History in Brief

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
-Ozymandias, Percy Shelley

In the Beginning

None now living know how or when the world was created; or if they do, they do not speak of it within the hearing of mortal men. What is broadly known however, is how the island of Axylus came to be. It was one of the fragments that was formed when a tremendous continent was shattered.
What is also known, is how the lands that would become Axylus came to be tamed, at least inasmuch as they are. From out of the distant east of the continent came bright Golaurus, and his wife Llacharia. Finding a vast land set high above the waves and inhabited only by a bare few mortal men and women who were little more than beasts in those days.
He led his powerful and immortal people, the Brennia, to settle in those highlands, and after conscripting the mortals that lived there into their service, they raised a mighty city, which they called Tir Uchel. That city dwarfed any other known to exist before or since in both size and innovation. The Brennia, secure behind high walls and surrounded by mortals who worshipped them as gods, as well of the half breed children they sired on their subjects, the Narn, worked great and terrible wonders.
What happened next is a matter of some debate. In the kingdom, where the Brennia are still worshiped, they maintain that the Muiriae, their distant cousins, attacked unprovoked. Those brehons in the queendom, who are the inheritors of such tales, insist that a Muiriae prince who had been visiting Tir Uchel had spurned the advances of Llygodos, a loathsome but prickly tempered Brennia, and been hurled to his doom from atop the city walls. What is certain is that the Muiriae declared war and laid siege to Tir Uchel.
The resulting war blasted the landscape of the highlands despite the fact that the godlike beings largely restricted themselves to single combat and small scale skirmishes. When at last Lord Rhewenon, dueled the mighty sword maiden Scathanna, slaying her and eating her heart before the assembled hosts of the Muiriae, finally the attackers could stand no more. Scathanna had been a favorite niece of Tiarnach, the king of the Muiriae, and though he well knew the risks if his entire host were to clash with that of the Brennia, he was too wroth to hold back. The two armies met in a titanic clash that caused mountains to crumble and seas to boil. For years afterward, the sky was choked with ash and dust and the continent itself shuddered and broke apart.
Much of Tir Uchel sank into the waves, but more of it was buried beneath the earth, only its proudest walls and towers visible, and then only in fragments.
It is not known precisely why they left; the Kingdom’s church claims that they left out of compassion for the mortals who had suffered so terribly for their war. In the Queendom it is said that there was a pact between the warring factions whose terms are not known. Still others claim that they simply all died, though most of these can safely be dismissed as fools. Whatever the reason, both immortal races withdrew from Axylus, and were seen only rarely thereafter. Thus began the age of men.

The Shattered Imperator

Whether or not one believes that they were taught benevolently, or simply gleaned from toiling to build the towers and halls of Tir Uchel, it cannot be denied that those mortals who served the Brennia learned much of building with stone and wood, forging metals and the taming of beasts. After the great calamity, small tribes began to unite into larger confederations and ultimately into nation states. These petty kingdoms and republics warred, forged alliances and otherwise shared the island for seven centuries before the coming of the Shattered Imperator.
Who or what exactly the Imperator was is hotly debated today, and even accounts current with the time have shown that no one then living quite knew either. It is said that he was of titanic stature, though opinion varies wildly on what exactly that means. More pragmatic historians suppose that he was only as large as those men said to carry the blood of Arthea, perhaps a bit larger. Others claim that he was an earth-shaking behemoth that crushed houses underfoot and toppled castles with a sweep of his arms.
What is generally agreed on is that he led an army composed of the powerful and hideous Narn, as well as a fanatical cult of humans dedicated to ending the age of man. It is further agreed that he dressed in a clanking motley of steel and iron plates taken from the broken bodies of his victims, and it was from this that he took his moniker.
The Shattered Imperator swept through the continent with his armies, not caring for loot, conquest or rapine, but only slaughter. In one year's time from his arrival, the population of Axylus had fallen by a third, and the pace of death was only accelerating.
Finally, the remaining states pooled their armies and fought back. Some claim that in the end, only a hail of artillery fire was able to slay the Shattered One though this is still debated. He was slain however, and the various rulers and governing bodies of Axylus agreed to forge an alliance for the good of all.

The Deliberative Age

The founding of the deliberative occurred one thousand two hundred and fifty seven years ago. This can be known with a fair degree of certainty because it is from the founding that all Axylus scholars, regardless of the nation they occupy, measure the year. Under this model of governance, the various principalities of the continent retained their autonomy, save that they all abided by a charter which forbade them from making war on one another, using trade to exploit or harm other nations, or abridging the basic rights of its citizens. Of course while this charter seemed simple enough in broad strokes, it left a great deal open to debate and interpretation. Therefore, a deliberative body was established, wherein each nation would send its representatives.
The body met at a great tower which sat, nearly in the center of the continent. So tall was this tower that it could be seen for leagues. There are reports of sitting in the upper chambers and watching clouds drift by below. Such a tower has not been built in centuries for the method of building has since been lost. Here again, as with the year, there can be little debate as to the veracity of these claims, for the gargantuan ruins of the Deliberative Tower remain to this day.
In the ninety seventh year of the Deliberative, Invaders from the neighboring continent of Xanthus, who had for many years before been worrying the eastern coast of Axylus with small raids, landed in force with the aim to conquer much of Axylus. The unity of the Deliberative was tested and, at least this time, was not found wanting. Within half a year, the Xanthian forces were hurled back into the sea, and though sporadic raids still happen even to this day, they would never again return in such numbers.
Before this conflict, many nations already held the practice of knighting, but afterwards, the deliberative elected to adopt several orders of knights into the direct service of the realm as a whole. Six of these were connected to the emerging Brennian faith, which revered the vanished Brennia as gods. One order each emerged in the names of six of these mighty beings, each seeking to emulate the virtues and abilities of their chosen god. Another was the order of Rectifyer Knights, an order of mostly young knights who begin their careers with a period of errantry in service to the realm as a whole. Another again was the Towerlander Knights, who kept the peace in the commonly held lands surrounding the deliberative tower, where no king or potentate could lawfully bring their forces without breaking deliberative law.
Many historians call this era the golden age of chivalry in Axylus, but one would be wise to view such claims with no small amount of skepticism.

The Breaking of the Tower

Nothing lasts forever, but one can suppose that the Deliberative made about as good an attempt as mortal men can make. Barring one minor territorial dispute that broke out into the occasional skirmish, and lasted from year 188-190, and a somewhat more serious one in 419-423, the peace endured, and Axylus saw prosperity the like of which it has not known since.
Though the seeds of the dissension that would ultimately end the unity of the continent were sown in the earliest centuries since the founding, the tree that would grow from them would not bear fruit until year 793. Among the societies that dotted Axylus in those days, forming the Deliberative, were those states which did not have centralized government or standing military, and were dependent upon the deliberative for their stability, making it possible for more self-sufficient nations to exploit them. What was more, there was a rising friction concerning religion on the island.
Among the several faiths that had risen to prominence throughout the millennia, those that proved most galvanizing were the Brennian faiths. Oddly enough, these faiths coexisted with other various cults and churches well enough, but it was the schism between different sects of the Brennian faith that proved irreconcilable.
While many saw the Brennia as a pantheon, each with their own roles and responsibilities, there were others who considered only Golaurus to be truly divine, and all the other Brennia but emanations of him. The former of these were called the Brennian Faith, while the latter came to be called he Path of the Wheel. What was more, while the former religion asserted that the Brennia merely wanted their mortal worshippers to venerate them and lead decent lives, the latter insisted that their god demanded something more of them. The priests of Golaurus spoke, as they still do, of a 'Great Wheel of Ages" which must be made to turn, even if blood must be spilled to bring about the turning. Indeed, the Golauran Knights, mightiest and most fervent of the holy orders who served the deliberative were raised with the sole purpose of slaying those who tried to stop the Wheel's divinely ordained progress. For centuries, this almost exclusively meant enemies of the Deliberative, but on midsummer's eve of 793, the ancient and revered priest Sophos Cryf returned from a long pilgrimage in the Crimson Waste to the far south of the continent, accompanied by omens and miracles which it is said were witnessed by many. Upon his return, he proclaimed that the Sun God had vouchsafed him a vision, that the wheel was about to lurch forward into a new age, one of sorrows for the followers of the Path, but one necessary to bring about the next age of glorious rebirth. He claimed that for this great messianic age to be possible, the deliberative must fall.
The Fall of the Deliberative, is far and away the most well documented, and famous historical event in the continent's history. It would, therefore, be impossible for such a poor account as this to do proper justice to the subject. Suffice to say that while the followers of Golaurus were mighty, they would not have been able to stand for long against the combined might of the Deliberative alone. As it happened however, they had no need to. Of the nations that chafed under Deliberative rule, few did so more vehemently than the people of the steppes that lay south of the Towerlands, and those nomadic peoples who roamed the Crimson Waste further south still. It was these who felt exploited by the trade practices of more bureaucratically inclined nations, and whose warrior cultures meshed poorly with the organized nature of the Deliberative military but felt they could not simply withdraw while other nations remained, or risk exclusion from all trade on the continent. They, along with a handful of other opportunistic principalities saw this burgeoning civil war as a means to level the playing field, would lend their strength to the followers of the Path.
The war raged for four years, with some battles claiming lives by the thousands, but it would end abruptly. Hardly a child in Axylus could not name a handful of the heroes of that war; Andros Goldenshield, or Chrysanta the Bear's Daughter. Likewise, one would have to travel many leagues to find someone who did not know at least a verse or two of a version of the ballad Towerfall, which recounts the final battle in which the deliberative tower, was not just breached, but shattered, felled by some terrible forgotten weapon from a bygone age.
That terrible act of destruction, wrought in the winter that would end the year 797, would bring an end to the Towerlander knights, the Deliberative, and the age that would bear its name.

The Years of Strife

While the records from this period are better than those of the age before the coming of the shattered one, in most cases that is likely only because they are more recent. One notable exception to this is the indispensable account, the Chronicle of the Wheel, which detailed the progress of the victorious Golauran Knights southward, to the foot of the Rhagtan Mountains, where they would raise a stronghold that would one day become Civis Argentum.
Once they had done so, they were faced with a problem the like of which they hadn't seen since their founding. In the past, those who held to the Path of the Wheel could come from far and wide across Axylus to enter the holy order as pages and squires. Now that they had secluded themselves far to the south however, among those who had been allies of convenience, but who held to their own faiths, they had no way to recruit the next generation of knights.
The solution was simple and elegant. As their survival was based on lending their military might to their neighbors in exchange for tribute, they began accepting orphaned children to be raised in the order. This gave rise to a brotherhood of knights who would never know any family but the Knights Golauran, and who would be utterly devoted to its creed, having never known any other life. It is a practice that continues to this day.
Though far less is known about the goings on in other regions of the continent, what is known for certain is that the tower was neither rebuilt, nor was the rubble cleared from the place where it lay. It lies there to this very day, many claim it is haunted by demons, and though this is debated, even the harshest skeptic will concede that the site is profoundly eerie and forbidding.
It is likewise known, that the northwest of the continent, where the Brennian Faith predominated, would, through conflict and conquest, aided in part by the various orders of knights who had survived the fall of the Deliberative, be consolidated into five countries. As the five had grown mighty, at least by the reckoning of that age, alongside one another, and realized that war among them would be a prolonged, bloody affair, they forged a peace accord; even going so far as to agree that none of the rulers of those lands would accept the title of king, instead taking the lesser title of duke. These five duchies were called Llyneos, Prenwood, Glynnfrey, Morglen, and Rymus.
The many nations of Axylus fell to fighting amongst themselves. Few were the lands that did not see at least some conflict in the ensuing century and a half. Stronger countries began to absorb their weaker neighbors. Petty kings with scarcely more than a thousand subjects to command soon quailed to hear that barely a hundred miles away lived a king who had a dozen vassals, the least of which ruled as many or more. When the tower fell, better than a hundred individual states dotted the continent. By year 954, there were fewer than twenty. Even the wisest who lived in those troubled times could not guess however, how quickly that would change.

Kingdom, Queendom, and Holy Empire

The current age began at the Argent Keep, stronghold of the Knights Golauran, where it is said, a child, not offered up in the usual way, but found out in the desert, in the same spot where Sophos Cryf was first sighted on his return from his pilgrimage, entered the order and grew from infancy to manhood in a single year. This miracle child, who would come to be called Magnus Cryf, was said to possess a multitude of supernatural abilities. Not the least of these were physical strength, speed and endurance far beyond that of any mortal man, an uncanny ability to compel the minds of those he spoke with, such that he could command a man to leap to his death, and not least of all, the ability to simply know things which he should have no way of knowing. Cryf soon rose to be Lord Commander of the Knights Golauran, claiming to be the avatar of the sun god on earth, and that his was the hand that would turn the wheel once more, taking the faithful out of darkness and into a glorious new age.
Those people who had followed the Path, flocked once more to his banner and began a campaign of conquest the like of which had not been seen since the mythic ages before the seas claimed Tir Uchel. The Holy Army, with Magnus Cryf at its head, seemd invincible. They conquered their neighbors, then their neighbor's neighbors, dragging the images of the gods worshipped in these lands back to the Argent Keep, which was fast growing into a mighty city, to be broken and humbled before the High Father and his favored son, who was now calling himself Holy Emperor.
Those people who were defeated and would not accept the truth of the Wheel, were killed if they fought and brought to the newly named Civis Argentum in chains if they did not, but most converted. Those who were not tied to towns and cities fled to the northwest, to join the tribes that dwelt in the mountains and forests there. Such was the size of this exodus however, that game and forage in such lands as those tribes held, could not long sustain their swollen populations. And so, the tribes took, first to raiding the small towns and villages of the people who lived there, then, to making war with them. Before the passing of a century, nearly all the lands beyond the Mynadon Mountains were home to not a single city dweller.
Meanwhile, the five duchies were not blind to the ambitions of Emperor Cryf. Though the mighty Rhuthro lay between him and their lands, it was certain that no one of them could repel an assault should his army make the crossing. To stand any chance against such a foe, they would have to unite. After much politicking, and negotiation between the five dukes, the potentates of the ascendant Brennian Church, as well as the knightly orders which belonged to it, it was decided that Roderick of Llyneos, not the most accomplished general, but a skilled administrator and diplomat, would be crowned King of Axylus, though even this sweeping consolidation of power encompassed only a bit more than a quarter part of the continent, as the church insisted that only those who kept the true faith were true Axylians. Thus was the Kingdom born.
Similarly, the tribes beyond the mountains began to fear that even their exodus would not save them for long, and a great council was convened. More than a hundred individual tribes sent their chieftains. The council was held on the island of Noddfalos, a place sacred to many tribes where making war was forbidden. Here, it was decided that the free people of Axylus should appoint a figurehead, not to rule over them, but to resolve disputes and bring unity. The chiefs elected Queen Gathea, a seasoned warrior and hunter from the Caewen tribe who had dwelt in the forest east of the Mynadon pass for centuries.
In year 982, the forces of Emperor Cryf first tried to cross the Rhuthro into Glynnfrey. By this time, the emperor had sired children of his own who had grown to adulthood. It was one such, named Disglair Cryf, the son of the emperor by the captured priestess of a heretical river god, who led the invasion force, nearly ten thousand strong.
Seeing the large force on the march, Marquis Beschaud, younger brother to the duke of Glynnfrey, ordered the great bridge destroyed. It was an architectural marvel from the first days of man, the methods of construction used to raise it now lost to time. As such, the thousand men that the Marquis was able to muster only succeeded in collapsing a twenty-foot span from the middle of the bridge. And so, when Disglair arrived, he surmised that rather than attempt to ford the mighty river; suicide during the current rainy season or march the nearly one hundred miles to the nearest crossing, he must attempt to bridge the gap and cross.
The Imperials cut timbers from the forest and built great planks which they advanced to the edge of the gap behind a shield wall, as Beschaud's men rained arrows down on them. It took ten such sorties in as many days to cross the bridge, and by the time Disglair gained the other side, Crown Prince Radimus, son of King Roderick had arrived with a strong host of five thousand men.
Though still technically outnumbered, the kinglanders had the better position. While Disglair's vanguard had made it across, thousands more still had to cross the bridge to join them, and those in front were weary and many of their number already wounded or dead. Ultimately, the imperials were set to route, and Disglair himself was slain by Sir Fawren, the Dhamean Knight who accompanied the prince as his chief advisor. After the battle, the bridge, which had simply been called the Rhuthro Greatbridge, was renamed Disglair's Ruin. It has since suffered further demolition at the hands of the kinglanders, and the ravages of time itself. Its once majestic, nearly mile-long span now a hulking ruin, lurching out over the mighty river.
Though it is little wonder that Cryf was not as wroth as perhaps Roderick would have been had his own son been slain in that battle; he had after all already sired dozens of children and perhaps hundreds of bastards by that point, what is strange is that in the three subsequent attempts to invade the Kingdom, as well as the two against the Queendom, the emperor never saw fit to lead the attack in person, as he had, to great success so many times before. Few can say why this should be. Some say that Civis Argentum lies in the heart of his already impressive lands, and that to cross the Rhuthro would take him too far from the center of the vast bureaucracy that maintains his empire. Others claim that perhaps his power is tied somehow to the lands he rules, and that they might wane should he ever tarry too far; though it should be added that few would dare even whisper such a thing within a day's ride from the Silver City.

Things as They Stand

It is this rather uneasy stalemate that has more or less held for the past three centuries. The kinglands and the empire both suffer the occasional raid from queenland 'barbarians', and though the Holy Empire remains the strongest force on the continent by some distance, they are not so mighty that they can overcome the disadvantages posed by the geography of Axylus itself and supplant their neighbors. Magnus Cryf still rules from his throne in Civis Argentum and is said to still be as fair to look upon today as he was when Roderick I took the throne, though the good king has since had nine successors.
Neither is the avatar of the High Father the oldest or perhaps even the most dangerous thing that still moves within Axylus. The ruin of Tir Uchel remain buried beneath the continent, dreaming its alien dreams. Though slain, it, like its inhabitants of old could not die, at least not as mortal men and women do. So, while many of its halls and promenades are choked irrevocably by dirt and rubble, and others are as silent as tombs, there are yet some where that silence is disturbed by the sound of ancient, unknowable machinery that thunders on and on in the dark for ages, or by the fitful stirrings of something which has been asleep for centuries but must someday wake to feed.
Yet though such things as these will never truly leave Axylus, for now at least, it is not their time. Whose time it is precisely is unknown. The status quo, fragile though it seems, has held for longer than anyone might have guessed. Who is to say what, or who might tip the scales this way or that, and bring about the next age?