The Blood Age

At the beginning, there was only war. Devastating conflict led by greed to consume enemy souls and gain great power. This lasted 200 years and was known as the Blood Age. The Blood Age only ended with the event of Veler and his battle with a massive monstrosity that is told differently in various cultures. Copper and bronze are often associated with the Blood Age as rudimentary weapons and tools.

BLOOD TRIBES

During the Blood Age, peoples formed into barbaric tribes for survival. These tribes were territorial and possessed little knowledge other than avoiding The Lost, and fighting other tribes without killing to avoid The Soul Logic. Below are the known tribes that lived during the Blood Age, collectively known as the Blood Tribes:

1. Sacrim - The tribe that the great Glorius rose from. This tribe would later become House Glore after the Yellow Campaign and would lead the Iron Kingdom, then after The Burning War, the Iron Empire. The Sacrim tribe lived scattered throughout the lands that would later become known as the Heartlands. They grew big and strong from the lush land there and fought to protect it with all their might. Sacrim tribesmen all had dark hair, and light, fair skin. When the Dark Father razed all of Vaskeer, the entire world was ablaze. Sacrim's land, was one of the last. According to history, they were present when Veler appeared and slew the Dark Father, as the leader of the Sacrim tribe, Glorius, fought alongside Veler in the battle. The entire tribe was bestowed a boon by Veler and given the land of Old Iron as a thanks, where they flourished into a Kingdom. Later, when they would migrate back onto the mainland, House Glore would find groups of the Sacrim tribe that had been left behind centuries before, who instantly bent the knee to their rightful rulers during the Great Settling. During the Blood Age, the Sacrim tribe were hearty and tall. They were mostly farmers with small herds of animals, who would wield whatever weapons they could find in defense. The most notable signs of the Sacrim tribe's culture continuing into modern day can be found in the naming conventions of the current Iron Empire. The old tongue formulated by the Sacrim tribe that was perfected during their flourishing on Old Iron became known as 'Sacrim' tongue, or Old Sacrim. This would be the base for the Iron tongue, or common, that is mandatory across the entire Empire. Many old works such as Priscillan artifacts like the Primus Lands painting, show Old Sacrim: Primus= Prime, or the first. (Godsmiths ) The Sacrim tribe worshipped a singular God, The Burn, which has translated well to the Empire's current Iron Creed. Sacrim, and the Iron Kingdom's, culture has become commonplace within the Empire. The traditional House system that sees a noble family with royal blood rule over their own land/town, principal only to House Glore, with bannermen and commonfolk who follow them, originated from the Iron Kingdom of Sacrim. Lords and Ladies, Kings and Queens, then the later Iron Lords and Dukes, all originate from Sacrim.
2. Fjornir - Hardy men and women of the frigid north tundras, past the natural barrier of the Virnach Mountains. These people were paler, shorter, much hairier, and more muscular than the other tribes due to their conditions, but were some of the most fierce warriors known in Vaskeer. They were berserkers, revelling in the pain of battle and wishing to join their ancestors in an afterlife only accessible through a glorious death. For the entirety of the Blood Age, none could break into the Virnach Mountains, held back by the Fjornir, who in turn constantly raided the small tribes in Virnach with no remorse. The Fjornir were also skilled sailors, creating and sailing rudimentary sailboats in the northern seas that are now frozen over. The Fjornir held to a pantheon belief around ferocious animals and mighty heroes, who were not ominpotent but were above all Humans. After the Great Settling, as the refugees of the Taldonian tribe came fleeing north, the Fjornir's ultimate enemies, the Fjornir, for some reason lost to history, welcomed them. They rescued them from the Iron Kingdom settling in the south, and the two tribes co-mingled, advancing both to try and catch up to the Kingdom.
3. Taldonian - The natives of Virnach, the Taldonians were a unique mix of peoples, perhaps from being situated in the middle of various tribes. The Fjornir clan was to the north, the Sacrim to the South, the Beautero and Aslani also the South, and the Horda to the West. The Taldonians were the wielders of bronze. They found stores of copper in the Virnach Mountains and were the first to create rudimentary weapons and tools from the alloy of bronze. This gave them a great edge over other tribes, and the Taldonians were mostly left alone out of fear of their deadly weapons. The Taldonians were the biggest tribe during the Blood Age, covering Virnach and The Lance, but after the Sacrim's rise and their advancement on Old Iron, the Taldonian's were easily defeated during the Great Settling and forced to flee to the north. The Fjornir respected the Taldonian's after fighting with them for literal centuries, and welcomed them. The Taldonians are tall people, with light skin and hair.
4. Beautero - The Beautero tribe is one of the few tribes that has survived to the modern day, with their history and name intact. This faction occupied half of the Thundering Flats during the Blood Age, and constantly warred with the Aslani tribe. Beautero lived along the Western coast, and the Aslani were of the East. Both fought in the sprawling plains of the flats, and between the hills and mountains that dotted it. At this time, the Flats were not beset by constant storms and were just slightly more stormy than other areas. Burnstorms only occured once every 100 years as well, so the Flats were a much more hospitable place. Beautero were slightly darker-skinned than those of the north, but were still white-skinned. They were one of the first to start using gold as ornamentation, as ancient tapestries in the Blossom Reach show. Beautero possessed some bronze weapons through trades with the Taldonians, pieces of golden armor such as conical helms, and druidic magic. Druids within Beautero culture were religious leaders, as the Beautero tribe held religion and leadership as one in the same. Druids, like their tribesmen, were pagans, who held and organized divinations, sacrifices, and communions. The Beautero tribe worshipped the land and nature itself, believing that everything was intertwined. That there were no Gods other than what they could see. The druids were their connection to nature itself, and they had to appease the land by spilling blood. Over the centuries, as the Storm Age progressed, the bloody aspects of druidism faded and were replaced with more humane affects. But during the Blood Age, the Beautero tribe spilled the blood of their enemies not just in defense, but in ritual. They would coat themselves in blood, drink from bowels, scream into the wilderness, trying to draw themselves closer to nature. But that was not all the Druids could do. If history is to believed, the druids could call upon elemental powers of pure nature. Historians believe this was a rudimentary, but safer, version of Soulomancy similar to what the Soleri tribesmen use. They could not create large effects, but it became clear that the druids of Beautero could divine prophecies, and foresee horrible events to come. Similar to how Priscilla Glore foresees the future in her work Godsmiths  of the Oracle's Prophecy. Unfortunately, the Druids were powerless against the overwhelming political might of the Iron Empire. When pilgrims from Iron appeared from the north, they saw the thunderous fighting between the Beautero and Aslani and decided to aid the Beautero. To them, the Aslani were dark-skinned and wild, while the Beautero were similar to the Sacrim tribe they originated from. The Ironers aided Beautero in military might, fighting the Aslani, in return for land. Slowly and surely, the Ironers gave their swords to Beautero and used miscommunication through translation to take more and more land from the Beautero tribe. Beneath their very noses, they started to settle in the Thundering Flats in land that Beautero thought still belonged to them. Over time, slowly, the Beautero tribe would shrink. Pushed back to the western corner of the Empire, by the time of The Ivory Age, Beautero would be given the title of a noble House through integrations with House Glore, and would rule over Blossom Reach, the last remaining land from their time during the Blood Age.
5. Aslani - This tribe is the antithesis of Beautero. Expert riders, the Aslani are known for the Aslani breed of horse as well. This horse is well-adapted to steep mountains and sheer cliffs from their time during the Blood Age. The Aslani tribesmen lived in mountains and hills that, during the Blood Age, were much taller and sharper in the past. Now, these same mountains have been battered and beaten down by constant supernatural storms to become rolling hills or flatlands of the Thundering Flats. During the Blood Age, the many mountains were the Aslani's best ally. They used their natural terrain to their advantage during the constant battles of this Age, riding their shorter, rotund horses adept at scaling stones. The Aslani themselves were, like their horses, shorter than the average of the time, some stocky, and some lithe and limber. They had an olive complexion, much darker than most of the other tribes, and thick, curly black hair. The men of the Aslani kept their beards long, and the women their hair long. The Aslani are now known to be one of the first peoples to utilize the creation of jewelry. They would adorn their bodies with piercings, and common among them were nose and ear piercings on men and women alike. They would also wear the smithed items of those they killed, particularly the Beautero tribe, as a sign of prowess, but this changed over the years to resemble larger pieces of jewelry made from the smelted bronze. The Aslani constantly prowled the Flats in roving bands, never leaving their horses, but when the Iron pilgrims of the developed Iron Kingdom allied with the Beautero tribe, the Aslani found themselves outnumbered and hard-pressed for survival. The Storm Age became an era of survival for the Aslani, as their noble warbands fell to mere bandits looting newly-settled Iron towns to survive, the land they occupied dwindling each year. Now, the only remnants of the Aslani are a few warbands that live in the mountains surrounding Blossom Reach, home to the Beautero House. Both mere fragments of what they once were. The Aslani fight amongst themselves as much as they fight the Beautero House, attacking traveling caravans on horseback, unable to pillage Blossom Reach itself, its walls and technology far too advanced.
6. Horda - The Horda clan are completely extinct. Nothing remains of this ancient clan. They were most similar to the exotic peoples seen overseas in the modern era of The Ivory Age through trade, the Karoans and Har'Akirians. The Horda wore cloth turbans and free-moving robes, moving around quickly across the bloody battlefields instead of being armored down. The Horda occupied large swaths ranging from the Flats up to The Lance before the Iron Kingdom arrived on their shores. The Horda were a war-like people, opting to fight to the death instead of surrendering to these oppressive new peoples from across the Rusted Sea. This ended with their extinction, although some speculate that a few of the Horda escaped overseas and settled amongst the shores far to the East, starting Karoa. Recent excavations have brought up signs of the Horda clan, long forgotten. The most prominent surviving aspect is their pots, copied from ancient paintings found below the ground. A Horda pot is an extravagance in the Iron Empire, and a sign of historical wealth.

Continuing the tradition of the first Burnstorm on the 1st of Ydallion 100AW, a massive Burnstorm besets the entirety of Vaskeer on the 2nd of Ydallion 200AW. During this Burnstorm, the Dark Father gets into Vaskeer. The worst of Ydall's creation, He climbs over The Ivory Wall and in the midst of the worst Burnstorm in history, lays bloody siege to Vaskeer. It is that this time, in the holy month of Ethosian, that Veler saves the land from the Dark Father and defeats it with his Windspear. Veler then declared his Hero's Creed, writing the Hallowed Writ and starting the Storm Age. This is when Veler bestowed the island known as Old Iron to his friend, Glorius, and when Veler talked to Ethos himself (according to the Empire).