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Alshain
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There is archaeological evidence that the region currently known as Vantia was settled long before recorded history, during the age of the mysterious lost civilization known as the Algos. Their ruins can still be found here and there, although they are concentrated more heavily to the south, in the unsettled region known as the Primeval Expanse. Almost nothing is known about this prehistoric era other than that some magical artifacts of such power have been recovered from Algos ruins as to suggest that, at its apex, this civilization reached heights of magical wisdom far in excess of anything known today. This period is known as the Forgotten Age (FA).
At some point approximately 5000 years ago, the civilization known today as the Algos disappeared from the face of Ythra. Although sages have are many theories about what destroyed the Algos, there is no conclusive evidence, and all such debates remain speculative. Regardless of the cause, the disintegration of the Algos civilization marked the end of the Forgotten Age and the beginning of the Age of Chaos (AC), which opened with a period of chaos as the survivors of the unknown catastrophe struggled for survival, gradually reinventing the foundational aspects of civilization.
By about 1500 AC (3500 years ago), the surviving tribes had begun to stabilize, and the stronger among them which still possessed some remnants of the wisdom of the Algos began to form nascent city-states. This led to a long period of regional conflict as the rulers of these city-states -- really just glorified warlords -- vied for control of the region known as the Grythmar Peninsula.
Many minor powers rose and fall during this time, but the next event of major historical significance occurred around 2500 AC (2500 years ago), when the powerful ruler known as King Emesh (sometimes rendered as Mesh in modern vernacular) subdued his rivals and unified most of the warring factions under a single banner which came to be known as the Ekkedian Empire, ushering the Ekkedian Era or Ekkedian Epoch (EE). It is said that, though he was human, King Emesh found an ancient Algos cup of immortality while delving into their ruins and that he ruled over his empire for hundreds of years, although sages debate the historicity of this claim. Others say that Emesh was not human, but an elf, or perhaps a half-elf, and thus possessed of extreme longevity through his natural heritage. Some sages even doubt the existence of Emesh himself, believing him to have been a mythological figure, although this is a minority view and most historians accept that a ruler named Emesh conquered the rival city-states of the Grythmar region, regardless of his race, immortality, and the length of his reign.
Lending credence to the possibility that Emesh did indeed acquire Algos techniques of immortality is the undisputed evidence that the Ekkedian Empire excavated significant troves of ancient Algos wisdom and artifacts that enabled it to achieve great heights of alchemy and sorcery. There is widespread historical and archaeological evidence that Ekkedia built grand cities with impressive architecture and constructed a great fleet that subdued the whole of the Dralith Sea. King Emesh moved his capital to the island of Cyria off the coast of modern-day Vantia, calling the new city Thalaris, and from there Emesh (or the line of emperors who ruled under that name) presided over a great maritime empire, both military and mercantile, that reigned supreme for another thousand years.
But even this great empire was not to last. Dwelling in the shadow of the fallen Algos civilization whence it derived its wisdom and power, Ekkedia too eventually fell into ruin. Unlike the Algos, the factors leading to Ekkedia's fall are not a mystery. It fell victim to the fate of all empires, growing inefficient and corrupt, mismanaging its coinage and treasury, overextending itself and attempting to conquer and administer more territories than it had the resources to control. Some of its conquered territories, as well as an alliance of minor rival powers that had never been fully brought to heel, brought significant external pressure on Ekkedia, forcing it to engage in costly military conflicts on multiple fronts.
These stresses eventually coincided with dynastic succession struggles, which ancient records suggest arose when Emesh finally died, possibly murdered since he was said to be immune to such mundane causes of death as aging and disease. Chronic resource mismanagement combined with a prolonged drought brought widespread poverty and starvation to the common citizens. With the empire crumbling and the people's prosperity suffering, social unrest led to further cracks in the empire, and the decadent and corrupt aristocracy responded by hiring foreign mercenaries to crack down on the native population.
Although historians agree that this convergence of stresses would have been sufficient to fell the Ekkedian Empire, fate intervened to deal the finishing stroke in more dramatic fashion. Around 1000 EE (1500 years ago) the capital city of Thalaris, the decadent empire's corrupt heart, was wiped out in a single night. Many attribute this to the wrath of the gods, destroying the empire whose soul had been blackened beyond redemption, but some modern scholars believe it was wiped out by a natural catastrophe. Either way, to this day the island of Cyria on which was Thalaris was built is inhabited only by monsters, and nothing remains of the city but scattered ruins -- a cursed and foresaken place.
The loss of its capital and many of its highest-ranking rulers was the final death knell for the buckling empire, which soon fell to continued pressure from enemies both internal and external, and its greatest cities were sacked and razed. This marked the end of the Ekkedian Epoch and the beginning of the Dark Age (DA), a second period of chaos like that which followed the fall of the Algos. Much of the wisdom of the Algos that the Ekkedians had resurrected was forgotten again, never to be recovered, and for the next several centuries, the people of the Grythmar Peninsula suffered under conditions of severe deprivation and continuous warfare between rival warlords. Several parts of the former empire descended into total anarchy, including the southern extent (formerly the Ekkedian province of Gallis, today modern-day Vantia) which was conquered by savage tribes of loxin, orcs, and their allies from what is today called the Primeval Expanse.
Two splinter remnants of Ekkedia survived. One lay in the northern desert: the province of Bizala, where the regional governor Verggal styled himself as sorcerer-king. Possessing strong leadership and some of the greatest extant remnants of Ekkedia's fortifications and sorcerous techniques, Bizala successfully fended off attacks from the barbarians that had conquered the neighboring regions. After several generations of consolidation, Bizala had grown strong enough, and the neighboring conquerors weak enough from constant in-fighting, that Verggal's successor, the sorcerer-king Zander, was able to launch a war of expansion, seizing control of all northern Grythmar and even pressing southward and pushing back the savage tribes that had conquered Ekkedia's southern extents, the province of Gallis. By 576 DA (approximately 750 years ago), in the name of bringing renewed peace and prosperity, Zander declared Bizala the successor to Ekkedia, the third great empire of Grythmar, and instituted the reign of Pax Bizala.
Contemporaneously, the second splinter remnant of Ekkedia, the province of Rykar, attempted to consolidate power in the former empire's southeastern extent. However, Rykar did not fare as well as Bizala. Pressed from all sides by barbarian forces consisting of peoples formerly conquered by Ekkedia, Rykar was eventually overwhelmed by a mercenary army led by a darkling witch-queen named Malvoria, the high priestess of a corrupted splinter sect of one of Ekkedia's creeds, which worships the dark goddess Lamat. In 600 DA, after a bloody battle and sacking of the regional capital Drakenscar, Malvoria installed herself as the ruler of the newly renamed Rikenfald. Claiming to be the inheritor of Emesh, Malvoria proclaimed herself the immortal ruler of Rikenfald for all time. Unlike Emesh who may or may not be a mythical figure, sages cannot doubt Malvoria's claims of immortality since there are reliable records of her continuous reign from the founding of Rikenfald to the present day.
It would not be long before these two major forces that inherited the legacy of Ekkedia came into conflict. Making common cause with the tribes of the Primeval Expanse, Malvoria soon launched an invasion into Gallis, Bizala's soft underbelly in the south. Two centuries of intermittent conflict ensued, and Bizala managed to hold out against Rikenfald's advances for a long time. However, internal pressures began to mount in the northern regions as conquered provinces agitated for independence. In 812 DA, Bizala withdrew its forces from Gallis to help suppress rebellions in the heartland, abandoning its settlers and leaving the south open to invasion. Rikenfald and its allies quickly seized upon the opportunity to pour forces across the undefended border and conquer southern Bizala.
Although successful at suppressing the initial rebellion, Bizala continued to buckle under growing civil unrest and rebellions, and the decadence that eventually afflicts all empires, continuously ceding territory until it had withdrawn control to its original desert borders. Disgusted with the incompetent and corrupt leadership, in 883 DA the Council of Archmages forcefully deposed the sorcerer-king Gustaf and instituted a magocracy, rule by council. Bizala was reborn as the present-day sorcerous desert kingdom of Thyria, and the surrounding provinces which had already achieved de facto independence were now granted it formally, spelling the end of the Third Great Empire and ushering in the current era, the Revival Age (RA). Shortly thereafter, the freed provinces consolidated into two new powers, the nations of Nenthar and Verdania.
To the south, Queen Malvoria found that she was having a more difficult time maintaining control over Gallis than she had expected. Some of the savage mercenaries she traditionally employed in her conquests splintered into competing factions, each desiring to seize control of the province for themselves. Additionally, despite the withdrawal of Bizala's regular forces, the hardy citizens of Gallis put up a stubborn resistance, rebelling and engaging in guerrilla warfare without end. Thanks to this combination of factors, by 871 DA, a decade before the Bizalan Empire was dissolved, all of the Rikenfaldan fortifications within Gallis had been overrun and razed, the satrap hung, and the occupying mercenary tribes broken and scattered.
The warrior who led the years-long rebellion that finally broke Rikenfald's hold over Gallis, Vanter Elflead (despite the name, a human and not an elf, although he was said to have good relations with the elves of the western realms and even traces of elven blood in his ancestry) founded a new kingdom, Vantia. It is also said that Vanter formed a pact with a powerful eidolon, a demigod, which he called down upon his foes, smiting them with divine might. Upon vanquishing the last of the occupiers, Vanter immediately established a formal alliance with the Stokker dwarf clan which had helped his forces to overthrow Rikenfald, and together they constructed a great fortress, Gilbaros, in the mountains that separated Rikenfald from Vantia. Having scoured the land of enemies, the warrior-king Vander claimed all territory from the northern sea to the southern desert of the Primeval Expanse, from the edge of the western forests to the eastern mountains.
In the ensuing four and a half centuries, the countries of the Grythmar Peninsula, all former provinces of the Third Great Empire of Bizala which was itself the successor to the Second Great Empire Ekkedia, have gradually but continuously improved their knowledge and prosperity. With the exception of Rikenfald, the self-styled Fourth Great Empire (a claim that no one outside Rikenfald would accept despite the fact that it is the largest of the successor nations, particularly considering it does not even control any territory of the Grythmar Peninsula proper, though it does control large swaths of land to the southeast), the successor nations have enjoyed the benefits of mostly cordial relations and abundant trade, broken up only by occasional minor border skirmishes and the usual competition and jockeying between peer powers. The Elflead dynasty has enjoyed and unbroken reign in that time, and after the passing of her father Endran, Queen Anri has assumed the throne as the kingdom's 17th monarch. May the gods bless her reign, especially Luminar, Lord of Light, Beacon of Vantia, and may she continue to lead her people to peace, strength, virtue, and abundance.
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