LORE: History of Eyre

In all the world, it is known there were two great ages, both ended by tremendous cataclysm. No one knows just how old Eyre is... but ruins and relics have been studied for centuries in both Styria and Bakar, uncovering no traces of humanity before the First Age.

Eyre's First Age was long and prosperous, but magicless. There were no humanoid races besides humans nor were there any monsters. It is unknown how they did it, but these ancient First Age humans managed to build huge concrete bridges and roads, overlooked by gigantic towers of glass and steel. Many machines linger from this era and First Age artifacts far surpass today's technology in the Third Age, but no one knows how to make the fuel or electricity they require. Moreover, First Age ancients didn't record their knowledge on paper or stone, making it impossible to access their long-lost knowledge today.

No one knows what happened, but it is theorized the First Age ended when magic appeared. There is evidence of huge arcane storms and perhaps the first monsters appearing at the age's end, all of which seems to have near destroyed the many thousands of human cities built in the First Age. Their ruins are full of leaning towers, broken bridges and huge piles of debris; tremendous amounts of human skeletons in First Age ruins indicates humanity was decimated in the First Cataclysm, and most people avoid their lost cities- rumors of strange phenomena and deadly hauntings surround their abandoned landscapes of rusted steel, broken trinkets and bone piles. Research on them is minimal and usually fruitless.

Milennia later, the Second Age of humanity truly began. Magic was tremendously abundant- layers of sediment and stone buried since this time are full of mana crystals, proving the world truly was overflowing with magic during the Second Age, a time ruled by mages.

Second Age humans were the first to use magic, but didn't achieve much with it at first. Tribes used it to war and compete for resources and territory, and although their magic was basic compared to today's, there was such an overflow of mana in the world that all magic was far stronger and much easier to cast. Magicless, low-mana or otherwise magically inept humans eventually died out during the Second Age. Great clans of mages even today trace their bloodlines to these ancient mage-tribes.

But though civilization began slowly, Second Age humans rapidly developed, using magic to easily build great cities and grow huge amounts of food. The nations of this time- Morbrennia, Kaldnat and Glasfel- were formed by intermingling and fusion of the mage-tribes into great and prosperous societies. All humans had magic, but how much and for what affinities varied wildly.

Second Age humans, even in conflicts among the three great nations of this time, created many paradises for humanity: floating cities, underwater labyrinths and clockwork mountains linger from the Second Age. There were still no non-human races at this time, though it is theorized the appearance of new humanoid races caused conflict between the Second Age's three superpowers.

Much knowledge was lost when the Second Age ended, but some history is known: Kaldnat was a wondrous civilization of deserts and pyramids, ruled by royal mages. Their magic was known to disrupt time, mutate or grow any manner of plantlife and even divine possible futures as well as their likelihood. Despite its abundance of resources, Kaldnat was a peaceful nation with only a small military, which led to its conquest by the other two mage-nations.

Glasfel was a city of geomancers, ether mages and many obsessive scholars in an elitist society. Professors and old wizards ruled their nation. In their society, weak or low mana mages were the slaves of stronger mages by law, and marriages were arranged according to the strength of magic in their bloodlines. Crystal magic, alchemy and enchantment were practiced to the fullest there. It was the world's strongest superpower, but a brutal and harsh place to live unless you were an unequaled mage.

Morbrennia, which lingers today as Morgbrell, was a smaller nation than Kaldnat. It was a democracy, but its culture prized advances in magic above all else, even human life. Morbrennians were masters of biomancy, necromancy, blood magic and summoning, bringing forth creatures not meant to be into our world.

Although there were four thousand years of near peace, the Apocalypse of the Second Age began when Morbrennia began creating new types of humans: orcs, elves, fairies and nymphs... they produced some new offshoot of humanity every year, many others of which survive today but have yet to be discovered.

Other races feared Morbrennia was violating humanity and meddling in God's work. Glasfel was only concerned with Morbrennia's magic-mutated new species exceeding human mages in power. The exact scandal is unknown- ... but once Morbrennia abandoned the human template and began creating monsters, Glasfel declared war and invaded Kaldnat to prevent the Morbrennians from conquering its resources.

For twenty years, Kaldnati and Glasfel elites battled Morbrennian mages. Glasfel's council of mages performed a great earth-twisting ritual to collide all the world's continents, turning them all into the supercontinent that Eyre remains as today. It made their invasion easy and Glasfel's golems constantly poured over the Morbrennian borders...

Morbrennia shrunk rapidly, but fought viciously, causing vast casualties. Moreover, war allowed them to refine their sorcerous sciences. When it seemed they would lose the war, Morbrennia ordered all of its mages to perform constant summonings and human sacrifices, the huge volume of which flooded the world with wild fiends and huge monsters that Morbrennia did not even try to control. They were losing the war, but would take the rest of the world with them...

All three nations fell irreparably. People would not build even huts again for hundreds of years; it's not certain exactly how, but the abundance of mana in the world greatly dropped during the Apocalypse of the Second Age, though Mobrennia's constant nation-wide summoning and spawning of monsters is blamed.

Morbrennia became Morgbrell, a land of Second Age ruins inhabited now by only monsters and demons. However, some Morbrennians survived, though it is their secret to the world... but they did not survive as humans. In order to survive in the hellish world they created, the last Morbrennians created the Curse of Vampirism, both to exact on humanity and preserve themselves. But the change to become a Vampire distorts mind and memories, making most Vampires insane.

The far northern peninsula of Morgbrell is home to the nation of Dracoslava, a country of Vampires ruled by their clans. They do not reproduce sexually, but by turning humans into Vampires, a Vampire passes on some of their traits to a new Vampire- even some things like hair color and appearance, so most Vampires consider those they turn to be their children and arrange familial structures accordingly... but Vampires are ruthless and psychotic creatures, devoid of sentimentality much less remorse, so Dracoslava is a strife-ridden place even for Vampires. They keep prisons of human livestock they care for so as to never run out of blood.

Dracoslava, as of yet, has remained hidden from the world and only preys on ships and boats...

It has been a thousand years since the end of the Second Age and the beginning of the third. Magic is slowly increasing in the world since its previous decline, and now new nations contend again for rule of Eyre, but are tempered and held together by the threat of Morgbrell's hordes.