Godful Dominion of Eselargani
Then They had a dream, a beautiful and peaceful dream. Their minds were drawn to the music of the Void, And Their eyes saw the world take shape; Trees and plants sprung from Their steps, Mountains and hills were shaped by Their footfalls, And Their greatest creations walked the lands under one banner. ~The Hymn of the Eselar
Structure
The Dominion was led by the gods themselves, counting both the Free Ones and the Corrupted Ones, although their treachery was not known then. Working through the leaders of the various villages and towns of the empire, the gods kept them in contact with one another and provided insight and guidance to the people.
Each village and town had a leader or chieftain, chosen by the people and the gods to receive Their insight. This person was responsible for tending to the village and its people in the gods' absence, and they were expected to let the gods know if creation ever became marred in any way.
Public Agenda
The gods created the Dominion to preserve harmony between the various races of the world of Orkanis, and until the violence of the First War They were successful.
History
After the gods had created the world, They then began to create the various peoples of Their world. Each god doted on Their own creations (Xartas for the xertilar, for instance), but They all worked together in harmony.
Three thousand years passed, and the gods watched as the peoples of the world grew up, aged, died, and were born again. Even the oldest ibelilar could only see a fraction of the grand design that the gods had dreamed before Their awakening, and They were content to see this design unfold.
Unfortunately, some of Them were more restless than the others, and they were much more likely to explore the Void where nothing had been made. At some point, the gods Yanüs, Valkar, Woldmir, and Coltris became corrupted by the power of the Void, and they became greedy and evil. Their creations became more and more preverted, their domains more sickly and revolting, and their discord turned many of the peoples of the world against each other. They ceased to be Free, and they became Corrupted. Their Corruption was so strong that they began to explore the vastness of space and brought demons to Orkanis.
The remaining Free Ones eventually saw the treachery wrought by the Corrupted Ones, and cast them from the White Halls. Their peoples had begun to fight amongst each other, and the demons attacked towns and villages thoughout creation. So They made the ultimate sacrifice; They would destroy the harmony of Their creation by declaring the First War.
The War was terrible, and many of the peoples of the world perished in the violence and bloodshed. To preserve what little people remained, the Free Ones then enacted the Great Sundering, splitting the armies of the world apart and sinking many of the dangerous weapons of the Corrupted Ones. Evidently, peace was not restored, but the Godful Dominion was no more.
Demography and Population
Scattered throughout the Dominion's central continent, Daganti, the various races of Eselargani lived in harmony with creation and with each other. The ibelilar hadn't diverged too much from each other until the end of that period, and the multitude of tepilar cultures easily outnumbered the handful known today. The smeloplar, the weddelar and the vidashlar were also plentiful, and it is presumed that the otraylar also existed back then as Megliai's chosen race.
In the later days of the Dominion and during the First War, the astanlar began to appear among the ranks of humans and elves while the conversion of the Corrupted Ones' forces led to the existence of the grakonlar and vileshlar races.
Religion
As can be expected of a nation ruled by the gods, worship and prayer was a common fact of life. The Trierarchy of Heaven had not yet been established, so the peoples of Eselargani prayed to whomever they recognized or admired. Farmers often prayed to Zëga'coldar, Yanüs was preferred among those who had recently had a death in the family, and Mordarin was beloved of smiths and craftspeople.
There may even had been more gods and goddesses who perished in the First War, their temples abandoned and their names forgotten to modern Orkanisans. A couple of these have been found, but the inscriptions are too faded to be read anymore.
Infrastructure
Only the physical remains of the Dominion have survived the upheaval of the Great Sundering, and even then much of those now lie underwater in the Talen Sea or the Sea of Tears. A few buildings, such as the central section of Lerdelore or the ornate temples of Zatas, date from this era, but much of the Dominion's infrastructure is long crumbled into dust or buried underneath the nations and cities that followed.
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