Beneath a bruised sky where twin moons bled silver into gathering storm clouds, the high walls of Kaermyr, the last city, stood silent sentinel over a world on the brink. On the wind came the clatter of steel and the low hum of ancient runes waking in hidden places, runes carved long ago by gods who sang the world into being, and by mortals who dared to steal their power. Here, in the shadow of those old magics, the destiny of kings and outcasts would be written in blood and fire. The world as it had been known, was no more. The Creator was dead, and with his demise ur-Kimanât bled like never before. His creation now a cradle serving only those who desired to control it. Elvenkind, or the Edheli, were first shaped by the high gods in starlit forges, each crafted with flawless grace and immortal vigor. But that perfection bore a hidden flaw... The taint of an absence of mercy, an instinctive cruelty born of divine arrogance. These tyrannical elves swept across the newborn world like a silken storm, ruling every vale and mountain with merciless edict. Forests bent to their will, rivers ran black with the dye of their banners, and even the oldest spirits of earth and sky quailed beneath their unkind gaze. In the wake of their reign, fissures appeared in the Edhelin unblemished blood. Subtle shifts in the genes of their mortal servants, bred for obedience and strength. From those cracks came humanity: frail of body, brief of years, but blessed with the spark of compassion the Elvenkind had never known. Shackled at first as mere lackeys, tillers of the dark Elven fields, miners of their jeweled caverns, humans learned pity in secret, tending one another through hardship. And in that secret tenderness lay the seed of rebellion, for no chain can bind a heart that understands mercy.
Scholars and their scribes detail the cataclysm which led to this incandescent mischance. The coming of the First Darkness, or so they wrote it. When the twin moons hung low over Ur—Kimanât, their pale light glinted off the hidden forges beneath the Blackstone Mountains, where humans once little more than chained laborers, secretly hammered empath—runes into steel. These blades, infused with the one gift the Elves lacked. Compassion. They hummed with a gentle warmth that belied their terrible purpose. On the Night of the Crimson Tide, when the silver rivers of moonlight pooled in silent valleys, thousands of human smiths, farmers, miners, and scholars rose as one. Their banners caught the wind: white cloth etched with a simple glyph of mercy, blazing like a star against the dark. They poured from every cavern and hollow, their footsteps echoing like thunder on the obsidian roads of Thaz'Ma'Tal, and struck at the Elven garrisons before the immortal sentinels could marshal their ancient magics. In the ivory halls, Elven lords once feasted on the subjugation of mortal hearts, terror bloomed at the touch of the empath—blades. Each stroke unraveled centuries of immortal cruelty, severing the unholy bonds that tethered their god-like souls to the lifeblood of the world. Palace walls shimmered with clairvoyant wards, but they shattered like glass beneath the human assault. The Elvenkind, and their commanders, slender and terrible, fell one by one. Their cries latched onto all that was of nature, sky, sea and love. Unheard over the roar of liberated hearts. By the time the eastern towers collapsed in ruin, the final Elven king crowned in black iron and sorrow lay dead upon the shattered steps, his crown melting into the dust of his fallen realm.Yet the magic that slew immortals cleaved more than Elven flesh. The silent shimmers of their occult-like prowess ripped open the ancient lattice of creation, fracturing the bedrock runes carved by the high gods themselves. Mountains trembled and cracked, sending avalanches of stone into newly formed chasms. Rivers boiled and vanished into the sky, leaving behind white deserts of glass and ash. Forests petrified in an instant, their trees crystallized mid—growth, trapping the spirits of beasts and dryads in silent amber. Across the broken continents, storms of unbound aether raged, twisting sky and earth into shapes no mortal mind could endure... But it did not corrupt all of ur-Kimanât. In the aftermath, only scattered bastions remained. In the Vale of Silverleaf, hidden springs still whisper beneath willows that glow with an otherworldly bioluminescence. Here the survivors tend orchards grown from seeds blessed by empath—magic, each blossoming a testament to mercy's triumph over tyranny. On the remote Isle of Dawn's Grace, coral—white beaches fringe lagoons where people sail lanterns—lit barges, trading stories and healing songs beneath the rising of the new twin moons. And deep within the Ironwood, a forest grown from the charred roots of the old world... Lorekeepers maintain the Balance Stone, a fractured rune of god—craft that pulses with both compassion and power, ensuring neither is ever wielded alone again. In the heart of this bulwark was Kaermyr. The last city. Kaermyr stood. Tall and proud, with its three dynasties rallied at its helm. The houses of old, running with both the blood of ancients and humans alike.
Into this framework stepped three noble houses, each tracing lineage to a different cohort of the uprising. House Arden, once blacksmith guild masters claimed... They welded authority over the forges and the newly minted ores, granting them economic leverage. House Sylwen descended from the rebel wardens, held sway in the field, their knights patrolling the Vale's borders. House Tervail, scholars turned magistrates, controlled the scribes, the archives of empath—magic, and the keys to every legal charter. Rather than open warfare, these houses waged their rivalry through marriage pacts, trade agreements, and the subtle placement of loyalists on the city council. Every grant of land, every silver leaf coin struck at Arden's mint, is weighed in the balance of their silent contest. Meanwhile, everyday citizens adapt to the new order with surprising resilience. Peasant families enroll their eldest as squire—servants to a knight of Sylwen, hoping to rise into minor gentry. Craftsmen apprentice under Arden's guild to secure access to the mint's contracts; and clerks seek positions within Tervail's chancery to learn the secrets of empath—runes. Markets blossom on Kaermyr's cobblestones each week, where villagers barter fruits of silverleaf orchards, refined aether—steel tools, and parchment scrolls of newly drafted laws. Though feudal in form, these customs retain the egalitarian spark born of humanity's compassion. Serfs can buy their freedom, and even minor nobles must heed the counsel of merchants and guilds. Thus Kaermyr's society coalesced and rooted in the soil of Silverleaf continued to reach toward something new. Feudal bonds provide order; the three dynasties carve out ambition and intrigue. And the people? Shaped by the memory of Elven cruelty and the gift of empathy, ensure that power remains tempered by mercy. In this delicate balance, the last city of Ur—Kimanât stands poised between ruin and renaissance, its fate decided not by steel alone but by the unseen currents of statesmanship, fidelity, piety and hope.
Kainhr, the one bearing the mark, was said to have been the sole ember of fire behind the rebellion. Gathering the most talented and skilled of the legendary humans, it was his wit and ingenuity that led to the powerful coalition of retributors. Having ushered a segment of his prowess to each of the three dynasties, Kainhr led the frontier of humanity as its vanguard. Shattering each line of elven tyranny with a singular swing of his warhammer.
The very embodiment of mankind, gentle at heart, Kainhr was born beneath the flicker of dying aether stars. The first child in centuries to bear blood of old magic. His hair shone silver in torchlight, and when he spoke the ancient words of runecraft, steel bent to his will. Leaves tangled in synchrony, and maidens wailed at his bliss. From the moment he first whispered empathy into a broken blade, the other humans knew they had found their champion, one who could wield the gift the Elves had denied them. It was him who had taught Arden the ways of smithing, and led him into forging the first blade. The countless hours at the spires had taught the Sylwen family of martial prowess, and it was his striking familiarity with egalitarianism which inspired house Tervail.
When at last the uprising stirred in secret forges beneath the Blackstone Mountains, Kainhr stood at its head. He led the smiths and farmers, the miners and scholars, into battle beneath banners etched with the twin moons and the rune of mercy. With a single stroke of his empath hammer, he shattered the ruby crowns, crests and arms around the Elven High Keep, and when the Elven lords fell before him, their immortality unraveled like thread in his grasp, the world trembled in both awe and fear.
In the aftermath, as Kaermyr's survivors hailed him their savior and master, history seemed poised to sing only praises. Yet Kainhr bore a restless heart. It was never superiority that he desired, he was no conqueror. Not in his eyes. He wandered the fledgling city's cobbled lanes, watching children learn laughter for the first time. Feeling a tenderness as profound as any magic. But in his dream haunted nights, he saw shadows between brother and brother. Jealousy, fear, ambition. Echoes of the tyranny they had just overthrown. The abuse of faith, and estrangement with chivalry. He foresaw the collapse of humanity. And not only did he prophecies it...
He lived it. That dread became reality when on a dawn misted in silverleaf dew, two of his closest lieutenants, once friends since childhood clashed over the spoils of the old Elven vaults. Kainhr raced between them, calling on his empathic gift to quell their rage, but a blade meant for one brother found its way into the other's heart. Kainhr's magic surged in horror and with a single, fateful word, he snatched life from human flesh. The blade clove both shadow and hope, and as the younger brother fell, the empath rune in Kainhr's chest cracked. The skies already darkened, and saw for the first time the roar of the Creator. At first he had stirred the continents and showered down the realm with disasters, but it was there and then when he cursed the world for what it was. His messenger had turned his back on him, and in that instant the twist of Kainhr ensued.
A curse that rippled through humanity itself. The purity of compassion shattered, sharing space with the darker echoes of hatred and envy. No longer were humans bound by a single, merciful thread as the Elves had been flawed, so were they now capable of cruelty. Kainhr, once hailed as the dawn of a new age, watched the light in his own eyes dim, knowing that in saving his people from one tyranny, he had unwittingly bound them to another. Their own imperfect hearts. And so, the founder of Kaermyr's freedom walked into legend, carrying both the glory of deliverance and the weight of humanity's tragic inheritance.
Arden the First was born amid the glow of subterranean forges, the child of smith servants who whispered old Elven secrets in the dead hours. He watched his kin toil under the immortal whip. Their spark of humanity dimmed by endless labor, and vowed to reclaim both their dignity and the lost art of his predecessors' craft. Arden stood taller than any man, his body bulky and square like the mountains of the North. It was him who hammered the first empath—blade. A slender sword whose edge thrummed with mercy's light, shattering the Elven wards that bound his people's spirits. From that moment, the smiths no longer saw him merely as one of their equals but as a leader ordained by compassion and fire. So much so, that they grew to lavishly worship him as a pantheon of the human Gods.
With the uprising's success, Arden the First claimed the great forge beneath Kaermyr and declared it the Arden Keep. Here he organized the Smiths' Covenant: a brotherhood of craftsmen sworn to one another by oath forged rings of steel. They reclaimed the silverleaf ore from the riverbeds, built water hammers powered by mountain streams, and struck coin at Arden's new mint. Each piece stamped with the twin moons and the rune of mercy. As trade caravans began to ply the Silverleaf Road, Arden's steel and coin spread the Covenant's influence far beyond the Vale's hidden springs, to lands unknown to the South. Whispered to still be populated by the silent ones— And Elden race of the dwellers who remained beneath the tides of the oceans. Pitch black of alien flesh, with tentacles dribbling from their chins.
Arden's descendants parlayed economic might into noble rank. The second lord, Marcellus Arden, negotiated exclusive charters for the forges and bridge tolls on the Silverleaf Bridge, using gold to underwrite public works. Market halls, granaries, and the first human built aqueducts. He married into House Sylwen to secure military protection, then funded Tervail scribes to codify the first laws of Kaermyr. Thus binding guild, sword, and scroll in a subtle web of mutual obligation. Through these alliances, House Arden secured a seat on the ruling council, its voice commanding respect in every deliberation.
Born in the twilight shadow of Elven tyranny, House Sylwen first took shape under Lord Saugon Sylwen, a ward of the old rebellion who had served alongside the rebel knights in the Blackstone caverns. Valor and power is what curated their distinction. Gifted with a strategist's mind and a warrior's prowess, Saugon united scattered bands of former serfs into the Knights of the Black Cloak. Taking after the shadows of their slave race's lodgings deep within the elven mountains. A martial order sworn not merely to defend but to protect the powerless. Their bronze plumed helms and crude steel edged lances became a symbol of hope in the wake of the world—shattering uprising, and Saugon's careful wit laid the foundations of a house defined by both martial prowess and reluctant precision.
Though the manifestation of their retribution was twisted... And what was sired next, fell short of their predecessors' righteousness. Under Saugon's grandson, Sir Kaelen Sylwen, the house's martial code was codified in the Treatise of the Three Virtues: Valor, Bravery, and Fidelity. Sylwen knights rode patrols across the Vale of Silverleaf, quelling aether storms and defending fledgling farms from wild elemental rifts, and laying waste to the hostile fauna around them. They held jousts not for bloodlust but to settle disputes among villages, awarding land grants to farmers whose courage under pressure benefited the whole Vale. Through these acts, House Sylwen earned the grudging respect of both peasant and petty noble, its banners seen at every harvest festival and storm relief muster.
They went on to found the Sylwen Hospices. Sanctuaries where wounds of body and soul were tended with empath—magic. An art that faded away with the passing of this ancient caste. Staffing them with knight healers sworn to lifelong service, the men took oaths of celibacy, and refused to speak until all that was of darkness was quelled. They sponsored schools where peasants' children learned both swordcraft and song, forging a new class of citizen—soldiers whose loyalty lay with the Vale, not merely with a single lord. In every act of mercy, Sylwen cemented its reputation as the guardians of Kaermyr's fragile peace. But with their seat on the council? It was not peace they sought out... It was dominion.
House Tervail's origins reach back to the first days of Kaermyr's freedom. Fragile tangles of candle light, and lowly breaths ushered against the wooly texture of forgotten scrolls. When a handful of former Elven scribes and human clerks risked their lives to rescue the last fragments of empath rune knowledge from collapsing vaults. Led by Master Arien Tervail, they founded the Chancery beside the Silverleaf River, carving their first archive chambers into living rock. In those early years, the Tervails earned their stripes by drafting the Treatise of Shared Burdens.
A compact that bound farmers, smiths, and scholars alike under the new city's laws. Their quills shaped the very idea of human self-rule: no lord might decree without cause, no serf could be punished without record, and every grant of land or coin had to pass beneath Tervail seals. This centralized commandment served as the common law amidst many, and while the human race remained untainted? Tervail superiority reigned in their influence over the land.
Culturally, House Tervail prizes literacy and ceremony above all. Young Tervails are tutored not only in law, but in song and architecture: many of Kaermyr's stone gateways and marble council benches bear Tervail composed inscriptions of old oaths. During the Festival of Records, an annual rite established by Dame Selene Tervail, families bring heirlooms and personal histories to be entered into the Great Ledger, a living chronicle that reminds citizens how interwoven their fates are. Even commoners queue to read from the ledger's pages, finding in its margins the names of ancestors who once tilled the same fields or molded the same ranes. This old time tradition however has been erased, and this custom in turn has been passed onto the guilds which have taken over the diligent duties of this ancient family.
In the decades following the establishment of the Council of Three, House Tervail with their scholars now turned magistrates, sought to bring structure and hierarchy to the evolving political landscape of Kaermyr. Recognizing the need for a formalized nobility to legitimize governance and maintain order, they introduced a system of titles rooted in ancient linguistic traditions and adapted to the realm's unique context. At the apex of this hierarchy stood the title of Autokris, bestowed upon the lords of the Council of Three. Derived from archaic dialects meaning "self-judge" or "sovereign arbiter," the title emphasized the autonomous authority and judicial responsibilities of its bearers. The Autokris were not merely rulers but custodians of law and tradition, embodying the balance between governance and justice.
Beneath the Autokris were the dukes, counts and barons. All titles conferred upon noblemen and vassals who held significant sway over their respective territories. The nobles were entrusted with the administration of provinces, the enforcement of laws, and the defense of their lands. Their allegiance to the Autokris ensured a cohesive structure of governance, with each tier reinforcing the authority of the other. Often a title bestowed onto nobles who resided outside of the last city within their keeps. House Tervail's introduction of these titles was not merely a political maneuver but a cultural shift. By embedding nobility within the fabric of Kaermyr's society, they fostered a sense of identity and purpose among the ruling classes. The titles of Autokris and others became symbols of duty and honor, guiding the actions of those who bore them and shaping the realm's destiny for generations to come.
It was Ser Alric Sylwen, the youngest son of Autokris Caedric Sylwen, who envisioned a path beyond the cycle of vengeance and chaos. Having witnessed the horrors of war and the collapse of the elven race, Ser Alric sought to instill a sense of discipline and purpose among the warriors of Kaermyr. Drawing inspiration from ancient tales and the disciplined ranks of the elven vanguard warriors, he established the first code of chivalry in the realm. This code emphasized virtues such as honor, loyalty, courage, and the protection of the weak. Under Ser Alric's guidance, the Sylwen levies transformed from mere soldiers into knights. Sworn protectors who upheld justice and righteousness. The introduction of knighthood brought a semblance of stability to Kaermyr, providing a moral compass in a time of uncertainty.
Under his annuals, it was declared that for one to become knight they ought to take upon vows that marked them servants for the remainder of their lives. Forced to serve the weak, forced to weak those who fail to protect themselves. The weak and fragile, those incapable of bravery. They were the most noble of the human race, they were the knights that clouded darkness and brought forth light in the name of humanity. Tutelage was passed onto young aspiring warriors known as squires. And though those titles did not bare an age to them, it was largely frowned upon for a male of a greater age of ten and eight to be marked down as squire. Usually ascending as Ser around the ripe age of ten and six.
Other noble houses began to adopt the code, seeing the benefits of a disciplined and honorable warrior class. The ideals of knighthood became intertwined with the emerging religious and military orders, shaping the cultural and political landscape of Kaermyr for generations to come. In the annals of history, Ser Alric Sylwen is remembered as the First Knight of Kaermyr. A visionary who brought chivalry to a fractured realm and set the stage for a new era of honor and unity.
Two centuries after the Rebellion's fires cooled, the children and grandchildren of Kaermyr began to grow restless beneath the weight of their own prosperity. And it was in that soil of quiet discontent that the Church of the Glass Chalice took root. Its founder, the most pious Aureth Valen, preached that the world's ruin had been born of impurity. That the chaos of magic's death, the shattering of Elvenkind, and even the bitter feuds of Arden, Sylwen, and Tervail sprang from hearts unclean. In contrast, he held up the Glass Chalice itself. An artifact said to be carved from a single flawless drop of empath steel. A sole act of perfection, a blissful dystopia. An oasis in the midst of ruin. The symbol of divine excellence. To drink from it was to taste purity itself.
At first, the Church's rituals were simple and moving. Worshippers fasted beside still pools, cleansing mind and body, they daubed their faces with white clay and recited hymns of redemption beneath moonlight. Women and men of all stations joined in the Ceremony of Crystal Waters, believing that the Chalice's divine reflection would wash away bitterness, envy, and doubt. Even the nobles eager for a new moral high ground lent their support, funding chapels along the Silverleaf Road and sponsoring pilgrimages to the ruined forge-hall where the Chalice was enshrined.
But purity, once heralded as a balm for old wounds, soon showed its darker side. The Church's scribes began to classify sins in ever finer detail. Confessions turned into inquisitions; neighbors accused neighbors in zeal for favor at the Chalice's altar. By the time the hundredth anniversary of the Church's founding dawned, dozens of once-proud families had been stripped of lands and titles for the merest moral lapse. This unrest forced the council to axe away at the Order's grasp over the land, and in turn bound them together. As an interjoined entity of theological superiority and hegemonic statesmanship.
In response, the Faith's hierarchy grew ever more centralized. The High Chalicebearer, an office first intended as caretaker of the relic, assumed authority to interpret doctrine. Crowning himself Pontiff of Purity. Under his edict, every village appointed a purity conclave to oversee daily life. To register births as “innocent streams,” to audit marriages for “ceremonial sanctity,” and to declare festivals only for “worthy souls.” The conclaves' patrols, robes dipped in crushed glass to symbolize crystal truth, wore silver masks that obscured their faces, as if to remind the faithful that judgment must be blind to mercy.
Now, four centuries since Valen's first sermon, the Church of the Glass Chalice dominates Kaermyr's politics and culture. Its dogma seeps into every charter, its conclaves attend every market, and its masked inquisitors inspect every workshop for the tiniest taint of corruption. The faith that rose to unite a healing people now binds them in fear of their own reflections, proving that even the purest vision, when frozen in doctrine, can fracture the soul as thoroughly as any shattered rune. But there, in those dubious shadowlands where duplicity festers, those of the sword repulse. And in turn? Protect the weak.
Far to the east of Kaermyr's silver leafed orchards, where windswept dunes meet crimson sandstone spires, a new civilization was born of shipwrights and raiders. They were those who did not seek out a single bastion of residence, but in turn sought out to plunder and erase all that remained of their former masters. For no fetters could restrain them any longer. There, the faith of the Glass Chalice never took root. Instead, the desert-folk calling themselves the Khal Rún swore themselves to the Path of the Endless Wave, a creed forged on both sand and sea. Their temples were open courtyards paved with driftwood and polished bone, their prayers a clangor of bronze bells and roaring chants to the twin moons that guided their vessels across the shifting dunes.
In the early days, small clans of dune-hunters and seaside traders banded together for the sake of survival. The Umbar Vex built longships with slender prows shaped like falcons' beaks, while the Tellan Frost fashioned curved sabers from desert-hardened steel. Over centuries, these clans coalesced into the Sultanate of the Shifting Sands, ruled by a council of Wavriders. Warrior bound priests who bore both scimitar and oar. Their faith celebrated impermanence. Water and wind were divine, and nothing, not even stone, could hold the faithful forever. To embrace change was sacred. To resist it, heresy. Central to their rite was the Ceremony of the Waning Tide, held each month when the twin moons aligned with the great desert gulf. Wavriders led processions across the dunes to the Rift of Black Glass, a yawning canyon carved by ancient aether storms. Here, initiates cast polished obsidian mirrors into the abyss, trusting that the desert winds would bear their reflections to the sea, thus cleansing their souls of stagnation. Those whose mirrors shattered on the canyon's rim were deemed blessed, their shards collected to forge the Crescent Sigils worn by every warrior and trader.
As their tribes began to migrate westward, drawn by rumors of silverleaf orchards and fertile glens they carried the Path of the Endless Wave with them. Their vessels, sleek and oaken, hugged the coastal cliffs before slipping into the mouth of the Silverleaf River. There, the Khal-Rún established trading enclaves that thrived on ivory, salt, and the desert steel covered by Kaermyr's smiths. Though they traded freely, they refused to swear fealty to any of the three houses, maintaining their own code. No alliance that threatened to bind the soul or ship in perpetual stasis.
The clash of the faiths too caused a rift between the two cultures, thus bearing fruit to a long standing relationship of mistrust between the only surviving civilizations of the sundered world. Today, the Sultanate of the Shifting Sands stands as a living rebuke to Kaermyr's purity cult. Where the Church of the Glass Chalice demands unyielding perfection, the Khal-Rún embrace imperfection as the forge of greatness. Their archers loose arrows of tempered driftwood that curve on desert thermals, their priests recite odes to the wind's caprice rather than to frozen doctrine. In every ebbing tide and every shifting dune, they see the truth that life must flow or be lost to the sands.
Political unrest, theological uncertainty and perhaps the bloodthirsty initiative of the Kaermyrians echoed in the centuries after Lady Miriel's deft diplomacy, House Sylwen's banners once synonymous with noble chivalry began to fray. Knights of the Silverleaf Oath, whose forefathers had ridden to liberate Kaermyr found their legacy weighed down by the relentless demands of a changing world. As the Church of the Glass Chalice tightened its grip on hearts and vaults, Sylwen's code of Valor, Compassion, and Fidelity grew brittle. Young squires drawn instead to the militant zeal of the faith deserted the Sylwen keep for the promise of sanctified purpose, leaving the ancient spires eerily half-manned. From this schism arose a dozen new militant orders, each claiming to embody a single virtue once held by Sylwen in harmony. The Order of the Silver Spear swore to defend the weak above all, its warriors patrolling the city gates with gleaming lances tipped in obsidian, a nod to the Glass Chalice's own iconography. The Keepers of the Verdant Aegis specialized in protection of the orchards, donning leaf patterned cuirasses and leading nightly vigils beneath the boughs of the Vale's green glades. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of the Silent Vow turned inward, consecrating themselves to secrecy and watchfulness, their white-hooded figures slipping through council chambers to root out heresy or corruption in the Pontiff's name. Twelve they were in name, though all bound to serve one. Was it faith? Their forefathers? Or the council itself?
Each order cultivated its own rituals and patron saints. Some recalling distant elven names long mythologized, others invoking fallen human heroes from the rebellion's dawn. In their zeal, these militant gatherings built chapels and armories reckoned more opulent than the Sylwen keep itself, offering knighthood only to those who would swear fealty first to faith, then to order, and lastly to the waning Sylwen line. As novices knelt before the Glass Chalice's altar to receive oaths, they were girded with both sword and scripture, forging a bond between militant piety and martial tradition that eclipsed Sylwen's older, more enlightened courtly rites. Within Kaermyr, the native populace once proud of their knightly protectors found themselves drawn into the orbit of the new orders. Markets, festivals, and even marriages now opened with the clang of ceremonial swords rather than the gentle chimes of Sylwen's bells. Thus sparking common practice into tradition, with these new martial cabals came forth guilds. Swordsman tourneys, and the erection of the Colosseum. Where men fought for valor, gold and renown over honor and servitude. Lowborn families vied for their children to be taken into an order's ranks, believing that only through militant service and spiritual purity could one secure protection against the unquiet hinterlands. The old council, in which Sylwen once held a decisive voice, ceded seat after seat to commanders of these ascendant orders, unable to match their fervor or financial backing. Though it was their vows which kept House Sylwen afloat, and alive, for more than seven centuries and a half.
And so the gallant forefathers of chivalry faded into the mists of memory, their virtues absorbed, distorted, and reborn under a dozen new flags. Each sworn to protect Kaermyr, but each first and foremost devoted to its own uncompromising ideal of perfection. Thus denouncing House Sylwen into nothing more but a line of nobles, whose blood was blue, but no longer of the ancient days of rebellion. And it was perhaps only the stain of their patrician ichor that kept them alive for so long. At the brink of extinction, though nonetheless, alive.
Few records within the tall chambers of the scribes' guild detail the intimate details behind the basal conflict of the Kaermyrian legions. For decades the faith of the last city clashed with the ideological ingenuity of the East. To them it was both tribal and hostile. Unfamiliar with their shamanistic ways, they shunned them to be druids. Men that practiced magic alien to them, and the elves. The manifestation of cruelty on earth, the Council invoked a dozen cruelties onto missionaries and caravan leaders both. Squadrons of inquisitors laying waste to their sacred gatherings, practice rites and other religious sites, they did not only invoke the wrath of the East, but too the interest of the Sultanate. An Empire which had built itself up from the dunes, an Empire that did not dabble in diplomacy but war.
And so on the first moon of the year four and eighty one, marked after the Darkness, the clans summoned their war council and sought out to venture west.
The first volleys of the war came on a night drowned in sandstorm, when the Sultanate's longships crept up the silver-stained riverbank like black phantoms. Their banners blood-red crescents on sable fields snapped in the wind as war horns echoed through Kaermyr's narrow streets. Desert warriors poured from their vessels, scimitar and shield glinting in torchlight, and met Kaermyr's defenders at the Oasis Gate. What began as a clash of steel soon descended into something far darker. Blades carved ghastly trophies from bone and sinew, and wounded men were left to writhe among date palms until the buzzards came. For months the Sultanate pressed its advantage, hammering at the outer sand keeps with siege engines. Towers of flame spewed fractured embers that turned the night sky to blood, catapults hurled obsidian tipped boulders that shattered battlements and buried hundreds of souls in ruins. Kaermyr's knights, the proud heirs of Sylwen's code, found their oath bound lances useless against desert sand sluiced into their armor. But still they fought, each death a protest against inevitability. Their numbers dwindled, the city's coffers bled dry funding mercenaries, and the Church of the Glass Chalice found its own zealotry burned away in the relentless brutality of war.
Yet the Sultanate's triumph proved pyrrhic. As they tore down the last walls of the sand keeps, forging chains from silverleaf links and dragging survivors into bondage, their desert gods showed no mercy. Supply lines choked on heat and dust; sickness mewled through the encampments like a plague. Ambitious emirs turned on one another, accusing rivals of heresy and treachery. Desert storms swallowed entire detachments, leaving only footprints that vanished with the dawn. The crimson sails that had once inspired terror hung tattered and still upon broken masts.
When the final breach came at the Silverleaf Bridge, it was not the Sultanate's banners that fell, but their unity. Their gathering of clans had shattered long before their guard did. Kaermyr's battered garrison launched a desperate counterstroke, dragonscale bolt-throwers in hand, they reclaimed the arch with a fury born of starvation and rage. The surviving desert hosts, leaderless and driven by infighting, scattered into the wastes they had once mastered.
Warhorns fell silent, the longships drifted empty on the river's back. In the war's aftermath, the sand keeps lay hollow graves, their stones picked clean by wind and scavengers. The Sultanate itself dissolved, its desert empire reduced to ragged bands eking out claws of survival in far eastern sands. Hidden conclaves, ruled by nameless eastern houses, survive beyond Kaermyr's maps, keeping alive the rituals of the Shifting Sands. Moonlit rites among dunes, the forging of glass obsidian talismans, and the remembrance of a crimson tide that once seemed unstoppable. But for the world of Ur-Kimanât, the Sultanate's fall served as a grim reminder... Even empires forged in blood and faith can turn to dust, leaving only whispers in the wind and ruins under moonlight.
After the Sultanate's collapse, Kaermyr's council turned its gaze eastward to the shattered plains that once teemed with Khal-Rún caravans and sun-baked oases. Too much had they lost, too many had suffered. The end of this war did not quench the thirst of their subjects. Too many demanded justice for their slain husbands, wives and children. And so under the banner of restoring order, the city's forces now rallied under House Arden's war guild and backed by the Church inquisitors? Marched into the sand wastes with grim resolve. Armies of plated cavalry crossed the dunes like iron storms, while detachments of Tervail magistrates followed behind, ledger and quill in hand, ready to record every village, every family, and every soul.
First came the census. United, the three dynasties marked their new grounds as territories acquired through the rite of war. Brutal enumeration of men, women, and children ensued. Those who bore desert names were ordered to declare their faith true or false, before robed inquisitors of the Glass Chalice. Pagan rites were outlawed. Desert shrines smashed and their obsidian altars repurposed into chalice stoups that spat holy water. Families who refused baptism faced confiscation of lands, their hair tails stripped, honor retracted before being conscripted into auxiliary labor battalions tasked with rebuilding Kaermyr's flooded aqueducts and repairing walls scarred by the Sandsunder Conflict. Next came the levy of children. Every tenth boy between ages eight and four and ten was taken from his home in the dead of night, bound in silver-lined cuffs, and carried away to Kaermyr's citadel. There they were educated in the Church's schools and taught Kaermyr's tongue, its laws, and the doctrine of purity. Groomed for service as pages in Arden's household or scribes in Tervail's chancery. Rare was the boy who returned to the sand plains. Most rose to knighthood under Sylwen's fractured orders or joined the inquisitorial courts, forever severed from their desert kin. Taxation fell heavily on those who remained. A jizya-like tithe was imposed. Each family owed grain, salt, and finely woven cloth stamped with the city's seal. Markets once run by Khal-Rún merchants now traded only under Kaermyr's coin. Wares deemed unholy such as desert steel scimitars, obsidian beads, and even saffron were banned or heavily surcharged. The wealthy sand-noble houses were allowed to keep minimal holdings, on condition that they marry into the three city houses' cadet branches and hence demonstrate “loyalty by blood.” All the while their distant kin into the depths of the dunes further east conspired in silence and organized cells to extract their subjugated brothers.
Resistance flickered like mirages. Small bands of desert warriors took to the dunes, harassing supply caravans, then dissolving into the sands before Kaermyr's knights could corner them. Each capture summoned a public tribunal. The accused paraded through the city's basilicas, forced to choose between recantation or death by blade and flame. Those who perished were hung from the highest towers as grim warnings, their bones bleached under sun and moon for all to see. Within two decades, the eastern sands lay tamed. Scattered desert clans survived only in hidden guttural tongues and whispered tales of khal-ruins long vanished. The glass chalice's doctrine spread in place of their old faith, its conclaves overseeing every birth, every marriage, every death. And in the farthest reaches, where the dunes meet the unexplored wastes, small collectives of desert families endure steadfast in memory if not in worship, guarding the last embers of a world that once flowed like water and wind.
Under the glare of a merciless sun, the Twelve Orders swept across the eastern sand plains like a host of avenging angels and elven tyrants both. The Order of the Iron Crucible laid waste to entire oases, scorching palm groves and slaughtering any who dared lift a hand in defiance. Their black voiced preachers declared every desert shrine an affront to the Glass Chalice, before driving handfuls of dune sand through shattered obsidian altars. Likewise, the Brotherhood of the Shattered Horn scorched wells and left salt bleached fields in their wake, believing that only hunger and thirst could root out heresy in those hardscrabble tribes. Yet the cruelty of these orders was matched only by their zeal for ledger keeping. Knights of the Quill and Blade, Tervail's militant scribes patrolled caravans, questioning each merchant under oath, branding any misstep treason or apostasy. Confessions were extracted beneath whips etched with empath runes once thought harmless, and the racks in Kaermyr's dungeons echoed with cries before unmarked graves swallowed bodies by the thousand.
Amid this fury however, a handful of orders remembered the old promise of chivalry. The Order of the Gilded Palm, born of Sylwen's legacy, established tented hospitals at the fringes of the occupied plains, tending wounds with desert salves and offering water to the parched. Their white mantles bore no chalice seal, only the symbol of a single golden palm leaf, and their knights whispered prayers over each patient's brow rather than psalms of condemnation. Likewise, the Sisters of the Veiled Spring, a female order devoted to healing smuggled food to hidden clans, baptized infants with water drawn from secret wells, even as their brothers in steel razed the wells above. The most storied of these merciful houses was the Hospitallers of the Silver Crescent. Inspired by distant legends of monk-warrior healers in the Vale, they erected a fortified hospice at the mouth of the Rift of Black Glass. There, under blistering winds, they sheltered refugees brought by the sandsunder raids. Children of the desert with eyes like star-grains, elders hollowed by thirst, and mothers who had lost their sons to forced levies. Their black rochets and silver crescents shone in the sunlight, a promise that not all of Kaermyr's might served only to subjugate.
But mercy proved a dangerous virtue. The Iron Crucible accused the Hospitalers of harboring traitors; the Quill and Blade charged them with insufficient zeal. In a midnight assault, the hospice's walls were breached, and half its patients butchered before dawn. Only the Sisters of the Veiled Spring, forewarned by the Gilded Palm, evacuated hundreds into the dunes where, legend says, they live still among secret grottoes, tending wounds and preserving the last light of compassion in a world starved of mercy. Thus, the subjugation of the eastern plains became a tapestry of horror and heroism. Twelve orders marched as one conquest, yet within their ranks flickered the ancient spark of mercy, small oases of humanity in an empire of steel and faith. And as the dunes swallowed villages and the ashes of pilgrim's tents, those few orders that shielded the innocent became living legends.
Proof that even in the darkest crusade, compassion can endure. Though could it?
For three centuries the last city valiantly navigated itself around the common law of the Faith, adhering by their commandments and righteous judgement. It was then however, when the iron clad squadrons of the Twelve Orders began turning on one another each accusing its rivals of heresy, corruption, or cowardice the very foundations of Kaermyr trembled. The Iron Crucible denounced the Hospitallers of the Silver Crescent as traitors for harboring desert fugitives, all the while the Quill and Blade accused the Gilded Palm of “meddling in forbidden mercies” and the Brothers of the Shattered Horn branded the Sisters of the Veiled Spring as witches for their secret baptisms. Duels spilled into the streets, bannered warbands clashed in the cobbled plazas, and the Church of the Glass Chalice found its own inquisitors powerless to stem the tide of internecine bloodshed. Faced with the threat of outright civil war, the ruling council composed of Arden's merchants, Sylwen's knights, and Tervail's magistrates convened in an emergency session beneath the vaulted arches of the White Spire. They realized that if the orders continued to settle disputes by sword and judgment seat alike, Kaermyr itself would be sundered. On the final night of debate, a steel haired councilor rose and proposed the creation of a new body, a Judiciary Council, ordained to arbitrate conflicts not by faith or force, but by a codified law that even the Glass Chalice must honor.
The guilds had been present. The scribes, law-makers, alchemists, merchants and frith lodges all backed up this segment, each dedicating a pouch of gold and mint towards the funding and creation of this entity. Knowing the nature of the city's politics, the three dynasties remained all the same in their segment when it came to influencing the judicial branch. Each casting a vote, they created a title by the name of "Master of Law" that ought to serve as its head and direct servant under the Council, all the while five beneath him served as the "Council's justice". Men of exceptional skill picked out from the town guard and thus elevated into the dynastical-particracy of the last city.
Thus was born the Tribunal of Silver Law, a chamber of six judges drawn equally from noble houses, order less commoners, and the chancellery's senior scribes. Their authority was carved into a charter riveted with both Tervail seals and Chalice emblems, binding even the Pontiff of Purity to its verdicts. The Tribunal's halls were built adjacent to the Great Archive, its benches fashioned from the same pale marble as the Glass Chalice's altar, a constant reminder that piety and justice now stood as coequals. The Tribunal's first trial set its tone. The Iron Crucible was charged with orchestrating the midnight massacre at the Silver Crescent hospice, and thus disbanded. Condemning the Iron Crucible's Grandmaster to exile rather than execution, a landmark decision that affirmed mercy as justice's highest aim. Even the Church's conclaves could not overturn the sentence, and the Iron Crucible withdrew from Kaermyr's precincts rather than face the Tribunal's writ. Over time, the Tribunal of Silver Law became as revered and feared as the Church itself. When orders convened, they did so beneath its gaze. When faith issued new doctrines, they were drafted in statute form before earning any Chalice seal. And though the orders still jealously guarded their virtues... Valor, Compassion, Purity, and each distinct creed, they found themselves bound by a higher covenant. One that was no longer unfamiliar to the realm or its people. One that saw to it that no sword would fall, no soul be judged, without first passing through the silver gates of impartial justice. In Kaermyr, at last, the balance between faith and law was forged in the fires of conflict. And though fickle, this turbulent age of war was finally tamed and tempered by the promise of order.
In the decades after the Tribunal of Silver Law brought a fragile peace between sword and scripture, the Church of the Glass Chalice faced its gravest trial yet. A schism born of doubt and conviction. The burning zeal which once overcame the populace of the last city was no more. Too much famine, destruction and doubt had seeded into the eyes, heart and soul of the average peon. And though the theological military segments of Kaermyrian society benefited from this dogma, the merchants desired change. Growing undercurrent of worshippers, disillusioned by the faith's ever tightening grip on law and life, their followers found hope in the long forgotten teachings of Kainhr. The silver haired hero who first forged empathy into steel. These heretics believed that true salvation lay not in the endless pursuit of purity through chalice and conclave, but in communal strength and the rejection of all magic, Elven or empathic, that had once doomed humanity to cruelty. Their leader, the stern Brother Malric of the Broken Rune, preached in hidden courtyards beneath the White Spire. “We are not Elves. We need no wards, no runes. Our bonds are blood and honor alone.” His followers soon dubbed the Kainhrists held open air gatherings at dawn, clasping hands in concentric circles as they recited the Litany of First Blood, recalling Kainhr's tragic act as the moment humanity claimed both its compassion and its capacity for hate. Communion cups were passed around not to sanctify only the pure, but to embody the shared cup of mortality and the promise of self-governance.
Within Kaermyr's twelve militant Orders, the Kainhrists call found startling resonance. Five Orders, each worn by the Glass Chalice's inquisitions, publicly pledged allegiance to Brother Malric's vision. The Order of the Iron Hearth, long devoted to forging and family, embraced the rejection of all magic as a return to honest labor. The Brotherhood of the Fallow Fields, guardians of Kaermyr's granaries, saw in communal worship a mirror of their own harvest rituals. The Order of the Broken Rune, named for the shattered empath glyph, became the movement's militant arm, enforcing its tenets with a stark discipline. The Sisters of the Ember Bond, who tended both forge and flame, welcomed the chance to temper steel untainted by enchantment. Finally, the Order of the Ashen Chalice, former pilgrims of purity, now poured their zeal into Kainhr's creed, believing that only through shared suffering could humanity rise anew. This Kainhrists off-shoot quickly became the second great faith within Kaermyr's walls, equal in fervor if not yet in wealth to the Glass Chalice. Tensions rose as the remaining six Orders found themselves pressured to choose sides. Some hid their sympathies, others doubled down on Chalice orthodoxy, and a few once neutral declared themselves guardians of the old ways, determined to preserve empath-rune lore. The city council, now accustomed to balancing faith and law, watched nervously as processions of Kainhrists knights paraded through the Silverleaf Square, their banners bearing the broken rune instead of the chalice.
Kaermyr stood at a crossroad. Between a faith that measured souls by purity's unyielding blade, and a creed that demanded only human solidarity and the courage to stand free of Elven shadows. The schism did more than divide the Orders. It reignited questions about identity, power, and the legacy of magic itself, questions that would shape the city's fate for generations to come. So much so that whispers of the Kainhrists schism first reached Arden Keep through discreet missives slipped beneath its great oaken doors, penned in a cipher known only to senior guild masters. Due to the nature of their trade, the church had declared them profiteers of sin and exerted copious taxes on their trade.
>Caravans wound their way along the Silverleaf River, their ledgers began to show a curious new notation. Subtle markings beside every consignment of empath steel tools, labeling them as blessed by the Broken Rune's rite. Behind closed doors, House Arden's ruling council, the patrician descendants of Marcellus Arden, argued feverishly. Lady Vivara Arden, head of the mint, saw in Kainhr's creed a way to break the Church's stranglehold on coinage. Communal offerings could bypass the Chalice's tithes, freeing up capital for new ventures in distant markets. At the same time, the Order of the Gilded Palm courtiers, long allied with Arden through joint hospital endowments pressured Arden's scions with veiled threats. “Your purity lies in your forge,” they warned, “not in chalice dogma.” When Lady Vivara's own brother, Master Calder Arden, fell ill under the Chalice's inquisitors' care, there was no hesitation.
The Church of the Glass Chalice viewed the emergence of the Mark of the Silent Stars and the subsequent decline of magic as a profound theological crisis. The ledgers record this event as both pious and catastrophically potent in its divine intervention, proving the existence of the Creator after centuries of absence. To the ecclesiastical hierarchy, magic was not merely a tool but a divine conduit. A sacred inheritance from the Creator, bestowed upon humanity to guide and protect. The fading of magic, therefore, was interpreted as a withdrawal of divine favor, a punishment for humanity's transgressions and a call to repentance. In their sermons and writings, the Church's leaders emphasized that the loss of magic signified a spiritual decay within society. They pointed to the rise of the Kainhrist movement, which advocated for a life free from magical influence, as evidence of this moral decline. The Church argued that abandoning magic was tantamount to rejecting the divine gifts and wisdom that had been entrusted to humanity.
The ecclesiastical entities which governed the world of the faithful initiated a series of reforms aimed at rekindling the spiritual fervor of the populace. They called for increased participation in traditional rites, the construction of new sanctuaries, and the reinforcement of doctrinal teachings that emphasized the sanctity of magic. Despite these efforts, the Church faced growing dissent, as many found solace and purpose in the Kainhrist emphasis on communal worship and human agency. Regardless of what caste they dabbled in, the slithering slopes of all that was other-worldly faded away.
Staunch opposition to the shading of magic and the rise of alternative beliefs underscored a broader struggle within Kaermyr. The constant repel between tradition and transformation, it incited debates between philosophical chambers, and well within the conclave of their structure. Men questioned divine authority and human autonomy. As the Mark of the Silent Stars continued to appear among the populace, the Church's influence waned, giving way to new interpretations of faith and purpose in a world where magic was no longer a guiding force. The Silent Stars signaled the gradual extinction of magic in Kaermyr. This phenomenon was both mourned and feared. This death of magic didn't occur in a single cataclysmic moment but unfolded over years, marked by subtle signs. Shimmering empathic runes dwindling from ancient stones, spellcasters losing their abilities, and enchanted relics becoming inert.
Itself this malediction manifested as a ring of seven faintly glowing stars encircling a dark void, appearing on the skin of those once attuned to magic. These individuals, often former mages or scholars, found their arcane knowledge slipping away, replaced by visions of a starless sky and a profound sense of loss. Scholars and theologians questioned the cause. Some believed it was a divine retribution for humanity's hubris in wielding magic. The faith's abuse of office, the growing dissent between kinsmen, and the culling of cousins and brothers alike. Others bid it as the natural end of an era, a closing chapter in the world's history. The Kainhrists, followers of the human hero Kainhr who had long advocated for a life free from elven influence and magic, interpreted the Mark as validation of their beliefs. They saw the fading of magic as humanity's liberation from the chains of arcane dependence. As magic waned, society adapted. Technological innovations emerged to fill the void left by enchantments. The once mighty mage guilds dissolved, their members either integrating into other professions or retreating into obscurity. The cultural shift was profound, reshaping art, literature, and daily life.
Guilds that invited alchemists, physicians and other men of science started to slowly lapse into a renaissance of exhibits thanks to Mark of the Silent Stars. Hence remaining a poignant symbol in Kaermyr, a reminder of an antiquated era and a testament to humanity's resilience and adaptability in the face of monumental change.
Seven centuries and a half have passed since the forges of Kaermyr rang with the hammer—stroke of rebellion. Yet Ur—Kimanât remains locked in a medieval stasis, its fields tilled by oxen, its towers crowned with battlements rather than antennae, the people have since forgotten harmony. The never ending waltz between the three dynasties has stirred the realm into chaos. Each vowing for power, they underestimate one another. The chivalrous orders, unaware of their noble comings, have now turned to bloodthirst. Often exploiting the weak instead of mending their wounds, catering to their needs. Guilds corner peasants with their powerful influence, while banks continue to fill their coffers while the populace bleeds. The realm has not seen a King, though perhaps? Soon they will.
Magic, once the breath of the world, has vanished. The empathrunes lie cold in shattered tombs of days forgotten, their power dissipated when the last lorekeeper uttered the final syllable of their powerful enchantment. Elves, dragons, and all elder beings have receded into myth, their names survive only in the fractured inscriptions upon ruined archways, half—erased by wind and lichen. Despite centuries of hardship, human society in Kaermyr endures its feudal contours.
Three noble houses stand proud and tall within the great city council. Arden, Sylwen, and Tervail, together they still claim descent from their ancient namesakes, though genealogy has grown uncertain and many cadet branches have risen and fallen. Dukes, barons and counts wage quiet vendettas over grazing rights and watermill leases, knights quest for relics of a bygone age, hoping to reclaim even a mote of lost power. Peasants pay tithe in grain and labor, scholars copy dusty manuscripts by candlelight, seeking patterns in nonsense glyphs that hint at the old ways of their creators. Beyond Kaermyr's walls, the wider lands of Ur—Kimanât are dotted with enclaves eking survival among scarred plains and glass—waste deserts. Caravans pick their way between oasis—fortresses, trading steel horseshoes for salted dates. And there, beyond the valleys of the Vale, bandits and rogue knights haunt the ruins of Elven castles, selling “authentic” relics and shards to gullible lords. And always, on wind—scoured nights, travelers swear they hear distant echoes, laughter like wind through leaves, the faint toll of a broken horn... Remnants of a tapestry of myth unraveling into memory. Or perhaps an invader?
Legends, the historians at court and even the scribes say that on the Six hundredth and fourteenth year after the Shattering, the skies pulsed one final time with aetheric light. Then it went dark forever. Rivers of raw magic bled out of the world, collapsing the rune—lattices beneath mountain and glade. By the mark of the Silent Stars, 614 AOD, no ember of spellcraft remained. Monks in the Ironwood Abbey whisper that the gods themselves reclaimed the last spark of wonder, leaving mortals to till, build, and die by steel and sweat alone.