The Age of Inheritance

Player turn notes:

Ruotta

And the Father of plagues looked upon the world and thought it good that the crop should bulken before plague swept through and caused much change.

He looked upon the lands of his favoured spawn, the Sqrairriww, and thought that they should be expanded and muchly improved, and so did greater shores and forests spring as the tides shifted.

Seeking westward to not leave his secondborn children, the Mushroomites, and oversaw the sparks of energy which would become thoughts in their heads; inspiring the idea for creating their first city - Shroomsdale. In their effectual process of colonizing the depths of the great ancient fungal forests they mastered some small art of fungal architecture; carving homes from the trunks of great and ancient fungal trees, and using lesser fungi to grow adornments for their homes.

And so the Father looked upon his creation, and saw that the home of his fungal children was without classification. So with divine will, all who come upon it should know this continent as Zokkacotta, and its great and bountiful forests as the lands of Jayrephyta.

Changelog:

- Expansion of Avuiro (island) along its northern shore comprising X amount + Forests

- creation of mushroomite city (Shroomsdale)

- advancement of mushroomites in fungal architecture (using giant hollowed out fungal trees as the basis of structures)

- creation of name for fungal continent: Zokkacotta

- Ancient fungal forests of Jayrephyta

- the forests are some of the oldest and most primordial lands/forests in the world, if not the most. Their trees stretch at the highest, nearly a kilometre into the air (1/3 of a mile).

Uode

- Advance civilization of the Frost Giants (Devokwi) to develop the arcane art of empowering objects through blood and ritual blood sacrifice; Haematurgy.

Uode sought as in all things to enact change upon the world; and in doing so prevent stagnation and destruction. The Devokwi, the god-creators most current and greatest creation, were to be gifted with great power. Taking adages of other mortals to heart, Uode tempered their minds with the knowledge of arcane bloods. By shifting their blood and the blood of sacrifices, the frost giants may imbue some small but great power in objects and talisman's of their choice.

Aashirya

Aashirya felt the grasp of the free will in this world coming to a tightened grip as the dragon lords cemented their reign. So she turned to the Devoeans, the greatest embodiment of her will of wills. She would spread upon them messages through dreams and visions, commandments to uphold so that they may learn of the world and better prepare themselves for its trials and tribulations.

In addition to these great visions, the Devoeans would find themselves ultimately changed by her energies, capable of great feats hithertoo unseen. Their bodies were malleable and yet maintained solidarity - capable of shifting forms with concentrated will. Their skin and hide capable of resisting arctic winds well below freezing point, and their minds all linked together in some pool of quasi-shared consciousness, the Devoeans were uplifted for better and worse.

As her children awoke with these manipulations upon them, she looked across the seas to the heart of Dragondom, the Arcktemperthae. She would place visions upon them instilling fear of their righteous regimes in pursuit of order - all who are born are born so free and the draconic brood had no right to subjugate. This message was of her ilk and she had sought to touch upon these imperialists the need for free will in the world.

Away from the prying minds of gods, the thoughts of the Arcktemperthae stirred over this identical dream, and sought to change their vision of things ever so minutely. They would seek out life in all far corners for they now knew without a doubt that there was life they had not yet seen - and who better to collect it up then those with wings?

The far corners of the world, north and south, they would go to and persuade to join the great order of dragons as peacefully as they could - in pursuit of maintaining some kind of solidarity with order, rather then reckless destruction and wanton conflict where it could be avoided.

Changelog:

- Commandments upon the Devoeans

My request for your bravest members, if they choose to accept it of their own free, un-imposed will:

1. View the disseminated information in the new mental Pool, about the other races living in this world. Most will not have encountered or even heard of them, but be wary that sooner or later you will meet, and you should be ready.

2. You will have noticed you can now change your forms. Practice this ability till you can mimic any creature you set your gaze upon, preferably quickly and without visual aids.

3. You will also have noticed that you now have thicker scales, these should enable you to leave the Caldera and enter the frozen tundra beyond without major discomfort due to cold. They will not, however, get you through the wall in the middle of the world, please do not attempt such without careful planning and fallbacks.

4. The main body of my request, and the reason for all of these additions, is thus; I want some of you to go out into the world, find these other races, and quietly and stealthily integrate yourselves among them. And then report back what you observe. Do not take undue risks to gain this information, speed is extremely secondary to the safety of any who attempt this. Anything you add to the Pool I shall see.

The second to last is not a request, but a hope. I hope that any who take up this cause will enjoy themselves, and enrich the understanding of all in the process. Have fun with this request if you can, I would hate to hear it was nothing but pain and misery for you.

And the last. You will eventually encounter others like you, but they shall likely be purely red or blue, and much less prone to thought over instinct. Perhaps one day they can rise to the lofty heights you have reached, but for now they will serve as a useful scapegoat if you are discovered while you explore. Mimic them if you need to assume your usual form in front of the unknowing, and flee by any means necessary.

Come home safe if at all possible, and when you are able, think before you act. That is all; I, as your usually silent benefactor, wish you good tidings.

- shaping the Devoeans so that they share a communal telepathic space or 'pool' through which all can communicate through

- Shaping the Devoeans to scales and hides capable resisting extreme temperatures and thin air

- Shaping the Devoeans so that they may reshape their bodies into forms they have learnt/copied over time through the realignment of segmented and fragmented skeletal structures and chameleonic flesh

- divine vision/omen/portence sent upon the dragons of the Arcktemperthae, inflicting identical dreams upon all dragonfolk of the civilization that all lives are equal and that bringing order to the world won't rid it of suffering.

Fate

- n/a

Aeyandite

Aeyandite, the loving mother of the chronal flows, swirling its rivertop with her fingers even as she looked down through the ethereal eddies into the mortal realm below.

She saw the heavens shift around her and in the stars, far beyond our concepts of space or time, Lirokof was to bear a child, born of man and born of god. She could foresee the need for such a being and if there was to be a father of this godling... it would need a mother so as to suckle at her divine teat and gather its strengths. She would send forth her essences to bestow upon the soul of this unborn changer of ways, this godling of freedoms.

And even as the child was reared and its mortal form took root in the seed of some lowly mortal woman, Aeyandite looked to her favoured elder spawn, the Brassborn, now hiding like animals in their cities, under siege. With the artifice of their powered suits she would give them the means to fight back - with great projectile weapons that would come to define the era next. Powered by pressure and the kinetic dynamos of the current technology they saw to fit, the Brassborn would come to dominate the air without wings, and thus pave the way for their reclamation and revenge.

Even as the ideas of her inspiration took root and mechanical engineers saw to their conceptualization, she saw to it that some would survive any calamity of the stone, building a great city beneath the rocks of the ocean bed, Insover, hidden city of bronze and sealed gates, far from where any prying mortal might go.

Changelog:

- gifts energy to the birth of Uthaine

- Inspires the Brassborn to develop heavy pneumatic weapons designed to crush and shatter dragonbone bluntly

- Commands her children to create the sub-aqueous city of Insover, hidden amidst the caverns at the bottom of the ocean dug out by the Brassborn, its hidden entrances hidden amidst deep sea life and plants.

Lirokof

Lirokof was perhaps the most empathic of the gods, seeing in the plights of countless millions over aeons that mortals suffered under his children, the dragons, he would seek to correct this mistake with a new form - fulfilling the prophecies set in motion already of the birth of the prophesized one - Uthaine of man.

He would take from his energies some great essence and with it mould something anew - something not quite god and something not quite man, but occupying that void between the two, embodying the greatest desire of freedom in the heart of the divine plane-lord.

In the heaven's as lirokofs design took seed and grew within his womb, the other gods came forth to give him their essences, seeking riddance of similar tyrrannies, and so Uthaine was to be born of many gods, not just one.

When the child was born, the plane-lord would give forth more of his energies still, the godling would have insurance of the raw will to see out his powers in this life.

Changelog:

- Creation of Uthaine of Man, the Demigod of Freedom

- calling into the far heavens for aid from the other gods

- Supercharging Uthaine with additional points

Vynthrol

Vynthrol looked upon the cumulations of his creation and thought it both pleasing and unpleasing in the state of things, knowing that all fires inevitably are snuffed out, and that his most righteous children would see to their return to a rightful place of dominance, in time.

So he saw to the creation of artifact, marooned across both the ages and the continents that would inevitably be reclaimed by his most avid worshippers to aid in their resurgence: The Amberbow. Crafted from a body of the finest ambers strewn from across the cosmos, the Amberbow fuses together bolts of raw darkmatters drawn from the shadows of the far void. Capable of piercing nigh anything, even the ethereal, this weapon is capable of disabling even spirits of the dead and disturbing their rest. Of course, to gather energies from the far void, it must channel energy through the moons, charging its bolt over a full lunar cycles.

And to the future, realizing that the Arcktemperthae would fall in time from his communal energies shared with Aeyandite and Lirokof; he saw to inspiration of what would become a great sect of his followers within the compact and eventually what would become Lirocean society. The Awakened Flames are a cult of Vynthyrists who have adapted their vynthraic beliefs to the new balance of the realms.

Changelog:

- creations of a new sect in Lirocean Society

"The Awakened Flames"

- Worships Vynthraism fanatically

- contributed divine energies to the Birth of Uthaine of Man

Zanderas

Zanderas, silent in his absolute protest of the mortal cacophony below the heavens, sought to balance out the imbalances wrought with his contribution to the mothering god, Lirokof, by granting a portion of his essence to the creation of the divine spirit that would become Uthaine.

As is the esoteric pathways of the Elder gods thought, Zanderas sought to create an artifact anew to grant upon the reliquaries of his Dwarven children. A demonic artifact of raw power, the infernal fruits, in reality a bunch of bananas, would grant the summoning of several lesser infernal spirits to the consumer of just one banana, bringing them forth to destroy the consumer or be destroyed trying.

Changelog:

- created demonic artifact : Infernal Fruits

- contributed divine energies to the Birth of Uthaine of Man

Norjak, bringer of spawn

N/A

- Offered the Blade Prenumbrastra to Halfthaine, mortal uncle of Uthaine during his mortal life.

- all oaths made on the blade are binding to the soul.

- capable of binding the minds of any soul to their oath, so that they may not directly contradict the oath or circumvent it.

Uthaine of Man

- born a mortal man

- mastered smithing

- learned elemental fire smithing from the Elterbrin of the Compact

- Fought abroad

- died to his conquesting uncle, Halfthaine

- was reborn under the gods as Uthaine of man

- renamed himself Lord Ember

- Created divine blade from his energies; The Tyrant Slayer Helped the dwarves carry the Zatvok from Humbles to the planar gate, engage in battle with the Draconic forces and their frost giant mercenaries from the north-west.

Turned to stone upon fulfilling the nature of his prophecy, trapping 7 of the ecthakyr and killing or imprisoning all of the Arcktemperthae, and a great host of Compact forces.

Aspect Powers:

Planar Rift:

This blade is capable of cutting into the very planes themselves creating a Planar Rift Between two points. The Planar Rift remains open as long as the Wielder Maintains it. The Blade has its own personal plane that it can exist in when not being used by its wielder.

Planar Strike:

Gives the Wielder a heightened awareness around them in a 60ft radius and allows the user to strike anywhere inside this radius, as well as giving it a Divine Edge capable of slicing through nearly any material.

Master of Fire and Lightning:

The wielder can generate, control, and channel the elements of Fire and Lighting.

Automaton Mind:

This Blade has a rudimentary intelligence and is capable of animating itself and carrying out basic instructions.

Fate Sealer:

When striking a Finishing Blow on a creature this ability severs their Fate removing them from this world permanently.

Bonded Master:

This Blade only recognizes its true Wielder Sovereign Ember the Divine Spirit of Freedom and will return to its wielder if separated as well as attack any others who tries to wield it without Sovereign Ember Immortal Blessing. Sovereign Ember may recall this blade at any time and none of its abilities work against Sovereign Ember.

- helped redesign the armoured powered suits of the Brassborn to fit his own body, at the loss of its weapons systems. Proliferated that design amongst his halfbreed descendents amidst the Compact, creating the Ember Sentinels, an order of protectors and adjudicators who use their innate power to generate energies (inherited) to power the suits.

- fought in the Krasildawn offensive with a battalion of Ember Sentinels, helping free Duberith from the occupation and control of the Arcktemperthae.

- Helped the Dwarves carry the Zatvok from Humbles to the planar nexus.

- Was instrumental in the entrapment of 7 of the Ecthakyr in the planar nexus, along with all of the allied forces (Brassborn, Elterbrin, Dwarves, and Man all fighting alongside one another against the forces of the Arcktemperthae) and their Arcktemperthae opponents inside their own bodies, rendered as stone statues for all eternity whilst the Zatvok harnessed energy from the planar nexus/gates/spires.

- the spire was damaged and chunks cracked off during the initial surge of energies when it was activated.

- Was instrumental in triggering the renaissance of technology that would overcome Proto-Lirocean civilization with his advances in the production of nickel-steel and other materials.

Interturn Personal notes:

The Legend of Uthaine Ember-Lord/ Lord Ember/ Uthaine of Man

It is said, that one reaps what they must sow. And so this coming age is and was defined by the theme of inheritance.

The gods looked unto their creation and saw it neccesary for the creation of a counter to that which would dispel their view of the order of creation, and so a union was made of their divine energies and fleshes from which a child would be born. As it was within the annals of fate that all things that have happened will happen and have already happened, the child would be born of the realm of man, Uthaine son and daughter of the gods, first of their kind.

Known in the annals of those wisest of elder dragons left, Aratorious would be the imbodiment of all the freedoms and wills of the gods, seeking to unbind the mortal realms from such conjectures and plagues as slavery and tyranny.

Born to a father of the house of Thaine, in the human realm of Termansk, unbeknownst to hisself, his mother was of Elterbrin birth, and thus he was histories first halfbreed, although his father raised him as a man.

In life, Uthaine was a warrior, as most men of the culture and time, just as much as he was a student of the metals - a blacksmith. Working the pig irons, coppers, and bronzeworks of his age with no small level of skill, he sought to hone his craft by travelling abroad to the colonies of the compact in the south - on Lirok.

Here in the fire-forges of the Garrison he learnt techniques of fire-forging - bending the elemental flows of the world through an object so it may exhibit some small grace of power. Although the master forgers warned him that he would not be capable of such power himself, being a man, the knowledge in mastercrafting items was invaluable to the young manfolk.

Undeterred, the Man came to realize he was singularly gifted in his work, and capable of eliciting fire-forged weapons that could turn white-hot with enough focus, without damaging the metal itself.

His work was interrupted, unfortunately, by more political machinations. His father passing away, his uncle, Halfthaine - a veteran of the garrisons guarding the planar portal that the Arcktemperthae dragon-lords sent hosts through seasonally - came to power with ambition and fell purpose. Over years he consolidated the military might and wealth of the House of Thaine, and forced his nephew, Uthaine, to marry a daughter of a neighbouring clan to cement an alliance.

Two sons were borne of this union, and in time their seed would spread over fields as the seeds of trees ought to do in the gestation of forests.

Liroceans/Lirocea

Lirocea rose from the ashes of the crumbling Compact; the peoples of the isle of Termansk had been lost in a great blow to the trade and garrisons of the Southern continent of Lirok, and their stance now as raiders of the remainder made them tenuous acquaintances at best.

The recession of the Jatairni into the jungles and their inability to express any patriotism in the traditional sense with Compact society made their contributions minor at best; whilst the Noshkalar were hunted and populations ceding to a variety of lesser losses - their waning had only weakened the mercantile ability of the multicultural power.

Thus, reformation was needed and through the councillation of Lirocea; the namesake nation was formed. In recent years the example of Lord Ember and his descendent bloodlines within the Ember Sentinels had popularized and normalized (mostly) the interbreeding of Elterbinnic and Human bloodlines. Within a millenium the majority had become of mixed bloodlines, and so the societal demographic of Lirocean was applied to that variety of shades of breeding than digression of ancestors. Of course some pure blooded human families remained; albeit few; and the Vynthyric purist community had refused to allow any human blood within the worship of their patron god, Vynthrol.

Through its trade past the Planar gate with other parties; the formation of the Council of the White Spire, and its massive societal reformation over generations- the Realm of Lirocea became a new power house and symbol of progress. The technological innovations and leaps of Lord Ember through his introduction of the Sentinels and their powered suits known to be derived from the foreign and arcane technologies of the Brassborn had massively impacted the society of Lirocea, its myriad advances exploited in reverse order.

The introduction of nickel-steels had made metalworking of bronze all but redundant besides markets for cheap and expendable goods - these steels had made tools and weapons more durable; construction of large structures of stone more viable and the mercantile market for lesser metal goods such as trinkets and jewellery incredibly profitable.

Herein the upper classes live a dedicated life of scholarly pursuit, or the social refinement of the aristocrat; creating intricate layers of bureaucracy that foster the diplomatic training of entire generations of debaters and thinkers. Herein the morals of fairness and enlightenment have overcome the savagery of creatures thought of as barely better than savages once.

In light of their various constituent sub cultures and their contact and reverence with foreign powers; the religious beliefs of Lirocea underwent major restructuring before taken its current pantheonic form. The following gods exist as a parallel and united cast; Lirokof, God of Natures; Aeyandite, Goddess of Wisdom; Vynthrol, God of Combat and Purity; Zanderas, the twin brother of Lirokof and trickster god; and Uthaine Ember-Lord, Patron God of Lirocea and the god of technology and enlightenment. Temples are erected in each city to each of the gods; individually worshipped within their society. The Vynthyrists similarly have their roots in the surviving Vynthraists of the Elterbrinnic refugees that fled miltourne when the draconic power rose. Their contact and friction with human society; that of Termansk in that time; lead to some shifting of their views on Vynthrol and his purity. They are now, if not ever, fanatically devoted to their fire-god who they believe gave birth to each of his children in kind (The other gods born who are worshipped abroad), and they in particular believe that Lord Ember was the reincarnation of Vynthrol sent down to bring order and peace to the Compact through his divine knowledge of using fire (the Ember Sentinels use suits with boiler-derived designs). This fanaticism given fact through apparent and literal events has made the Vynthyrists proven extremists and a puritanical minority within Lirocea.

This has long spearheaded the Vynthyric reformation movement; a series of colonies on miltourne attempting to re-tend to forests and their creation so that the rich and fertile ash-lands may be reclaimed by the beauty of the Elterbrin of old, and thus restore the powerhouse nation that was. In order to maintain mercantile funding the Vynthyrists - who lay true claim to the land by all rights by heritage - lend out land claims to aspiring minings, archaeologists and scholars in excavating ruins and artifacts.

The society of Lirocea embellishes the tales and fables associated with its founding parties, including Lord Ember. As such they are fascinated with the tales of the Brassborn society and its depths, and the concept of artificial metallic life so very unlike the beating flesh of most mortals. Thusly many fables tell faustian stories of engineers attempting to give life to solid metal golems made from esoteric bronzes.

Automatons are an increasing motivation of Lirocean engineers in their creations, attempting to grant motor function, intelligence, and eventually even independent life to their works.

The Ember Sentinels

The Ember Knights, one of the highest orders within Lirocean society, holy paladins who bear the ancestral armors forged by their bloodlines as protectors of the realm and adjudicators of order.

The Ember Sentinels are one of the highest orders of renown in Lirocean society; they are some of the greatest warriors in all the known realms and bear the ancestral armors forged and carried down their ancient bloodlines; to be used as protectors of the realm and adjudicators of order. they are the defacto militant force, when assembled together, of the council of the White Spire and thusly used to carry out actions deemed necessary by the many for the sake of preventing tyrannies.

The Ancestral bloodlines carry the very blood of Lord Uthaine Ember himself; the divine power flowing down through the years. This has created the utilitarian inbreeding of many generations to keep that blood pure and powerful; leading to many generations over declining years of minor power by standards of the progenitor and the rare occurance of a greatly powered individual with that rare formation of heritages that afford them great use of the technologies and arcane wisdoms passed down by the proto-god.

The Protectorates

The Ecthakyr had seen to it that they were not unarmed when the time came for the inevitable clash of the Compact and the Arcktemperthae, and thus they had begun to reach out to those races most distant to the centre of this conflict, and in doing so provide themselves with more allies.

Onutharion, the pale rider, in methods of transmutation unknown to all modern knowledges, had slipped into the southern realms unseen and unheard, passing across the seas to the lands of the birdfolk, Avuiro. Through the rigors of intense training and knowledges of generations, Onurtharion forged the birdfolk into a black legion of skyborne marauders. Unknown in tactic to most of the mortal realms, Onurtharion had invented the worlds first pattern of Shock-combat. Dropping with intense speeds into the heat of a battle or the centre of a civilian plaza, the Birdfolk warriors carried axes and blades and throwing daggers that turned them into a deadly and effecient weapon.

Where man or Elterbrin or Dwarf might sing hyms or warcrys to psyche their warriors into intense frenzies, or the Arcktemperthae might roar and breathe great breaths of flame onto the ground below; this skybound legion was instilled with the principle of silence in combat. Unnerving, unnatural, Unforgiving. Raised from winged child to kill without remorse, without mercy, and without hesitation - in utter silence.

When the seven stood with Uthaine Ember-Lord at the Planar nexus and were frozen in mental combat, the Black Legion flew forth under Onurtharion's predetermined mental orders. Twenty Thousand winged warriors blotted out the sun over the cities of the Compact, in sheer and utter silence beside the flapping of the ocasional wing or the jangle of loose metal.

They loosed themselves upon the cities of the Compact and slaughtered countless thousands whilst the armies had been drawn to the planar nexus, and Uthaine detained by mental endurance. Women. Children. The Elderly and Sick.

They had razed entire districts and burnt themselves into the eternal psyche of the realm when they left little under half a million dead in their wake, the armies of the Compact returning to burning cities and broken homes.

The Legend of the black legion spread as the Compact fell and was formed into Lirocea, to the Black Legion their enduring order under the Arcktemperthae had been to destroy their enemies without mercy. The Arcktemperthae had never rescinded that order and so a nation of lethal warriors remained at war with the world.

They were ghosts on the wind, black revenants in the wake of all true record. They would appear briefly every few thousand years in renewed strength from some unknown vista and raze a village, or disappear an entire fleet of ships overnight. Although the Ember Sentinels have proved effective in limiting the widespread destruction of these raids, they are without ability to strongly counter this airborne army.

Sumeryael passed to the north with contingents of dragons carrying riches, seeking the hidden realm of the icy wastes to gather from it an army of giants from beneath the frozen waves. He returned a hundred years hence with a legion of great creatures, bearing armor forged with the newfound knowledges granted to them by the Dragons. Effecting a cultural revolution, the frost giants had formed their own new realm in cities carved from the ice, bearing black steel carved from the unique ores of the far north, and in worship of the 76 great worms who they saw as the creators of their mighty folk, having carved the depths of their calderic home in efforts to tunnel the ice and stone.

When Uthaine passed from the Dwarven realm with the Stone-kiss, the Zatvok, the Western shores of Hexrock were beset with a fleet of grey barges. Throats of unknown origin called to the gods for strength, and the stone-faced dwarves were beset with warriors clad in black steel, 12 feet high and with clubs and hammers large enough to shatter entire ranks of dwarven warriors wholesale.

Uthaine and his dwarven compatriots, as well as the ilk of the Ember Sentinels engaged this brave new threat, repelling them back to the gravel beaches below the plateau, they never fully retreated, pulling back to the icy wastes northward after they saw the stone dragons fall from the sky - the foul sorceries of the Dwarfs polluting the kindred of their benefactors.

The Frost Giants spent generations honing their craft in combat and smithing of their unique alloys - the black metals they call Wyrricahm collectively. They have returned in great barges made from bone and other arcane materials, establishing minor settlements along the western coast of hexrock undisturbed, also extending and exploring to the south in search of new lands, inevitably finding the great continent of Zokkacotta that had been long dominated by the ancient fungal forests on its back.

Within they opened trade with the humble and simple Mushroomites, trading metal works and their services as giants in return for rare mushrooms with great properties and land to settle along the northern coast peninsula.

The Elder Dragons

After the fall, the stone-kiss spread to all of the dragons bar one amidst the Arcktemperthae, and they turned to statues in the air and the ground, many shattering and cracking irretrievably. The lesser kin had passed into legend or death, and left the elder dragons and their few rare clutches of eggs they had safeguarded for eternal millenia as the last of their kind.

Drakyr herein means brood of dragons.

The IcenDrakyr have remained in hibernation and stasis of their mortal forms, undisturbed deep under Muspel's alien surface.

The IsenDrakyr live openly amongst the open desert plains of Desarid, some effort of repopulation is made, and they live on.

The ZokkanDrakyr (Swamp Dragons) guide the Mushroomites from their fungal caves hidden beneath the ancient forests, paths to them known only to a few Mushroomites seers who seek eternal guidance. Their forms become stationary with the ages and the fungites around them bleeding into their bodies, beneath the scales, fusing the spirits and flesh of the dragon with the forest and land around them, their spirits and wisdom fusing into it and from this crude transfiguration, nature spirits would be born into the forests above that grow long and old.

The Dragonsages are the greatest kept secret still of the Brassborn, only a sacred order devoted to their protection and secrecy keep them safe. Unable to fully adapt their souls to the forms of the Brassborn, the original kindred of Dragonsages passed into the eggs they keep, which are preserved safely in alcoves along deep volcanic vents beneath Teregany. Tended to by Brassborn, these eggs preserve some of the oldest and wisest Elder Dragons left. They successfully guided the Brassborn in retaliation and reclamation, and thus have rescinded to an age of further silence, brooding on past wrongs as the world above heals from aeons of wounding.

The Void Dragons, having fulfilled their greatest prophecy and having carved their greatest knowledges into the runestones of the Dwarves, allowed themselves to pass from this world, the Zatvok having successfully been built and destroying the Arcktemperthae. They were without purchase for their souls on the continent, and thus gave into the final sombre kiss of passage. Their bones have been preserved deep in stone crypts at the heart of Humbles, their names under the breaths of prayers of Dwarven sculptors.

Silverwoods

The Jatairni had long fled to the Jungles, away from the centre of Lirocean civilization; seeking connection with nature. It was here that they rediscovered their ancestral spawning pools under the guiding shade of the Silverwoods. Although many digress away from these ancient roots, believing them just flora, the Jatairni were through patience, capable of discerning meaning from the creaking of their branches and the falling of petals from their voluminous foliage. This discernment of meaning is paramount to the wisdom the Silverwoods granted upon the Jatairni; allowing them to construct many hidden grotto's and dens throughout the jungles that remain unseen even to the trained eye of Lirocean loggers and head-hunters.

As Tree-speakers and Jungle guardians of the continent, the Jatairni are reclusive and forgotten in times of shining progress, guarding ancient secrets known to few if none alive.

To the North however, the SIlverwoods mourn for the loss of much of the Azure forests; burnt and cut back for expansion of urban and industrial realms; used as fuel in the furnace of progress.

Arcktemperthae

Recorded Arcktemperthae prophecies on cylinders of volcanic glass ,intricately carved to repeat sound when spun under air currents.

The legends of the Arcktemperthae are recorded and deciphered by the scholars of many races, collectively referring to themselves, hunters of these niche troves, as Temperists - as archaeologists and scholars who excavate these truths and prophecies from the might of the dragons at their height.

For such is the loss of knowledge in the procession of time that many mortal races have come to know only of the dragons through their imperialistic brethren, and thus history is skewed by the endless procession of ages.

Of these legends, one has been extrapolated from multiple fragments of a greater saga, speaking of the last of their kind; the Last of the Arcktemperthae. Escaping the wroth of the stone kiss through brilliance in humorological potions which altered the nature of their very essence, the Semperfasti (Lonely Child) exists as a shade of their former self in a world that moves on from the draconic eras. Their body is comprised entirely of steams and vapors, incapable of true physical form all that holds the Semperfasti to our realm is the immense will of his ilk - of course this unique transmutation has granted the dragon improper immortality, for his form is no longer technically among the living but transmuted into a more cosmologically elemental configuration. The saga dips and weaves through poetic stanza's, but there is implication that the Semperfasti will be instrumental in the release of their remaining brethren kept as statues around the planar nexus, in eternal throes of ancient combat with the warriors of the Compact.

Of course scholars were excited to extrapolate such a concrete legendarium from the artifacts of the Arcktemperthae, and Vynthyric purists were quick to assign some notable assuredness to this legend in the wake of excavations of countless draconic fossils in the reclaimed portions of Miltourne, a land which is now muchly ash, blasted wastelands, and mountains of coals.

Amidst these blasted ashlands are the mostly-buried ruins of the original elterbrinnic culture before the monolithic obsidian constructions of the dragons overtook the horizon, and herein it is sought to remake the heart of Vynthrindom.

Despite endless attempts at its breach, the great obsidian tower of the Dragon lords and the heart of their channelling of the energies of the land remains locked to immense forces, wills, and magicks, impervious and sealed to the ages, its obsidian spires unchanging.

The Men of Selvin

The men who befell into civil war, destroying the realm of Termansk and retreating from the compact in the early years of the era, became a distinct and brutalistic culture in their own right - referred to collectively as the Annunaic tribes.

They hold some credence in the kings and lords of ages past, revering the lords who conquered the isle and looking forward to the Compact, but the social values of man have changed greatly to match the dire times of plague and famine. Ravagers and Marauders, Man has become Sea-raiders to the Noshkalar and races of the remaining Compact, breaching and pillaging what they can to bolster their strung out economy.

Rather than worshipping the cairns of old and the ancestral lines, thought is given to the future and progress, through the example of the mighty Chieftain Halfthaine of old, the heavens and the movement of the stars show the path forward, rather than belief in those who had coming providing guidance on which steps to take. Orrycism - the worship of the heavens - is believed to show the dictated path of fate and therefore how to succeed and fulfill ones destiny in life.

Great orreries are perhaps one of the few acts of singular masterwork on part of the Annunaic peoples, Star-readers put forth pillaged metals and quarried stones to build great underground chambers that channel the moonlight through precise channels to light arcane runes and produce a reading of the heavens.

The Legend of Halfthaine and his death to the heathen god Uthaine, his nephew (By right of some Annunaic star-readers, making Halfthaine himself divine in nature) is perhaps the greatest fable of the Annunaic people.

His fall and dead lead to the civil war that directly destroyed the old order in the eyes of many, bringing generations of progressive destruction and regression - for whilst the Annunaic do much that is necessary they are not without a sense of fatalistic awareness and are capable of perceiving all that they have lost, lamenting much.

When Halfthaine fell, it is said that gave unto each grown man a piece of his flesh, to feed upon and sup from it some small portion of the Chieftains strength, and by the end of this procession of soldiers and smiths and farmers, that Halfthaines dying form was rendered nothing but a skeleton, wasted away as bone meal in the winds - fate reclaiming him.

Thusly Halfthaines immortal spirit was bound to the peoples of the Isle, and he would be with them immemorially; his spirit was to fall back into the primordial seas of the divine but was bound in chains of oath to the mortal realm, for he had sworn no death would slay his spirit and the peoples had sworn to encase a piece of himself in their blood eternally, generations hence.

In time this knowledge has become twisted and partially forgotten, but all folk of the isle are entrapped with life-long nightmares of this dark realm where the bound man is tortured by his half-existence. They are spoken to by him and given messages to carry back from this half world into the mortal realm in the form of the Annunambra Tesambe - the nightmare script. With nearly 430 distinct pictographic symbols, it is a sophisticated and unique linguism with powerful insight into the subconscious psyche of the islefolk. They have been adopted by the Islefolk as the Orryic alphabet and assigned to each of the stars for constellative meaning.

Unfortunately due to famine, lack of farming, pestilence, their pillaging and combative lifestyles as well as the collapse of trade with the compact - life is short and hard on the isle. living less than half their lifespan under the compact, Men barely pass the age of 40 and those who do are considered elderly and feeble.

Although they are barbaric by comparison, the Annunaic don't lack a conception of leadership and the necessity of such a role in managing their society. The Anastucal is a term given to describe the portended leader of each generation. Selected from warbands by the most senior orrycists of the age, they are foretold by the heavens in part and elsewise subjected to the Annunambricasta (Long Nightmares). Given rare herbs in brewed beverages and deep-forest mushrooms, the potential Anastucal's must enter the Nightmare realm for days or weeks at a time in a state of inescapable sleep, if they emerge with the blessing of the chained man and their sanity, then they are one to lead, elseways they are slaughtered in mercy so as to reduce their suffering from ethereal horrors endured. The Anastucal has total divine governance over his people, leading the raids of the summers and organizing the tribes into some semblance of society during the winters.

Due in part to their contact with the dwindling and out-bred Noshkalar, the Annunaic inevitably made contact with the Western Crocodilian genus; the Vatarnkalar. Whilst they initially were apprehensive the Vatarni saw great promise in this new prey; formidable foes who had some skill in combat.

Whilst the Vatarni are savage and large and brutish, they are almost unparalleled combatants on land, slaughtering or at the very best, drawing with Annunaic raiders. This constant back and forth is only unbalanced when the Vatarni are arrogant enough to engage the raiding warbands on the open seas, where their superior ships outstrip and flank swimming packs of Vatarni, catching them between ships or slaughtering them at a distance.

This constant seasonal conflict has lead to the Vatarni establishing centre-land colonies so as to better facilitate pack movements to the east-coast during summer, as their young males seek social absolution through combat against formidable prey. Similarly the Annunaic have taken to skinning and skulling the Vatarni hunters, making cloaks of the thick hide or using their skulls as great ship-heads.

Vatarni

To discuss the intergenerational conflict and fighting of the Crocodile-folk and the sea marauders, one must understand the dichotomy of the Vatarnkalar and their societal upliftment.

They have curiously enough, developed the secular theories of the Humours; a combinative approach of philosophical ideals and literal imbalances of the elements of ones anatomical form. The Eight essences, or humours, contribute to the balance that the Vatarni believe life exists within as it if were brackets.

These humours are distinct from the elements of the world and represent hybridizations of conceptualizations like morality and emotional regulation, just as much as anatomical components of the body, and the connection between the two is believed to be expressively distinct (One impacts the other).

Example:

The Humour of Scales references the literal hides the Vatarni have and the care that must be undertaken to keep it clean and well-shining, but also references ones ability to withstand the elements of the world and the challenges and prey that one must endure in order to fulfill their full social perogative; both in the literal and greater metaphorical sense. This portrayal of the worlds challenges feeds into the Vatarnkalar's conceptualization of Death as the final challenge, rather than a passage onward or an end to things; it is considered another challenge to be endured and overcome, the belief being that eventually great enough Vatarni will be born that are incapable of death.

This uniquely secular knowledge of humours caused the Vatarni to experience a true renaissance of culture and enlightenments; building several new permanent cities of stone working rather than huts and crude woodworks; raiding and pillaging the noshkalar on the eastern coast to pull in greater flesh harvests and metalworking examples. This is what lead to their inevitable war with the Annunaic peoples.

They have dug deep into the murky swamps of the continent and a century into the war, believe they have discovered the body of a sleeping 'great one', a fire-god-being with the ability and wisdom to guide them as a race. Their attempts to pierce its hide and awaken it are unsuccessful for 300 years until they gather enough knowledge of Annunaic metals to begin forging alloys with their local metals, creating a primitive aluminium bronze.

Brassborn

The brassborn, through unknowing divine inspiration, make a great leap in technological assembly - using their knowledge of kinetic manipulation to create great pneumatic weapons that use pressure-seals to build air-burst forces that propel large metal projectiles from barrelled cannons. These weapons were designed with the intention of either piercing dragon-hide or crushing the internal skeletal structure failing that. Over the course of generations this design was methodically refined into suit-powered and suit-carried variants for the shoulder and wrist, allowing for effectively reloadable and wieldable designs.

In addition to their open contact culturally and commercially with the realm of Lirocea, following the collapse of the Compact, the Brassborn had come to the conclusion that their language barrier with the other races was only going to increase political tensions, as they had been offered a place on the political council formed from the remaining realms that overthrew the Arcktemperthae, and those who believed that some kind of order was necessary to prevent such tyranny from arising again. Thusly the Council of the White Spire was formed from the constituent peoples who fought in the fall of the Arcktemperthae; What is now Lirocea, The Dwarves, and the Brassborn.

This lead the Brassborn engineers to consider an issue for decades and centuries of how to formulate a design that allowed effective communication in the real-time with their fleshy compatriots; and thus was the mechanical art of Voxuitary born. Its roots in technologies discovered in excavational digs of Arcktemperthae works; in cylinders of volcanic glass that could reproduce sound; the Brassborn sought to reproduce this artificial sound with the creation of similar kinetic mechanisms that produced sound on heavy metal cylinders that constantly rotated, not unlike a musical instrument.

After progressive failure; the Brassborn succeeded in building Voxic units that could be installed into the heavy suits that their kind had begun to routinely wear, and which could draw on stored kinetic power to produce incredibly precise ranges of kinetic sound, which in turn could be modulated by the internal movements of gestures; although crude compared to organic speech this allowed some limited range of communication with the other races for a time. Over the ages of course, this design was refined and became increasingly sophisticated, and whilst the Brassborn were never at home with vocal communication, it has become a second nature to their kind who have become acquainted with the wider realms.

If you asked a Brassborn about their internal societal acclimatization of the passage of time, they would give you the answer that they existed in the age of Ceramics. This answer is simple enough to conjure because to them the greatest revolution of the era had been the invention of a family of ceramic materials relative to Porcelain. As mortals wear clothing over their skin or heraldry on armor, the Brassborn have taken to minutely carved and shaped Porcelein plates over their suits or native bodies; artistically designed to resemble a vast and intricate range of shapes, forms, and textures. This 'fashion' has lead to a revolution of their concept of personality and thus their society as a whole. A brassborn might have a dozen different arrangements of plates, which, interchangeably, might express a variety of moods or social occasions and endeavours. For instance, when engaging in protracted events with other mortal realms; the Brassborn adopt 'skins' that show similarly mortal features; a Face with nose, eyes, ears etc. This is done in order to increase diplomatic relativity; making the Brassborn more relatable in conversation with other mortals is a key step in establishing enduring trust.