Aelutea
702 A.E
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The Laws of Aelutea
Magic is mysterious, not well understood and seen as both terrifying and dangerous in even the best hands. Magic was used by the giants to make machines that they used to shape the world and do as they pleased. Magic also brought to life gigantic metallic men called the Kunkal who terrified the giants who used them to instead prey on the humans who the giants hated. When mankind rose up and defeated the giants, magic slowly went the way of its creators as the last use of magic was from the bones of long dead giants on crops in human cities that made them grow extraordinarily well. During the height of mankind's civilization, magic was all but gone and forgotten, magic was replaced with science and understanding and the world was neither better or worse for it. But then the Rasenna fell, their science and understanding did not save them and they brought the world with them as the world slipped into chaos, confusion and destruction for 500 years. In this time, magic returned and the art of the giants came to be known to mankind again. Magic tore away the idea that the world was understood and brought back the unpredictability of an old era. Magic brought with it tales of undead sailors off the coast with red eyes and who sung hymns of death, magic brought with it tales of red soldiers in the forest who sounded their horrifying horns and beat their feet into the earth with each step as they waved their golden standards and killed any who stood in their way. Magic came and brought back old beasts that no longer had to worry of packs of man hunting them into extinction, the world became wild and hard and the enemies and victims of mankind rose from the dead to a world like the one they once knew.
Cosmology
Long ago, before there was anything there existed nothing at all. From nothing, a seed came into being along with a boy and a girl. The boy was Kataka and the girl was Nila and they set about building existence itself, each a creator and a destroyer in their own right. They built a world from the gapping hole of the etherium and when the world settled, they fashioned their own forms of life. Nila fashioned the gods, idealized versions of herself with lives dreaming of fame and glory. Kataka forged the giants, a race of hardy workers and tinkerers who brought their magic into the newborn world. Time passed as the world knew temperate peace, until the races became unsettled and set out creating their own life. The gods made mankind, a mirror of themselves and while not perfect, were given the gift of free thought and desire for good. The giants, through their tinkering created an unfeeling and unholy abomination of life, the Kunkal, a species of metal men with the destiny to destroy any life they came across. The giants feared the Kunkal and instead set them free to ravage mankind instead. Mankind knew great fear and terror in its infancy as the Kunkal wiped out every human they came across. Man lived below ground and spent nights in the dark envisioned wreaking vengeance on the creators of such monsters. Eventually, mankind rallied around heroes of their own and went to war with the giants. Mankind eventually prevailed with mountains of bones from both sides becoming hotspots for the magic of the dying giants. Driven to exile, the giants retreated from the world of man and soon the greatest creation of the gods was set up as rulers of the world. They built and built as kingdoms rose and fell time after time before one city beside a sacred river rose to dominate all beneath the banner of their great eagle. The Rasennans triumphed and knew riches and glories rivaling those of the gods, but from the shadow of the eagle came envious pretenders spurred by the eagle's lapsing power. Soon the pretenders bludgeoned the eagle and shattered it into thousands of fragments, the fires overcame everyone and the world plunged into utter chaos for centuries.
Principal Geography & Features
The land is divided by seas and mountains. The large and unclimbable peaks of the Teroare Mountains provide the largest divider between the east and the west. West of the Teroares is the main focus of the world and where the vast empire of the Rasenna once dwelled. This land is known as Terrarum colloquially and sometimes called Erebu, an old Natresh word for "go down, set" in reference to the setting of the western sun or more commonly Rasennista or "Land of the Rasenna". This term is more often used in the lands of the Ivanshar, a place with a long and bloody history with the westerners and a land that rivals them in ancient lineage as this was the land of the Old Empire of the Natresh as well as the birthplace of the Drassid and Rasanid Empires. North of the Ivanshar is the great Lelost Desert, a dry, arid, and flat place that seems to have once been a shallow sea given the numerous fossils of ancient sea life that can be found there. The Lelost leads to the Wildlands, the lands east of the Teroares, and where one can find the ancestral keepers of this land, the Alkicete people. Back west, the large landmass of Kwalakkad is home to the coastal Hakkaten civilization and their neighboring nomads the Imazir. Kwalakkad is a large landmass that stretches very far south into the nearly eternal desert, home to giant spiders and scorpions that patrol the shifting dunes.