Humankind History

The following is a chronicle of mankind’s time so far upon the lands of Ara'niel.

Mankind found itself upon the northern most island of the world, a land called they eventually called Atimar. The land was good, and mankind prospered, and in due time, spread. For many hundreds of years civilization progressed along it's orderly pace. Technologies came, and were replaced, and then made obsolete, as is the tendency of technologies.
It was some 1000 years after mankind had started expanding from the lands of Atimar that magic was first discovered as an independent art by the first mage, Rashamar. This discovery rocked mankind on its heels. Al-Sidhe, the great heart-city of Atimar, already considered the center of the world by mankind suddenly lit itself ablaze in scholarly research. Magic was discovered, it's most basic principles came to be understood.

Then followed dark times, those who could use magic often abused their talents for their own gain. These were the days of dark sorcerers and courageous heroes, when a man with a sword and bravery could fight against the terrible, but as yet somewhat un-reliable, power of the sorcerers and prevail. An age long past, though immortalized in song and stories. However for every sorcerer stopped by a hero a dozen were not and freely abused their power. Eventually sanity returned to the land, and magical rogues were eliminated with immediate and terrible efficiency.

But the damage was done. Thousands had scattered, mostly across the seas to the southern continent. Atimar went on for a time, now shunned by the southern states, and little is known of it's history before it's fall, for until the southern states started accepting refugees in those dark days, Atimar disdained what they saw as cowards fleeing a temporary problem, and the southern states feared and shunned those they saw as dark mages dabbling in powers that shouldn't be dealt with.
So the southern states grew, and shunned all but the most basic magics they expanded and worshipped their gods, for in this strange new land to the south they found many sets of gods where previously there was only one. For a time things were peaceful. Atimar stabilized and the Southern States expanded. Hundreds of years passed, and there was the occasional small war between countries of Atimar, between the Southern States and even one or two between the southern states and Atimar, but nothing terribly important to the fate of humans as a whole.

Then came the Fall of Tilbury. From southeastern Tilbury, a small country in the southeast of Atimar a strange plague broke out. The dead rose up and attacked the living. At the request of the local baron the king of Tilbury dispatched his army to contain the threat. Alas this was not enough, and shortly after an army of skeletons dressed in the rags of the king’s army began attacking all of Tilbury. Tilbury was quickly overwhelmed, every soldier, man, woman and child rising from the dead as the plague spread.
Shortly thereafter the army of the dead turned their gaping sockets north and began to march on the other countries of Atimar.
The assembled armies of Atimar met the threat, armed with the finest magics and weapons they could get.
For a time it seemed to work, for if the plague of dead was not retreating, at least it was unable to advance.
At this time men and women began fleeing Atimar, fearing the undead would win.
The Southern States accepted them reluctantly, but accept them they did.
The Southern States, hearing about the plague of the undead promptly cut all connections with the governments of Atimar, declaring that misuse of magic had finally caused Atimar to die to its own corruption, and refusing to meet with the governments in the same way an average man refused to touch a leper.

Still, the Southern States DID accept refugees, even if they demanded harsh methods of proving the refugees were uninfected. So the refugees came, in seemingly unending streams, and with them they brought ill news. The undead were advancing, pushing through the armies of the united Atimar. It was not long before he refugees, now numbering in the dozens of millions trickled to a stop, the last often washing ashore clutching anything that would float.
The last reports were of near total devastation. All major cities had been taken over, with only a few strongholds remaining. There was no form of organized resistance. The Southern States looked on, in sadness, for the loss of life, in fear, of so relentless and powerful an enemy, and slightly, in smugness, knowing they had been right to shun magic.

What happened next shocked the world, and explanations are still being sought. For 3 days and 3 nighst a terrible light seemed to emanate from Atimar, and on the fourth day, when the light died, there was no Atimar, but only a few disconnected island chains.


In any case it was the aftermath that truly altered the course of history. Refugees from the fall came by the millions. Most merely citizens seeking shelter in dangerous times, seeking a new home, rather than the one they soon saw sink into the sea. Others... others were the mages so feared in the south.

The refugees spread or were spread throughout the land, for no one city could possibly support all of them. It was some few years before the mages came out of hiding amongst the refugees and started practicing their works again. The Southern States were quickly torn into factions, each with it's own view on the mages, the most prevalent being that the mages should be killed, to stop them from destroying their new home as they had the old one, others favored allowing them to live and practice, for they knew that Atimar had been great and powerful a shining land, and it's cities jewels of power and beauty beside those of the Southern States. Still others hoped to allow the mages to live, but only in service to the governments of the city states. The opinions were without number, and tensions quickly came to a head. A war broke out. Known by many names, The War of the Magi, the thousand year war, The Shattering War (so called because many great nations were irrevocably shattered into thousands of tiny baronies). However it was most simply known as The Great War.

The Great War lasted nearly 1000 years of constant fighting. The lists of battles, and fallen, of countries, made, destroyed, lost, reclaimed, fallen and changed sides is near endless. A thousand heroics are listed, and nigh on 10,000 tragedies; however it is during this period of warring states that a few things of import happened. Perhaps most importantly of all was a group of mages declaring that the mages had been in the wrong, that they were indeed responsible for the destruction of Atimar, and avowing it to never happen again. These mages eventually claimed a small island in the north and became known as the Magical Kingdom. Horrible beasts were created, and the few demons that had remained hidden on Ara'niel were brought to power and sated on blood, and flesh. Truly the consequences on the world were endless, for at the beginning the world was filled by hundreds of millions, and was starkly divided between the magical Atimar, and the Southern States, whom had continued the advancement of their technology. Indeed there are legends of things that elude our finest mages today, done completely in the absence of magic. After the war much of magic was lost, the technologies of the southern states lost, and all but a bare million or two lives lost. After the war...was the world of today.

There are far fewer people than there are cities for, indeed now there are many cities lost in the wilderness, home only to animals or perhaps men still fighting building to building, living in the ruins, unaware the war ended a scant few hundred years past. The technology has regressed farther than we can know, for the complexities of the southern states creations were not preserved even half so well as the few magics remaining. It has been said by a philosopher in that these are the best days to be alive. For mankind truly has nowhere else to go but up.

Vereh Noice.

Oh, you compliment his writing, without shiny flourishes, and literary nuances, and you flame me? Okay, it's true when I've written lore in the past, I didn't put a lot of effort into it but, that's mean Doom [cry]. Regardless, I enjoyed it Burning.