Not all peoples migrated northward and westwards to the Arching Mountains. The peoples of the lands that would eventually be known as Del’Marah stayed on the great southern steppe, believing themselves to be separate from and superior to those that would begin to form the first Vannic kingdoms.
The sense that the people of the plains and not the mountains were chosen by the gods was cemented by a cataclysmic event, an unknown metallic body that Del’Marahan scholars have claimed was a sphere or star shaped, but which the priests of the plains peoples called Asheng or ‘heart of the heavens’, collided with the earth creating a vast crater. Within two decades a settlement had established itself at the crater’s edge, taking advantage of the naEalatural defences it offered. The first city in Aestis, Ealafyf emerged over the following century, and as farms, grain surpluses and a kingdom emerged so did a religion whose name has been lost in time, but which is now referred to as Pheffism, named after the city of its birth, Ealafyf - of Pheff.
Del’Marah
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The Asheng and the first Pheffist Kingdom
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Founding of the Divinity of Phef
The first city state of Phef established, which would conquer and create the first Del’Marahan Kingdom - created from those humans that did not flee to the Arching Mountains - this is a foundational myth of Del’Marahan culture. We were stronger than you.
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1971 OTM
Veder a Dryn
Era beginning/endThe Varraline dynasty ended without any natural succession and this meant that the Rulderhal and the Azure Chamber were forced to return to 'Starrandic' principles in order to find a new emperor. In the formative centuries of the Arc empire this might have been a viable prospect, as the process involved an election to the imperial throne, a wide field of able and impressive candidates being whittled down to a final three. In the dying century of the empire, when almost every polity, every town, city, region and district was suffused with a deep pessimism and a profound sense of lawlessness and chaos, it became virtually impossible to find enough eligible nobles acceptable to the two chambers. As a result the house of Dryn from Taeor became the choice by default. During the months of tortuous searching for candidates, even Evahna Skar, the Del'Marahi offered himself as the emperor. The Lord Counsel Adamus believed that this radical suggestion was the means by which the empire could be saved, and was dismayed when it was rejected by in favour of the obscure and untested Dryns. Adamus saw the end of the empire in that moment, recognising that no one leader had the knowledge or understanding or foresight left that could preserve it. He knew that Skar would take being supplanted by the Dryn family as a terrible slight, but he could not have predicted the humiliation that Veder a Dryn would heap on the Skar and others as they attended his coronation. Instead of the customary bending of the knee which all provincial rulers offered to a new emperor, Veder demanded that Skar and the rulers of the cities of the Arclands, the lords of the Arching Mountains, the stewards of Kallah and others prostrate themselves on the marble floor of his court like defeated and subjugated enemies. As Skar lowered himself to the ground, obeying his emperor's command, he swore to destroy the Arc empire and to bring the Dryn family to its knees through fire and blood. Historians in Pheff have dated the coronation of Veder a Dryn as the start of Del'Marah's 'century of struggle'