The Fellowship of Vurinn
The hidden cradle of humanity
The Fellowship of Vurinn is unlike any other nation in the world. In fact, to call it a nation is perhaps the best way to describe it, for it certainly is not a state or a country. The entire nation is actually the private property of one man: Vurinn. Everyone else simply lives on his land. The people care less than you would think, and this is because they venerate Vurinn as the closest thing to a god in this world.
This veneration goes beyond faith. The Vurinner believe that Vurinn is the progenitor of their entire folk, and yet he still walks among them as their living ancestor. As the children of Vurinn, it is natural that he should own all there is in the land (they believe), and they give all they can to help their brothers and sisters in Vurinn.
The Man, the Myth, the Legend
Vurinn is more than a man, more than a king, an emperor or even the Crimson Wight himself. This is because Vurinn isn't human, or so he claims. Vurinn, and all his children, claim that he is an Old One and the very last of that old and forgotten race. Of all the Ones who lived aeons before humanity, Vurinn is the last to walk the earth. But there is still more... The legend goes that, after the Old Ones left this world, Vurinn grew lonely in his seemingly eternal isolation. He was an artist, a creator, but without an audience to see the creation, how can art be said to be beautiful. Vurinn needed the world to be filled again so that he would have purpose again. To that end and with all the magics and machines of the Old Ones, Vurinn created humanity in his image, and he did it right here in the mountains that lie in the heart of the Fellowship.History
Genesis
According to the Vurinner, the start of the Fellowship is the start of humanity. The stories say that the first band of humans Vurinner created became the Fellowship and lived in the paradise Vurinn shaped for them. The names of the seventy seven founders are inscribed in the Council Hall where all decisions in the Fellowship are made, but everyone outside the Fellowship believe this to be nothing more than a legend. The early myths of the Fellowship are fairly standard religious creation-myths, about humanity living in peace and harmony in their mountaintop paradise. The only story of note is that of the Great Scattering. Legend say that some of the Fellowship became unhappy with the status quo on their mountain top, and became envious of Vurinn's place of power over humanity. After a short War in Heaven, most of humanity left the Fellowship and started their own nations on the earth. However, scatterings and leaving paradise is common of various religions and culture's creation-myths. What is unique to the Vurinn myths is the first mention in history (of what little is left of it after the Crimson Wight) of both the Outsider and the Wanderer. Most cultures have their versions and stories of these two enigmatic and evil entities, but it all starts with the Vurinner. What is more is that the Vurinner myths is where we get their names from. The myths say that the civil war in paradise started when a man Wandered in from the outside world to spread tales about the wide world that awaited the brave men of the Fellowship, and all the riches and power that was there for them to claim. When the rebels asked this Wanderer how they would be able to overthrow Vurinn and claim what was rightfully theirs, he told them of a powerful entity Outside their mountain paradise that could give them whatever powers they could dream of. The Outsider would give them power, and all he asked in return was for them to exercise that power. So it came to be that humanity fell from heaven because of the Wanderer and Outsider, a story repeated time and time again over history. The Wanderer still walks among us, they say, spreading the lies and the powers of the Outsiders. Whether this is true is anyone's guess, but the existence of the Darksiders and their nefarious supernatural abilities may mean there is a kernel of truth to this myth.Isolation
What occurred in the Fellowship between these mythic days and the foundation of the Dominion is known only to the Vurinner, and they have yet to share that secret with the rest of humanity. Speculation as to the reasons for this secrecy is rife outside the Fellowship, with some believing that they have destroyed their histories (much as the Crimson Wight has) in order to maintain the belief that they are the origins of humanity, while others believe the hide their history out of shame since, these others claim, the Crimson Wight came from the Fellowship. Whatever the true reason for this secrecy may be, it is likely the rest of the world will never know. Outside information from this time is also scarce, as the Fellowship was extremely isolationist before the formation of the Dominion. They very rarely left their mountain ranges, and killed anyone who dared set foot in their homeland. There are many accounts of skirmishes, battles and even wars fought between the Fellowship and the surroundings tribes and petty kingdoms, but no intruder had ever seen the cities of the Fellowship. All they could report back on were the ferocity of the Vurinner, the multitude of orichalcum prosthetics they used, and their armies of automatons. Even the Crimson Wight refused to send his undead legions up the Vurinner mountains in the early days of the Eternal Empire, knowing there were far easier targets for his wrath. There is even an apocryphal account of a meeting between Vurinn and the Crimson Wight at the foot of the Fellowship's mountains. As the account goes, the two most powerful men in the world sat down surrounded by (but out of earshot of) their vast armies, uncountable undead hordes on one side and motionless automatons on the other. No one would ever be able to imagine what these two spoke about, but at the end of the day it became clear to them that there would be no profit, honour or glory in sending their immortal legions to do battle with one another. Instead they formed a pact: as long as the Eternal Empire's forces stayed out of Fellowship territory, Vurinn's own people will never interfere with the Crimson Wight's plans elsewhere in the world. Only Vurinn and the Crimson Wight know with any certainty how much of this apocryphal account is true, but for the longest time the Fellowship remained conspicously neutral in world affairs. That is until...The Dominion
The Fellowship wasn't a founding member of the Dominion, and came in well after Alba, Moskiev and the Kel'Shae had formed the Dominion. The alleged oath that Vurinn had made to the Crimson Wight no longer seemed to matter, as an ambassador of the Fellowship approached the Council with a petition to join the Dominion. True to the Fellowship's character of secrecy, the ambassador wouldn't say why Vurinn wished to join the Dominion, and there were no signs of any battle prompting this sudden request, but the Council didn't probe too deeply. They knew they needed all the help they could get, and at least they now had their southwestern and southern border protected. The Fellowship has paid a price for its sudden sociability. For nearly a millenium, the Eternal Empire has ignored it, but now its mountain strongholds have become ripe targets for the Crimson Wight. In recent years, the foothills and valleys below the sacred mountains have become graveyards of rotten bone and rusted metal, with tens of thousands of bodies literring the ground. Both the Fellowship and the Dominion have, however, profitted in many ways from each other. The Dominion finally learned the true secrets of creating enchanted prosthetic from the Fellowship, rather than relying on their poor immitations. The Vurinner are master enchanters, and ever since the Fellowship joined the Council, the Dominion forces now fight with arcane weapons and magical armours. As masterful as their enchantments are, millennia of isolation had left technological, societal and arcane levels stagnant. The smiths, engineers and Architects from the rest of the Dominion provided a much needed injection of innovation that spurred the Vurinner to greater hights of enchanting genius. Not all innovations took root in the Fellowship, however, as the Vurinner always bow to Vurinn's insight, and their patron is the very embodiment of conservation. The wizards and mages of Alba and Valkonia are prime examples of a good idea gone wrong. Their chaotic and godlike powers are frowned upon by Vurinn, and thus are shunned by his people. Everything else that comes through the Fellowship's borders are heavily scrutinised and regulated, ensuring the Vurinner are always protected. All in all, the relationship between the Fellowship and Dominion have been a tense one. The Vurinner do not see themselves are "part" of the Dominion, merely "partnered" with it. This has led to a strained relationship at time, with the Fellowship always protecting its own borders and people before the rest of the Dominion, but at least for now the two stand together.
Type
Geopolitical, Theocracy
Demonym
Vurinner
Government System
Monarchy, Theocratic
Power Structure
Unitary state
Parent Organization
Neighboring Nations
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