History of the Human Realms

The Early Humans

Historians of humanity tend to agree on a single major origin story for the folk, with oral histories and scant written texts suggesting that they came from a land of great rolling hills to the east of the Great Steppe. Speculated reasons for the migration vary, however, ancient tales tell of a ‘beckoning’ west the ancient chieftains heeded, but modern historians consider a constriction of natural resources and territorial conflicts. Nevertheless, a great migration at ~2,500 BA occurred, around the same period that the Elves came to the Westerlands, and the early Human tribes came to the continent.
Many settled along the lands stretching from the Spine across to the Western Sea, populating the lands that would become Malvas, the Marches, the Free Cities and Nevar. Further populations spread into the lands of the Elder River and even further south through Olifia. These fartherflung populations were much thinner in number, and contended with Elven tribes and the peoples of Olifia, failing to make as many permanent footholds with the exception of the continent of Volya, where they came to be ruled under the aegis of the Dragon Vozhd.
The bulk headed west and dealt with massive old growth forests populated by the thinly spread Halfling peoples. The so-called Wars of Settlement were destructive, but by the time the human tribes settled in cities of mud and thatch and perfected their bronze and copper civilization the conflict had been thoroughly won by humanity (see: The Wars of Settlement)
The resultant human-dominated lands were not by any means unified. All the lands north of the Green Mountains and west of the Elder River would over the ensuing centuries become ruled by a patchwork of nomadic tribes, priest-queens and city-states. The most populous and technologically advanced of these civilizations lay on the West Bay, now known as the Bay of Domitia.
It was these lands which would become known as Nevar, but even so as bronze and copper eventually gave way to iron, the lands remained disparate. The first movements away from this anarchic state of affairs came with the rise of Gaeanism. According to the First Canticle, the people of the city-state of Kyro experienced a mass vision through a collective seizure. To them was revealed the shape of the world and the message of many icons. The Mother, the Warden, the Stormcaller and a dozen more each imparted the truth of the heavens. Scholars estimate the event occurred at around 1,500 B.A.
The tale then goes on that the messages of the icons of Gaea were written down in the Canticle, and spread throughout the lands as missionaries and holy warriors took to the road with newfound Faith Magic burning against the Verdant Faithful who had previously dominated the hearts of humanity.
Some scholars have viewed this event with some skepticism, due to the massive magical power that it would necessitate and the lack of any events like it following the many years since. They wrote that the more likely solution was a smaller scale event by a group of mystics, who must have either used a spell or simply had a psychedelic episode from consuming some magical drug. These scholars don’t voice such criticisms in lands governed by Gaeans.
Regardless of the truth of the vision, by 900 BA, the faith of Gaeanism had spread far and wide among the human realms, a united belief that would serve to bind humanity as the first stirrings of Empire arose in the City-State of Metilia based in Kyro, with the rise of then-Queen Domitia, who many have termed ‘the Great’ for her foundation of the Nevarine Empire.

The Nevarine Empire

Before 900 BA, the Metilias were the rulers of a city-state named after their own august personages. Within the walls of Metilia, they were little more than a band of warlords that styled themselves queens, though the potent iron reserves in the surrounding hills made their forces a formidable threat to any who would oppose them. It was with the ascension of Domitia, daughter of the past queen, that ignited the events to come.
Ascending to the rulership of the city at the young age of 17, Domitia was always an adventurous soul. Soon after her reign began, she led expeditions against threats ranging between manticore nests, Dark Elf reaver coves, and Halfling raiding parties around the area. Her steadfast ally in all these tales was her younger sister, Princess Valeria Metilia. While Domitia wielded sword and shield in their great battles, Valeria was an expert markswoman, wielding a bow with deadly precision. Together, they gained fame and glory among her subjects and even beyond, as tales were told of the bold queen and the fierce princess across Nevar.
Seven years into Domitia’s reign, the two went on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Kyro, center of the faith of Gaea. The religion was still highly decentralized at the time, with many cities practicing sects that could hardly be more different from each other, and it was the Metilias who championed the Icon of the Warden above all else, shunning the other aspects of the goddess. Unlike the other myriad pilgrims who came to visit Kyro though, Domitia was apparently found by the Goddess herself.
Emerging from the depths of the caves beneath the city, Domitia held a massive warhammer, glowing with strange, apparently holy power. She claimed to have been given an audience with all of the Icons of Gaea, who charged her with uniting her flock under one banner and granted her a righteous weapon to see the task done. In the name of the Mother, the Warden, the Stormcaller, and all the other Icons, she claimed the title ‘Empress’ and the hammer her ‘Imperatrix Hammer.’
She was not alone in having ventured deep below the holy city, however. The religious histories write that Valeria’s mind was wracked by jealousy for her sister’s fame and glory, and envied the crown that sat on her head. While Domitia ventured into the sacred embrace of the Icons, Valeria strayed from the holy path, and was apparently found by the Mother of Chaos, Diabla.
The stories tell that Diabla spilled poison into the princess’ ear, seducing her to the side of darkness. In her hand was placed Dreamfire, a longbow burning with the sinister ambitions of the Demon Queen. The tales of the Diabolists paint a different picture, however, of a woman lorded over by her violent and domineering sister given a chance to fight for her freedom. Dreamfire was meant as a tool for liberation, not corruption, they claim.
Regardless, from that day forth, the two sisters were as mortal enemies as any other, aware of each other’s choice and hating her for it. Domitia did not rush to confront her sister, however, instead marching with her Imperatrix Hammer to the palace of Kyro. The longtime rulers of Kyro, the Messala Dynasty, were far from amused by her claim of imperial authority. They refused to bow to her, and the Priest-Queen of Kyro instead challenged her to a duel, declaring that Gaea would favor her true chosen.
It was to be a largely one-sided affair, as Priest-Queen Irene Messala was easily trounced by the otherworldly might behind Domitia’s warhammer. The gathered Kyrons and pilgrims, awestruck by the charisma and strength of Domitia, bowed before her and proclaimed her their Empress. The victorious Domitia took Messala’s husband, Marcus Drusus, for her own and claimed she would rule as far as Gaea’s light shined, joining her city-state of Metilia with Kyro.
Domitia would proceed to march south, sending out couriers to Metilia to rally her old armies with the newly faithful. Over the next several years she conquered the entire eastern coastline of the bay. In 890 BA, the legends say, she raised her imperial flag over the city-state of Minucia and connected her empire from both ends of the peninsula.
Her sister was not resting idle either. Valeria held no territory and achieved no conquests, but throughout the peninsula and beyond she sought out the downtrodden and the dispossessed of their iron age society. To Gaeans, she was a vile corruptor, twisting their desires to follow her own. To Diabolists, she was a beacon of hope, enkindling the flame of ambition within their hearts. Over the same decade, she amassed a cult, known as the Canticle of Dreams, across the lands, earning the enmity of clergy and nobility and the adoration of vagrants and bondsmen.
It was in 885 BA that their forces truly clashed. Domitia’s imperial legion had just captured the city of Aedinia on their march northwards and celebrated within the great banquet hall. That night, the forces of Valeria’s Canticle of Dreams overtook the battered walls and attacked, intent on destroying the supposed tyrant Domitia. The fighting was fierce, with Emperor-Consort Drusus rallying the drunken soldiers to arms against the heretic foe.
The true contest, though, would unfold on the battlements of Aedinia’s walls as Domitia and Valeria confronted each other for the first time in 15 years. Whatever words that were exchanged were lost to history, and soon they began their duel. Valeria used the magic Diabla taught her to stay nimble and out of the crushing grasp of the Imperatrix Hammer, pelting Domitia with arrows of pure light that the Empress narrowly dodged.
The duel would continue for some time, with all eyes on which royal sister and her deific patron would prevail. It was Domitia who finally caught up with her sister, haggard and wounded from Dreamfire’s assault, she nevertheless landed a shattering blow in her sister’s chest, causing her to careen to the ground. Domitia kicked the crippled body of her sister to the rocky cliff sides beyond the battlements, and the tales proclaimed that the sickening crunch could be heard for a mile around.
With the death (or martyrdom, from the Diabolist perspective) of Valeria, Domitia’s legend and empire were secure. She would continue to conquer and govern the burgeoning realm left to her, most importantly founding the Academia Prima to educate the future and establishing a formalized structure for the Church of Gaea and its many Icons. It would be in 854 BA when the Empress passed away, not in battle as she always boasted she would, but elderly and in her sick bed, surrounded by her family which grew to populate the famed Metilia dynasty.
Domitia was succeeded by her eldest daughter, beginning a near millenia long tradition, and over the next five centuries the new Nevarine Empire grew and grew. As luck would have it, a series of wise and courageous Empresses followed the reign of Domitia the Great, establishing tight relations with the Church, a massive and expertly trained legion, and a robust bureaucracy that would all work as a well-oiled machine to catapult the Empire to greatness.
By the 4th century BA, the Empire stretched from the western shores of the Darkwater against the Nevarine peninsula, to the far eastern plains of Zlotten, to the edge of the Elder River. The Empire appeared as mighty as the Lordships themselves, which as the Phoenix Lord’s Wild Hunts to ripen the human realms for conquest began, sparked conflict to come. It seemed as with the institutional foundations set aside by the Wise Empresses of the Metilia Dynasty, the Empire might overcome those challenges one day, and challenge the Elven Lords themselves for supremacy over the continent. This, in fact, almost came to pass, but the cost would eventually bring the Empire to ruin, and shatter it into turmoil.

The Dead Emperor

"Hail the Emperor! Upon an undying throne he sits, blessed by Warden and Mother with eternal strength and will to fight against all who might oppose his ineffable will!”

— Hymn of the Imperial Church, 315 BA

Few individuals have had as much impact on the history of the human realms as Emperor Tasmoros Metilia, commonly known as the Dead Emperor. Born as the second child, a son, to the long-reigning Metilia dynasty of the Nevarine Empire, Tasmoros was known as a talented and clever prince, but always yearned for the true power that the throne held. When his mother died and his older sister was set to take the throne, Tasmoros invoked a rare tradition, trial by combat, to determine the new ruler. After a battle that nearly leveled the Imperial Palace, Tasmoros stood alone and triumphant, taking the throne in 368 BA. He became an energetic ruler, reforming the provincial military system, reorganizing the bureaucracy and centralizing his control over the state. His younger brother, Prince Lazarus, was his chief advisor, especially in matters of magic. More than a few notables opposed these measures, but Tasmoros was not above culling their numbers to maintain power.
Overall, however, he was viewed as a just, if harsh, Emperor. This all changed in 350 BA, when a border dispute between the Eternal Lordships and the Empire over the human city of Serin blew up into a much more consequential war. Tasmoros dutifully raised the legions and marched to war, meeting the Elven forces at Serin along the West Elder River. The battle was a clear defeat for the humans, with Tasmoros being crippled by the Phoenix Lord Arianwyn in single combat. She taunted (or pitied, depending on the telling) him for his lack of strength, and left him to die on the field. A mortally wounded Tasmoros was slowly brought back to Kyro for treatment, dying by god-inflicted battle wounds. It was along this arduous journey that Lazarus proposed an alternative to his brother's death. He had learned a powerful animatic ritual, many suspect by stealing from the Dark Elves that could make Tasmoros into a god among men. The ritual would come at a heavy price, making Tasmoros into a shell of who he once was, an all-powerful creature of undeath known as an Archlich, but desperate for revenge against the Elves, he accepted. After nearly a year sequestered away from the world in the catacombs of Kyro, Tasmoros emerged once more to the Empire, radiating with power and a new unlife to match what he had lost. And with that, the reign of Tasmoros the Man ended, and the reign of the Dead Emperor began.
Many were horrified in the royal court as to Tasmoros' transformation, especially the High Priestesses of Gaea, who refused to bow to an undead ruler. Tasmoros, his extremism enhanced in unlife, executed the ‘traitorous’ members of the clergy that lived in the capitol as a lesson against those who would refuse to bow. In an unprecedented move, Tasmoros instituted an ‘Imperial Church’. The Imperial Church was a Humanocentric religion that venerated Tasmoros as the undying prophet-king, empowered by all the Icons of Gaea to crush the Elven realms and place Humanity in the dominant position. To solidify this he confiscated all cemeteries and dead bodies in the Empire, placing them under the control of the state. For years and years a massive army of the Wights grew, bolstered by Vassalich and Vampiric lieutenants who kept the provinces in line.
Despite these massively extreme measures, Tasmoros was not completely hated by the populace. This period of consolidation of power in his reign was marked by massive economic expansion to fuel the war machine, literacy programs and school building to encourage learning of the arcane arts, and the 'payment' of the Empire's debts through the intimidation of their creditors. Tasmoros instituted the first social welfare program in the Empire, an improved pension system to buy the loyalty of veterans. While a vocal minority fought against Tasmoros’ decrees, he enjoyed the support of a large enough section of the population to maintain and grow his hold on power for decades more. Finally, when the armies of the dead were assembled and his power grew, in 310 BA he began marching towards the Elven lands once more.

War of Bone and Blood

The Eternal Lords had foreseen Tasmoros' return, but to them the Empire was a rugged backwater ruled by petty chieftains. Sights were set on the conquest of Olifia and other areas deemed more civilized by the Elves. Only the Phoenix Lord, ever hungry for battle, thought to meet Tasmoros' legions with more than a token force. Meeting once more at their previous battleground of Serin, the Elves were outmatched for the first time in hundreds of years of military conflicts. Despite their arcane and technological advantages, the enormity of the army of living and dead was able to encircle the Elven army, taking apart their formations with the methodical precision of an undying, eternally patient general. Finally Tasmoros and Arianwyn fought once more, and to either joyous or horrific surprise, the Archlich slew the Phoenix Lord, standing triumphant over the battlefield.
While Arianwyn, like the other Eternal Lords, was immortal as her Phoenixian namesake and would rise from her own ashes, this was a massive blow to the Elves, and for a brief period, chaos and confusion reigned as the Eternal Lords gathered themselves and their forces to retaliate. This allowed Tasmoros to lead his armies across the Lordship of Mathan, battering aside opposition and forcing Elves to flee. Driven by a deep desire for the humiliations the Eternal Lords had placed upon them, the Dwarves of Val Doral rose their forces to join the armies of Tasmoros after his victory at Serin. The indentured servants that toiled throughout the Elven lands were pressed into military service and the army grew even further off conscription and raising of undead. Finally, in 306 BA, the armies of the Empire reached the Godslake, and prepared to besiege the Elven megacity of Illis Vahadell. With great magic and Dwarven engineering he tasked his army with building a fleet to conquer the city after the bridges were sundered. By now the Eternal Lords stood together (or at least claimed to, certain historians have noted that only Arianwyn and Imizael, whose lands were directly attacked by Tasmoros, joined the war personally), and prepared for a battle to end the threat from the Dead Emperor. But fate had other plans in mind.
The war effort, 4 years in, had exhausted the treasury of the Empire, leading to higher and higher taxes to support Tasmoros' war against the Elves. An unprecedented number of citizens were conscripted into the war, creating shortages at farms across the country. This led to a horrific famine, the worst in Imperial history. Tens of thousands died, and hundreds of thousands more starved and grew angry. The underground clergy of Gaea, taking advantage of this anger, plotted with the nobility to end Tasmoros' reign, once and for all. In the winter of 306 BA, the Emperor's cousin, Consentia Metilia, rose the eastern provinces in rebellion, claiming that due to the 'death' of the emperor and his brother, who had in years since become a Vampire, she was the rightful ruler of the Empire.
When Tasmoros heard of this challenge, he was infuriated. Sending his brother to put down the rebellion, Lazarus led a large contingent of the army northwards. Clashing at the Battle of Hochfeld, the armies of the rebel Consentia had a high number of holy priests and skilled Magisters, who exploited the close control exerted over the undead by the generals of the army to assassinate them shortly before the battle. With the undead leaderless, they were quickly disposed of, and Lazarus himself was presumed dead. The Battle of Hochfeld was a decisive defeat for the Dead Emperor, and when he heard of it grew in such a rage that he slew a number of his own officers, further damaging the war effort. By now the Elven armies had prepared, and with little other choice and a weakened army, Tasmoros withdrew from the field and began a long, painful march back to Kyro once more.
On his slow journey back to Kyro, more and more provinces rose in rebellion, but Tasmoros still held a formidable force, one that grew with each dead body his forces collected. It wouldn't be long, many thought, until his forces regained strength once more, bolstered by those killed by war or famine. It was here, at this crucial juncture, that the rebel Consentia, the Eternal Lords, and Aelgrim, the Undying Lord of Dark Elves, met to reluctantly ally against the mad Archlich. The other six Dwarven Halls contributed soldiers and material to the effort, and the Painted Halflings of the North sent their best Vates. It was clear to almost all that Tasmoros would not stop his war of animatic annihilation with the Elves, and they agreed that he posed a mutual existential threat to independent realms across the continent.
In the only time Dark and High Elves, Humans, Dwarves and Halflings formally allied, their forces joined and marched after Tasmoros. One by one, they destroyed his reliquaries, powerful artifacts that he split his soul into. While Tasmoros had shielded them from every physical and arcane attack there was, he failed to account for the Soul Magic Halflings wield. For each reliquary, an elder Vate sacrificed themselves by consuming the piece of his soul and being subsequently killed by the discharge of animatic energy. Eventually, he was besieged in his capital and with few options, Tasmoros began one last desperate plan.
With his most faithful animati, he prepared a ritual to turn the entire capitol into wights, slaying hundreds of thousands in the process. When word of this broke out, it was the last straw for the regime's remaining loyalists. The only living who remained loyal were the Dwarven Blackguards of Val Doral, who purged the dissidents, but could not stop them before they opened the gates. The coalition forces entered into the capitol, a massive battle erupted but after hours of intense magical barrages, the tide turned. In a final pitched battle, the Eternal Lords Imizael and Arianwyn, and Lord Aelgrim the Undying joined forces for the first time since the War of the Seven to battle Tasmoros and his honor guard with Consentia's human armies. There were steep losses, but by the day’s end, Tasmoros' physical form was destroyed, and the Archlich was defeated for good.
The war was won, but the entire western half of the continent was ravaged. The Eternal Lords were in no position to take advantage of the weakened Empire to conquer and hold more land with so many Elven dead, and so they departed in uneasy ‘truce.’ As a recompense for sacrificing their people to destroy Tasmoros, the Chill Forest Halflings were granted sovereignty and protection from encroachment by the Empire. The last act of the war would be the destruction of Val Doral by the Eternal Lords in retaliation for their siding with Tasmoros. The newly crowned Empress Consentia II attempted to hold a realm together, divided and devastated by years of external and civil war. This would prove the eventual undoing of the Empire, but for the moment, peace reigned.

The Denarii Crisis

“But for want of a coin my Empire fell, and in pursuit of the ultimate greed we committed the ultimate sin. Forgive me, Goddess, for the realm shall never.”

— Empress Tiberia the Fool’s Abdication Dictate, 118 BA

Few would have expected the great Nevarine Empire, often called even the Human Empire, to be felled by something so small as the coin, after enduring war, famine, natural disaster and a mad Lich emperor. Yet, even the mightiest of empires must pay their dues, and that is what brought the realm of humanity to its knees.
In 304 BA, the Empire was in ruins. Famine and war had killed a near 10% of its entire population, and an outbreak of bloody pox in 302 BA further crippled the recovering realm. Empress Consentia II had made peace with the Elves, but she still had to deal with the extremist holdouts of Tasmoros' "Imperial Church" and pay off the massive debts the crown had accrued during the war. Further payments were made to put the pieces back together from the famine and plague, leaving the Empire's creditors demanding steeper and steeper interest rates. Their credit was shot through after the war, and few knew how to sate the ever hungrier debt collectors, a growing number of which included new creditors from the Elven Lordships, particularly Mathan and Anshara, which were especially eager to increase interest rates in times of diplomatic negotiations.
It was here that Consentia had a plan. By debasing the imperial coin, the denar, she could increase the money supply and pay off more of the crown's debts. Despite having existed for 600 years in its present state, the denar remained at a steady and relatively high percentage of gold, which had created trust in the monetary system, but increased the financial burden of minting coinage. The Imperial Mint alone took up an outsized percentage of the Empire's bureaucracy and civilian budget. Through the four decades Consentia would reign, she began a careful process to secretively debase the denar. It was moderately successful, and the Empire had begun to crawl out of the hole Tasmoros' madness had placed it in. With a cautious and measured stewardship of the debasement process, the Empire could well have pulled itself together and reclaimed its status as a political, economic and military heavyweight. Yet the Empire was befallen by the mightiest enemy any mortal could face, greed.

The False Golden Age

Consentia's daughter and heir, Empress Juliana IV, was much less cautious about the debasement strategy. Seeing an opportunity to not only pay off the crown's debts but also fuel a massive economic expansion, she increased pace on the debasement. An unprecedented amount of coin began flowing into the crown's treasury, and the debtors began to be finally paid off. However there was a need for secrecy in this endeavor, for if found out, the value of the empire's currency would collapse, expenses would skyrocket and the inflation they had been hiding would truly kick in. As a result Juliana contracted the Guild of Shadow Weavers, a once minor criminal guild of shadow mages, to keep the debasement a secret at any price. With the backing of the entire Imperial security infrastructure, the Shadow Weavers and their enigmatic leader, the Lady in Shadow were able to keep a lid on public knowledge.
However there were still issues of government officials who knew about the operation by accident or virtue of their jobs. To keep them quiet, the Empress paid them the 'real' value of their salary, which over time began to steadily bloat the expenses of the Imperial budget. But with money as easy flowing as it was, this did not seem to be a problem for Juliana or her successors. Massive stimulus projects ensued, building new sections of the Imperial Road, expanding the Imperial Navy to protect trade routes, and constructing expansive public sanitation systems in the major cities of the Empire. A false "Golden Age" bloomed as household income rose sharply and families had enough coin to spend on getting their children educations and moving off ancestral plots in favor of burgeoning cities. Literacy blossomed, and the number of arcanists in the realm grew.
By 148 BA, the False Golden Age was in full swing. The Empire had reclaimed its position as a counterweight to the Elven realms and secured the territorial integrity of the Empire's borders. It was at this time when Empress Tiberia the Fool took the throne. Having long enjoyed the fruits of the debasement policy, Tiberia was a much more indolent and luxury seeking ruler than the Empire had previously had. The great sums of money the Empire had accumulated were being put more and more towards exquisite palaces, decadent pleasures and lavish empire-wide tours for the Empress. Statues and monuments were built in her honor in every major city. As a result even the Empire's mighty surpluses began to diminish as a result of this extraordinary waste. Tiberia then further increased the pace of the debasement process to fund her lavish expenses.
It was at this time, as the story goes, that four accomplished mages in Kyro were relaxing at an inn when it came time to pay the tab. One drunkenly argued with the bartender, asserting that they didn't need to pay as much because a gold coin wasn't solid gold. The bartender challenged the mage, and as a result the mage decided to cast a spell of her own devising to determine the quality of the coin. What she saw was that the gold coin barely had more worth than a silver by 129 BA. Shocked by this finding, the mages retreated home and began to ruminate on the significance of this finding. Short on funds but not hubris, they decided to blackmail the Empress, challenging them to pay them off or they would notify the Empire through a series of sending spells.
Desperate to keep a lid on the debasement and retain her luxurious spending, Tiberia ignored the pleas of her advisors to use the Shadow Weavers to silence the mages and began to pay them off. The mages however demanded their payment in 'real value,' which meant an exorbitant amount of gold flowing into this Alchemical Cabal. To keep up this arrangement the mages established a complex series of sending runes that would notify every major guild, noble, and creditor of the empire, both at home and abroad, with their payments. They grew bolder and greedier, and demanded more denarii for their compliance. This only further incentivized the even more extreme debasement of the denar.
Finally, at her wit's end and desperate to keep the Empire afloat, Tiberia finally greenlit the assasination of the mages in 120 BA. While wealthy, the mages were no trained fighters, and three of their number were quickly slain by the Shadow Weaver magic. But one survived through a well timed teleportation spell, and with little choice, activated the sending runes. Within minutes, every merchant, noble and creditor of significance on the continent learned of the debasement, and how little their coins were truly worth. They soon told this to friends and hoarded currency, and word leaked out. The trade system collapsed as merchants realized the massive pace of inflation, the nobles had bankrupted their estates massively, and the creditors demanded blood for this affront. In short, the entire Imperial economy, the lynchpin for millions, died in a day.

The Decay of the Empire

The people themselves were not slow to respond to this crisis. To maintain the staggering level of debasement the Imperial Mint had become the largest civilian branch of the government, and had offices and mints in every town over 10,000 people at least, and every major mine. Within the week, protests emerged at each and every single location. The Imperial Army, more furious than anyone, demanded their wages in real value or they would join the protestors and overthrow the government. The government simply did not have the ability to finance this, and it seemed as though the Empire would truly and properly die, if it was not for the timely intervention of the Church of Gaea. Practically emptying their reliquaries and vaults, church artifacts were melted down for their gold and silver value and carted to the treasury. The High Priestesses knew that if the Empire was to fall, the centralized state apparatus which allowed them to standardize and control the worship of Gaea would fall as well. Every city would have their own High Priestess with no input from the Church in Kyro, and heresy would bloom.
Due to this gift from the Church, the army was mostly paid off, and the first immediate crisis was averted. Yet other crises would soon follow. The protests had turned into riots, and the newly placated army was occupied with containing and putting them down. The Imperial Denar was still at best, worth a silver. The currency system had still utterly collapsed, with stop gap measures merely delaying the inevitable. It was at this time that the Imperial Governors of the wealthy southern cities began to plot. Representatives from Ariorpia, Bezela, Emaldrin, Syaran, Makaris and Ventris discussed in a secretive summit how to manage their own crises. They eventually came to a plan. They would organize their own personal militias, take over the mints in their cities and the mines in the Thunder Mountains, and mint a new currency that had a gold percentage half of the original 304 BA denar. While worth less than the original currency, it would be much more than the current 120 BA denar.
The plan itself went off without too much of a hitch, Imperial legionaries being surrounded and deciding to take their bets with the city governments or retreat to Kyro, and the miners and civil servants were certainly more interested in being paid in currency that approached the old standard. In just half a year, the new Free Florin entered circulation and became a massive hit with the merchants and populace of the continent. The usage of the Imperial Denar collapsed even further, and Empress Tiberia was incensed. Declaring that the cities had entered into a state of insurrection, she led an army to put their resistance down and reestablish control. At the mouth of the River Vitate the two armies clashed, but the weaker morale and lower quality equipment of the Imperial Legion due to cost saving measures proved the deciding factor, and after only a few skirmishes the legions withdrew in shame. The cities formally declared independence, which broke off a large chunk of the Imperial GDP and economy, while depriving them of much needed trade networks and mercantile expertise.
It was here that the Imperial Denar essentially died, and as a subtle form of concession, the Free Florin became the dominant currency of the land, even to this day, in the human realms. In 118 BA Empress Tiberia abdicated and joined a cloister in the countryside, and her daughter Empress Augusta I was left with a crumbling realm, kicked in the teeth more than once. Over the following decades the Empire would slowly decay further, bit by bit, until the last piece fell apart in the Imperial Civil War, and the great realm of humanity truly collapsed in any recognizable form.

The Ascension War

“For SHE emerged from Darkness, burdened with Divine Purpose. SHE was the VOICE OF THE GODDESS, bestowed with HER will, given HER sword, and sent forth to save all the nations all from sin.”

— Revelations of Lucia, Apotheosis 10:8

By the twilight of the Before Ascension period, in 00 AA, the Empire was in serious decline. The Free Cities had fully broken away and central state control frayed in the east, with rebellious vassals claiming more independence, and in the north, where Halfling tribes reclaimed forests long since lost to Imperial control. The Eternal Lordships further extended their economic influences, encircling the Empire with trade deals with the Free Cities and breakaway human domains, and the Dark Elf navy burned down the Imperial port of Narses in an act of such devastation that it would not be fully rebuilt to this day. The vultures had long been picking over the rotting Empire by now.
The Imperial decline was not limited to political matters either. Church and State had been intertwined since Empress Domitia the Great proclaimed the unity of the faith a thousand years ago, and the High Priestess of Gaea held total ecclesiastical control over religious practice thanks to this alliance with the throne. This had heavily limited any heresies from emerging, but just as state power waned, so did the absolute influence of the Church of Gaea. In these dark days, radical religious movements emerged of a wide variety. Some advocated for reform of the faith, seeing the Church as having grown decadent off the excesses of the Empire, others wished for return to tradition of no central authority governing the church at all. There also were heresies that took things further, such as the Dualists in Ironbark, who were long viewed as suspicious for their belief in the existence of dual divines, Gaea and Terrus.
It was in these times that Lucia of Kyro, a mid ranking Rector in the Church, came to prominence. Lucia was one of the advocates for reform. She believed that the subordinate relationship of the Church to the crown and its vast assets had rendered it deaf to the plights of the people. She advocated for the Church to take a far more active role in the governance of the state, believing the ruling Metilias to have grown uncaring and decayed. Even more controversially, she questioned the Icons. The core tenets of Gaeanism for countless centuries had been that while Gaea was the sole deity in the universe, she had split herself into aspects known as Icons, which were worshiped as separate goddesses themselves. Thus few worshiped Gaea directly, and many worshiped the Mother, the Warden, the Stormcaller, or any of the other dozens of Icons, some sanctioned by the Church and others not.
These advocacies earned her great scorn within the Church, as due to their waning power they exerted an even tighter grip on religious practice within their flock than ever before. Little warning had been given after she began preaching these ideals among her parishioners when the Imperial Guard arrested her for crimes against the faith. Only the harshest of punishments for dissent were issued in these times, and as such Lucia was sentenced to walk into the catacombs beneath the capital Kyro. Kyro had always had a large number of catacombs throughout its existence, holding secret paths that many had been lost in and never returned. Since the War of the Dead Emperor, they were also swarming with a dangerous number of Wights that the Empire saw fit to contain, but rarely possessed the political will or resources to send an army into to cleanse. It had instead become the primary method of capital punishment, as few had ever returned. The only one to protest against her sentence was a Centurion of the Imperial Guard named Apellina, who was close with Lucia.
Many had expected Lucia to simply disappear, claimed by the roaming wights. Few expected her to return the exact way she came weeks later, unexplainable power radiating from her. She claimed that she had communed with Gaea in her trials and tribulations before being given the task of redeeming the people of Elysium from their sin. With the power bestowed upon her, she was to tear down the corrupt edifices of power and reinstate a just rule of the faithful upon the land.
The Churchwomen were aghast, and many of them ran at the very sight of the supposed prophet. They accused her of high heresy, consorting with demons and apostasy. The only one not to flee was Apellina, who knelt before her presence. Some of the more skeptical believed she had found some artifact of great power in the catacombs, and dismissed ideals of a divine revelation. When she addressed the people of Kyro, she spoke with a deep well of charisma beyond anything they had seen before. Many were swayed to her cause, and even began to take up arms for her before the Imperial Guard was sent in to put down the rebellion. Yet when they came to find Lucia after dealing with them, she was gone. She had left the city with a small number of followers, including Apellina. A war had begun in earnest, and it would soon consume the entire Empire.

The Spark of War

By the year when Lucia rose from the catacombs to proclaim her revelations, the Empire was in a sorry state. Yet it was not all gloom. Empress Cassia I was an old woman, who had done her best to right the ship of state as much as she could. At every turn, however, she was confronted by hostile foreign states that wished to pick apart the Empire, unmovable creditors, deep corruption in the bureaucracy and Imperial Legions that were more inclined to remove Empresses and put their own commanders on the throne. Despite this, she had signed new treaties of trade with the Dwarven Halls, secured the support of most of the legions and initiated a slow and incremental reform of the civil service. It was hardly enough to address the shortfalls in state revenue, totally secure the borders or clamp down on dissent, but the Empire was no longer on the absolute brink of collapse.
Further hope had been given by the Empress’ heir, which was unusually a man, her son Prince Gregorius. Gregorius was a sharp commander and strong warrior who had secured much loyalty and respect among his soldiers under his tenure as Magister Militum of the Imperial Legions. He led a resoundingly successful attack against the Dark Elves of Morlond, burning down a Raider Fleet at port, slaying a Vassalich and bringing home great riches for the throne. It was this act among many that caused Empress Cassia to renounce the three century old decree barring men from the line of succession after the Dead Emperor Tasmoros’ demise to allow Gregorius to become Co-Emperor, as all heirs were in the old Empire.
This selection garnered the Empress much loyalty from the legions, but was not as popular as she hoped, as the most zealous took offense at the repeal of the decree. Tasmoros had all but extinguished the Church establishment, and they associated a man on the throne with him more than ever with the fragile ecclesiastical control they had. This strained relations between the Church and State, and the more religious citizens of the Empire began to turn towards anti-Imperial movements and heresies as a result.
Another fissure between the Empire’s citizenry and the Empress was the close alliance with the Guild of Shadow Weavers. Initially contracted centuries prior to guard the throne’s secrets, the once minor criminal network of mages ballooned into an Empire-wide organization employing hundreds of assassins, thieves and con artists. In return for serving as the unofficial intelligence agency of the Empire and quashing rival crime syndicates, the criminal activity of the Shadow Weavers was ‘tolerated.’
The blind eye that the crown took to their misdeeds further incensed many as they found their belongings stolen and cheated away by ‘officially licensed’ criminals. Anyone important who spoke up soon found their throats slit by invisible mages in the night, and their reign of terror grew increasingly unchecked as the Empire relied on them even more heavily for internal security.
When Lucia fled from Kyro with her followers, the Empire and Church initially dismissed the threat from a small band of heretics. The Imperial Legions were deployed along the frontiers for the most part, from as far flung as Zottelen (modern day Orkug) in the far east to Livona along the border with the Free Cities, and thus could not respond as readily even if the Empire wished. This would come to be a great mistake.
The word of Lucia’s sermon and the revolt in Kyro spread quickly among the peasantry of the Empire. Even though many had grown distrustful of what they viewed as a corrupt Church and Empire, the current of religiosity blew strong and priestesses began to urge the common folk to rise up and join what was increasingly seen as a holy war. Clerics devoted to her sermons began to emerge, their zeal powering unprecedented miracles.
The first destination of Lucia’s band was the small port of Narses, where the local magistrates threw the gates open for the small group. From Narses the banner of rebellion grew, concentrated most deeply in the Imperial heartland of Nevar. The richest, most populous and also most religious province, Nevar was the most loyal of all to the Empire, but many factors drove Nevarine Imperials to abandon their nearly a thousand year old Empire for that of a zealous religious movement composed of disaffected priests and peasants.
The existing issues of mistrust for the decision to appoint Gregorius Co-Emperor and to empower the Guild of Shadow Weavers certainly made Empress Cassia unpopular in certain quarters, but a famine that had struck Nevar a year prior was still lingering in the minds of the common folk. This famine coincided with a particularly bad year of debt negotiation with Imperial creditors, who mistrusted the Imperial Treasury heavily since the Denarii Crisis, leading to steeper interest payments and stricter debt collection. With many of the Empire’s creditors residing in the Free Cities, the Empire was hardly able to place much pressure on them.
As a result, just as farmers were recovering from the famine the year prior, a new wave of taxation, including a new poll tax, hit to raise further funds to pay the Empire’s interest and the payroll of the Imperial government. This rose fury even before Lucia’s sermon, and a wave of poll tax riots shook the once-loyal peninsula’s cities. The legions put them down, but resentment simmered hotter than ever before towards the Empire. All it needed was a spark, something that Lucia and her followers provided readily.

The Imperial Civil War

The fall of Narses in the winter of 0 AA began the war proper, as cities across the Empire were overtaken by the forces pledging loyalty to Lucia. The rebellion was in many cases concentrated among the province of Nevar, the homeland of the Empire and what many saw as the most devout. From the port of Narses missionaries and agents of Lucia traveled to Kyro, Aedinia, Artoria, Laevenia, and Minucia to spread the word of the prophetess. The most loyalist regions in the peninsula were the capital of Kyro and the city of Metilia, the ancestral home of the dynasty, while the western and northern coasts soon became hives of rebel insurrection.
While one might have expected such a large swathe of seaborne operations to be set upon by reavers hailing from the Dark Elves, their ships seemed less active than usual. Empire loyalists accused the Dark Elves of colluding with Lucia and her zealots to divide the Empire and steep it in undeath, but no such proof emerged.
In the succeeding year, few pitched battles or sieges were fought, the great swathe of violence being skirmishes between Lucia’s fighters and the provincial soldiers as the Empire’s legions were led west from their bases in Malvas and north from Livona to put down the insurrection. At the head of that mass of soldiers was Co-Emperor Gregorius, whose legions were drawn from eastern stock that remained politically loyal to the crown and religiously loyal to the Icons.
Increasingly, the support base for the Empire was the comparatively more impoverished and disconnected east. In one of the wiser actions of the Empire before the Civil War broke out, Gregorius made sure to distribute the spoils of war from his successful expeditions against the Dark Elves evenly among the provinces, abrogating centuries long tradition which placed a majority stake to the imperial homeland, leaving the provinces to pick over scraps. Gregorius had also married into a branch of wealthy and well liked gentry in the east, specifically Magda of the von Malvas family, which had previously feuded with the throne often. For these actions, Gregorius was increasingly seen as an man of Malvas rather than one of Nevar, upsetting the already incensed Nevarine populace but garnering loyalty among the east.
As such, Gregorius’ bringing the eastern legions to Nevar proved to have benefits and drawbacks. He garnered a much needed military relief for his mother and the imperial establishment which was beset at all ends by rebel uprisings and religious fervor. This allowed the Empress to hold onto the capital at a time of cascading riots and sabotage by rebel forces.
However, the bringing of provincial legions to the imperial heartland caused further outrage among the populace. Never before had the provinces made war on the heartland, and the mere action of making war upon their own people made the already discontented Nevarine citizenry alienated from their long standing dynasty, who seemed to be embracing a people that they, even after centuries upon centuries of union, still saw as part of their Empire, not truly brethren.
Matters were not helped by the ambitions of the eastern legions themselves. They saw the war as a way to right the inequities between province and metropole that had persisted throughout the generations, and the millennialist tendencies of Lucia’s sect offended their more traditionalist sensibilities. Incidents of eastern legionaries looting the homes of those suspected to harbor sympathies towards Lucia’s cause, using the civil war as an excuse to enrich their provinces, were uncommon and often of dubious verification, but it caused long time imperial loyalists to question whether the Empire had their best interests at heart.
With Empress Cassia in her senior years and Gregorius looking to be a sure successor given his position as Co-Emperor, attitudes swayed farther against the Empire, even as battles in the field turned their way, such as the capture of the city of Minucia from rebel forces in 3 AA, due to the tactical wit of Gregorius and the strength of the legions.

Familicide

As the years dragged on, the conflict became even further polarized between west and east. Volunteers from as far as Zottelen signed up less and less to keep the Metilias on the throne and the High Priesthood in power and more to ‘stick it to the stuck-up bastards’ in Nevar. Due to the walls closing around the capital, Gregorius moved to Avesso, close by the peninsula and theater of war yet far enough to coordinate effectively without threat of attack. What he might have seen as a strategic move though made many feel as though the Nevarine Empire was soon to become the Malvan Empire. The rising popular discontent contributed to one of the most dramatic moments of the campaign yet, the Twin Battles of 5 AA
Due to the pressures of war, Lucia and Apellina had separated to command different armies. Lucia led the bulk of the rebel forces, by this time had assembled into a proper army, and had begun to capture towns and cities through force of arms outright. On the eve of Spring 27, 5 AA, the rebel host had just captured the town of Aedenia in the north of Nevar and sat for their evening prayers in contemplation when the sounds of screams rang out and they realized the ambush they were in. Lucia was ensconced with her closest Disciples and fellows in communion with Gaea as the sounds of battle raged and she joined the battle with her own strength too late.
As she rushed to confront the armies and rally her soldiers, she was surrounded by battalions of loyalist soldiers, priests and mages, not to Gregorius himself. In front of both armies, she was unable to shy from battle where it might have otherwise been wise to wait for reinforcements. Lucia possessed incredible abilities granted by her ‘divine blessing’, but against thousands of blows, arrows and magical projectile and Gregorius, one of the greatest warriors the Empire had produced and wielded the fabled artifact of the first Empress Domitia, the Imperatrix Hammer, she was worn down.
The battle was bloody, long and utterly destructive as collateral damage cascaded out from the makeshift dueling grounds in a spectacle that bards and chroniclers would tell to this day, but at the end of it Gregorius managed to just barely overcome her onslaught and supposedly crush her skull with the Imperatrix Hammer, ending the life of the Vox Prima and Prophetess, albeit at the cost of being horribly maimed by the resulting explosion and losing nearly two thousand soldiers in the process.
Even in his gravely wounded state, Gregorius immediately tasked every mage in his army with sending magical missives and depictions of the battle throughout the Empire, calculating that the death of their prophetess would break the resolve of the rebellion. In their excitement the populace of eastern cities such as Blackmoor, Malvas, and Zottelen spread increasingly mythologized pamphlets and carvings of the duel.
Gaea Undivided practitioners cite the martyrdom of Lucia in hindsight as an example of her unending sacrifice she had lent to the sinful souls of Elysium before Gaea, but at the moment it was utterly shocking. Although some rebels fought on in the moment, the bulk surrendered, unable to deny that their prophetess and savior lay dead.
However, the Battle of Aednia was not the only one fought that day. Boiling tensions in Kyro finally exploded with a massive riot against war taxes and in favor of Lucia’s sect. What the city guard thought would be a simple matter of unrest grew grave when the sun set and the rioters attacked the gates and let through an advance force led by Apellina herself, Lucia’s constant companion and general. Aided by forces who destroyed the headquarters of the Guild of Shadow Weavers which the Empress relied upon for intelligence, Apellina’s forces and the rioters captured the city and held the Empress captive, the long standing capital of the Empire having fallen.
The triumph of Apellina and her rebels soon faded when word, and verified news, came of Lucia’s defeat and death at the hands of Gregorius. Rebel formations began to waver and even a few towns outright surrendered at the news, disheartened and crushed by the loss. Gregorius, realizing the impasse they were now at having captured his mother, offered generous terms of peace to Apellina. He offered through a missive that if she peacefully surrendered and let the Empress free, amnesty would be given to Lucia’s followers and Apellina would be allowed to go to exile in the far south in return. Many thought it was only a matter of time before the presumably grieving woman surrendered.
They were wrong. Rather than give up, Apellina was utterly enraged by the death of Lucia. Apellina refused to hear any of Gregorius’ negotiators and shut out all others. Anger and grief soon lent itself to thoughts of justice, or vengeance, depending on which account is to be trusted.
The next chain of events is lost to the mists of time. But there are several things known, if debated. Adherents of Gaea Undivided and loyalists of The Divinate said that with prayer and consulting in the same catacombs that Lucia had ventured into Apellina had found the means to bring justice to the sinful souls of the Metilias. Others say that she may have uncovered an ancient ritual of Animatic Magic dating back to Tasmoros’ reign.
Regardless, the next time Apellina was seen was upon the grand balcony of the Imperial Palace, she had dragged the chained Empress Cassia along with some kind of metallic, rune encrusted orb, the intense otherworldly power that radiated out of Lucia was now hers. She lifted the orb forth and gripping the Empress by the throat, yelled the fateful words that were reverberated throughout all of the continent that day.

“Death to the Metilias!”

The orb shattered into a sphere of pure white lightning, and presumably using the Empress Cassia as a component of some kind, shot into the air, covering the sky like a web of pulsating energy for but a moment. This web and the words were echoed throughout miles and miles, and were reported seen and heard as far East as Kaathlin and as far south as Mahayar. After that brief moment, the pure white lightning struck out, and in a precise and near instantaneous manner, slew every single member of the Metilia family.
The spell, the likes of which was never seen before and never seen again, known to history commonly as the Holy Smiting by Gaea Undivided followers and as the Familicide by followers of Gaea Divided, had absolutely no collateral damage at all. At that moment, each and every living individual that possessed Metilia blood in their veins to any significant quantity was struck instantly dead by this lightning.
The lightning was seemingly indiscriminate, with not only members of the immediate Imperial Family slain, but all the cadet dynasties and noble families they had married into to cement their rule over the Empire over the centuries. The old, the young, even children, none were spared. Given how extensive these dynastic relations were, almost the entire aristocracy of the Empire, thousands of people were killed in a flash, annihilating the ruling caste of the nearly thousand year old Empire.
Even Gregorius, as stalwart as he was, was not spared, falling dead to the lightning in the middle of his troops marching on Kyro. In the chaos, the Imperatrix Hammer was lost to history. Entire provinces fell into confusion as their leadership was vaporized. The Imperial Army nearly collapsed during infighting as their commanders and many officers had perished.
However, the followers of Lucia rallied with this seemingly divine act having been committed in their favor. With the apparent displeasure of Gaea being made clear, cities and towns of Nevar rose up and the rebels anointed Apellina the second Vox Prima, having gained the seat beside their goddess and honoring Lucia’s martyrdom to bring an end to the heretic dynasty. Apellina named her new rulership the 'Divine State', colloquially known as The Divinate, and made plans to incorporate the whole of the Empire in them.
Matters soon became clear, however, as the remaining Imperial loyalists and soldiers gathered under the banner of Gregorius’ wife, Magda von Malvas. With no imperial successors, her husband and children dead, Magda crowned herself Empress and took on the leadership of the armies. It seemed to many as the Civil War would continue further as armies clashed once more.
This was not to be. The warfare had exhausted both Nevar and the east, and started to fragment the Empire further. The cities of Livona and Avesso, seeing the war continue further, declared their secession from the Empire and became members of the Free Cities. This served as a wake up call to Apellina and Madga that their domains could continue to disintegrate if they fought.
So, with supreme and utter reluctance, they met to negotiate on neutral ground in the Chill Forest of the Halflings. Apellina hated Madga for being the wife of the man who slew Lucia, and Madga hated Apellina for being the woman who slew her husband and children. Yet, a truce was signed, what many saw as a but a brief pause in war came about with the lines upon the current territories of control. Apellina would rule the Nevarine Peninsula and Magda would rule the east of the Empire. The tense Truce of the Woods came into being then, and the Imperial Civil War ended, with a dynasty overthrown, an Empire irrevocably shattered, and a new religious doctrine rising.

Apellina’s Theocracy

For nearly a thousand years, Nevar had been governed by the Metilia dynasty through the Empire, a grand structure spanning the length of human civilization. That all came to an end when Apellina was anointed Vox Prima II in 5 AA, proclaimed a ‘divine state of Gaea’, which is now known by the moniker of the Divinate. Apellina had an unenviable task, to rebuild a country, establish a new government and set forth the doctrine of a new sect of a long standing faith.
During the five year Imperial Civil War, Lucia had ruled the towns and villages that fell under her influence with a comparatively deft hand, the spoils of battle being distributed evenly among her followers and the sick and poor being cared for by her priestesses. She herself would often go out among the streets of settlements she was in, using her abilities to help heal and cure those suffering she passed by, garnering deep loyalty among some of the poorest Nevarine citizens.
Apellina was certainly a different woman, one who was hardened by war and more often to commit questionable cruelties to win battles and sieges. Unlike Lucia, who many attested was a warm, affable and charismatic leader who went out among the populace often, Apellina had a moody disposition and preferred the company of her officers to priests or common folk. She was a soldier by training, not a woman of faith, so perhaps it was to be expected.
The majority of Nevar, awestruck by the supposedly divine smiting that Apellina had unleashed and all had seen, quickly took to her as a second prophetess, even if the woman herself seemed supremely disinterested by matters of religious dispensation. Many out of devotion, yet others out of fear. If Apellina could wipe out the entire bloodline of a millennium old empire, who is to say she could not do the same to them? It was a question that even the most fervent of Metilia loyalists had little answer to.
The remainder of Lucia’s priestly followers gathered themselves in the old Grand Cathedral of Gaea in Kyro and began to administer the Revelations of Lucia, the commandments and philosophy that Lucia had dispensed among them. They faced an unenviable task, to assemble the collection of sermons and prayers Lucia had issued into a cohesive religious text that could embody the principles of a Gaea Undivided rather than the divided Icons of centuries past.
Yet while the faith of Gaea had always been important in the matters of state in the Empire, there had always been a strong source of secular government that stood above even the High Priestess. Some wondered aloud if Apellina would found a dynasty of her own, but these rumors were quashed when she obliterated the Imperial Palace of Kyro with fire, declaring to the frightened city dwellers that no Empress would reign again. Titles of nobility, many vacant due to the Familicide, would be abolished. From this day forth, there would only be one woman who stood between Gaea and the people. With her previous display of power only months before, few disagreed.
This left the Disciples in the Sacred Cathedral in a bit of a bind, as none were informed that secular power was to be outright abolished, but they quickly turned around and declared that the administrative matters of state, once left to imperial governors and the bureaucracy, would be governed by a Council of Clerics operating out of Kyro, who would interpret the Revelations and ensure they alone would decide the legal structure of the state.
This abolition of the imperial titles and bureaucracy left a significant gap in the administrative state, as many who could have eased the transition between Empire and Theocracy were ostracized or dead. The interruption in government services caused disruptions in taxation, governance and production as the gears of statecraft ground to a halt.
As such, the first decade of the Divinate began with a rough start, as the fledgling government struggled to manage millions of souls as an entire structure of state had to be rebuilt from the ground up. The Grand Council of Clerics had become the de-facto governing body of the state, as a temporary transition measure had become a permanent organ of statecraft.
Many came to Apellina with petitions and prayers to Gaea, but she remained circumspect in these engagements, preferring to defer to the Grand Council of Clerics despite being the prophetess and second to the goddess herself. Many had predicted that when she died the state would consolidate and secularize, but to the surprise of many, she never aged.
She attributed her apparent eternal youth to the ‘blessing of the Goddess’, and indeed she was revered even more heavily as a prophetess on earth, but those of other sects such as Gaea Divided viewed her as high sacrilege who must be using Animata, a deal with Diabla, or some vile Elf-magic that showed her as a perfidious deceiver. Many acolytes of Gaea Divided in Malvas to this day maintain that she must be a Vampire slaking her thirst on the unfortunates of the city, a theory which many scholars have dismissed due to improbability. In any case, among the rival sects of Gaeanism, Apellina is seen as a heretic of the highest order, an earthly source of ultimate evil that inspires ideals of grand crusades to the west. Nevertheless, to this day, she rules the Divinate, and the people can do little but speculate as to the source of her apparent immortality.

The Eastern Empire

As Apellina established her theocracy in the west, the east struggled just as much. The nobility had been far stronger in the east than west, with Imperial governors and bureaucrats ruling in Nevar and landholders known as Dynasts being the primary governance in the east. All that had come crashing down in the wake of the death of thousands of nobles in the Familicide, and the newly self-crowned Empress Magda needed to find a way to restore order to a land that was going untaxed and ungoverned.
Magda accomplished this by changing what it meant to be a noble. She elevated the remaining Dynast landowners into positions of formal nobility, establishing a far more feudal structure in areas of the Empire by appointing titles such as ‘Baroness’, ‘Countess’, and ‘Duchess’ to win over the newly appointed with autonomy and favors. The homeland of Malvas and the eastern plains of Zottelen would remain under the purview of the Imperial demesne and governed by the bureaucracy.
Many other positions were filled in an unusual way, Empress Magda allowed rich merchants and non Dynast landowners to outright buy titles of nobility, by necessity if nothing else, bucking tradition yet allowing new blood and perspective to shore up an aging system. Empress Magda also instituted a new demand based on the fears that emerged from the Familicide, the System of Seconds.
Each noble, no matter how lowly their position, including the Empress herself, needed to designate a ‘Second’ heir, one who they could prove that within three generations was not related to themselves. She led the way with designating her own Second, the first in a long line of many. While this introduced potential for succession crises (which indeed emerged) it effectively immunized the new Imperial aristocracy from completely collapsing to another Familicide spell, which had gripped nobility continent-wide in fear.
The new Empire, which historians term the ‘Empire of Malvas’, stretched from the boundary of the Nevarine peninsula to the eastern steppes of Zottelen, and proved to be a very different beast than the old Empire. More decentralized and reliant on feudal nobility than central bureaucracy, the Empire moved away from the heavy infantry legions of the old Empire to focus on cavalry to ride across the plains that characterized the landscape, anointing knights of the nobility to command soldiers. The old Magisterium of the Empire became a new institution, militarized and used as a crack force under various High Priests of the Duchies to battle against Elves, rebels, and soon, their former brethren in the Divinate.

The Iconomachy

It did not take long for the peace between the Empire and Divinate to collapse. In 45 AA, a skirmish broke out in the woodlands of northwestern Redrock which both sides blamed on each other when it grew especially bloody. With little effort at peace and the elderly Empress Magda and Vox Prima Apellina still bearing a decades old grudge, the war started once more.
The armies of the two nations clashed at the Battle of the Ashen Fields north of Redrock in 46 AA, when the Divinate’s forces decisively defeated the Empire, routing their cavalry legions with Apellina herself leading the charge. Few escaped the battle with the ruthlessness demonstrated by her and the newly formed Inquisitors, holy warriors trained in Gaea Undivided to root out heresy.
Many observers thought that with the defeat at the Ashen Fields, the Divinate were to sweep across the Empire and end it once and for all. However, they did not expect an unlikely occurrence, the entry of the Free Cities. Each city, allied together, declared that as adherents of Gaea Divided and the nature of the conflict being religious, they would join the Empress in alliance. The forces of the Cities, augmented by mercenary regiments from Olifia and Raksaa, marched to rout the Divinate at the Siege of Redrock in the same year. Outnumbered by the combined forces, the Divinate had little choice but to halt their offensive, ending the first war of the ‘Iconomachy.’
Many scholars suspect that the motives for the Free Cities joining the alliance against the Divinate was less of an action of religious camaraderie with the Empire and more a strategic geopolitical move, as if the Empire collapsed the Divinate could turn their full might to subjecting the cities under their rule. Neither the Empire nor the Cities could stand against the Divinate alone, but together they could hold their armies at bay.
Over the succeeding centuries, several wars were fought by the two sides of the religious divide, doctrinal wars over even the smallest fissures between them exploding into bloody conflicts. However, with the geopolitical stalemate maintained by and large, the majority of the ‘Iconomachy’ as it came to be dubbed was conducted within their various countries.
Heresy, before a relatively minor problem in the Empire, became a national crisis throughout the human realm. The religious orders in the east and west, The Magisterium and Inquisition respectively, turned their attention towards suspects of their rival doctrines spreading dissent and their own beliefs within their borders. The leaders of faith became increasingly paranoid of their own sects being undermined from within, and religious practices and philosophies were made more rigid and unchanging.
More pressing was the fear of so-called heretics within their own borders. Hunts of members of their rival religious sect would occur in many a city during the Iconomachy, where those accused of adhering to a different sect, truthfully or not, often faced grim and bloody fates at the hands of Magisters and Inquisitors. Thus many casualties of the Iconomachy did not come from battlefields or sieges, but instead from executions and punishments of their own citizenry.
Followers of Gaea Undivided and Divided were not the only ones who suffered during the Iconomachy. Other Gaean sects such as the Dualists were placed under suspicion and persecution writ large as they were accused of deviancy and heresy. Where once before the Empire tolerated a few alternate sects as long as they swore fealty to the throne, now only total unity of faith would suffice under Empire or Divinate. Even the Free Cities were occasionally moved to punish merchants of foreign faiths, causing a downturn in commerce as non-Gaeans were increasingly fearful of being wrapped up in heretic hunts
Perhaps one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Iconomachy however had little to do with the division between Undivided and Divided faiths. For centuries The Painted Folk Halflings of Northern Nevar were allowed to exist in relative peace by the Empire so long as they occasionally sent tribute when demanded and on-paper acknowledged the supremacy of the throne. In 167 AA, this changed when a group of zealous Divinate missionaries attempted to convert an isolationist tribe in the Frostpeak Forests. When the scattered survivors reported that their leader’s soul was consumed by the Ovate in retaliation for some misdeed, imagined or real, conflict began to brew.
In 170 AA, Apellina declared war on the Halflings of all forests in the Divinate, declaring that they had a simple choice in punishment for their sins. Convert or die. In the succeeding decades, countless old growth forests, long untouched by humans, were burned to the ground by fire as the Divinate armies slowly cut their way across the tribes of Halflings that refused to kneel.
Known as the Scouring to many, it resulted in thousands of Halflings dead and many more displaced in the Divinate, where they were forced to give up their religion and culture to assimilate into human society. However, the Frostpeaks were not entirely cleared out, as the war exacted heavy tolls on the Divinate’s soldiers, with the guerilla tactics of the Painted Folk honed for centuries upon centuries, and the mages of the Divinate having no defense against the Vatic Magic that assaulted the souls of their soldiers with reckless abandon. Eventually, when another war between the Free Cities and the Empire broke out, the Divinate was forced to suspend their campaign in 197 AA, but to this day many Halflings of the forests prepare for when the Divinate might return once more.

Fall of Malvas

The Empire preserved for over 200 years as a powerful state in its own right, boundaries stretching from the hill country of Redrock to the eastern steppes beyond Zottelen. However, all this changed in 245 AA. For some time merchants and travelers along the eastern borders of the Empire reported great movements of peoples from beyond the Spine Mountains and the Great Steppe. Some suspected that it could be an invasion from the Elves wrapping around, or others a lost Hall of Dwarves.
None expected the Greenkin, Goblins and Orcs, to arrive. While the Goblins turned their eyes south towards the Dwarven Halls, hundreds of thousands of Orcs traveled west in great numbers of nomadic, horse riding tribesmen, seeking plentiful grazing ground for their mounts and lands in which to settle. The sparse, almost desert-like conditions of the Great Steppe wore on their numbers hard, but it was in the plains and steppes east of the Red River that they saw a chance to build their people anew.
With the Plains of Zottelen already settled by human farmers for centuries, conflict was inevitable as the farmlands made the geography difficult for horse grazing and the Imperial citizenry were less than keen on the nomadic foreigners entering their long held territories. The Warchiefs of the Bagdud began to encroach on the outlying plains, trampling enclosures and grazing their horses upon the land as the human farmers who had made these lands home for centuries fled in fear to the cities.
Empress Mathilde viewed this as an outrage and marshaled the legions from across the Empire to march east to confront the nomadic horse riders upon the Plains. However they were far from prepared to face the threat, the heavy infantry and cavalry of the Empire melting in the face of the versatile mounted gunners, termed dragoons, who unleashed their firepower upon a military that had only just been introduced to black powder weapons. The resulting Battle of Zottelen was a disaster and saw the Empress Mathilde herself be captured, only traded back in exchange for vast tracts of farmland.
The loss of the Plains was a devastating blow to the Empire, who had come to rely on their produce to feed many of their citizenry. More and more the Empresses relied upon their Ducal subordinates to pick up the slack, which fueled resentment due to increased obligation and gave them more power over the succeeding century.
It was not until the Great War that matters became critical. When Empress Viktoria sent her legions south to aid the Free Cities and attack the Eternal Lordships, the Great King Varak Ushug declared a renewed conflict upon the Empire and seized many of the territories on the eastern bank of the Red Rivers, leaving the capital of Malvas besieged in 313. With the legions battling at the Gates of Fire or The Sisters, the Empire couldn’t pull back their forces without risking a full on Elven invasion. Yet, the Empress was forced to, ordering her forces to reinforce Malvas and leave the war.
While the legions raised in Malvas proper came home, some refused. Legio IX stayed with the Allied Forces and at The Sisters, knowing that they would be leaving their own homelands open to destruction by pillaging enemy forces. This outright schism in a time of massive, two front warfare left the Empire in shambles. The Ducal Governors decided now was the time to secede, declaring that the Empress had abdicated her responsibility. The Legio IX at the Sisters likewise declared that they would follow the protection of their fortresses rather than the throne.
Thus the Empire was left as a mere rump state of Malvas, and in the end they would hardly even be that as the great and storied capital of the east fell in 315 to The Bagdud’s warchiefs. The Empire was unable to reclaim it, and settled at the fortress of Greykeep as their new capital. When the peace was signed between the Lordships and the Allied Forces, the Empire was riven into a series of feuding, warring states. To this day the Ducal Lands of the Marches are a place of conflict and constant change as new rulers rise and fall, and mercenary companies dominate the landscape.