#elandria

"Where all the roads have ended, the path we march has not."

Elandria was once lush, vibrant and full of life. Ancient civilisations lived here, advanced enough to create limitless energy, build mechanical servants, venture to distant stars. Of these ancient people, nothing remains. The ruins of their great works litter the wastelands, little more than scrap to be salvaged and reused.

They were replaced by cruel gods, whose command over magic and sorcery gave them the right of might over the beleaguered world. They created playthings of the survivors, mutating and toying with them as they saw fit. Yet they too would see their twilight, for they vanished entirely from the world. Some say they left for new worlds; others claim they were destroyed by the children of the Old World. Either way, Elandria was left a strange, chaotic land. Arcane radiation left the world forever changed, causing the climates of the disparate regions to defy logical meteorology. The sky was left poisoned by old-world pollutants, the toxins in the clouds diffusing the sun’s light in a myriad of different colours.

Feudal states began to arise from the ruins of the Old World. Medieval kingdoms soon appeared across Elandria, building towns and cities on the bones of what came before. The radiant energy of the arcane empowered the people of the realm, bringing on Elandria’s Age of Heroes. Legends were born, mythologies built; yet even the great heroes of old could not best the march of technology.

Across the Abyssal Sea, a new power was rising. The Samyazin - a people supposedly created as servants and heralds of the divine order - began a campaign of religious conquest in other realms, building their strength. The Basilian Theocracy rose from these crusades; a militant colonial empire seeking to spread the Good Word of their gods, by any means necessary.

Elandria was one of the many realms conquered by these crusaders. Strained under decades of Theocracy oppression, the populace was ready to revolt. Reverse-engineering Basilia’s technology, the world rose against their oppressors, casting off their chains and turning the tools of the enemy against them.

The struggle against the Theocracy continues to this day, fought as proxy wars in the far-flung realms suffering the colonialist yoke. Eight Great Powers emerged from the Revolution, nominally laying claim to their respective regions; in practice, the lands they ruled are impossible to connect even with their new technology.

The Theocracy released many horrors onto the land, letting them propagate across the realm like a plague. Mutants and monsters roam the lands between settlements, making trade, communication and connection much more difficult. Though the Great Powers try to push back the hordes, they find the task particularly difficult; hence, their vassals remain isolated from one another, forming their own semi-independent kingdoms and territories.

For many, it is just as well; Elandria was forcibly ripped from its feudal status quo, so it is only natural many return to it when alternatives are difficult to achieve. What worked in the past can work again, should the need arise. Yet this regressive thinking did not stop the march of technology from advancing, and as the world began to heal, tensions rose as those in power began to covet the lands and resources of their neighbours. Even with the threat of Basilia in the distant lands beyond, Elandria fell into conflict with itself.

The Great War was the first truly realm-wide conflict anyone had seen in recent memory. Alliances were drawn, power blocs formed; all for a futile war which achieved nothing.