Founding of the Vannic Empire

Founding

Founding of the Van Empire (binding): The Vannic people originally lived in small farming and fishing communities along the shores of the Greater Arc Sea. In the centuries before the most recent binding (where the Keeper reformed itself and drew magic from the world back into itself), they were the only people known to understand the location and use of Spell Forges. They were guided in their understanding of magic by the Graces, who visited them and informed them of the Keeper’s wishes (even though the Keeper had been Sundered for several thousand years at this point).

Founding of the Van Empire (binding): The Vannic people originally lived in small farming and fishing communities along the shores of the Greater Arc Sea. In the centuries before the most recent binding (where the Keeper reformed itself and drew magic from the world back into itself), they were the only people known to understand the location and use of Spell Forges. They were guided in their understanding of magic by the Graces, who visited them and informed them of the Keeper’s wishes (even though the Keeper had been Sundered for several thousand years at this point). The Graces were not being entirely candid with the Vannic peoples, the Keeper cared nothing for humanity and saw the existence of human beings as evidence of the Devourer’s chaos seeping into his perfectly ordered world. In the absence of the Keeper, the Graces believed that their role was to unite what mortals they could find to maintain the system of Spell Forges and prevent the forges from becoming corrupted or weakened, as they were part of the system of containing the Devourer. The Vannic peoples saw themselves as superior and wiser than other humans, having been gifted with magical knowledge. They wished to be seen as distinct and separate from ‘toilers’ and closer to the Celestial realm of the Keeper that in their naivety they believed existed in the clouds. As the Vannic empire spread across the continent it extracted wealth from the rest of Aestis and conquered everywhere except for the South and what now lies west of Dancare. It was this wealth that enabled the Vannic peoples to build new cities and fortresses higher and higher above the clouds. The highest peaks in the Arching Mountains were reserved for the Vannic emperors and the resources they required were brought up from the conquered lands at sea level.