Mornal Empire
Except for the Mornals themselves, most speak of the Mornal Empire as they might a plague, or the end of the world.
Legends say the Mornals first washed over Northern Olveiria from the west: either across what is now called the Ferrakhilian Sea, or possibly from the southwest, out of the Xurxi Pass, or even the Mouth of the Mountains farther south. They conquered all of Northern Olveiria, with some legends saying they once ruled the entire Olveirian Continent; if so, however, evidence of their presence in what is now the Batsalian Union has been wiped from the earth.
If so, it would be a fitting end. The Mornals were magicians in the Orckid fashion: using musical instruments and glyphs to terrify and overpower others. Yet the Mornals were a very male-dominated society, and even amongst their numbers a woman's magic was greater than a man's. As such, they feared magic even as they wielded it, and the written word was destroyed in nearly every people they conquered. This means that all the people they mastered have had their histories, cultures, and identities wiped clean, even as they were enslaved by their vicious, ghastly masters.
The beginning of the end for Mornalith was said to be a split between brother and sister, when an Emperor had named his daughter as his heir. The son railed and fought against this, yet somehow failed to defeat his sister, and was banished across the Bitter Sea. He took several powerful warlords with him to try and conquer Kynaj, and these departures are said to have created opportunities that turned many powerful men against one another. Whether a generation later, or several hundred years, Mornalith eventually became so chaotic as to allow the slaves to rise up and overturn their masters.
The Empire's fall birthed many new nations, mostly from those they had once dominated. Though Mornalith lives still, they are less than a shadow of what they once were, and their efforts to fly back across the Ferrakhilian Sea has proved frustrated, stymied by whatever shadowy threats now occupy the Farther West.
