The Mortal Age

With time in the World and all greater forces withdrawing, the Mortal Races rose to prominence. After the Cataclysm, two mortal powers emerged in Yethera and spread their influence in time to Caino and Suto.
The Regime was the grand project of the High Elves, their bid for an immortal legacy, founded on their love of order, civilisation and city building. The Regime was doomed from the start, however, because it was built using the skills and labour of all four elven kindreds, but with scant regard for the values of three of them.
The Legion, by comparison, was the military strength of the entire Orc lineage, under the direct and brutal rule of the Dark Lords, the thirteen Gods who created the Orcs. The sole purpose of the Legion was World conquest in the name of their Gods, and as the Regime also sought to bring everything under its banner, the ensuing war was inevitable.
The Legion-Regime Wars were fought, on and off, directly and via proxies, for almost two centuries. Nearly a third of the dome was either conquered by one power or another, or else obliged to provide troops and resources in 'tribute', in exchange for supposed autonomy. The only powers that resisted them effectively were the Minotaur herds in northern Caino, the Smoothfolk kingdoms in southern Caino and Suto, and the alliance of tribes in the Elysian highlands. Even the dwarf cities of the mountains were forced to make accord for the sake of their trade routes.
In the end, however, the resistance that remained proved enough to curtail the advance of either empire; and internal pressures began to tell. First the Ash Elves, then the sea and woodland kin abandoned the high elf plan, leaving the Regime toothless and without effective infrastructure. Subjugated populations caused trouble for both groups. Finally, the orc Uprising saw the Legion slay their gods and bring an end to their expansion and to the war.
The Legion-Regime Wars were a crucible in which two world powers were broken, and numerous, more local polities born.
Under the influence of the Demon Jackal, the Yainah formed the Kingdoms of Jackals, but not long after, the Laughing Mother's faithful led a revolt that destroyed all three of the kingdoms.
In central Cathlaea, the serpent cults of the Yuan-ti seized power, uniting the human and Petari tribes under the tyrannical throne of the children of the Three-Headed Serpent. Created in answer to the grasping of pitiless conquerors, the Great Ophionic Empire soon fell to the same ambitions, if indeed they were absent at its creation. It expanded north and south until defeated, in the one direction by desert and yainah packs, and in the other by the now-free orc diarchies of the Darklands.
Unable to expand further, the Empire imploded, with civil strife mostly kindled by struggles over control of the rituals and elixirs of transformation, and usually ending in the revolution of those oppressed by the combative factions. The last dominions of the Empire were united and restored under the Second Empire, a lesser entity, but one in which control of the blessings of the Three were rigidly controlled.
As the tribes of Caino grew into states, they began to unite into larger polities, perhaps recalling the threat of the Regime and the Legion. In the south, the Empire of the Southern Sun was ruled by a group of non-familial, houses, while in the central highlands the more democratic Elysian Federation grew up from a treaty called the Blessed Concordance. In the north, the Minotaur created the Thunderhead Dominion.
All three of these survive to the present day.
Less fortunate was Anur-kek, the great civilisation of the Smoothfolk in central Suto. Centred on the city of Anur-ket, both city and state were lost in the chaos of the firenewt schism. Its successor, Anur-akek, avoids the stone slopes of the volcanic highlands, and so the new capital, Anur-teka is instead built in the central mountains, on a sprawling network of rafts in a lake. The smoothfolk cities of Suto look almost primitive to outsiders, especially in the absence of stone construction, but their libraries and academies are second to none. The heart of the Regime was in Talahaea, the northern part of Yethera. As the Regime collapsed, the high elven elite were forced to hire mercenary forces to replace their regular forces, who had traditionally been drawn from the other kindreds. Eventually, a number of powerful mercenary arcanists seized control from their employers, founding the thaumocracy known as the Mage Sovereignties.
The Sovereignties persisted for serval centuries, ruled either by immortal magicians or arcane dynasties. Some of these regimes were cruel to all, others favoured an aristocracy, gave favourable terms to merchants, or gave advantage to scholars, soldiers or even labourers. They had more differences than similarities, but all of them made enemies, and all of them allowed on increasingly powerful priesthood of Magic to take a role in their public relations. Ultimately, it was the cults of magic that used their influence and access to dissident factions across the Sovereignties to organise The Uprising that would be known as the War of Hubris.
In the aftermath of the War, the Sovereignties were re- organised into the Sacred Republic. Embracing divine magic, but viewing all arcane power with suspicion, the Republic is also notable for its strict, religious control. A central government is deeply intertwined with the Church of the Eightfold Pantheon, but each province is politically autonomous.