideline in place is just that, a guideline, meant only to protect the stat classes, the setting, and keep far off themes to a minimum. RotE wasn't and couldn't have been a completed setting when it was first introduced. It had to be built up over time, and that's an ongoing process.

Part of the process of developing RotE's setting and lore is turning anachronisms that are beneficial into canon, and filtering out non-beneficial ones to keep the original lore from being buried under newer fresher, but completely foreign elements. It's up to the GMs what stays and what goes, but as I often say, we are not unreasonable. Existing canon has precedence, meaning that anything new that comes along must be viewed from that frame of reference, must be bound to it, and be limited by it. Not all of RotE's lore is out in the open just yet, which is why some of our decisions, mine in particular, might seem completely arbitrary at times, but in all honesty, there is a lot of just sitting around for hours musing about these very things while listening to music.

The kinds of anachronisms that are generally good for the rp are things, expressions, or other elements that when tailored to fit the setting, fit well, expound on what was there before, and add more (not glaring) individuality or uniqueness to the setting. When these types of things are introduced and handled thoughtfully, they typically don't get filtered out and either become a part of the lore, or just something existing cohesively with it. Either is fine really, one is simply official and the other isn't.

The kinds of anachronisms that are generally bad for the rp are things, expressions, or other elements that are just taken straight from some other source and applied with no tailoring or forethought whatsoever. The better known the imported anachronism is, the worse it is, because not only does it fall into a setting purely for convenience's sake, but can serve as an immediate disconnect whenever it comes up without some connection to the setting. There is a way to use these types of references in a positive way, take the names of the vasili for instance. Hearing some of those names (Nyx, Thanatos, Phoenix, Leviathan, etc) immediately brings to mind other like named deities and clues in the reader to some of what they can expect from these characters upon first contact. Despite their names, these characters are still tailored to the setting, bound to it, and limited by it.

The crux approaches, but first, suggestions and examples: RotE has a few token phrases you all must have caught by now, Merz, Wrathdammit, etc. These are phrases with roots in both the real world and RotE. The real world connection for 'Merz' is 'Geez', and the RotE connection is the Goddess Mercy, whose title, 'Mercy', is being shortened in the same manner as Jesus'. She's about as close to a 'Jesus' as this rp's probably ever going to get. These little bastardizations of real world phrases are perfectly fine and preferable to copy-pasted modern sayings. I both endorse the ones we use and encourage new ones when people can come up with them.

Now it's time to really provoke some thought here, because what I'm about to get into next is really the crux of the matter. The biggest and most glaring anachronism RotE ever had was none other than Kigen. As most probably figured out before ever joining RotE, Kigen is a Japan expy and initially existed for the sole purpose of offering a far eastern type of culture somewhere on the continent (kind of like how FMA: Brotherhood has Xing, which is obviously on the same continent and only separated by a desert). This wasn't necessarily a mistake, but it's a challenge to work with any country so heavily based on another. Neviskotia for one, while being based on Russia is based so loosely that once we get there, people really won't see too many similarities at all, anymore. The difference between Kigen and Neviskotia though, is that the former is much harder to expound on in a meaningful way than the latter. Still, I've managed time and again to set Kigen apart from Japan, with the help of the fallen, primarily (... and war elephants). The fallen by their very presence, should and have helped shape the Kigenese and their mindset, despite the similarities to Japan. Some other strides you'll likely see taken to branch out in the future are drastic name variations and non japanese martial arts. The timeline's a very important tool for creating origins and etymologies for various things (due to the dozen or so countries that existed from the Restoration Era, all the way up to the founding of Neviskotia), so I have prioritized completing eras as quickly as I reasonably can so that going forward, things will be easier for those hoping to contribute things.

So that's just something to consider, that the nations themselves, but mostly Kigen, are partially anachronistic in this context, and require a fair bit more fleshing out, which I plan on doing, but I can't do everything alone. I prefer to have the help of rpers on things like this. I don't like the idea of sitting here, constantly working on canon and having someone occasionally come up and ask if something they're trying to do is okay, and then leave after we figure that out. I want people to root themselves, create places and things within the setting to help flesh it out and give themselves more opportunities to be involved in world affairs. Not all ideas will pass, but I don't reject ideas as a whole, I reject elements in ideas, which means that if the idea itself isn't bad, all someone really needs to do, is figure out how to tailor something to the setting and balance it with what already exists (and not blow up the world). That's how things become canon, and while it's not a perfect system, it'd be a fine sight better than what normally goes on.

As an aside, I never really considered the lyrics in songs to be bad anachronisms so long as they were written differently where it made sense to do so. That's why you occasionally see Phee!characters doing songs (though usually not extremely popular ones because I don't like to cause disillusion when there's no need to or no purpose behind it). My personal opinion on this is that if it isn't forced, and it is at least altered where appropriate, music importing is okay, especially with sea shanties.

In closing, anachronisms are everywhere, but they aren't all bad, and some of them become canon once fully rectified and tailored, so please, don't focus so much on how convenient a term or device is or how you don't see anything wrong with it. Instead, think of how something else might fit better, and how nice it would be to have a phrase or other thing you came up with become a part of the lore, simply because you took that moment to paint it in RotE's colors, so to speak.


[spoiler=Characters of Influence](A discussion about event influence and the IC and OoC motives and choices that lead to or away from it.)

Occasionally I hear about an odd complaint/request. It's about relevance, but I'll be referring to it as 'influence' more often than anything else for this since that's what it really comes down to in the end. Now I call this 'odd', because to me, it is. It always comes up in the context of comparisons. This is also why I hate doing character comparisons within the group. The only reason to compare any two characters is to measure them for something, be it strength, or importance, and when this happens, all sorts of disputes can easily follow, disputes we're far better off without.

When two or more characters are compared for evaluating their level of influence, some people aren't satisfied with the results, maybe understandably, but there are three major factors with this influence issue that definitely need consideration. Those three major factors are definition, motivation, and determination.

Definition:
We all see influence a little differently, if not completely differently, so without a definition, a meaningful discussion isn't even possible. What do you define as being influential? I know how I define it, but how do you define it? If any/greater influence is what you want, and to you, it's one or more of the following, then the motivation and determination sections aren't going to be much fun to read: Any level of control over the main plot, any level of control over plot points, or any level of control over general events (even those not necessarily plot related).
I personally see influence as any action that has an effect on anything else within the narrative, which is admittedly a broad enough definition to trivialize the entire influence issue, but at the same time, it's a fair definition for 'influence', and possibly even 'relevance' to a point. 'Control', not so much.

Motivation:
We all have motivations, for rping, for writing the kinds of characters we do, and for pretty much everything else, and like our definitions, our motivations are also different. What are yours? This is important because your true motivations are what help to determine whether the problem lies within you or without you. Is your defined level of influence your primary motivation for participating in the rp? If so, it's important to find out if that level of influence or 'control' is even possible. You can find this out by evaluating it yourself or asking a GM about it directly. The latter's probably the better method, but doing both, first the former, then the latter, is probably the best method, if and only if you can be objective in the matter. If you find your desired level of influence isn't possible for whatever reason, then you have some things to consider, obviously; whether to revise your motivations, or leave the rp.

Determination:
If you've got your definition and motivation both worked out, then that just leaves your determination. What are you willing to do to achieve the level of influence you want (assuming it's possible)? If you're willing to complain about what you don't have, and aren't willing to work toward it until you have it, then you neither need nor deserve it. No one is under any obligation whatsoever to assist anyone else with something like this, and so just asking for influence (relevance) isn't going to be enough. People have to be willing and able to work (possibly long and hard) to find that kind of place for their characters within the narrative, and maintain it once they have it. Relevance is always temporary, so maintaining or reestablishing it is ongoing work. It's not necessarily hard work, but it can be some of the time.

Summary:
Without knowing your definition of influence, we can't have the discussion on the same page. Without knowing your motivation, we can't reach any kind of understanding on the matter. Without determination, the kind of relevance you want will never last more than a minute or two. Even if we tried to deliver it to you in a shoehorned 'episode' of sorts, it wouldn't last.

Now I should get into some specifics. What I've seen referred to as relevance or 'influence' is the ability to steer or even determine the outcome of important events within the rp. I don't see the appeal of this due to how jarring it is in my personal experience, but given that people are participating in the rp, this isn't a bad thing. Given that some people ask for it or merely complain about not having it without truly striving for it is a bad thing.

Characters only become relevant to the plot or anything else in four ways: starting off linked to some element of the plot, be this a person, place, or thing; becoming connected to some element of the plot over time; being a plot element, or becoming a plot element. People seem well aware of this, and it seems to be the reason some of the complaints come up in the first place, due to the ability the GMs have to conjure up relevant connections and positions for PCs within the setting. Why do I say then that determination is a requirement for influence if we can just drop PCs right into some of these influential places and positions? Because unless the rper is determined enough to take advantage of this, nothing is accomplished in the end. Many times we've thrown people positions and events to give them a 'starting point', and due to a lack of determination or at least a little followup, they've either been wasted entirely or underutilized. Without determination, all we can do is put PCs on a pedestal and wait for it to crumble, having either accomplished nothing or worsened their own reputation.

There are some situations that are specifically designed to exclude most if not all characters. I'm mentioning this because I'm sure people have noticed some of these situations, and while the precise outcomes may seem entirely predetermined, they are not. The responses of NPCs has often been changed (from what I anticipated) by things as small as the wording used by the PCs involved, something I welcome when it doesn't get everyone killed. Therein lies part of another problem with greater influence, though. Should part of the party or in extreme cases, the entire party, be killed off due to the way one PC words a response? In a sense, yes; little actions, big consequences has always been something I wanted to be a basic element of RotE, but in a way more often beneficial than detrimental. Our characters' random death scenes or long prison sentences aren't usually what we want to write about. The plot is carefully manipulated to allow NPCs to make IC responses while also allowing the PCs to get away with varying levels of 'bad idea's. Maintaining this balance of freedom for both sides isn't always easy, which is why certain plot points end up being isolated events, because big enough mistakes here will pull the party into deadly situations they can't escape unscathed. Basically, the PCs' true (and only) plot armor is a combination of individual rper savviness (which is why keeping up on world events and canon is helpful), and our careful manipulation of their characters' circumstances.

Isolated events still tend to have one or two non-GM PCs along, though. The reasons for this are because these rpers are active/available enough for us to trust them not to hold up plot progression, they're consistent enough to be trusted with their character's IC in many given situations, and/or because activity in general and interactions actually led them to coming along. In order for characters to randomly have a much greater effect on various events in the rp, their rper has to be on the ball whenever things are happening. That's not to say that just being alert will guarantee influence over the plot, plot points, and other various things, but that makes it much more likely to happen.

With those touchy bits out of the way, I'd like to leap back over to motivation (and straight into another touchy subject), but a different kind of motivation this time. This time, instead of asking about the motivation to have greater influence in general, I'm going to ask about situational influence. When a situation comes up in the rp and you find yourself wanting to be relevant to it, to influence it, I've got to ask, 'to what end?' Are your goals long term or is involvement in any given situation a part of a larger attempt to develop your characters? Or, is it simply to be involved for the sake of being involved? That's something people really should consider whether they end up becoming directly involved in events or not, because if your true goals aren't harmed by a 'missed opportunity' or two, there's really no reason to worry or become upset. I once heard someone adamantly proclaim that 'that was their moment' when a situation didn't turn out the way they wanted, and to this day I wonder what made them think a random moment of their choosing was theirs and theirs alone. While I understand the frustration that comes with failing in an honest attempt to 'win' and influence immediate events, that kind of lone self important mindset is extremely toxic and I hope people don't let themselves fall into that kind of thinking (if they haven't already), especially with regard to this relevance issue. It could actually be a relatively big part of the problem, when importance and contribution are looked at through such a narrow frame.

And now for general advice:
-Positivity. I couldn't stress this enough, even if I had a recording set to go off every five seconds for the next decade. Be positive and you will be positively inclined regardless of your short-term results, which admittedly aren't always good. If you're negative, you'll be negatively inclined and likely won't be able to carry on long enough to get the results you want in the long term.
-Read all the posts. This can be a real chore, even for me, but the more you know, the better you can see what's going on and the more easily you can find ways and circumstances to get the results you want. Asking for a summary in place of seeing everything unfold firsthand will deny you some of your potential avenues.
-Objectivity. Don't let overly positive or negative emotions govern your reasoning, or you'll never be able to manage your characters well enough to get the kinds of results you want.
-Don't make comparisons. Comparing characters reveals their differences in influential factors such as power (power of their opinions) and popularity (standing within the group), and causes people to focus on what a character has that makes them 'better', rather than how they got where they are, which is all that's really relevant there. It can also encourage competition for power and popularity or discourage people from even trying to improve their situation.
-Be consistent. Your characters can benefit a great deal from being able to think for themselves, so figure out their IC behaviors and stick to them at all times. If you can't post IC while in a particular mood, it's better just not to post at all. Try to get into a better state of mind first, or wait it out.
-Know yourself and know what your goals entail. You've got to know when you've got a genuinely reasonable goal and when you're just being petty and forceful at everyone else's expense. A good way to tell if your goals involving your character are reasonable, is to make sure that other characters don't have to behave any differently than they do now in the short term to bring that goal about (speaking of being inconsistent). If they do, then it's a goal that would force them into OoC behavior and is therefore happening at the expense of other rpers. This type of planning will pretty much doom the characters central to it to irrelevance, because the plot and characters driving the plot won't be able to interact closely with those characters, at least not on a regular basis.
-Go with the flow. This is a followup to 'Know yourself and what your goals entail', because it's the opposite of forcing things to happen (or trying, at least; I never actually see that approach work). Going with the flow doesn't mean you just let things happen and hope for the best, it means taking the easier paths to getting the results you want. Read that again at least once, please. This goes well beyond influence, like most of the advice here. Taking easier paths helps to preclude you from overly complicated (Rube Goldberg style) ideas or just plain bad ones that force inconsistencies in other characters in order to work. Things that come naturally are far more interesting to read about compared to completely scripted, entirely predetermined, inflexible, uncompromising events and interactions.



The Four Orders
The Four Orders are a religious conglomerate in Ursium that has attempted to rectify the philosophical differences between each order and coexist as four distinct yet cohesive religions. Despite disputes dating all the way back to its founding, the Four Orders have met with relative success and share a grand cathedral in Europa, as well as a divine representative who serves as a single avatar for all four major gods. While there are adherents to the the Four Orders, they do not all live in Ursium. Due to Ursium's bad relations with Neviskotia, there was never any way to establish the Four Orders properly within the latter country, and instead, only minor churches dedicated to one of the four major gods exist. This is usually blamed on the Orders of Wrath and Nature, the former for the 'anti-dragon' doctrine, as it is sometimes called, and the latter for the 'false image' of Nature, the drakess statue seen in most Ursian churches in place of the 'True Goddess of Nature'.

Each religion shares a common theme of sorts, the Exemplars. Exemplars are individuals of saintly character who strive to live their lives as exemplars of their chosen god. Being an Exemplar of more than one god while not impossible has always proven to be extremely difficult. From a mortal standpoint, becoming an Exemplar is a kind of salvation, at least for those hoping to avoid the uncertainty of the Gate. While every other mortal that passes is lost to the Gate, the Exemplars were instead brought to the domain of the gods to stay at their sides. Becoming an Exemplar and being recognized by the gods as such promises eventual immortality and a new life in the realm of the gods after death.

[spoiler=The Order of Wrath]The Order of Wrath is a religion formed to guide followers of the God of Wrath and help them become his Exemplars. The order seeks to bring true justice to the world, primarily through direct conflict. Wrathites, followers of Wrath, are taught to oppose lawlessness and tyranny, and in adhering closely to these teachings, many become warriors. Others are warriors from the outset due to the ease in adopting this religion while living that lifestyle.

To Wrathites, the God of Wrath is a god of justice and not wrath incarnate. He is also said to carry a divine sword capable of destroying anything pitted against it. The God of Wrath is mostly apathetic toward the Gate and the ultimate fate of mortals who do not become Exemplars, but he is said to be diametrically opposed to 'man made' conflicts. Because of this, Ursian wars have generally been described by some historians as divinely mandated conflicts, and sheer hypocrisy by others. Lord Wrath, as he is most often referred to, is depicted as a human male with arcane markings on his face, and so humans are seen as his natural Exemplars, or rather those most suited to pursuing Exemplartude in his name.

Wrathites who participate in battle or all out war, are to follow a series of laws given through the Archbishop by the God of Wrath himself. They focus on how to fight enemies, both alone, and in armies, as well as the treatment of prisoners and acceptable war tactics. These Wrathite doctrines used to be Ursium's own war convention in the past, but after the founding of Neviskotia, the nation slowly began to make changes to their rules of battle to suit them, mostly relaxing their standards to account for their preferred methods. In modern times, only the highly chivalrous or religious follow the Wrathite code of battle to the letter. Neviskotian Wrathites are also known to follow this code, though this code only reached the whole nation within the last few centuries.

(Further Information Pending ...)


[spoiler=The Order of Mercy]The Order of Mercy is a religion formed to guide the followers of the Goddess of Mercy on the road to becoming her Exemplars. There are two distinct denominations of the Order of Mercy, the one followed by the avians, and the one followed by the humans. The latter's central focus is on creating lasting peace through empathy on a familial level and beyond. The former focuses on creating lasting peace through self sacrifice on an individual level.

The Goddess Mercy herself is said to desire all intelligent mortal beings to become Exemplars, even if not her own, as she is not as tolerant of natural death as the other gods are. It has even been stated that no living being can ever die in the Goddess' presence, regardless of physical condition, age, injury, or the capabilities of their attacker. She is depicted as an avian woman of both unusual height and wingspan. Specifically she is said to be taller than most mortal men and have wings larger than any avian that has ever lived.

Mercinics are usually pacifists, but this is due to the difficulty of following doctrine when exposed to excessive amounts of violence. Mercinics are not to kill under almost any circumstances, which can be detrimental for any soldier without years of battle experience. Mercinics are also to avoid needless destruction of life in general, which while debatable in meaning, has led many into vegan diets and the like. Another very important Mercinic doctrine is one of moderation. There are many somewhat questionable past times that the Order of Mercy does not outright disapprove of, such as alcohol consumption, gambling, martial training and competitions. The list goes on. The key as they say, is moderation, and nothing is to be done in excess, even if it is considered legal.

(Further Information Pending ...)


[spoiler=The Order of Nature]The Order of Nature is a religious group dedicated to the preservation of life and the stability of the world. Doing so makes them Exemplars of the Goddess of Nature. Followers of Nature must develop a strong distinction between right and wrong practices and philosophies due to the often controversial leanings of the Order, however, their most positive and well received doctrine is one of activity and activism. Naturans believe that inactivity, unproductive lifestyles, purposeless existence, and apathy inevitably cause great harm to those that practice them, those around these individuals, and their overall environment.

The Goddess herself is said to be the ultimate caretaker of the Earth, and the guardian of all life, from humans, down to the smallest of creatures and plants. She tolerates ethically just and natural death, but not extinction. Because dragons are her mortal representatives to most--due to her depiction as a dragon--they are seen as guardians of the natural world. It is said that she alone restored the Earth to its proper form at the end of the Legendary Rebellion. She is believed to possess unimaginable destructive and restorative power as a result of that particular feat.

The order believes in a teaching called 'Libra', known to most as the 'Natural Equilibrium Theory' or Net theory. The teaching can be summed up easily. The Naturans see chaos as order, and order as chaos within most situations, especially ones involving the environment. It is believed that the world and even the universe above and beyond it are in a natural, albeit temporary, state of perfect balance, and that imposing any 'interpretation of order' on any of these systems or environments will in fact create true chaos and endanger or even destroy them as a result. The Order of Nature isn't completely clear on exactly where the line between destructive order and constructive order lies, but they generally discourage or oppose any actions or organized movements that have potential to threaten the ecosystem.

Their strong and steadfast approach along with the overall acceptance or tolerance of Naturan teachings has protected Ursium's natural beauty for nearly five thousand years and has prevented over industrialization for the last three hundred or so. Their opposition to the extermination of all dragons also led to a compromise earlier in Ursium history with the Order of Wrath. Some Wrathites support the destruction of all dragons, but the Order itself opposes this in favor of carrying out the doctrine given from the God of Wrath to the very letter. That doctrine was the expulsion of all dragons from the Ursian homeland. Without the Order of Nature pointing out the misuse of their own doctrine, the current policy might have still been the eradication of dragons. Still, the doctrine does not require dragon blood to be spilled in every instance. The royal family along with the rest of the governing bodies gave the military a mandate to kill all dragons within Ursium's borders. This law has fueled much of the hatred between Ursium and Neviskotia, but it also united many peoples under Ursian rule by destroying any relations with the dragons and giving the people a common enemy.

In order to avoid the controversy that would befall them in the wake of this new law, the Order of Nature changed the image of their goddess without any resistance, from a celestial dragon, to a beautiful woman with the wings of one. It is said that in response to this move on the Order's part, the Goddess of Nature took this form in visions given to the Archbishop ruling at the time, informing them of her facetious acceptance of the new image. Naturans strongly believe their goddess prefers her draconic form and rarely uses the image of the 'Drakess', a term translated from an ancient dialect that simply means 'female'.

(Further Information Pending ...)


[spoiler=The Order of Truth]The Order of Truth is a religion formed to guide the followers of Truth on the path to becoming his Exemplars. This order focuses primarily on the accruement of philosophical, historical, and even miscellaneous truths. Since 'Lord Truth's' true divine title is 'God of Consolidation', the order not only pursues new knowledge, but strengthens and protects what they already have. They strive to not only confirm new truths but adapt to and live their lives by them as well. The Order of Truth has had numerous differing titles throughout history, with the aforementioned being the most recent. Previous names were 'Order of Strength', 'Order of Knowledge/Wisdom', and even 'Order of Consolidation'.

The Order of Truth became thus after the Head Truthian of the time unveiled a theory about the God of Consolidation based on progressive revelation. It involved all of the prior names the Order had gone by. In summary, it was, "Consolidation leads to Strength, strength to knowledge, knowledge to wisdom, and wisdom to the truth." Truthian scholars stress that the pursuit of 'strength' does not always lead to the kind of knowledge and wisdom that would bring about any given 'truth', and state that this is because individuals deceive themselves in various ways during their quests for the truth, and in doing so, will often set themselves so far off the path that they might as well be walking it backwards. As such, the order offers extensive and thorough analysis of the lives people lead to try and lead them on the right path, whether it be to exemplerhood, or some personal lawful goal.

The God of Consolidation himself is said to be an incredibly wise yet secluded god, accruing knowledge until the day he knows 'everything', a confusing and subjective term within this context. His followers don't know what to expect when that day comes, but they follow him in seeking new knowledge and wisdom while conserving the old throughout their lives. It is unknown what the God's abilities are, but as the creator of dark magic, many assume he is 'the ultimate' dark magician. He is also believed to have the greatest omnispectivity of all the major gods; his followers are normally certain that he knows of all their triumphs, trials, and tribulations. Truth is depicted most often as a wisp with enormous crystalline protrusions in the shape of wings.

(Further Information Pending ...)



Other Religions

[spoiler=Alta]This religion began with the avians, and has evolved into a purely pacifistic/altruistic lifestyle, placing such a high emphasis on self sacrifice that most cannot even live by its tenets. Alta had a profound effect on the evolution of the Order of Mercy, and in its early years, members of the order even sought the avians out, eventually returning with their primary doctrines and tenets. Alta itself remains far more strict and uncompromising than the Order of Mercy or any derivative systems.

For a fuller explanation of Alta, refer to the Avian article.

[spoiler=The Order of Nyx]The worship of Nyx was most popular during the Calm Era, once she introduced alchemy to the known world. The groups were, however, seen as more of a cult following throughout the overwhelming majority of its existence. During its prime, however, it promoted peaceful coexistence and challenged its members and outsiders alike to look inward and question their own beliefs and intentions. The order had a borderline obsession with rooting out and disposing of the delusions of its would be members.

Over time, worshipers of Nyx became harder and harder to find, though members of the Order of Truth, in Ursium, always seemed to have ties to at least some of them. In particular the 'Messenger of Nyx'. This individual is said to be her personal messenger, a cloaked figure never seen without a black pegasus. The prevailing theory is that there is more than one messenger and succeeding generations of them as well. It isn't difficult to see why given that this supposed single messenger has appeared to various people over the last three and a half thousand years.

The doctrines of the Order of Nyx are not well understood and no credible documentation has ever been found, however, the small churches that do exist (though of which there are very few), still challenge members and outsiders alike to look inward, question their own beliefs and intentions, and try to coexist peacefully with others. Alchemy is also a common practice among the devout.

(Further Information Pending ...)

[spoiler=Aishanism]Aishanism is a religion unique to the Sancturan people, or those attempting to become residence of Sanctuary. It has no official name and 'Aishanism' is merely a term coined by outsiders in lieu of one, as Aisha herself rules Rex-Avaz as a queen first and foremost. Worshipers of Aisha living in Sanctuary are taught a way of living and working together that vaguely resembles altan practices. Humility and deference toward authority are among the highest tenets, as Sanctuary's internal stability relies heavily on the hierarchy never being challenged as a whole.

Because the city known as Sanctuary is nigh impossible to find by one's own efforts, only those who have earnestly called out to Aisha herself have ever been guided there. Because of this miraculous guidance as well as Aisha's unending chain of storms dotting the rexian desert, it is believed that she has some degree of omnispectivity. This system of conversion has still been exploited countless times, however, and there are always at least a few rebel spies within the city at any given time. Despite this, Aisha's system of governance, a system given its various forms of power through isolation, has often forced spies to live out their lives as ordinary citizens of Sanctuary, or flee into the desert, and likely die trying to find their way back to their allies.

(Further Information Pending ...)

[spoiler=Worship of Sympan]In modern times, any religious practice of worshiping stars (other than Sol) or the 'noon star' in particular, has become synonymous with the worship of Sympan, as he is believed to be the noon star. The noon star is a highly reflective object in the sky, sometimes visible during the day, but always visible at night. It can be seen from anywhere in Sardius, however, it is only seen in the sun's noon position if one is looking from the capital region in Ursium.

The worship of Sympan was popular among some nomadic tribes and villagers in the past because the direct answers to one's prayers was quite common, with practitioners receiving wise counsel and warnings of impending danger, either while fully awake or in their sleep. Questions were sometimes asked in reply as well, and should a worshiper of Sympan answer questions when asked, Sympan would do the same. However, due to the simplicity of the practice, it is not a legitimately recognized religion in much of Ursium. The destruction of the statue originally to honor Sympan for assisting Ursium during the Nomadic Blitz likely played some relatively small role in this slow descent into obscurity and illegitimacy.

(Further Information Pending ...)

[spoiler=Worship of the Sea King]There are no official doctrines or tenets concerning the worship of Leviathan, only old traditions past down and reinterpreted by generations of sailors and coastal villagers. Some common beliefs, however, are that the Sea King is both a literal king, with power and authority over anyone making a life at sea, and neutral party, one who is not bias toward one faction of mortals or another. Calling on Leviathan for aid during a duel or factional conflict is also frowned upon in many sea faring circles.

(Further Information Pending ...)

[spoiler=The Doctrine of Hatred]The Doctrine of Hatred is religious/philosophical hybrid that demands the use of one's own negative 'energy' and the negative energy of others to achieve one's ends, and promote the practice itself. It is believed that it originated from Obelisk, however this has never been confirmed. The Doctrine of Hatred is called so because anger, hate, the stronger negative emotions, those with the most drive toward immediate action, are the ones this system focuses on, as they are the easiest to manipulate and the most powerful in one's own hands.

Practitioners of this doctrine are admonished to keep a firm hold over their own negative energy and emotions, as they are meant to be used as tools, and not to have any part in the individual's decision making. The purpose of the Doctrine of Hatred, is to derive power and emotional apathy from one's own hatred while arousing uncontrollable fury in others and steering them toward self destruction. That said, moral, as well as existential nihilism are very helpful mindsets to have for grounding one's self in this system. The Doctrine of Hatred is only loosely practiced by most, as it tends to lead to the utter destabilization or even complete destruction of any community it thrives in; however, when revolution itself is the goal, some have turned to this system and its teachings in order to focus the people's anger on undesirable individuals and systems in order to eradicate them.

(Further Information Pending ...)

More pending ...

Edited by Phoenix
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  • 6 months later...

Beneath the Shadows Canon

[spoiler=Magic]

Magic Canon

The most basic way of describing how magic works in Nebuios is that it is simple manipulation of elements. Dark magic and Light magic is manipulation of holy power, while Anima is manipulation of more “mundane” powers. Every mage will have a “range” that varies on their magic strength. That range is the area which they can affect with their powers. Anything outside that range is untouchable by them.

  • Anima: Every person who can use Anima magic has a talent for one specific element. This is usually discovered through a test in which the hopeful mage channels their magic into a “testing ball” and the color it turns reveals their specialty. It turns red for fire, white for ice, blue for water, clear for wind, yellow for thunder, and green for earth. Usually, there will be a day every year where mages go out among the villages and test the new hopefuls. Every child is tested at least once by the time they reach 15. If they have not developed powers by then, it is highly unlikely they will manifest magic. In addition to this, there are some mages who discover their talents before they test however, these mages usually discover their powers through some extreme misuse of their power on accident (usually due to extreme emotions) and as such are oftentimes viewed to be in less control of their magic if it is known how they were discovered.

    • finds its source in the dragons.

      • If all dragons were to die, the magic would still exist, but be much weaker and barely usable by humans

    • various types (applies to both dragons and magic)

      • Fire

      • Ice

      • Water

      • Wind

      • Thunder

      • Earth

    • is the magic of conservation

      • energy in = energy out, etc.

      • To use this type of magic, the element must exist around them.

        • Fire mages can draw from heat/friction to create flames through magic. Do not need fire, but need heat.

        • Ice mages can draw out heat from nearby sources, creating cold, and can use that to freeze their surroundings.

        • Water mages can draw from the atmosphere, from sweat, from the ground, etc.

        • Thunder uses the static electricity in the air around them and in the clouds to create their magic.

  • Light: Light magic is a blessing from the Lord of Light and every person has the innate ability to use it. However, this is often not realized and this power will usually lie dormant inside a person for their whole life. Once it is accessed though, it will continually grow throughout their life, allowing their strength to grow as they age. As such, some of the strongest light mages are the ancient elves who have been practicing it since their early childhood.

    • is the magic of creation

      • used for healing

        • Using light magic will create energy that can speed up the natural healing process, to the point of almost instantaneous healing. Creates new cells and places them where they need to go.

      • used for purification

        • Can eradicate the side effects of some dark magic corruption. Can also be used to contain dark magic by creating a barrier that seals off the ability of dark magic to spread.

      • also for combat

        • Balls/beams of light can be thrown and have incredible piercing effects. In addition, they will usually cause burns from the heat.

  • Dark finds its source in The Dark Lady, Ruler of the Shadows, Queen of the Night. She is not evil and neither is this magic, however it will often have unintended side effects if not carefully controlled. It is often viewed as having no uses outside of combat, but this is not true.

    • magic of destruction

      • can be used for healing

        • Dark magic has the ability to “copy” cells and replace them. However, this comes at a high energy cost. To heal using dark magic, first the damaged cells are burned away. Then, the nearby cells are replicated through dark magic. These “dark magic cells” will function as normal cells with little to no side effects if the mage properly seals the area with magic before finishing the healing.

      • can be used for containment

        • Dark magic itself can be used to contain the contamination that can come from misuse. Basically, dark magic can be used to form a barrier around the contaminated area. If completed properly, there will be no side effects from the barrier and the barrier will not only contain, but destroy any attempts at outward spreading by the contamination.

      • can be used for combat

        • Dark energy balls and lightning are the most common forms of dark magic attacks.

    • is the source of demons

      • corrupted animal/people/things

      • there are shadow “dragons”

        • not true dragons per say, but rather demons that have taken the form of a dragon

[spoiler=The Major Gods]

-The Shining God (The Lord of Stars, Lord of Light): The Shining God is the god of light. He is most often viewed favorably by those living in Nebuios. He was the one who created the world. He placed each of the races on the earth in the hopes that they would live in harmony and each fulfill different purposes. He rarely interferes these days though. After creating the world, he basically stepped away from it and chose to instead watch his creation and no longer involve himself in the world. As such, it infuriates him when his counterpart does involve herself.

-Queen of (the) Night (Ruler of Shadows): The Queen of Night was born of the shadows created by the Shining God. She came into existence and saw the creation that he had made and became instantly attracted to it. She saw so much potential in it that she could not help but involve herself. She granted the inhabitants of the world dark magic which she saw as a gift and a balance to the light magic that the Shining God had placed inside of each of them. After all, she herself had been born due to the shadows cast by light. No shadow could exist without light, but no light could exist without causing shadows. However, this gift caused the Shining God to rage. He cursed it, causing the dark magic to become unstable. Helplessly, the Queen of Night was forced to watch the corruption spread, with her gift at the source. She fled to the dark and now watches only, except for the rare moments when the Shining God turns his attention away. In those once in a hundred year chances, she slips into people's dreams and grants them a view of upcoming destruction and dangers. Through this, she hopes that she might be able to counteract some of the damage caused by her gift.

-God of No Face (death god): The God that bows to no one. He is both feared and welcomed, hated and loved. He takes the souls of the dead and carries them to their eternal sleep. It is often claimed that those with the skill to save those wounded who are on the brink of death will some day have to fight the God of No Face himself if they wish to save their patient.

[spoiler=The Races] coming soon...

Edited by scorri
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  • 1 month later...

[spoiler=BtS Lore] [spoiler=The Dawn Guardians]

The Dawn Guardians

Heroes of the demonic war 600 years ago


Dragonkin: The Antar founder is often spoken of as perhaps the smartest of all the group. The youngest at the time of crisis, his youth often meant his skill was behind the others, but he would make up for it through his combat insight and and skill in getting others to work together. He is depicted as a young man with deep brown hair and bright green eyes with his lance in one hand and his fire tome in the other.


Kaiser Richard I : The first ruler of Senia, and a skilled general. His love for battle would often endanger the group’s missions as he was more concerned with fighting than finishing the job. He is depicted as a shorter man with bright red hair and beard, often with crossed bloody axe and lance behind him.


Magus: Once a renowned scholar in the Forgotten Woods, the Magus is said to have been dragged away from her books for her knowledge of magic and lore. Without her keeping the group together, the war would likely have been lost. She is depicted as a tall pale elf with waist length golden hair. Her skill in Earth magic is the reason the Forgotten Woods still flourish the way they do, or at least the stories claim so.

Mirage: The second leader of the Akmaek tribe, which guards the Shadow Desert. Taking leadership after the first leader fell to demons, he was aware of his duty to his tribe and the world. The first to truly recognize the threat the demons posed, he was the first of the group to start fighting. Depicted as a dark skinned man with jet black tattoos all over his body. His bow and sword are enshrined in the village of the Akmaek tribe, as a reminder of their duty to the world.


Primarch Leah I: Founder of Celisa, the holy land turned republic. She was known for being gentle and kind, caring first and foremost about those around her. She was truly devout and believed that the Lord of Light would always provide them with a way out. While most mourned Polaris, she recognized that it was the answer she had been seeking from her god. She is most often depicted as woman with long white hair and blue eyes, wearing pure white robes with her holy tome in her right hand and her staff in her left. What is claimed to be the same tome that she used those many years ago now resides in the main temple of the Lord of Light in Verden.


Titan: A member of the dwarf tribe hidden away in the mountains of Feaole, she was the only one who realized that they could not save themselves by hiding. Setting out with only her axe and her bow, she joined the group and soon became an important part, often saving other’s lives in battle through her combat skills and her pure strength. She is most often depicted as a short woman with short black hair, carrying her axe across her shoulders and her bow and quiver resting at her hip.


Selene, the Moonrider: A half-elven pegasus rider, skilled in the way of both the spear and the dark arts. The quiet leader of the group, she would often be mistaken for someone who was just tagging along. However, her knowledge of the land and survival skills quickly made others realize that she belonged in command. She was respected and loved by all in the group. Usually depicted with long black hair, wearing an equally dark hood over silver armor and a sapphire pendant. She went missing just before the end of the demonic wars and was presumably killed by demons. A statue of her pegasus resides in Feaole.


Polaris, the Daybringer: The hero who sacrificed his life to seal the demons away and thus end the demonic wars. He was the final member of the group, and his joining was considered a major turning point of the war. Between keeping Kaiser in check, aiding Mirage and Dragonkin with strategies against the enemy, and acting as Moonrider’s staunchest ally, Polaris enabled the group to reach its full potential. When Selene went missing, he traveled to the desert and sealed the demons, giving his life to do so. He is depicted as a man encased in golden armor.

Edited by Snike
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  • 2 months later...

RotE TIMELINE

(Posted 30 December 2012 - 10:51 PM)

Note: Most eras won't have entries for awhile, but check back every so often. Eras with a '*' in them are currently empty so ignore those. They're just there because I don't want to have to put them in place later. Any relevant submissions should be sent as 'year, season, event.'

[spoiler=*Rebellion Era: 4970-5000]

[spoiler=Restoration Era: 1-1000 A.R.]0001

[spring]
-Lilith shatters the Fire Emblem; most of the fragments go missing. The largest part of the emblem vanishes completely, although it is later believed that the emblem was actually shattered by the God of Wrath himself. Lilith is defeated by The God of Wrath and her body is later sealed away within the Purgatory by the God of Consolidation.

-Wrath unleashes his judgment upon the entire world, eradicating nearly all evidence of the Rebellion Era, and the civilizations that existed during and before that time.

-Mercy appears and casts a 'curtain' of life over the world, sparing millions across all the continents.

-Nature arrives and restores the the continents to a state of balance; the western half of Sardius disappears into the sea during this process, and new areas emerge on the eastern edges.

-Truth appears and begins to bestow new languages to all peoples across the globe.

[summer]
-The God of Wrath leaves Sardius.
[Fall]
-The Goddess of Mercy leaves Sardius.
-The Goddess of Nature leaves Sardius.
[Winter]
-The God of Consolidation leaves Sardius.
-Ursium is founded by several unnamed vasili and many survivors of the 'Great Rebellion'.
0005
[summer]
-Europa, an independent settlement east of Ursium, agrees to become an Ursian province.
-Immediately after Europa becomes an Ursian province, the vasilus, Isolde, appears in Ursentius and meets with the royal family. She requests the title of Governor and the right to rule Europa indefinitely, and states that it was the city's ultimate fate to become the spiritual heart of Ursium, meaning a vasilus should always sit at the head to ensure stability. She is respectfully denied, but still becomes an adviser to Governor Donnel Firgis. It was initially expected that she would be the adviser to him and all future governors given her longevity and commitment to her cause.
0010
[Winter]
-The Order of Strength is founded.
0011
[spring]
-The Order of Nature is founded.
[summer]
-The Order of Strength assists Isolde in an investigation into Governor Firgis' corruption. They manage to link him to several scandals by the end of their thorough investigation.
[Fall]
-Governor Firgis is apprehended by Isolde and forcibly removed from power with the support of the Order of Strength. Isolde returns to Ursentius to meet with the royal family again to discuss the matter, and after a week of meetings and heated debates, Isolde is granted permanent governance of Europa.
[Winter]
-The young nation of Corvus is discovered by the Kigenese Empire and many small scale battles take place over the following months.
0012
[spring]
-The Kigenese Empire halts its attacks against Corvus, after suffering heavy casualties and making no progress toward conquering the nation.
[summer]
-The neighboring nation of Kayoyama allies itself with the Kigenese Empire in order to consolidate their power against the surrounding three nations, Corvus, Juttan, and Honda.
[Winter]
-The Kigen-Kayoyama Alliance attacks Corvus with a 'relatively' massive army of thirty thousand, eventually carving a path of destruction to the capital city of Tartarus. The Fallen, in response, abandon the capital to the Alliance and focus all of their efforts on cutting off the weakly defended end of the army's sole supply line, trapping them in Corvus.
0013
[spring]
-The Kigen-Kayoyama army is whittled down to a third of its original number as it fends off the Fallen from their own capital. The two generals leading the army acknowledge their inevitable defeat well in advance, as they had severely underestimated the sheer size and power of the enemy forces. As the army begins to fall apart, it splinters into factions, each commanded by a high ranking officer, and each with the goal of finding some way to escape the besieged capital. None succeed in this endeavor.
[summer]
-By this season, the entire Kigen-Kayoyama force sent to conquer Corvus has been killed or enslaved. Eight thousand men and less than one hundred women from the splintered army lived on to become the foundation of Corvus' slave population.
[Fall]
-The Kigen-Kayoyama Alliance consolidates its remaining forces and begins to construct massive fortifications around their respective capitals, and other cities close to the Corvan territories.
[Winter]
-The first known record of a Fire Emblem 'fragment' is recorded by an unnamed man, believed to be an explorer or nomad.
"This rock is like gold, but it weighs so little. It shines like the sun at times, but never burns. The last time I saw something so spectacular, was when a new star appeared in the sky, a star so bright that it pierced through the daylight sky and demanded that everyone look on it. This strange rock too, demands that I look on it and marvel. This must be piece of that great star, the Fire Emblem of legend." (translated to Common from ancient Ursian)
0015
[Fall]
-Corvus officially declares itself a sovereign nation. The actual declaration would go unknown to the rest of the world for some time, and still remain unrecognized by nations like Kigen, Kayoyama, Juttan, and Honda.
0057
[summer]
-Aisha of the Rexian Royal Family, establishes Rex-Avaz as a sovereign nation and declares Sanctuary its capital city.
0210
[summer]
-Kayoyama is dissolved as a nation and becomes a part of the Kigenese Empire, trading the two century alliance for a completely unified nation. The capital of Kigen, Kitaoka, is renamed to 'Kayoyama' in remembrance.
0499
[summer]
-An enormous bird bathed in flames is spotted flying over the Ursian countryside by villagers and travelers.
[Winter]
-The Spirit Caverns are discovered by Keittan explorers in the north.
0500
[spring]
-Construction of a cathedral begins in Europa. It would serve as the headquarters of the Order of Strength. Despite this, several dragons, more commonly worshipers of the Goddess of Nature, are brought in to speed up the construction time.
-The God of Consolidation chooses an avatar, Gwen Noir, from among the citizenry of Ursium, and reveals himself through him. Gwen is taken in by the Order of Strength and trained to become their leader immediately following his unwitting sermon to the public.
0518
[spring]
-The Cathedral of the Order of Strength is completed.
-The Order of Nyx becomes publicly known. They were an unofficial splinter group of the Order of Strength. It was considered a big surprise at the time that the two orders coexisted peacefully, harmoniously, even. Followers of Nyx also shared the Cathedral of the Order of Strength with them for a time. Nyx herself avoided the public eye and is said to have resided within the Cathedral of Strength, somewhat explaining the cohesiveness of these two groups.
0672
[Fall]
-The Nomadic Blitz begins. Ursium is invaded from the west by an enormous group of tribesmen who hail from no known nation.
-Ursian forces are defeated in most of their battles, resulting in the capture of much of their western territory. In response, the royal family request both Isolde and Nyx for battlefield assistance. Isolde declines in person and the Order of Nyx declines on her behalf.
-The tribesmen reach Ursentius within two months of the initial attacks, but before the final battle for the capital begins, meteors rain down from the heavens and decimate the nomadic army inside of a few minutes, forcing a full retreat for the nomads. The victory was accredited to Sympan, the 'Wrath Which Comes From Above'.
-The leaders of the tribes meet with the royal family for peace talks and are granted a large amount of Ursian land in which to settle, mostly territory they had already trampled over during their short foray to Ursentius.
-A statue is erected in Ursentius in Sympan's honor. The statue resembled an ordinary dragon, but carried Sympan's name.
[Winter]
-The Order of Wrath is founded.
-Worshipers of the Goddess of Mercy attempt to form an officially recognized Order of Mercy, but they are hampered by disunity, unclear doctrine and Wrathites, who see them as little more than an emerging, opposing political party. Their main opposition came in the form of their opposing views on the outcome of the Nomadic Blitz. The Wrathite Order wanted the nomads expelled from the realm for their crimes while the followers of the Goddess Mercy saw the nomadic settlers as a great boon to Ursium's overall numbers and military strength.
-A large group of the Goddess of Mercy's followers leave Ursium on a pilgrimage to Bahamut's Rift, the home of the avian colonies, and known to them as 'Outer Sanctum'. These Mercinic travelers go there in search of doctrinal clarity from the avians, whom they believe to be natural born exemplars of the Goddess. Those that remain behind in Ursium, focus their efforts on keeping the Goddess of Mercy's ordinary worshipers spiritually fed.
0688
[Winter]
-The large group of the Goddess of Mercy's followers return to Ursium after a sixteen year absence, and bestow new doctrines to the public.
-The Order of Mercy is founded. It is said that the applause unleashed by the congregation of Mercinics was unparalleled by any of the former foundings.
-The Order of Strength is rechristened 'The Order of Knowledge' after a summit is held.
0692
[spring]
-Balthazar Abner is born in Ursentius, Ursium.
[summer]
-The Order of Mercy marks the pegasus as a sacred beast and push to have the government outlaw certain practices concerning them. No laws are passed concerning the pegasus in that year, but they are recognized as sacred animals from this point onward in the Ursian realm.
0734
[Fall]
-Balthazar Abner reveals his theories and beliefs about the nature of magic and the visual representation of the gods to the world. He notes specifically that it was the God of Wrath who held his hand while the other gods gave magic to the world and empowered the avians and dragons in the process. Wrath's depiction as a human was said to be undeniably relevant and closely related to the inability of humans to wield magic.
[Winter]
-Balthazar Abner gains support for research into magic. His personal endeavor, dubbed Project 'Genesis' gains government support and funding. It serves as an attempt to grant the ability to use magic to humans. The project had a limited budget per quarter but no deadline. Balthazar soon begins Project Genesis and moves forward with his plans to find a way around the current human condition.
0735
[summer]
-Balthazar Abner and his research teams, confident that the key to unlocking magic abilities for humans required emulating the conditions present in races that could already do so, begin trying to infuse humans with magical power.
-Further research into the conditions of nonhumans reveals that they are natural hosts for magic. Abner names this the 'Abner Effect', in which magical energy in the atmosphere adheres to certain nonhumans depending on their race, element, and specialty. These varying factors demanded even more research. Despite numerous failed attempts to emulate this condition in humans thus far, Abner gains faith in something he soon names the 'Human Abner Effect', a state in which magic adheres to humans naturally just as it does to nonhumans.
0739
[Winter]
-Balthazar Abner and his research teams fail to emulate the 'natural host' state for the final time, and attempt to find external sources of power to draw on instead for the time being. In the meantime, Abner hones in on another important facet of magic, the actual wielding of it. Being a natural host had been a valid explanation until this period of time, but Abner, unsatisfied with it--due in no small part to the threat it posed to Project Genesis if it was indeed fact--sought another explanation.
0741
[summer]
-Project Genesis moves to new trials in order to create external sources of power for humans to use. This coincides with Abner's completion of the Psychic Power Theory. Trials reveal that the human mind is able to influence free flowing magic to a limited degree.
-A fire dragon volunteers to assist Abner and his research teams on Project Genesis. Abner believed that with help from even more nonhumans, Project Genesis would be realized that much sooner. This was not a popular idea at the time despite the results.
[Fall]
-Trial and error produces a sword, imbued with the power of a fire dragon. The sword glows when focused on intently enough by Abner, but many others are unable to replicate this. To everyone's surprise, even the dragon who infused the sword is unable to replicate Abner's feat without greater effort.
[Winter]
-Balthazar Abner successfully draws out the power of the enchanted sword in an attempt to cast a fire spell. He grievously injures himself in the process and Project Genesis comes to a temporary halt.
-During Balthazar Abner's recovery, the fire dragon on the Genesis Project instructs him in the ways of fire magic.
0742
[spring]
-Balthazar Abner acquires enough knowledge of fire magic to attempt to use the enchanted sword once again. He is successful and becomes the first recorded case of a human casting magic of any variety.
[summer]
-In order to ensure that magic does not become a game of haphazard guesswork, or an unbearably complicated teaching, Abner begins to write out his own detailed teachings about the nature of fire magic. He and his research teams seek out nonhumans by the thousands to help in establishing valid teachings for other types of magic and recording them for posterity.
0751
[summer]
-While thousands of text are being written for education and posterity, Balthazar Abner endeavors to find a way to produce enchanted items without the assistance of nonhumans. Looking into various rumors and legends, he finds that there may already be enchanted items in nature itself, particularly some of the ores found deep within the ground and places such as the Spirit Caverns. He pursues this lead above all others and dubs these ores 'natural hosts', the same as nonhumans.
-The Ursian government follows up on Abner's natural host research on their own and confirms his beliefs.
[Winter]
-The Ursian government begins laying out the groundwork for a host creation industry, aiming to industrialize the creation of enchanted weapons and items.
-Countries neighboring Ursium begin secretly sending spies and mercenaries into the country, hoping the former would retrieve valuable intelligence on Ursium's magical development, while hoping both would sabotage that magical development wherever possible. The combined efforts of these individuals are relatively successful, setting Ursium's back several years.
0755
[spring]
-With the majority of the expected work completed, Project Genesis moves onto more advanced stages and more complicated forms of magic.
-Balthazar Abner beings to imbue the very tomes he wrote with the powerful magic they teach. This along with some of Abner's other beliefs and practices are not supported by the Ursian government and restrictions on the use of magic among humans are swiftly put into place. The distribution of tomes, both those that were imbued and those that weren't, is restricted to the church and nobility.
0760
[summer]
-The 'Dawn War', short for 'Dawn of Magic', begins. It becomes known to non-Ursians as the 'Two Prong War'. Ursium officially declares Keittan, one of the nations responsible for sending spies and saboteurs into the country, an enemy nation after capturing several of their operatives and mercenaries. Balthazar also blames his own research for this war, as his research into places like the Spirit Caverns gave the army more than enough reason to invade the country eventually, in order to consolidate its magical power while denying its rivals.
-Ursium mobilizes several large armies in order to begin a rapid, magic-fueled expansion campaign against two neighboring nations, Keittan, and Gunlend, declaring the latter an enemy nation officially, only after the fighting actually begins. With the advantage of newly trained mages on their side, Ursians gain an overwhelming advantage against both Keittan's and Gunlend's forces.
-The booming host industry begins to provide a strong boost to the Ursium's economy and provides a seemingly endless supply of magic to fuel the war.
[Fall]
-In just four months, all of Keittan's territory is overrun by Ursian forces. The territory is assimilated and its name discarded.
-Remnant Keittan forces resist Ursian forces for the rest of this year, putting little more than dents into Ursium's forces and resources, while suffering numerous casualties themselves.
-James Berg, a dark avian refugee from the east, kills several Ursian mages during an argument and is sentenced to execution by hanging.
-James Berg's executioner, uncertain of the validity of hanging against avians, inquires about an alternate execution method. His pleas go unheeded, as hanging is the most 'humane' method of execution of the time.
-The day of James Berg's execution arrives, and after his arms and wings are restrained, he is brought to the gallows and noosed. Despite his worry that avians are too light to be effectively and consistently killed in this way, he pulls the lever, James braces himself and his neck does not break. He then immediately takes advantage of the crowd's shock and moves his arms under his feet and then grabs the noose, allowing himself to breathe. The executioner, calls off the execution, hoping that with this living proof of concept, he could find an alternate method that was humane but also effective. Before James can be cut loose, he launches a magic attack, grievously wounding the guards coming to get him down as well as the executioner, and cuts himself loose with a wind spell. Before the situation can worsen, a mage in the crowd, Carla Marx, unleashes powerful thunder spell, striking James Berg between the eyes, and killing him instantly.
-Following the death of James Berg, the unnamed executioner, with Carla Marx's help, convince the royal court to consider their case for an alternate form of execution. Among the methods considered is the same one used by Carla during James Berg's execution, with a few tweaks. Those to be executed by thunderbolt were positioned either upright, tied to a stake, or on their knees, facing away from the executioner. The executioner was then to unleash an overcharged but precise thunder spell, striking the center of their foreheads, or the back of the head slightly above the top of the spine. Testing on even large animals and some criminals proved consistently lethal, and so this method of execution was eventually adopted as an alternative to hanging, but as a default method for dark avians.
0761
[spring]
-The Keittan remnant forces capture Ursaer, a small Ursian village in the Ursian homeland, and make their last stand there.
-Gunlend officially surrenders when the nation's royal heirs are captured on the battlefield, and the prince is subsequently executed. Gunlend is then quickly assimilated into Ursium, and its name is discarded.
-An Ursian battalion travels to Ursaer to retake the village, but after a short battle with the Keittan holdouts, the village is set ablaze, and the last of the known, active Keittan remnants die fighting, taking over half of the Ursaer villagers, and (purportedly) thirty-two of the Ursian soldiers with them.
0788
[Winter]
-Balthazar Abner dies of natural causes.
-Shin Yamada is born in Saeko village, north of Kayoyama.
0807
[Winter]
-The first documented sighting of Rai-Ryu since the end of the Great Rebellion. The record is a diary entry that was written by Kotone Enfield.
0808
[Winter]
-Shin Yamada's reign of terror in northern Kigen provinces begins in earnest. He uses powerful dark magic to his advantage and gains a following comprised mostly of bandits and eager mercenaries.
0809
[Winter]
-Shin Yamada begins and completes the construction of a small palisade walled fortress in the forests of the Juttan borderlands, northeast of Saeko village. He stages most of his future operations from this base, limiting his attacks to areas around Saeko village.
-Shin Yamada accomplishes his first kidnappings of villagers from Saeko and uses them in various experiments.
0810
[spring]
-Shin Yamada's followers now number just under one hundred, and his confidence leads him to attack even well armed targets in his home region, such as Kigenese military convoys. With his exceptional command of dark magic, he overpowers all of his adversaries, even in great numbers.
-Shin Yamada and his followers take over Saeko village and defeat several battalions sent to retake the village over the course of the season.
[summer]
-By this time, Shin Yamada has come to be known as 'Shin Yokai of Saeko' by virtually anyone who did not hail from the village. Those who dwell there refer to him as 'The Great Demon'.
0811
[spring]
-Now with winter past, the Kigenese Imperial Army mobilizes a diversionary force and marches it toward Saeko village in order to free the village from Shin Yokai while also leading him and his men into a deadly trap. The plan succeeds in forcing Shin and his forces out of Saeko village, though they take many villagers with them as they make their escape, hoping to use them as shields in case they were flanked. Soon after they depart, their escape route is cut off by a joint force of imperial soldiers and mercenaries. Shin and his men try to negotiate using their hostages, but the imperial-mercenary group attacks immediately, showering Shin's forces with a hail of arrows, and forcing a gruesome battle to play out. Most of Shin's men are killed during this clash, and Shin himself is permanently blinded. He is rescued by one of his lieutenants and whisked away on horseback.
-Unable to recover his sight, Shin and his surviving men isolate themselves in their fortress. Expansion and fortification of the fortress also begins at this time.
0831
[Winter]
-Shin Yokai, now forty-three years of age, perfects a new technique that replaces his sight with dark magic, and begins capturing travelers in order to train and experiment on as he prepares to make a terrifying return. Meanwhile, his men begin to make preparations as well, and recruit criminals and mercenaries in the region.
0832
[spring]
-Shin Yokai successfully retakes Saeko, now a sizable farming town, in a surprise attack and officially proclaims himself a warlord.
-General Goro Ueda, a man serving the Kigenese army, responds to Shin Yokai's attack by quickly blockading the region. He hoped to prevent Shin Yokai's escape, but did not want to move in on Saeko as the army did twenty-one years prior, for that led to not only the slaughter of nearly one hundred innocent men, women, and children, but also devastated the village's ability to produce and deliver goods and pushed their loyalty toward Juttan. Instead of fighting, he has messages delivered to the warlord Shin Yokai, and has his responses forwarded directly to the Emperor.
-The standstill and secret messages traveling back and forth between the Kigenese Emperor and Shin Yokai, having lasted for several months, finally comes to an end, and with the Emperor's final reply, Shin Yokai's rule over the region is made official, him receiving the title of 'governor' in place of 'warlord'.
-General Goro Ueda, deeply troubled by the Emperor's decision, breaks his oath of silence and reveals his knowledge about the contents of the letters sent between the Emperor and Governor Yokai. Shin Yokai was offered governorship in exchange for his knowledge about dark magic, which the Emperor wanted to teach to his people. In Response, Shin Yokai, acting on behalf of the Emperor, sends his own force to attack General Ueda. Rather than leave anything to chance, Shin leads his men into battle personally, and General Ueda does the same, hoping he can put an end to the bandit's schemes before the empire can intervene. Their first battle is a stalemate, and General Ueda is severely injured, ensuring that he cannot defeat Shin Yokai himself.
[summer]
-Kotone Enfield arrives at General Ueda's blockade and offers to assist him in bringing down Shin Yokai. Once General Ueda learns that Kotone was a childhood friend of Shin's, he becomes dubious of her. Kotone offers up everything she knows about Shin hoping to gain Ueda's trust, but the General, still not fully trusting her, sends her to Shin's camp, hoping to make use of her as an inside agent.
-Once at Shin Yokai's side, Kotone Enfield begins pleading to him to give up his evil ambitions and use his power to help people. While Shin turns a deaf ear to her on every occasion, she is given free rein of the entire town and treated far better than even his own men. This earns her their scorn, but Shin immediately strikes down the first man to try and harm her. This was the one and only known incident according to Kotone's diary.
-A detachment of imperial soldiers arrives at General Ueda's blockade directly from the capital with order's to end the dispute at any cost. General Ueda, who had yet to recover from his injuries completely, dons his armor anyway and heads out to meet the imperial army. He is ordered to stand down by the opposing general, but does not relent, instead demanding that Shin Yokai be brought to justice for his crimes.
-The Kigense Emperor declares General Ueda a traitor and his army is ordered to disarm. Before the message arrives, Shin Yokai's forces launch a surprise attack on Ueda's forces, taking the general's forward base and forcing a retreat.
-General Ueda, determined to put an end to Shin Yokai and his marauding allies, deserts with several of his most trusted men. Together, they hide out near Saeko while planning their next move.
0833
[spring]
-The 'Convergence Era' officially begins here, as the number of Corvian demons resembling Kestrelii reaches an all time high. The Devlinos family hesitates to take a stand on whether or not to allow these 'Pseudo-Kestrelii' to exist and several armed conflicts between the nobility and the commoner classes begin to break out all over the country.
-Goro Ueda, the former general responsible for the blockade of Saeko, launches a surprise attack on the town, hoping to remove Shin Yokai from power. Shin's forces, caught completely off guard, are quickly forced to fall back to Shin's defense. Goro's forces are surrounded as they push to Shin's estate, but have no intention of retreating. Shin, sure of his victory, orders his men to let Goro and his allies inside. Goro is surprised to learn that Shin Yokai truly is blind but doesn't let his guard down as he prepares to strike. Shin Yokai allows them the first move, but violently cuts down each of Goro's men as they attack. When only Goro remains, Shin offers him the chance to flee and spread word of his immense power. Goro, seeing no other way to survive the day, agrees, and departs from Saeko.
[summer]
-In a minor plot to undermine the Anti-Pseudo-Kestrelii movement, Architect Zeal creates several dozen powerful demons, seemingly indistinguishable from ordinary Kestrelii, and with the help of his supporters, maneuvers them into socially crippling positions within the Corvian heirarchy. One of them in particular, Siv Talos, manages to win the affections of one of the Devlinos princes, Borjn Devlinos, and the two are married in the middle of the first civil war.
0834
[Fall]
-The Kigenese Empire perfects the 'Nusumujutsu' style of magical combat. It remains exclusively used by imperial elites for years.
-The first civil war of the Corvian Convergence Era ends, with over six hundred thousand estimated Kestrelii casualties, a tenth of the total population at the time. At least twice as many demons are believed to have been killed in the conflict, as well as two thirds of the human slave population.
[Winter]
-Goro Ueda, seeing little chance of imperial interference in the middle of winter, returns to Saeko with a new band of hardened fighters, intent on ending Shin Yokai's life. It is said that his aching for justice had long been replaced by hatred and lust for revenge, though it is also said that Ueda had lost relatives during the first incident at Saeko, over two decades prior. His attack on Saeko is once again successful, and he and his men breach Shin's estate before he even realizes they're under attack. To ensure that Shin dies even if he defeats them all, Ueda has numerous fires set all across the estate. In his final confrontation with Shin, he corners him in the dining hall and survives over a dozen attacks. Kotone Enfield, seeing that Goro's plan will succeed if Shin does not flee the building, shoots Goro in the back of the head with a crossbow, ending his life. Shin becomes furious, but also comes to his senses as the dining hall begins to collapse and escapes with Kotone.
-On the same night as Goro Ueda's attack on Saeko, the fire set to Shin Yokai's estate spreads out to many other buildings, and nearly a third of the town burns to the ground.
(To be continued)
0835
[spring]
-The then Emperor of Corvus, Elof Devlinos, makes changes to the military ranking system to incorporate the Pseudo-Kestrelii. The change appeases the military as a whole, but minor violence well above the norm persists for the next two decades, violence related to the Pseudos.
0860
[spring]
-The second civil war of the Corvian Convergence Era begins when one of Architect Zeal's Pseudo-Kestrelii infiltrators is discovered and publicly executed by Clan Einar.
[summer]
-The second civil war of the Corvian Convergence Era ends, with over four hundred and ninety thousand estimated Kestrelii casualties. One million demons nationwide are believed to have been killed in the conflict, and just under one thousand human slaves lose their lives. New strategies put into play spared a great deal of the slave populous on both sides this time around, but Clan Einar is nearly obliterated during the conflict and Architect Zeal personally kills the ruling couple before taking their children and turning them into low level demon 'pets'.
0869
[summer]
-Siv Devlinos' identity as a Pseudo-Kestrelii is discovered, and as tensions reach an all time high, Prince Borjn Devlinos orders a large portion of the Imperial Army to attack all the known opposers of the Pseudo-Kestrelii, indirectly siding with them in order to protect his wife. This marks the beginning of the third and final civil war of the Convergence Era.
[Winter]
-Siv Devlinos is killed by an assassin and sole survivor of the Einar clan while Borjn Devlinos, her husband, is away laying siege to other territories. When word reaches him only a day after the event, he Borjn descends into a blind rage and requests the aid of the entire Imperial Army to slaughter every last Corvian citizen who opposes the Pseudos. The first wave of purges ends in the deaths of roughly eight hundred and forty thousand Fallen and several thousand human slaves.
-Emperor Elof Devlinos, after witnessing so much needless destruction, attempts to summon Borjn back to the capital, but Borjn, grief stricken, and unable to find his wife's true killer, continues to ravage the countryside for the rest of the year.
0870
[spring]
-As Borjn Devlinos' army continues its purging operations throughout the country, and Emperor Elof Devlinos hesitates to act, public support for the Devlinos family begins to wane. Clans Jarl, Hillevi, and Ludde amass an army greater in size than the Devlinos Imperial Army. They split the army into a third and two thirds and send the smaller division to confront Borjn's army while the larger removes the Devlinos family from power.
[Winter]
-After almost a year of fighting, the third civil war of the Corvian Convergence Era, as well as the era itself, comes to an end, Borjn's campaign along with other battles causing the deaths of two million Kestrelii. Just prior to this Borjn Devlinos himself is killed by the same Einar assassin that slew his wife during their first and final confrontation, but also deals the assassin a fatal blow, both he and she die beside each other. Borjn's army is defeated, but still manages to whittle their opposition down to an ineffectual size before surrendering. Additionally, the Spire is besieged but the Devlinos family's army and elite warriors fight the Jarl, Hillevi, and Ludde forces to a stalemate, and when Architect Zeal and several other prominent architects bring a new, stronger army of high level demons to aid the Devlinos family, the three clans are defeated and stripped of their noble status and territories. While Architect Zeal's sudden assistance is surprising to many, he stresses repeatedly to all who inquire that, 'Regardless of the Devlinos royal family's stance on demons, my loyalty is to them and them alone.' After the conflict, the Corvian population was reduced to just over two million, a mere third of its size prior to the first civil war.
0997
[spring]
-The 'Great Rebellion' begins to be referred to as the 'Legendary Rebellion' by scholars from this point onward.
0998
[Fall]
-An Ursian diplomat by the name of Travis Marx travels to Kigen, hoping to learn more about the nation and to establish stronger ties. His ship is taken by pirates before ever reaching the mainland, and half of the ship's crew is killed in the fighting alone. A few others are killed for insubordination. Ironically, Travis and his people are saved by the kigenese imperial navy when one of their patrols stumbles upon the pirate vessel. The Imperial Captain promises safe passage the rest of the way to Kigen and makes good on his promise.
-Travis Marx, having arrived safely in Kigen, ventures to the capital and is welcomed there. He stays for several months, taking in the Kigenese culture. Along the way, he learns of things he loves and things he abhores. He sends several letters back to the King of Ursium hoping to relay his findings.
-Travis Marx soon learns of the Fallen race, violent avian marauders, and mortal enemies of the Kigenese. He makes many inquiries to many people about them, hoping to learn more, but his interest is interpreted as obsession, and the emperor sends for him. Once he is before the emperor, he is told the story of the Fallen as the kigenese had come to know it. Travis begins to feel a sort of sympathy for the Fallen, but keeps these feelings to himself.
-Travis eventually decides to take up permanent residence in Kigen, and sends a letter to the King of Ursium explaining the situation. He suggests that they try to forge a strong friendship with the kigenese for a more stable future, but does not share his reasons for staying in Kigen. According to Travis' journal entries, he planned to not only make Ursium and Kigen strong allies, but the Fallen as well. First, however, he needed to find a way to get the Kigenese and Fallen to see eye to eye. He moved to Ise, a village right on the blurred borders of the Kigenese and Fallen territories, in order to begin the work.
0999
[summer]
-A bird of flames is sighted in the north, this time over Areskotia, a country far east of Ursium.
-A bird covered in fire is once again sighted over the Ursian countryside. The Order of Knoweldge offers a name for the bird and it is hence forth referred to as a 'phoenix'.
1000
[spring]
-A diplomat by the name of Charles Beck, sent after Travis Marx's retirement, eventually tracks him to Ise village and sends one of his envoys to check up on him. The envoy is surprised to find that Travis had married at some point within the last two years, and not to a kigenese woman but a foreigner. The envoy is invited to stay, but soon learns from closer investigation that Travis' wife is not a human, but a Fallen with severed limbs. When he confronts Travis about this, the two enter a heated argument. Travis' wife manages to calm the two using what little common she's learned, but the argument is overheard by another villager. The damage is done.
-Charles Beck's envoy leaves Ise with all haste, hoping to inform him of the situation before things spiral out of control, but Travis' wife quickly tracks him up the road and kills him in the dead of night. Travis, meanwhile, tries to quell the rumors that his wife is actually a 'demon' in human form. He nearly succeeds, until a skeptical man demands that 'her body be revealed' to them. This meant unveiling herself so they could see if she was human or merely looked human with her wings and tail missing. Travis adamantly refused on the grounds that his wife shouldn't be embarrassed in such a way, but he was outnumbered, desperately hoping his wife wouldn't return to the village. He himself plotted his escape, but before he could put his plan into action, his wife returned and was apprehended. It was confirmed in seconds that she was indeed a Fallen. Her ability to resist against several men trying to disrobe her was nearly proof enough, but her large scars and glowing irises left no doubts in anyone's mind. Travis and his wife were both imprisoned and word was sent to the capital.
-When word of Travis Marx's marriage to a Fallen reaches the emperor's ears, he becomes furious and orders that Charles Beck be brought before him immediately. Charles, unaware of anything going on in Ise, is dragged to the emperor's feet and he demands an explanation of the Ursian diplomat. When Charles proves he has no idea what's going on, the emperor explains that Travis married a Fallen and wonders if the Ursians weren't hoping to broker an alliance with them in this way. Charles, while bewildered, remains calm and tries to offer some explanation, first explaining that Travis probably only intended to guide the Kigenese and Fallen to a peaceful resolution, and not use the Fallen to tip the scales in Ursium's favor. The emperor doesn't believe this story and before Charles can offer another explanation, has him hauled off to prison.
-Travis Marx's wife is executed in Ise, and Travis becomes bitterly enraged with the Kigenese people. He soon escapes prison and flees into Fallen territory where he is violently captured and temporarily enslaved. When the Fallen learn that Travis is a very learned human, a noble house purchases him. He shares his whole story with them, and after careful consideration, is given more comfortable living conditions. He is treated as an intelligent exotic pet, but not a slave, and his journal is stealthily delivered back into human territory at his request, where it is later discovered by a Kigenese scholar. This is the last known account of Travis Marx.
[summer]
-Charles Beck is eventually executed when Ursium fails to satisfy the Kigenese Emperor with their explanation of Travis Marx's behavior, and relations between both countries are immensely strained.
[Winter]
-At the end of this year, the Restoration Era comes to an ominous close and a darker period awaits.



[spoiler=The Two Kingdoms Era: 1001-1008 A.R.]1001
[spring]
-General Wade Reiner is put in charge of the main force that the Ursian King, Charles Maas, has amassed in order to invade the Kigenese homeland. Two other officers, Lucas Lyon, and David Kranz, are appointed as 'left' and 'right' generals for the campaign.
-In order to better their position against the Kigenese, who have a much larger military force at this time, General Reiner marches his troops toward Juttan after 'the King's Ultimatum', a secret series of letters between the King of Ursium and the Juttan High Council is completed. The King's Ultimatum is a dangerous gambit, meant to pressure the Juttanese into joining with Ursium against Kigen, taking advantage of the fact that Juttan cannot rely on Kigenese assistance in the event of an Ursian incursion. Whether they join or not, Reiner's forces are already on their way.
-Juttan secretly agrees to King Maas' alliance, hoping to hide their new allegiance for as long as possible in order to prevent the Kigenese from acting against them prematurely. In the meantime, Generals Lyon and Kranz launch a two pronged assault against Kigenese forces in the north in order to secure a foothold on the mainland and are met with overwhelming resistance. Despite the unbreakable defenses of their foes, they continue to fight.
-Generals Lyon and Kranz and their forces lose all of their momentum within the first few days of fighting and are slowly pushed back to the coast. Lyon loads up the majority of his vanguard forces back onto transport ships and sends them to safety, while Kranz diverts the Imperial army's attention from the fleet in order to buy time for a counterattack, Lyon, and then Admiral Ore, prepare a naval assault using catapults and archers. With Lyon's lines spread so thinly along the coast, they are in little danger from the artillery fire. The tactic does not win them the battle, but their losses are only moderate, approximately five thousand casualties in all. It was also the first recorded joint army-navy operation in Ursian history.
-After receiving word from General Reiner's forces, Generals Lyon and Kranz part ways, aiming to focus their efforts on two separate regions of Kigen, the north and northwest. Lyon would attempt to get a foothold in the northwest using speed and diversionary tactics, while Kranz would try to withstand the army pressuring them in the north with only Admiral Ore's assistance. This would only have to continue until Reiner's forces completed their march into Kigen from the Juttan borderlands and secured the Kita trade route, the main trade route between Kigen and Juttan, and a series of roads leading from Juttan right to the capital of Kigen. No amount of force the Kigenese could bring to bear would be able to fully repel Reiner's forces until he was at the very doorstep of the capital if this carefully timed march was successful.
[summer]
-"War is a game, the worst kind of game, but a game nonetheless." The quote is famously used during a war meeting in Kayoyama by Taro Koizumi, a prominent politician who happens to be attending. Shortly after this out-of-turn quip, General Hibiki Kawaguchi devises a new strategy for the war with the most notable changes involving a more long term conflict. Initially it was believed that the war would only last a few more months, but Kawaguchi has long term goals. He, along with several others present, including Taro Koizumi, want to not only repel Ursian forces, but to weaken them to the point that the Imperial army can then follow them to the north and take the entire country by force. General Shinji Yamada protests the new strategy, noting the incredible danger in striking at the heart of Ursium. The Nomadic Blitz, the shocking turn around Yamada warns the others about is discounted as a mere coincidence and the majority agree to Kawagushi's long term plan for the war. It would take years, possibly decades, but at this point, it becomes the military's ultimate goal, and many of their future decisions take this into account.
-Ursium's main force, General Reiner's division, complete their march to Kigen before the higher ranking officers in the Kigenese military realize what's happening. His forces are initially thought to be a Juttan army, taking advantage of the chaos in the north to expand Juttan's borders, but once the Kigense forces in the east realize that Ursium has launched a three pronged assault instead of a two pronged assault, as previously believed, they call in all available forces in the east to block Reiner's path, leaving the capital region only lightly defended. Due to unexpectedly harsh weather and illness, Reiner fails to push his forces deep enough into Kigen to reach the capital before they are bogged down in a brutal clash in the middle of the Kita trade route, and the general spends months winning and losing minor battles as the Kigenese stall for more time.
-After a threat from General Reiner's messenger, the Juttan Council officially announces their alliance with Ursium, and sends their largest army to reinforce Reiner's troops on the Kita trade route. As soon as the Juttan army arrives, Kigense forces in the east begin to lose ground, and retreat as slowly as they can toward the capital, stalling for time wherever and however they can.
[Fall]
-General Kranz, Right General of Ursium is defeated by the Kigenese army led by General Kawaguchi and the holdout forces in the north. Kawaguchi allows Kranz and his men to retreat to the coast in order to begin his march on General Reiner's forces on the Kita Trade Route. He intends to flank and utterly destroy General Reiner and the Juttan army protecting his flank and secure the route to the capital.
-General Lyon, Left General of Ursium establishes a firm foothold in the north, capturing two farming villages, a trading outpost, and a fishing village with a dock. He uses the farming village's surplus to feed his army while setting up a strong defense around the region. When word reaches Ursium, reinforcements are sent to over to the fishing village in Kigen. Within a few weeks of capturing the village, the dock is massively expanded into a shipyard, capable of maintaining frigate sized vessels. Despite numerous small attacks on Lyon's borders, he does not lose any of the territory taken from the Kigenese Empire during the season. Knowing that winter is fast approaching, Lyon tasks his forces with finishing up the remaining fortifications in preparation for the war next spring.
-General Hibiki Kawaguchi's army arrives in time to assist in the fight for the Kita Trade Route, but with winter so close, all sides are eager to end the fighting and fall back to their more fortified areas. Kawaguchi has no such misgivings about the winter and keeps the pressure on Reiner's forces as well as his allies from Juttan. As winter rolls in, General Reiner begins to lose ground. "In every millennium, there must always be one war that takes place in the winter, despite all of Mother Nature's fury being brought down upon our heads," General Reiner is quoted saying after the loss of an outpost to a brutal surprise attack by Kawaguchi's forces.
[Winter]
-As winter winds hit the region, General Lyon of Ursium renames the fishing village 'Victoria' in honor of his victory over the local and imperial forces during the previous season.
-General Lyon, Left General of Ursium marries Yukari (family name unknown), a Kigenese woman living in Victoria.
-General Kawaguchi's forces continue to attack General Reiner's forces at every turn, eventually forcing a full retreat from Kigenese lands and back to Juttan. With Reiner's final defeat of the season at his forward base, 'Hawkeye', the winter violence comes to a close, and the season continues without any significant attacks from either side.
-General Lyon receives word that General Reiner has also been forced to retreat, and that Lyon's forces will be targeted by the full might of the imperial army come spring time. Lyon is confident at first, but as many in his army begin to come down with various illnesses, and he himself is stricken with illness, his confidence wanes. Lyon quickly turns to various gods, praying to each one he knows of, hoping for a miracle.
-General Yamada's forces, though not intending to launch an attack, march to the very edge of General Lyon's captured territory toward the end of winter, hoping to get an early start to the fighting once spring comes. As the region begins to warm up, Yamada sends an enormous force to retake the region in a violent sweep, but the timing is off and they are rained out just hours after engaging General Lyon's borderland forces. Seeing the massive advantage he now had, Lyon begins fighting aggressively and pushes Yamada's forces back so quickly that the entire army is spit into two parts, with Yamada on the left flank, and his best officers on the right. Lyon continues to push, and Yamada's half of the army is whittled away as they're pushed into a forest. Lyon immediately has the forest burned down, killing Yamada and nearly all of the left flank while his army fights a difficult battle against the right. Once word of General Yamada's death reaches them, the army withdraws and Lyon's forces fall back as well to regroup and recuperate. It seems Lyon's prayers have been answered.
(To be continued)



[spoiler=The Calm Era: 1009-1987 A.R.]1057
[summer]
-Rex-Avaz has stood as a nation for one thousand years by this point, and during the millennial festivities in Sanctuary, the first known rebel faction, the Reclaimers, make their biggest move yet. Their leader, Joseph Sirius (also known as the 'Mad Prophet), believing full well that Rex-Avaz is on the brink of a great change, organizes and executes a large scale attack against Queen Aisha and her retainers. When the queen and her closest supporters are cornered in the palace courtyard, he confronts her directly. During the ordeal, he explains the opposing views of his faction and alludes to the existence of others. It is revealed that dozens of major and minor incidents of the past, sudden food shortages, 'bandit attacks' and mysterious disappearances and deaths, were all linked to the secret struggle between Queen Aisha's supporters and the dissenters. All of it had taken place behind the scenes until this very moment. The queen then makes a stunning declaration, 'Our peace has been threatened from the shadows by your kind, and now, after one thousand years of peace and prosperity, you'll divide my people, force my hand, and start a war that can never truly end. The coming storm is of your own making, you proud, desperate fools.' Not believing that the Queen was immortal as the rumors floating about for centuries had implied, the Reclaimers attacked her and her followers, intending to remove her from power and rebuild the government from the ground up. Queen Aisha is the only person to emerge from the battle alive. Everyone else, including the Mad Prophet, are killed during the battle, the Mad Prophet himself, falling to the queen's own magic.
-The day following the attack on the millennial celebration in Sanctuary sees one of the largest sandstorms in Rex-Avaz's history appear. The storm is named 'The Queen's Tears', as word has already spread far and wide about the massacre at the palace.
1110
[Winter]
-The vasilus Nyx is spotted arriving in Corvus in the middle of the night. She is met with stiff opposition but sweeps them aside and enters the Spire. Tension in the city runs high as word of her arrival spreads.
-During her time in Tartarus, Nyx is said to have entered the Spire in order to meet with the Kestrelii deity, Obelisk. At some point before dawn, the Devlinos family receives word that a powerful mage has begun cutting down everyone and everything in sight, carving a path of destruction toward the top of the Spire. With so few surviving witnesses, it takes over an hour for anyone to confirm that it is indeed Nyx, who is causing all of this mayhem.
1111
[spring]
-The year is unofficially declared the 'Year of the Legion' by the avians living in Aquila, in honor of the 'Cloud Legion'.
-On the first day of the new year, the 'Massacre of Night' begins, as the vasilus Nyx appears above Tartarus, directly above the Spire, and puts an end to the daylight portion eleven hours early by casting darkness over the entire city. Despite the Imperial Army's best efforts, they and their supporters are slaughtered by the thousands. Nyx turns her sights on noncombatants any time the military falls back. Luring in more and more of the army in with this brutal tactic, she systematically obliterates all but the most humbled of warriors. The rest escape the city leaving everyone else to die. On the morning of the second day, the Devlinos family rallies their remaining forces to challenge Nyx directly and save for the emperor himself, Volund Devlinos, and two of his own sons, the entire force is annihilated. The emperor narrowly escapes back to the Spire and goes into hiding after this humbling defeat. The violence continues without end for three gruesome days as resistance movements are organized and destroyed as soon as they emerge for battle. During this time, the sun never shines its light on Tartarus. Parially due to this neverending darkness, Thorne Mortos, a prominent figure and one of the few warriors to survive in Tartarus during the massacre, famously asserts that Nyx is nothing more than a test of Corvian resolve. If they could survive this, they were truly strong, he said. On the fourth morning, Nyx finally relents and leaves the city and Corvus behind, allowing the sun to rise over the city for the first time in three days. Everything but the Spire has been damaged to the point of instability by the attack, bodies litter the streets and rooftops, and roughly three hundred thousand Fallen lose their lives during the chaos. Thorne Mortos and his family not only all survive, but save many lives during the chaos.
[summer]
-After a three month absence (people in Ursium having no idea where she was), Nyx makes a public appearance in Europa along with many of her followers. Together, they introduce the public to 'alchemy.' King Jerold Maas only hears word of this development one day after the event begins and quickly travels to Europa from Ursentius in order to learn more about what's going on. Before he arrives, The Order of Nyx concludes some basic lessons and ends the event, sending everyone closely involved away and back to their lives. By the time King Maas arrives, the Order have all disappeared back into the Cathedral. The King arranges a meeting with Nyx in order to find out what she is trying to accomplish by unleashing such arcane knowledge on the public, to which she purportedly responds, 'You are the king of Ursium, not the king of knowledge. I will do with knowledge as I see fit, and you will endure it.' As many within the King's circle fear, the introduction of alchemy has an immediate impact on society, even with nothing but novices and augmented alchemists at work, and worse still, the Order of Nyx hadn't shared any information with them about it; alchemy's potential as a weapon was still an unknown. The idea of confiscating all alchemy related materials from the populous floats around for days until the King decides to try a more subtle approach.
-In order to gain control of the alchemy situation in Ursium, King Maas has Governor Isolde attempt to recruit as many alchemists for jobs within the Ursian government as possible; weapon smiths, armor smiths, and so on. The campaign is incredibly successful, as the extremely generous compensation offered draws in most of the original alchemists. The alchemy crisis is almost resolved without further incident, but one of the King's inquisitors, furious like many others at the Order of Nyx's shenanigans, has one of their acolytes arrested and tortured for information. Later, the interrogators and the inquisitor are all found comatose and the acolyte has vanished. Neither the inquisitor nor the interrogators would ever wake up again.
-King Maas, hoping to resolve the situation before things become even more violent, arranges another meeting with Nyx. What transpires during the meeting is unknown, but the result is an end to any visible hostilities between officials and the Order of Nyx. Nyx herself isn't seen again for quite some time after this meeting. Officially, the recruiting drive for alchemists is treated as a 'friendly' followup to the Order of Nyx's public event; a new magical profession not quite so strictly governed by the nobles or the army. While many ordinary smiths feel threatened by alchemy and its potential to replace them, the nobility begins to try and subdue their fears and find a feasible way to retain both.
1123
[Fall]
-After a great deal of debate, many Ursian noble houses begin to push for new laws regarding alchemy's use, laws that see very little of it used by commoners. Their goal to suppress the spread of alchemy beyond their own borders and retain what is left of the smithing industry is transparent to most, including Governor Isolde, but with the King's support, the new laws are passed in the end. Alchemists are forced to give up their studies or seek employment in very specific places.
1186
[Fall]
-The restoration of Tartarus' city structures is officially completed. By this time, not a shred of superficial evidence of the Massacre of Night remains.



[spoiler=*Magic Rising Era: 1988-2591 A.R.]



[spoiler=*Kigen/Corvian War Era: 2592-2796 A.R.]



[spoiler=Rune Era: 2797-2997 A.R.]
2986:
[Winter]
-Architect Fury is born.



[spoiler=*Resurgence Era: 2998-3001 A.R.]



[spoiler=Reformation Era: 3002-3465 A.R.]
3439
[Winter]
-Ragna Sanjana is born.



[spoiler=Slayer Era: 3466-3496 A.R.]



[spoiler=Emerging Nations Era: 3497-3950 A.R.]3511
[spring]
-The Neviskotian Empire is founded.
3720
-Ragna Sanjana becomes Architect Fervor, inheriting the title from her predecessor.
3880
[Fall]
-Regios Devlinos is born.
3988
[spring]
-Fyodor is born.
3990
[spring]
-Leto (surname unknown) is born.



[spoiler=Warring Powers Era: 3951-4899 A.R.]
4183
[spring]
-Vulcan Devlinos is born to Regios and Leto Devlinos.
4199
[Winter]
-Sif Ebonian is born.
[Fall]
-Pallas (surname unknown) is born.
4454
[Winter]
-Leandros Devlinos is born to Vulcan and Pallas Devlinos.
4488
[Winter]
-Elamnus Ebonian is born to Architect Enceladus and Sif Ebonian.
4519
[spring]
-Urd Ixion is born.
4670
[summer]
-Helga Finnian is born.
4731
[Fall]
-Elamnus marries Helga Finnian and joins clan Finnian.
4810
[Winter]
-Elamnus and Helga Finnian undergo the Rite of Leadership. Elamnus is victorious and becomes the head of clan Finnian.
4811
[spring]
-Clans Finnian and Ebonian create a new alliance in preparation for civil war.



[spoiler=Return of the Emblem Era: 4900-5000 A.R.]4917
[summer]
-Brynhildr Finnian is born to Elamnus and Helga Finnian.
4918
[summer]
-Svanhildr Finnian is born to Elamnus and Helga Finnian.
4926
[Winter]
-Gabriel is created.
4931
[Fall]
-Valdimarr Devlinos is born to Leandros and Urd Devlinos.
4936
[summer]
-Steinn Devlinos is born to Leandros and Urd Devlinos.
4950
[spring]
-Brynhildr Finnian earns the title 'White Devil'.
[Winter]
-Seth Weyland is born.
4963
[Fall]
-Jethro Valcyn is born.
4965
[spring]
-Caterina Blanco is born.
4969
[Winter]
-Morgana Wyght is born to Morgan and Tabitha Wyght.
4972
[summer]
-Elrey Abrams is born to Aldric and Regina Abrams.
4974
[spring]
-Naomi is born.
4975
[summer]
-Prince Athrun Shastak is born to King Nathon Shastak and Queen Tiphaney Shastak.
4976
[spring]
-Grant Brayden is born.
4977
[spring]
-Katrina Curik is born.
[Winter]
-Princess Athena Shastak is born to King Nathon Shastak and Queen Tiphaney Shastak.
4978
[Fall]
-Valter Morph is born.
[Winter]
-Blake Frode is born.
4979
[spring]
-Synthia Azubah is born to Marcello and Alissa Azubah.
4980
[Winter]
-Reign Abrams is born to Aldric and Regina Abrams.
4981
[summer]
-Raquel Valcyn is born to Jethro and Caterina Valcyn.
-Amon Zeev is born.
4982
[summer]
-Ayano is born.
4985
[Fall]
-Norn Devlinos is born to Leandros and Urd Devlinos.
4986
[Fall]
-Siv Finnian is born to Elamnus and Helga Finnian.
4989
[summer]
-Reina Valcyn is born to Jethro and Caterina Valcyn.
4998
[spring]
-The Battle of Sedgemoor begins.

[summer]

-A mercenary known as Axel begins employment at Weyland Enterprises.
[Winter]
-Empress Yelena Loginov of Neviskotia dies unexpectedly.
-The Neviskotian Emperor, Anton Loginov issues a direct order to the military, telling them to go to war. The Neviskotian Imperial Navy immediately launches an all out attack under cover of night against Ursian naval ships stationed near the Ursian Eastern Central defense line. The Ursian fleet is almost completely wiped out in the attack, but several squadrons of pegasus knights escape the battle to inform the mainland.
-Ursium declares war just one day before Neviskotia's own declaration reaches them.
-Raquel Valcyn discovers a fragment of the Fire Emblem.
4999
[spring]
-Sardis launches an attack at Sergio Port. Most of his available forces are lost in the fighting, but he successfully abducts Raquel Valcyn's father, Jethro Valcyn.
-Raquel Valcyn and her companions attempt to track down Sardis. They are forced to contend with bandits at an abandoned fort instead. Following the confrontation, they discover a list of contacts left by Jethro Valcyn and move on.

Edited by Phoenix
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