Dranomyr Archive
The Dranomyr Archive is an empire residing in the Sora, inhabited almost entirely by dranomyr. The oldest and most powerful of all known empires, the Archivists are respected and feared by virtually everyone who knows of them. Despite their power, the Archive rarely interacts with those outside their borders and tend to remain neutral when they do. They typically only act when either they or a so-called "primitive" realm is attacked, using the overwhelming power of their crystalles to quickly put an end to any threat. The Archivists themselves claim to have been the first species to leave their home realm and enter the Sora. At one point, they were supposedly spread across nearly all known Sora, but that was apparently long before any of the other Sora-faring empires rose to prominence. They claim to have once seeded many realms with life, even several that have reached the Sora, though they refuse to disclose which ones.
Contents
Government
The inner workings of the Archive's government is largely opaque to outsiders. The Archive itself claims that it is ruled by a council of learned individuals, though the specifics of appointment is never clarified. Often, Archivists simply say that an individual is appointed to the council "depending on the circumstances" with no further explanation.History
The Dranomyr Archive is incredibly secretive about its history. Nearly all information on the Archive's history has been collected stories told by the Archive itself, with small tricks gathered from disparate sources over the centuries since the first sorafarers encountered the Archive's crystalles. According to the Archive, they are "so old that counting the milennia is meaningless." They were the sole inhabitants on their home realm of Dranotir, eventually learning the core secrets of magic and spreading out into an empty Sora. Everywhere they looked, they found only roiling elemental chaos. After countless years, they decided that they were alone in the Sora, their realm and gods unique among all of creation. Then, finally, a pocket of the Sora near to themselves began to collapse. They watched as the Sora coalesced into a fully fledged realm, the first they had encountered outside their own. Gods soon arrived at the realm to claim it, creating life and intelligence and civilizations. The dranomyr, eager to encounter others, landed their soraships on the young realm and made contact. The result was disastrous. The new species were too immature and unlearned to properly comprehend the dranomyr's teachings. They tore themselves apart with the raw power of dranomyr magic, using it as weapons against one another. The gods of the realm, seeing their creation torn asunder by outsiders, ripped the realm apart and returned it to the chaotic maelstrom. The dranomyr despaired, worrying that such a miracle would never be seen again. Fortunately, after another thousand years, a new realm appeared. This time, the dranomyr remained distant and watched. For whatever reason, this realm did not attract any gods, even after centuries. Still, the realm was hospitable, so the dranomyr traveled there and made it a new home for themselves. The next realm to appear in the Sora came much sooner, only a few hundred years later. This one too was empty, so the dranomyr settled it. Finally another realm appeared that brought gods with it. The dranomyr stayed remote, allowing the inhabitants to learn and grow under their own power. This cycle repeated itself thousands, perhaps millions of times over the following millennia. Realms coalesced out of the Sora, many times attracting gods, sometimes not. The dranomyr colonized those realms without sapient life and thus spread their influence across the Sora. They silently observed these inhabited realms, watching them with interest. On some, the intelligent creatures thrived and lived and grew. But on many, the creations of the gods were imperfect and eventually came to calamity. Sometimes, they made war on themselves and died off. Other times, they unleashed some terrible magic that tore their realms apart. Occasionally, they offended their gods and the creators became destroyers. When another realm finally managed to venture into the Sora, they found the Archive waiting for them with open arms. The dranomyr had come to believe that reaching the Sora was a litmus test, proving maturity and capability. Once more the dranomyr shared what they knew with the newcomers, only to have this sharing come to disaster. The newcomers were very unlike the dranomyr and attempted to invade and conquer the numerous realms who had not reached the Sora yet. They rebuffed all peaceful attempts to stop them, so the dranomyr were forced to react with violence and destroy them, leaving their realm shattered. With the deaths of their creations, the gods of this realm also faded away. With this, the Archive itself was properly born. The dranomyr realized that giving power to other species too quickly would only lead to destruction. Intelligent life had proven so fragile that a slight imbalance could wipe it from the Sora entirely. They first swore to never provide others with their power or knowledge, but to instead observe and allow them to grow naturally. Second, they would help spread life to new realms, helping to prevent any unique life from killing itself off through folly. From this point on, they began to take groups of people from their native realms and transplant them onto realms without gods. Many times, the transplants brought their gods with them. Other times, new gods emerged from the Sora to claim these new realms now that they had worshipers. Eventually, some of these realms reached the Sora and began to spread. Eventually, they encountered the Archive, who gave two ultimatums. The first was to stay out of the territory claimed by the Archive unless invited. The second was to never contact a realm that had not reached the Sora or share magical knowledge with those civilizations who had not discovered it naturally. Sometimes, these ultimatums were ignored. Those who did faced harsh reprisal from the Archive, some even being completely destroyed if they continued to transgress. Even those who obeyed the Archive's rules came and went. Empires rose and fell, destroying themselves in cataclysms or slowly dying out over centuries, coming and going from the landscape of the Sora. Only the Archive persevered over the untold years, observing and growing in power and knowledge while acting as enigmatic and distant overseers for the known Sora. In modern times, the oldest known records of the Archive come from fragmented writings left by the Kingdom of Octoi. The Octoids first reached the Sora a thousand years ago and encountered the Archive shortly after. The remains of their records do not tell of any other sorafaring empires at the time, though several others rose to prominence within roughly a hundred years of each other. One of these empires, the Azul, were warlike and violent. They made war with the Octoi and successfully conquered several other empires. Around 600 years ago, they turned their eyes on the Archive, believing them to be weaker than they let on. Within a year, the Azul were wiped from the Sora entirely, their home realm being torn asunder by the powerful weapons of the Archive. Eventually, the Kingdom of Octoi too fell to ruin, though not at the hands of the Archive. Of the modern empires, the Daren Hegemony were the first to make contact with the Archive around 500 years ago.Politics and Diplomacy
The Archive's primary concern is the preservation and creation of knowledge. The Archive wants to learn all it can about the nature of reality and magic. It has already learned more than perhaps any other civilization to have ever arisen in the Sora. The name Archive comes from their desire to preserve as much of the knowledge and culture of other species and civilizations as possible. To these ends, many dranomyr work as magical researchers, historians, or archaeologists, uncovering and retaining knowledge throughout the Sora. When dealing with outsiders, the Archive utilizes an organization it calls Cyswllt. Agents of Cyswllt are present on virtually all Sora-connected realms. In the largest and most important realms, the Cyswllt agent is an Archivist, acting as an official representative of the Archive Council. Elsewhere, a trustworthy native is recruited to act on the Archive's behalf.Territory and Demographics
No one outside the Archive is completely sure how many realms comprise their territory. The Archive itself states they control less than 50 realms, but are otherwise coy about the actual extent of their domain. They keep outsiders from entering their territory unless invited, protecting the entryway eddies with their crystalles. Citizens of the Dranomyr Archive are, as the name implies, nearly entirely dranomyr. A small number of outsiders are allowed into the Archive, though almost always in groups of less than a hundred. These outsiders are not permanent residents of the Archive, but rather guests brought in by the Archive for various reasons. These guests are always closely monitored by their hosts and kept to restricted locations within larger cities, given only enough glimpses of the power of the Archive to spread stories back home. Very rarely, a non-dranomyr is granted residence in the Archive itself. The circumstances surrounding these individuals are always highly unique and exceptional. Some have provided some incredible service to the Archive and been allowed to live within it as a boon. Because citizens of the Archive are all provided for, most spend their days pursuing their own interests. For most, this is intellectual in nature, be it magical research, artistic expression, philosophic debate, or the like. While some are driven enough to make it a profession, many only dabble, treating their interests as a hobby. While the potential exists for any individual to engage in wholly hedonistic pursuits, this is rare. Dranomyr tend to be communally minded in general and the Archive is so to an extreme. On a day-to-day basis, most Archivists are working toward what they see as the greater good of the Archive. Most Archivists will never deal with outsiders, content to stay within Archive borders and tend to their own needs and works. Those who do travel outside maintain an aloof, mysterious air. For the most part, this is because they are almost always Cyswllt, selected and trained to keep their knowledge close to the best. Most importantly, no Archivist will ever reveal any secrets of the Archive and attempts to use magic to read their minds or compel them invariably fail.Military
The crystalles controlled by the Archive are feared throughout the Sora for their sheer power. As with most things about the Archive, even rough estimates about the number of crystalles the Archive possesses are guesses. There are at least a dozen known, as the Archive openly has one crystallis defend each known eddy leading into their territory, but it is assumed they have many more.Religion
Though it's know the Archive possesses a pantheon of at least 7 deities, the dranomyr seem to do little to worship them. There is no active religious authority in the Archive, according to the Archivists themselves. Their outward lack of piety seems to indicate this part of their society, at least, is clear to outsiders.Economy
The Archive claims it has developed magic enough to keep all its citizens in comfort without significant effort. Their operatives outside of the Archive seem to have a near unlimited ability to produce gold to pay for goods and services. They do occasionally contact outside groups to do tasks for them, such as retrieve relics, but this is not done on an economically significant degree.Education
Every Archivist who has been met by outsiders has appeared to be significantly educated. The Archive has said it has extensive universities and schools for its citizens which teach a nearly endless array of subjects. Considering many Archivists have demonstrated expertise in a variety of esoteric and narrow fields (such as the study of dragon scales or the history of traditional kamakari art), their education must be expansive.
Humility, knowledge, respect.
Type
Geopolitical, Empire
Alternative Names
The Archive
Demonym
Archivist
Government System
Meritocracy
Power Structure
Unitary state
Economic System
Post-scarcity economy
Official Languages
Controlled Territories
Neighboring Nations
Related Ethnicities
Peace
The Kingdom appreciates the Archive's commitment to ensuring realms aren't despoiled, though they wish they would do more. The Archive is glad the Kingdom does not meddle with primitive realms, but otherwise thinks little of them.
Mild distrust
The Hegemony sees the Archive as unimportant and annoying at best. The Archive warily watches the Hegemony, ready to take action should they involve themselves in primitive realms.
Disdainful disinterest
The Syndicate only views the Archive as a potential impediment to trade, seeing their refusal to engage with other empires to be annoying at best. However, they also know crossing the Archive would be foolish, so they mainly just grumble about the state of things.
Dislike
The Suzerainty finds the Archive's noninterference decree to be an unjust demand, though the Archive has no strong feelings in return.
Hatred
The Archive soundly crushed the Confederacy and humiliated them, forcing them to cease their expansion. The Archive constantly must watch the Doflein to ensure they do not interfere with primitive worlds.
One-sided Hatred
The Álfuríki despises the heavy handed Archive. The Archive generally considers the Álfuríki to be a bemusing nuisance.
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