History of Asmaria

During the first 50 years of the Third Age, the sorcerer who had invaded the Elven kingdom took the ruins as his own and tried to establish peace among the ranks. This was a fruitless effort as all of the tribes and clans would eventually break away from each other. These humans no longer hated each other because of their alienness to each other, but because of their different ideologies and philosophies. During this time he took it upon himself to track down the Wizards within his ranks and kill them, believing they would use their Arcane magic to destroy him. This was not entirely unfounded as a small group of rebels actually used their magic to attempt to take the throne for themselves at one point.
The sorcerer killed his most loyal generals and burned their spellbooks, thus losing invaluable knowledge of several powerful spells. Yet others saw what he was doing and took it upon themselves to continue his work, believing spellcasters to be part of the reason for the dangers in the world. What few spellcasters remained took what they could and fled, hiding in plain sight by taking up new identities or trying to eke out an existence in the wild away from the rest of Humanity.
Eventually, the sorcerer had a son who was the next in line to rule. This heir to the throne had no magic power and proved to be incredibly paranoid. As he tried to maintain the already unstable peace his father had founded, he began to take away various freedoms of his people, ever worried that they would one day rise up against him. Even all the power in the world could not stop such an enemy as the Humans; His father had seen this first-hand.
Sure enough, the people became tired of constantly bending the knee to the paranoid king and revolted. They established a new government system of several wisemen to oversee the development of the settlement as well as settle disagreements between citizens. This would eventually become the town of Balmoral.
Soon, other tribes adopted new forms of government as well. Instead of a chief chosen through ritualistic means, a leader was chosen from a list of potential candidates. A candidate had to hunt dangerous animals and prove themselves to be leaders in times of stress. This was accomplished through sending the candidate into the woods with a group of 10 or more men to lead and bring back to the settlement after one week in the wilderness. Nomadic tribes did not die out for some time as they still needed to move around whenever a particularly dangerous animal wandered into the area.
Tribal packs that had evolved into settlements under the influence of the Sages adopted parts of the Elven philosophy and folklore as their own. There were even those who learned how to use a lesser form of the Druid’s powers for their own needs. These men and women became Rangers and would pass on their knowledge to young pupils within the settlement.
Barely 200 years after the end of the war, a general evolution took place. Tribes began to migrate less and eventually developed the means to stay in one place for an entire year.
Some Humans used abandoned Elven technology for their own gain, thus launching the species into an Iron Age. Settlements became slightly more protected from the monsters as more people began smithing more iron weapons.
Some Humans even broke away from one settlement to establish another (this usually happened if a group of people were unsatisfied with the leader’s methods of governing the settlement). Some of these new settlements produced people who actively struck out against the world and widened the safe areas around such settlements. The most common type of “strikers”, as they came to be known, were the Blood Hunters.
Blood Hunters were originally men and women who fought together under the oath of protecting a community from the monsters of the night. Over the last few centuries of the Third Age, Blood Hunters mastered the art of Hemocraft which allowed them to alter their own bodies as well as harm the bodies of monsters. This ability earned them the name “Blood Hunters”.
While many people feared these fighters, believing they were just as twisted and evil the monsters they hunted, there were those who respected the Blood Hunters and even offered tribute to them during Harvest. Blood Hunters were more common in the south and west than the north or east as spiritism and ancestor worship were common in the more rural areas.
By this time, ancient legends and folktales, some from the early Human tribes and others from Elven history, had formed into a polytheistic religion which would later be known as Old Enlandic. This religion, while having aspects that differed from settlement to settlement, had a few set principles and ideas. Among these principles was the reverence for Blood Hunters, those who fought for Humanity’s existence in a world utterly hostile to them. Blood Hunters lasted up until the beginning of the Fourth Age.
In the Third Age, a sorcerer named Inalgius was born within one of the southern settlements. Inalgius was brought before the group of wisemen in Balmoral early in his life. The council regarded him with almost religious reverence as he explained what they, as a species, needed to do in order to survive. He spoke to them as a priest would speak to a group of worshippers and established many things that would fundamentally shape Human civilization.
The Enlandic religion was established, with Inalgius as the head priest. The religion altered the deities of Old Enlandic to beings who were less mystical and more concerned with justice and worship. After several months, Inalgius had spread Enlandic to several smaller settlements around Balmoral. The religion itself was put in place to more concretely establish the King’s rule. A King, as Inalgius explained, would be a person chosen by the Holy council (the council of men ruling over Balmoral) to rule over Mankind. While some settlements readily accepted the religion, content to have a sense of worth and hope in such a terrifying world, other communities ran the new priests out of town. Within half a decade, a special militia had been created to travel between settlements and enforce worship of the new Enlandic gods.
Inalgius and his council spent the next few decades reworking the governmental system of the mainland.
In the Third Age, a few settlements had become allied with each other to protect themselves from monsters. By allying with each other, these settlements could send reinforcements and supplies between themselves and make areas safer outside the towns. Inalgius and his council approached these allied settlements first and promised them a prosperous existence under the new banner of the burgeoning kingdom.
Official caravans were created, and exact schedules were created for any caravans leaving a town or returning to one. Balmoral itself began to excavate quarries around the town and soon a fortified wall was erected around the perimeter.
The center of the kingdom became a veritable hive of activity as more and more people flocked to its secure walls.
Within several years, the kingdom of Asmaria had become the first truly great Human settlement, a hook of power that had snagged itself in the rippling and alien hide of the mainland. This marked the beginning of the Fourth Age. At the end of his life, Inalgius was heralded as a prophet and many considered him a gift from the gods. He spent the rest of his days as the advisor to the first King of Asmaria, Worhelm I.
In Asmaria, it is law that every 30 years, citizens from all over the kingdom must be chosen to become the next council members who will choose the next King based on guidelines that only they are privy to.
In the days since Ignalius’s life, the Kings have made their own changes to the kingdom, however the overall government and economic structure is the same as it was when Ignalius died.
A group of people to the east chose to break away from Asmaria and, after a short revolution, were granted their own side of the mainland. Since the nation is so young, much of their territory remains untamed.