In the time After the Dragons (AD), the four kingdoms fell into a bit of chaos. The dragons had ruled over the lands with iron claws and with their abrupt and complete fall, the carefully organized societies that they had created fell with them.
It took years for new ruling structures to organize out of the ashes of the previous society and in that interim, raw power was what took control. The fledgling magic casters that had begun to bloom under the dragons flourished without the restrictions of their draconic overlords. The power of their raw arcane abilities gave them status in a world with crumbled hierarchy. Wizards competed for resources, for dominance, for recognition.
The kingdoms quickly became a place where magic gave a person more than one kind of power. And where evocation magic in particular was highly valued.
Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that when rulers rose, they came in the form of wizard kings.
Rise of the Elements
The Wind Element
The Wind Element was the first government to be established after the fall of the dragons. In 29 AD,
Arbelladon the Organized blasted her way to the top of the food chain and declared that
the Wind Element now ruled
the fallands . The wizards she had supporting her ensured that the kingdom eventually fell in line. And things carried on from there.
The Fire Element
It took a hot minute for another group to get their wits together enough to follow suit, but in 36 AD,
Kaipo the Insistent brought about
the Fire Element. The transition wasn't as smooth as with the Wind Element, in part because there was quite a bit of resistance from the orc tribes, but Kaipo and his wizards eventually laid claim to
the summerlands.
The Earth Element
Later that same year,
Margery the Grounded established
the Earth Element. Their takeover of
the springlands was smoother than the Fire Element's, but not by much. Margery's approach was to hole up in the largest city with their followers and wait until other wizards stopped coming to challenge them. It took a while...
The Water Element
It took another year for the final kingdom, Winter, to be claimed.
Shubin the Solid established the Water Element in 37 AD, after working his way through damn near every other wizard in
the winterlands. It was the smoothest of the transitions, if only because by then everyone was pretty much waiting for another Element to take over. And because Shubin had already beaten everybody.
The Radiant Element
In 39 AD, a small group of casters tried to establish a fifth Element that they called the Radiant Element. They were led by
Mironova the Bold, a priest of
the Winter Diety. It began as a nomadic group that journeyed throughout
the Spring Rim, recruiting the growing number of holy casters from all four lands. However, none of the other kingdoms were super receptive to what they saw as "poaching" and so they soon built
the Allspace as a more permanent location. Of course, they only continued trying to gain recognition as a full Element for a few more years before a contingent of mages from the Earth Element rolled up and cleared them out. And that effectively put an end to that.
The Wizard-Kings
As successful as the Elements were in their infancy, there were those that questioned whether or not they would last. That question came to a head when Kaipo the Insistent was murdered in 51 AD, having ruled for fifteen years. There was a brief crisis in which several coups were attempted at once, before the rest of the governmental body of the Element put down the confused violence and organized a tournament to determine the next wizard-king. Paxa the Incessant came out as the winner, delivering a devestating display of fire to his opponents. And thus became the second wizard-king of the Fire Element.
The rest of the Elements followed suit when the time came.
In theory, the wizard-kings ruled for life. At least, there was never a documented instance of a wizard-king stepping down into anything other than a grave. The kings may have ruled for life, but their lives were rarely very long. They got sick and they got old and they got murdered, and a swarm of would-be rulers rose to try and claim their place as the next king.
The Tournaments of Kings may have become the official method of determining succession, but there were many instances in which rulers of sufficient power forced another option. Quite memorably, in 302 AD Evan the Strange insisted that the next wizard-king of the Earth Element be chosen by his pet rabbit; Gerald the Meek gave wonderful scritches but didn't last very long as king. Even when the Tournaments were held, just as much of the competition was determined out of the arena as inside of it. Wizards sabotaged and undermined one another at every opportunity. They taunted and derided their opponents, bribed and convinced their allies, and generally did whatever they had to in order to come out on top. And sometimes the most impactful actions were taken not by competitors but by third-parties who wished to control who ended up as king- or who didn't.
With such a brutal manner of succession, wizard-kings tended to be a tough and wily breed. They were skilled magic users, battle-hardened and wit-tested. And they were typically willing to get their hands dirty as needed to effect whatever changes they felt necessary.
And of course, sometimes those changes had rather far-reaching consequences.
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