Nefel

The mysterious half-fey half-Giant conquerors known as nefeles (sing. nefel) once ruled vast empires across Etheria with most residing in the modern-day nation of Elaeus. Early Etherians who wandered into pre-modern Elaeus found themselves unwittingly and unwillingly subjected under the nefeles who tyrannized the land in the belief that they were imposing a strict justice and protecting the "weaker" (more readily governable) species of early Elaeus—Centaurs, Minotaurs, Satyrs, and Gnomes—from the dangers of far more powerful beings that lurked in the Alpenwode, beneath the seas, in the deserts, and atop the mountains in the names of the Faerir, their divine faerie lords in the fey realm. Beyond Elaeus, nefel control was less definite and was often contested by dissident Elfs and Merfolk who resided in those areas of Etheria deemed most treacherous by the nefeles. Many peoples remember this as a time of oppressive servitude when they were forced into the armies of the tyrant nefeles to wage wars on monsters and other nefeles, the most fearsome being Argomachus who wielded at his disposal an army of fey beasts, minotaur herds, and giants that slaughtered all who stood in their way. After nearly a century of oppression under Argomachus and the other nefeles, many of the humanoids of pre-modern Elaeus rebelled against their overlords in late 200s ADE under the leadership of warrior-husbands Bellero and Kynilles and warrior-wives Anaïs and Callanthe, descendents of the first Etherians to settle the land and later monarchs of Meleta, as well as seven warriors who would go on to found Perikratos after toppling Argomachus’s general Androphoron to the west. As the nefel overlords toppled, those that survived scattered to the fringes of the world, and their holdings developed into the cities and city-states of today. Even though the age of nefeles is long past, some Etherians wonder if the few surviving nefeles might someday attempt to reestablish their empire or if they are truly resigned to their lesser role in the new world of Etheria, some acting as beneficent guardians of the descendants of those who usurped them and some brooding in palatial temples on mountain peaks.