Legend of the Serpent Kingdoms

Summary

Around 150, after the tumultuous Orcish Exodus to Eidos, historians, diplomats, and more from across Eidos who flocked to this new faction to ascertain how strong a player in Eidos' politics they would be discovered ruins and traces of an ancient civilisation. The Orcs had begun to inhabit these ruins, and through bloody means had established the territory as their own. Nonetheless, some of the architecture was beyond alien, strange in construction. It was utterly unlike any architecture throughout the rest of Eidos - not like the Dwarves, nor the Elves, nor even the new tribal styles of the Orcs. Further investigation revealed murals of snake-like men, combinations of both. Strange languages, runes, and events were depicted in various ruins - but without any key part to connect them. After these discoveries, small findings elsewhere throughout Eidos began to make more sense, depicting similar runes and languages. This led to the belief that thousands of years ago, serpent-men ruled over Eidos as its dominant faction. An unknown event saw their empire crumble, and rendered them extinct.

Historical Basis

Thousands of years ago, Yuan-ti Purebloods did rule over a significant portion of Eidos - but a cataclysm that wore them away even before the Rune Wars led to them having small dissident territories and nothing more, and after the Rune Wars, the Yuan-ti Empire was truly finished. Most of the surviving purebloods - of which they were very few - fled to the East, West, and South, to continents beyond Eidos. Meanwhile, some Yuan-ti who had begun to regress from their serpentine blood and had become closer to man chose to stay in Eidos, though these individuals are exceptionally rare and, save for their biology and eyes, they are hard to detect.

Spread

This myth is reasonably commonly spoken about and written in books; the further south you go the closer to truth it is taken as, with elements of the Southern Staldor territories very much accepting this legend as fact.

Cultural Reception

The culture most heavily affected by this piece of mythic history is the Orcs - whose dominion over the territories that were once the Serpentine Kingdoms made them of great interest to historians from the Chantry and the Staldors alike. Highly territorial, Orcs seldom allowed visitors into their lands without exacting some kind of martial comeuppance, but in recent years, past the year 500, relations with the Orcs were steady enough that properly sanctioned and permitted visits were occasionally allowed into Orcish territory to investigate these ruins for more answers. Staldors, however, are never permitted official entry - with them and the Orcs in a perpetual cold-war along their borders.

Date of First Recording

150

Date of Setting

3,000+ years before the Rune Wars

Related Locations

• The Barrens