The Timeline of the Vannic and Arc Empires

During the Mortal Age, the power of the Keeper waned, and the Phalanx Grace Y'Dathian welcomed mortals into the Celestial Realm. Believing that mortal life was sacred and created by the Keeper, the Phalanx initially saw no issue with the presence of humans and other short-lived creatures in the vastness of the Celestial Realm. One of the Vannic Emperors, Hordale An Rath, was enchanted by the beauty of Celestium and used a portal revealed to him by Y'Dathian to bring his servants into the realm. Though Hordale was eventually forced to return to the Mortal Realm, his loyal knight, Andyrae Solust, and his followers remained and established the first Solustine Kingdom. The Graces, including the Phalanx, harbored a deep loathing for humanity and the other mortal inhabitants of the Solustine Kingdom and its successor states. However, their attention was diverted by the struggles of the Devourer War and the Keeper's betrayals, which prevented them from eliminating their unwelcome guests. After the Sundering, Y'Luran, a member of the Phalanx, launched an attack on the Solustine Kingdom, seeking fire and destruction. However, his sister, Y'Nya, had a prophetic vision that warned of a looming shadow and the need to preserve the mortal fiefdoms in the Celestial Realm.   Y'Nya's vision led her to implore her brother to protect the Solustine Kingdom at all costs, as she foresaw a time when mortals and Graces would be forced to unite against a common threat. Although Y'Luran trusted his sister and temporarily halted his devastation, he has since struggled to restrain his violent tendencies and still dreams of completing his bloody work. As a result of Y'Luran's destructive actions, the Solustines developed a deep hatred and fear of the Graces. Solustine rulers have spent centuries searching for ways to defend their kingdom against the Graces' potential aggression.

In the centuries after the destruction of the Fey Kingdoms, the south of Aestis, where the emerging tribes of humanity were centred experienced wave after wave of natural disasters. Over the course of nearly four hundred years, human tribes migrated in waves from the chaos of the south to the foothills of the Arching Mountains, where priests and shamen believed that they would find safety and security. The peoples of the south conquered and subjugated the human tribes they discovered in the valleys of the Arching Mountains and they established a new settler civilisation called Ar'Van, or 'People of the Mountains'. The Ar'Van believed that they had a special connection with a god they came to understand as The Keeper, and were certain that an ever stronger connection was possible with their divine lord the closer to the heavens they were. In this way, mountains were seen as sacred places, pathways to the Keeper himself. The Ar'Van did not come to these conclusions independently, they were assisted by the Phalanx Graces, those servants of the Keeper who had remained loyal to their master despite his many deceptions and betrayals (for more on the Keeper's treatment of the Graces, read The Story of the Keeper). The Phalanx had little interest in human beings and viewed them with a thinly veiled contempt, but they saw how these creatures could be useful. The Phalanx had succeeded in destroying the Fey Kingdoms, and humans had precious little knowledge of, or connection with the Fey (save a residual fear of them and the wildernesses they inhabited). Humans could be used to prevent the Fey, who knew intimately the story of the Keeper's fall into vanity and lies, from rebuilding their civilisation. Humans could be taught ideas such as religion and empire, both which could be used to create a lasting order of authority and violence. The Keeper had little need for humans to worship him, but he and the Phalanx were chiefly concerned that Hermia never became a site of resistance to his rule, as it had nearly become when the Thaladic Graces and the Fey allied themselves together. The Ar'Van were guided by the Phalanx into creating the first Vannic Kingdom of the mountains, and from there, the Vannic Empire, which was held together by a new religion called Aruhvianism.

The sprawling bureaucracy necessary to maintain Arc’s Empire during the era of the Gorer family's reign grew hostile to the nobility which dominated the majority of grain production. Administrators saw the noble class as an obstacle to the rationalisation of the Arcish economy necessary for the continued expansion of its frontiers and economic influence in the face of an increasingly powerful Dran. Arc’s civil servants lobbyed Lathanel and Solomund Gorer to break up the estates of the nobility putting the land under the supervision of an alderman of a newly formed farming guild, Wyrean Laude, and, more radically, to free the serfs of the Arclands. Those liberated serfs would be given responsibility over a plot of land, but crucially the land would still belong to the imperial throne and could be reclaimed at any time. Though nominally autonomous, the serfs would be required to become guild members and thus obliged to give a percentage of their harvest to the guild in exchange for the expertise of its agronomists. The excitement and elation with which many serfs greeted the news of their emancipation evaporated when they learned of the small print. It was in this context that few villages in the Arcland wilds mourned the Emperor when he was assassinated.   It was decided that agronomic strategy would be determined by a committee of agronomist scholars (the Khalebradth, or Brotherhood of the Corn) overseeing 30 hectares, called a verstal. On average there were 10 verstals overseeing the majority of noble estates, an elected representative of which met in a larger council called a Cereston, which following the deliberations of each verstal represented, would determine the agronomic policy of the estate. The guild would construct on each estate an agronomic scholastic library staffed with agricultural scholars from Harenis. In order for an agricultural student to have their doctorate recognised in Arc they needed to conduct a three year indentureship on a former estate under the supervision of Arc’s agricultural guild.   Since an agronomic qualification was worthless if it was not recognised in Arc, the best agronomists were be forced to work under the supervision of the guild, providing a pool of agricultural expertise that the guild could draw upon following the land reforms. At least one out of every ten verstals would be comprised of agronomic students, briefed to experiment with different agricultural techniques to encourage further refinement and rationalisation of agricultural practice. Though the nobility, as the land’s former owners would receive a yearly revenue for as compensation for the requisitioning of the estate, they would no longer be able to call up their former serfs for military engagements without the approval of the guild. Arc’s bureaucracy endeavoured to replace a vassalic military with a standing army, to which the guild would contribute a portion of its surplus to maintain.   The nobility, hostile towards and suspicious of the guilds in Arc fiercely resisted these reforms, used their influence to water down the terms of the emancipation of the serfs and were acutely aware that many of the proposals suggested by Arc's bureaucrats had been developed to benefit the guilds. The nobility particularly feared the loss of their military power, which began to dwindle during Solomund Gorer's reign as the effects of emancipation grew. Gorer was far from being a weak ruler but he had convinced himself that compromise was possible and that the nobility was capable of restraint. He was wrong on both counts, and the emancipation, which was known to the nobles as the Gorian Grain Revolt, was a contributory factor in his murder and the rise of the Vryse dynasty.