TURNTURNTURN
History seems like a good place to start, you think. You gather a few learned men, and whatever books look relevant from the castle library (there's not many of them). You ask them to give you a History of This World for Dummies.
"Long ago, in the southern lands of Kendhra, a great nation arose. This nation was the Kendhravin Regency, and they had a tradition of selecting their ruler by the vote, instead of by birthright. Legend has it that one of their kings was laid low, but not killed in his first battle, and his vassals elected a regent to rule them until the king should recover. To prevent any one of them from becoming too powerful, the regency had to be passed to another after a term of three years. Well, the king never woke, but lived to eighty-three regardless, and when he died without heirs the lords decided that the regency system was preferable to a singular king. At first, only the high lords of the land had the vote, but then the minor lords got it, and the learned men, and the merchants. Eventually, all free men had the vote. And elves and dwarves and orcs too, for the Regency was then a nation of many races."
"The Regency grew rich and powerful, becoming the foremost power in the region. They subjugated many other realms, both by the sword and by the scroll. Yet although all men were supposedly equal before the law, nature held otherwise. The Regency was careful to cultivate strong schools of mages, which when called upon lent it great power in war, but also presented an unseen threat in peace. Over the years, the sorcerers began to believe in their own superiority over lesser men, and came to subvert the person of the Regent, by means both magical and mundane."
"Only the threat of the other mages kept the Regency in an unstable peace, in a conflict marked more by subterfuge and scheming than by open violence. In the years to come, the Regency would stagnate, embroiled in malaise and indecision at the highest levels. Finally, the Compact of Visvasya was signed in secret between the most powerful sorcerers, and they took power openly in the Night of Revelation. The Regency was declared dissolved, and in its place was formed the Confederation of Sorcerers in 102 BS, eleven sorcerer-kings and queens with their own separate dominions: each sworn never to attack another of their number, and united against any outside threat."
"The Confederation grew ever stronger where the Regency had stagnated. In the span of a generation, the Confederation expanded in leaps and bounds to rule the entire continent of Assiria, and large parts of Oiras and Selvinam. And beyond their borders, their writ extended across the entire known world: from Reyknarvik in the west to Chihon in the east, kings and princes bowed and scraped before them and paid tribute. In those years the Confederation was undoubtedly the greatest civilization the world has yet seen. They reshaped the very earth with their magics: from Mansur's Passage to the Raising of the Sisters, they redrew the maps to suit their liking. Their farseers could see clear across a thousand leagues, their armies marched through arches of green stone and appeared to lay waste to the cities of their enemies, and they took to the skies with ships that could sail the clouds. Even for the common man it must be said that life was better under the Confederation than it had been under the Regency, for while the sorcerer-kings were ruthless and quick to quash any dissent, they also reigned over a longer era of peace than had ever come before. In some parts of the Confederation, a man could be born, and live and die without ever being called to war."
"Yet this era of peace was not to last. Having separated their dominions, the sorcerer-kings and queens in time grew wary of each other. Each saw the others ascending to new heights of magical might, and each feared that another would soon stumble across some new feat that would permit them to overthrow the others in an instant, declaring themselves the unquestioned ruler of the entire world. In essence, they feared a second Night of Revelation, this time with themselves as the deposed. While outwardly pretending all was well, they began to marshal armies and magics in secret."
"Then came the Magimachia, the last and greatest war between the sorcerer-kings. In those dark days, history is unclear on how the war started, but it resulted in the Sundering, the event by which we measure our count of years. Untamed magic ran rampant across the heartlands of the Confederation, laying waste to their great works. In places, the lands were shattered and sunk beneath the waves, in others, it corrupted beasts and men into twisted forms, in still further places the dead rose against the living. The Years Without Days followed, and across the world kingdoms fell into anarchy. It is said in those times that magic itself ran faint, and could no longer be wielded with the ease it used to be."
"Well, in the centuries since the world has clawed itself back to a semblance of civilization, although not to the heights of the Confederation. There have been several other notable events - the Proclamation of the Polonian Empire in 332 AS, the Exodus of the Orcs in 401 AS, and the Arcadian Wars from 564 to 609 AS - but the history of the Kendhravin Regency and the Confederation of Sorcerers is the central story of history. All cultures and races in the world were shaped by these events, and particularly in the area of magic, many traditions make sense only in this light of this history."
Well, that was ... certainly a long exposition dump. You think you've got the gist, though. Proto-democracy arises, is subverted by wizard-lords, resulting nation rules the world, collapses in devastating magical war and takes most of the world with it. You've got time to ask one more question. What will you inquire about?
A) The Kendhravin Regency
B) The Compact of Visvasya
C) The Night of Revelation
D) The Confederation of Sorcerers
E) The Magimachia and the Sundering
F) The Proclamation of the Polonian Empire
G) The Exodus of the Orcs
H) The Arcadian Wars
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Topic: SPAMISEKAI: Count Quill of Tyneset! (Read 9887 times)