User:AI/Eastern History Notes

Secret stuff regarding Eastern_History (not linked because of WhatLinksHere stuff)

Silver Drakes

The silver drakes are unusual in that they aren't led by a single ruler, but a council constituted from one drake of each of the castes. Succession is otherwise as normal. The council guards the knowledge of the process of maturation into a dragon. A single ruler might be tempted, but even a large nation of drakes cannot expect to sustain a council of 5 dragons.

When the silver drakes take firecloud peak, they unknowingly share this volcano with the Fire King (one of the Earthen Kings). The fire king eventually reaches out to one of the members of the council and reveals/invents a way to only partially trigger the maturation process. This confers most of the magical strength of a dragon onto the drake, without significantly increasing its size.

This drake informed 4 trusted friends of this process, underwent it together and then had his friends challenge and defeat the other members of the council. One of the surviving council members is Græk Lon, who was exiled and soon afterwards captured by Krados. (see TSL/ask espreon)

The Fire King's angle here is that the rigid moral code of the drakes, combined with their disdain for other races, makes a very useful tool.

Minotaurs

The creator goddess of the minotaurs, Askela, is better known under the name Uria. She turned them from their original human forms into minotaurs after a slight that is said to be the worship of a bull. To better understand her in the future, she granted the minotaurs 3 crystals. This started a shamanistic practice centered around crystals, with the three holy ones in possession of the highest elders.

What lead to the start the era of strife was the unification of the three minotaur nations under Rilend Ironfist and the three crystals in the hands of his mage and advisor Zeal. Zeal cut out his eyes and used the crystals to forge a connection to Askela. (possibly advised by Zeal) Rilend went to war to expand the empire of Lithia and eventually needed to lead his overstretched forces himself. While Zeal was left unchecked in the palace, both he and Uria were corrupted for unknown reasons. Zeal, envisioning the next target for conquest, caused the apocalyptic destruction of the rival human nations of Noct and Diurna, using demonic forces. However, Rilend returned to Lithia in order to contain Zeal, who quickly assembled an army of demons and mercenaries to defend himself. The ensuing battle claimed the lives most of minotaur army Rilend had brought, and the forces he left behind were overstretched and leaderless, and were killed or routed in the following months. Zeal was defeated, but managed to bind his soul to the three crystals as he died.

It is henceforth forbidden to unite the three crystals, as the power is too dangerous to be used. Later, the minotaurs are losing a war and are getting pushed back to their capital. A young talented shaman takes one of the holy crystals after the elder who owned it dies in battle. With the power of the crystal, he manages to win several battles, but for every battle he wins, several others are lost. He holds on to the holy crystal, effectively making him an elder, and begins to resent the other elders, who do not use their power effectively in battle. At some point, he attempts to relieve the force of one of the other elders, which has been encircled. He manages to break into the encirclement, but can't break them out until the elder dies. He takes up this crystal too, and gains access power far beyond his expectation. With his new power, he takes command of all minotaurs present, breaks through the encirclement and marches straight to the final crystal, destroying all in his path. There, he demands the crystal of the final elder, explaining that the combined power will allow him to truly defeat the enemy nation. The elder refuses, and the shaman, enraged, kills him for refusing to serve Lithia's best interests. He takes the final crystal, at which point Zeal (slowly or quickly?) possesses him.

Possibly more stuff about Zeal in TSL.

Eventide

The forerunners of the eventide where pre-khalifate settlers who left the desert because of the taboo on magic. The cities of Noct and Diurna were founded after conflicts about which forms of magic should be used, which eventually consolidated around Noct using magic of darkness and Diurna using magic of light.

The eventide formed after Noct and Diurna were both destroyed by the cataclysm described in the minotaur section. They banded together to take revenge. More by accident than through knowledge, the first target of their anger was at least the correct nation, Lithia. With the overstretched minotaur offensive crumbling and retreating beyond easy reach in the absence of its leader, the eventide quickly picked a new target, the xenophobic elves from the northern forest.

Triththa

The dominion of triththa started out as an illegal colony according to the treaties with the elves. To maintain secrecy, trade with firecloud peak was initially kept to a minimum. (50 BW - 50 YW or so) When the elves finally found out, the orcs were more pressing concern, and besides some strong words, not much was done.

Not long afterwards, firecloud peak was invaded by the silver drakes and the survivors mostly evacuated to the hills and plains of triththa. With this trade with the west was cut off. The elves were not going to let illegal settlers cross one of their most sacred forests, the drakes were hostile to everyone, the desert was too large to cross and other routes were too long to send more than occasional messengers.

This had two important effects: runecraft was maintained, but not communicated to the west and a critical ingredient for the use of thundersticks became unavailable.

More to come...