History of Sartaldia

Sartaldia means “Land of the Evening Star”, essentially meaning the north-western part of the Continent. Sartaldia’s original inhabitants were reptilian people related to the Rhessians. However a catastrophic natural disaster drove millions of mammalian races from the interior westward and they soon came into conflict with the indigenous Rhessians. These mammalian races were the Guadalans, Taersians, Wulvechs and Vals and they gradually pushed the Rhessians to the southern tip of Sartaldia. Over the next centuries the Rhessians formed a unified state and even managed to dominate its mammalian neighbours who were still organised into tribes. It’s also around this time that the Kaurh broke away from the Wulvechs and formed their own nations in the mountains.
Many centuries after these events, a mysterious figure known as the Nascea appeared. Claiming to be God’s chosen, he travelled across the West earning the reverence of all races (except the Kaurh) through his heroic deeds. He preached a religion of justice and compassion and his charisma and heroism brought peace to Sartaldia, uniting it into one great nation. After his death the peace he created gradually unravelled as sectarian conflicts divided the Nascean faith and old rivalries resurfaced.
Several generations after the coming of the Nascea the fabric of reality was torn and a horde of demons invaded the physical world. Mages, who up until then had been part of the clergy, formed a separate order. The Order of Mages fought the demons for over a century and grew into a powerful monolithic organisation. Even after the demonic threat had vanished they retained their riches and privileges, much to the dislike of kings and emperors. Their power was such that the latter part of the Order’s existence is called the Magocracy. Ironically, their magical abilities, the very thing that made them powerful in the first place, seemed to decrease over time.
The Magocracy ended when the prophet Lausat galvanised the people’s resentment of the mages’ excesses and, with the help of kings, brought down the Order. Lausat and his allies founded the Holy Kingdom of Jalle, claiming it to be a continuation of the Nascea’s kingdom, and promoted a new, stricter form of nasceism. Jalle extended its dominion over much of Sartaldia but its good fortune ended with the War of Swords and Quills.
The dominance of the capital and the introduction of new religious ideas that undermined traditions created a deep resentment among the nobility. Calling themselves the Order of the Swords, they rose up against the King and those they derisively called the Quills, ushering in a long period of civil war that severely undermined Jalle’s prestige and internal cohesion. Despite all odds the Quills won the war but were unable to make the most of their victory.
Now the Swords and Quills coexist in an uneasy truce while the other nations of Sartaldia, the Wulvechs of Ulveiz, the Crown of Guadal and Jalle’s age-old rival the Rhessian Empire, are still wary of Jalle’s imperial ambitions.