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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bringerofbroom" data-source="post: 3843528" data-attributes="member: 55812">75 years ago, Andaer was a quiet country village in fairly peaceful forest, deep within the Val D’Issoire valley in the Kingdom of Reville in the Heart of the great empire of Arden. The empire had spent many centuries fighting their ancient enemies, the Heathen Ijar from the south, over the holy island of Keliss. In the midst of a great crusade to remove the Ijar influence from the Ardenian province of Ajera, suddenly the armies and followers of the Ijari were gone, journeying back to their lands as quickly as their ships could carry them. With this sudden peace, the crusaders quickly claimed Keliss, and then the majority returned to their native lands within the empire of Arden. Many, members of the nobility, returned expecting to reclaim their rightful lands and wealth within the empire, but many of those left as guardians of their lands whilst away had claimed them for their own. Quickly, many parts of the empire seceded and declared independence, hoping that they would no longer be bound by imperial law. This quickly led to civil wars across the empire. As the many new nations defined their borders and began to settle their differences, a new threat appeared – the one the Ijari had disappeared to fight. From the distant south east, the ancient and dark land of Midian, sealed away from the world a thousand years before, had broken free and were claiming all the lands of the Ijar and of the Imperial realm as their own. With them they brought powerful magic, great and terrible beasts of war and forces of such evil that they had never before been seen. In the wake of their greatest Sorcerers and beasts came something even more terrifying. A wave of change that strengthened and twisted nature, turning peaceful woodland in to terrible, dark forest, infested with creatures and terrors. Among the people, those who survived the eventual invasion of the imperial lands by the midianites, other changes were happening. Those who used magic, once a difficult and arcane path only followed by a few, found their magic changed, easier, but weaker in some ways, stronger in others. It were as if in the wake of the powers of Midian, reality were being reshaped. With Midian holding almost all of Ardenian lands, and all of those of the Ijari, A great force appeared in the north. From the Aesir, the Northern People came a great leader, Ulric Dragon binder. A wizard and warrior of great power, who had taken control of a great force of dragons, and turned them south to fight off the encroaching midianite terror. For many years a great war was fought across the lands, Midianite versus the combined forces of the surviving crusader warriors and the dragons and North men of Lord Ulric, as he came to be known. The war continued until Ulric himself and his band of great heroes stormed the citadel of Midian itself, defeating its unnameable dark lord. With the dark lords’ death, the greatest of the Midianite enemy lost much of their power, and were defeated or fled. Most of the forces of Lord Ulric were also lost, killed in the war. The great dragon flight of Lord Ulric was but a handful of ancient and powerful dragons that returned to their lairs to rest after such great exertion. Lord Ulric returned to his home in the north, leaving some of his generals in what had been the lands of Arden to attempt to rebuild. Each community in Arden knew that no help would come for a great many years, so barricades were built, and defences prepared, to protect them from the lands that while once safe, were now home to a great number of dangers. Many years have now passed, and more than a couple of generations. Only the oldest in any community remember the Great War, but their skills have been remembered. Most in any community know how to protect themselves, and many a number in any community are trained in use of Arms. Weapons are mostly fairly primitive – whatever the smith can make from the materials he has, but their use is skilled. A few weapons of quality have been handed down the generations and are put in the hands of those best able to use them. Trade is rare, but when a caravan arrives it is gratefully welcomed and well guarded. The old rules of nobility have mostly collapsed. Communities on the whole elect a Mayor and Sergeant, whose duties are for the mayor, to ensure that the community is adequately supplied to survive the next few seasons, and for the Sergeant, to ensure the community is adequately defended against the raids and attacks of the creatures of the forest. One of the stranger influences of the changes to the forest is that not all of its denizens are evil. Creatures of the Fey, previously only known in the distant gormundian forests, now are found in small communities across the lands.</blockquote>

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