A History of Erakal
From Myth-Wiki
To know the history of Erakal is to watch the trajectory of a world and it's people, from chaos and raw, unformed existence to order and refinement.
Contents |
The Beginnings of Civilization
In the early days of the world, the races of Erakal roamed the land, slowly developing on their own. From their concepts and beliefs and hopes and dreams sprung the gods, and in those days the barriers between the worlds were thinner. Reality itself was less solid, more easily manipulable. And so the gods walked among the people of Erakal.
Erakal itself was a series of overlapping, thinly veiled worlds. It is thought that the humans, the dwarves, and the other races of stone made their home in the same world, at first, as nomadic groups and close-knit tribes. In another, the ancestors of elves, eladrin, and drow stalked the land, hunting and gathering. The layers of the world were thin, and could tear and reform on a whim, and so as these tribes of hunter-gatheres passed through the land as nomads, some would pass through the veils and end up in new places, faced with new challenges.
The humans settled down, built tools and civilizations. The eladrin followed suit, consolidating their culture in what would eventually become the feywild. The elves stayed behind in the forests, living off the land and its primal power. And beneath the earth, the drow found themselves fighting for the scraps of the fell creatures within, and were shaped by that place into predators and hunters, their cities more like a spider's web than the great nests of the eladrin. It was at this time, too, that creatures of purer essence, such as demons, devils, and dragons, found their way into the myriad worlds and intermingled with the natives they found, producing lines of Dragonborn, Tiefling, and so on. To this day, it is still debated whether the goblinoids and the shifters were a result of such a pairing or merely a more eccentric group of natives.
The Sundering of the Worlds
In this time, Old Magic prevailed. The boundaries between the arcane, the divine, and the primal were less clear, and the sheer capabilities of such power were immense. But they were also dangerous and difficult to control. Thus, the development of magic over time was to codify, to refine, to impose order and control and limits to allow it to become a tool, rather than a force to be recklessly unleashed. As civilization blossomed, so, too, did magic become civilized, and as the races of Erakal began to mingle, settling down at intersections of cultures and trade routes, the world eventually began to solidify. Eladrin and Shadar-kai found themselves marooned in a plane that was not their home. Drow, cut off from their feywild roots, retreated beneath the earth, isolating themselves and keeping to their internal squabbles with subterranean denizens.
The Rise of Hyram
The role of Hyram, then, was twofold. An imposition of a kind of unity that had no care for racial or cultural boundaries was the first sign, the rallying cry. Unite Erakal under one banner and let the resources of all peoples be put towards the common goal of bettering the lot of all--and that drove the armies of Hyram, and the symapthizers who opened their gates to welcome the new empire. Under the rule of the Council, Drow returned to the surface to assimilate into the cities, elves intermarried with humans and found themselves in urban environments, and the diaspora eladrin who had been in Erakal for generations were able to reconnect with their relatives in the feywild and restore a unity of culture.
The second role of Hyram was progress in the magical realm. The council's true purpose, in uniting such a grand mass of resources, was to combine the refinement of current magic with the sheer, unadulterated power of the Old Magics. Experiments of all kinds sprung up throughout the realm, and Hyramic governors competed for money and resources to fund their particular pet project. Entire forests were razed to fuel fires, massive energies were bound to arcane devices. The proud societies of the city-states grew decadent, run by sycophantic governors who hung on the every whim of a council whose rule became increasingly tyrannical. There are legends of entire plots of land drained of their life energy, utterly devoid of a single living thing. Others claim dire experiments in blood magic and sacrifice, dabbling in necromancy and access to darker powers that fed on the negative aspects of the human psyche. Still others believe that the Council of Hyram sought nothing less than the binding of the gods themselves and the ascent of the council as the new divinities of Erakal.
Hints of Rebellion
But among those beneath Hyram's rule, there were many who chafed. Silently, they waited for their chance to throw off the yoke of tyranny. Some, like Androval, saw the city they loved fall prey to corruption, totalitarianism, and decadence, its culture disintegrating under the yoke of Erakal. Others, like Kassus, simply believed that the channeling of all of Erakal's resources into a single, central authority was impossible to sustain in the long run--though he would never say whether he meant politically or in terms of the ability of the land and it's capacity to endure such a prolonged effort. Countless others saw their homes, their livelihoods, their cultures, or their freedom systematically dismantled to serve the interests of the Council of Hyram. All they needed was a rallying cry...and they found it in the Five.
At first, they simply fought to combat the small tyrannies--the secret police, the destruction of livelihoods, the summoning of creatures from the time of Old Magic best kept sealed away in the past. But as their deeds grew in prestige, they became more bold. They inspired popular revolts in some city-states, and the Hyramic governors were thrown out or killed in several cities. Kassus coordinated a network of informants and couriers to keep track of the movement, juggling several locations and entire political groups in order to keep the movement coherent long enough for it to be successful.
And then Hyram turned its attention to these revolts, and crushed several of them. Curig, once a center of culture and scholarship, was crushed by the army of Hyram, made up of otherworldly creatures, mechanical men, and humanoids armed with weapons which were decidedly beyond the mundane. It has never recovered--its current status as a leaderless hive of scum and villany is a direct result of who was around to seize the power when Hyram left the ruins behind.
War for Erakal's Future
For a moment, the Five despaired. But Kassus maintained his calm, and sent out a call through his network of spies and couriers. Androval made impassioned speeches about honor and duty all around the continent. Other members of the Five gathered practicioners of the arcane and the divine, or gathered together the rage of the tribes of the plains and the mountains whose land had been taken from them or who were betrayed by Hyram when their resources proved to be insufficiently useful. Almost overnight, the Army of the Five was born.
The Army of the Five arrived at the gates of Hyram while the grand army of the Council was still attempting to crush a local revolt in Kalon. The battle was hard-fought: the garrison of Hyram was outnumbered, but was better-equipped and included beasts and constructs and eldritch powers that the Five and their forces were hard-pressed to counter. When the garrison was finally defeated and the city's defenses penetrated, the Council's grand army returned in full force.
It was decided that the Army of the Five would provide a rearguard while the Five and a small force would penetrate the city and confront the Council. Few know what happened during that mission, but only Kassus and Androval walked away from the city that day. The Council of Hyram did not.
The Grand Army of Hyram was in disarray without their masters directly controlling some of the more otherworldly components. The eldritch monstrosities turned on their allies, the mechanical men deserted in the night, and the generals of the army squabbles with one another in the absence of a central authority. Though they still put up a decent resistance, the Army of the Five crushed them, albeit at great cost.
On the peak of Mount Vergyar, overlooking the city of Hyram--now ruined by battle--the Army of the Five made a pact to maintain the city-states and their standing armies. The diasparate forces, once united in their hatred of tyranny, fractured and withdrew.
Androval returned to Tumnos a hero, proclaiming a new age of honor and chivalry, cleansing the city of Hyramic sycophants and returning it to a feudal system of vassals and knights, sworn oaths and untarnished honor. Kassus took up residence in Kalon, declaring a general amnesty for any member of his old network of spies and informants if they came to live in the city to work for him. He still uses the lessons he learned about espionage and exerting influence to drive his methods of governing the city. The other city-states recovered, and eventually remembered how to govern themselves.
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