Some lore about the world (Unimportant)

Recently, there has been some interest in the Burning of Prosperia, and while I am thankful for contributions to this story, there seems to be a confusion of when the setting is supposed to be in as originally, I did not want this to be a generic fantasy, and was excited to flesh the world more.

However, since I've already disowned it in the past, and my belief in creative freedom, I won't argue on what contributors should do just to satisfy my desire to fully flesh out a fantasy world, with the truth of wanting to write about my hatred for the perfect-at-everything fantasy elves trope behind it and satisfy the kinks of others alongside it. Which explains the guidelines of this story.

To clarify: Contributors can do whatever they want, the following was just my intention when writing this.

The Setting:

The setting in which Propseria lives in, is set in the aftermath of a War between a Coalition of Elves, and races that they thought were below them. That included most humans, the orcs and their sub-species, and whatever species lives out there because human-orc alliances had always intrigued me.

While the point of the war wasn't strictly the genocide of the latter Coalition of Creatures, the Elves made their grievances clear, that they saw themselves as the superior species and was almost transparent about it when it came to inter-kingdom relationships. Some human kingdoms agreed to this out of either past relations and experiences with them, or they saw that trade and defense from the elves was a good thing, and were more than willing to comply.

Most human kingdoms were not, and the orcs, a race of warriors that love to buttheads and satisfy their urges, were so insulted, they burned a well-known province of the elves (let's call it Tus'ka because these all reminds me of Tusken Raiders from Star Wars) and enslaved the people there, thus starting the 100 Year War.

There was outcry to the sacking of Tus'ka, but with recent events, a lot of other races couldn't blame the orcs, and many applauded them. Human Kingdoms, however, did not side with them until much later, when other Human Settlements saw just how terribly weak the elves were, even with their human allies.

At the start of the war, the most advanced piece of technology was the chainmail and decent shield, as well as a Big Man, on a Big Horse.

But when it looked like the Elven Coalition were the ones that would've been genocided, they developed new weapons of war such as large bows and arrows that could go through an entire phalanx and eliminate them, or take out Orc Warboss due to how large they were.

Then they discovered something that was even much more dangerous through the combination of charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur. They made gunpowder, and with this gunpowder, they had it used with their bowmen, who used them en masse and caused psychological damage, as well as caused more casualties than what flaming arrows did.

One day, some genius thought that they could use gunpowder to propel them, and through experimentation, the Elves had invented fireworks. And with these fireworks, they had them lined up on a cart, lit one by one, and had invented artillery.

The Human Kingdoms that joined the Orc-Human Alliances, as well as the other races that probably don't exist, started questioning if siding with these brutish orcs that were supposed to curbstomp the elves, was the best idea since the elves were the ones making new technologies and the orcs were stupidly just deploying themselves en masse, hoping that climbing the walls of fortified towns and opening the gates after, was the best strategy.

Moreover, the humans who allied themselves with the elves had access to gunpowder and started tinkering with them, and once they saw the potential of a few bags of these on the end of an arrow, what else can they be made to do?

Well, it's said that, after an explosion from a barrel in a town's marketplace, a dozen people were killed. 11 from passerbys (not all of them died immediately), and one was a woman who had the top of the barrel land on top of her.

Rather than see this as an unfortunate accident, two things were invented: The Bomb, and a long pipe that required gunpowder to propel a small ball at a very deadly speed. In short, the rifle was invented with it.

Some of the humans in the Human-Orc Alliance switched sides, and this would go on through the entirety of the 100 years of warfare. I'd detail the creation of the cannon as well, but let's just say that the thinking involved the rifles and people thinking "Bigger, Better, Explodier" and they were rather correct on the last bit, as the technology was almost disregarded for committing self-explosion due to the poor understanding of why such things exploded when they're larger, when it takes a while for their own rifles to do the same thing. Eventually, metalworking got better and they stopped using cannons made out of wood too, because men, apparently, did not like dying of a billion splinters.

Why did men die of multiple splinters when the best technology was chainmail armor? Easy, people figured that, the less armored you are, the more mobile you could be and the cheaper it was to field infantry as much as possible. It was done in a sense of profit, logistics, and practicality as well as impracticality.

But it wasn't just men at this point, but women were also being conscripted to fight the 100 years of fighting. Some proved to be war heroes and martyrs, some were captured and ****, and some were just buried in some quick skirmish. Whatever the case, there would be scenarios where entire villages would only have children occupying them, as every adult was conscripted into the fight.

And even the children started to fight as well, such as Ferdinand Castellan and Kassandra Ohne Gnade. Both had seen war at a young age, and they saw the end of the 100 Years War as adults. Only to be told that they have been on the losing side.

But before you ask how the war lasted until 100 years when it was clear that the Orcs were losing, the answer to that is also pretty simple.

The Elves were not the only ones that were capable in RnD. While Orc Culture is usually seen as the Survival of the Fittest, observers would soon discover that Social Darwinism (whatever that is) was also present in Orc Culture, and when large and incompetent Orc Leaders were being killed, the smarter and stronger orcs took over.

One such orc was Bigbren KaselSmasha, who developed the tactics modern orcs use to this day, such as Goblin Carts, first thought of when he needed to ambush a convoy, only to see that they worked as much of a psychological tool of war as they were an offensive weapon, even when not on fire - as well as arming his larger-sized kin with cannons, making the need for wheels for the larger guns to be unnecessary

Another was his victory over the Castle Town of Clementine, formerly thought to be impregnable and unsiegeable when the defenses of the fortress used hills to fortify their walls. The overconfident, the Human and Elven defenders were paralyzed when the Earth they stood on shook and swallowed the bricks and mortar before they were overrun by the Orc-Human Alliance who poured through these new entrances, and when the city was ransacked, pillaged, and burned to the ground, Bigbren KaselSmasha had a speech which inspired more breakthroughs throughout the continent:

"OI'z told all ye'z t'at we bi'z in Clementine by Thorty-Foive Dayz, and many of ye'z doubted OI'z. But now we'z be standing inside Clementine. T'ha women here be looze, be they'z humies or elven, and even zome of t'ha women in our armiez be focking t'ha men 'ere. **
OI knowz zome of ye'z spoke of dizent, but now we'z in Clementine, then OI'z zhown ye that OI don't give up, until t'ha end of t'ha bargain. And now t'at OI'z given you moy end, OI'z 'ave another bargin. Next 'top, Ke'vali, and e'ery stinking village before t'at!"
W̶A̶A̶A̶A̶A̶A̶A̶A̶A̶G̶H̶!̶**

Eventually however, all races that still retained numbers had to admit that the 100 Years War was too costly in terms of resources, manpower, and coinage. Some species went extinct such as the Calareigha people who lived in rivers and lakes, finding their homes polluted by the advancement in industry and too toxic to live, eventually dying because of such.

The Humans, the Elves, and the Orcs all signed peace treaties that no kingdoms of their take part in wars against one another, and though the latter were hesitant, the reproduction rates of bonafide orcs were dropping, and the once mighty Warrior Culture agreed to cease fighting, a decision only made possible due to the deaths of their headstrong leaders.

But with the peace treaties signed, and the Elves coming at the top as they found themselves colonizing ghost towns, many were enraged, especially the veterans of the Human-Orc Alliance who banded together to terrorize these repopulated towns and ransack them.

Mercenary work for and against these raids became profitable, before simply becoming a way of life, as agriculture, manufacturing, and repopulating slowed. Vendettas were made, massacres happened, and the rest are yet to be written.

What's the takeaway?

tl;dr I wanted to flesh this world better, but due to motivation problems and schoolwork, I couldn't really finish it properly.

But if I have to say something to the contributors, I really don't like the generic medieval fantasy stories and thought to set the world in the Renaissance Period. I was hoping that the usage of cannons, riflemen, pikemen, Men at Arms, or other stuff would clue them in that this wasn't about knights in shining armor or orcs being hulking brutes that can't speak English straight.

Then again, I've disowned this story and the fact it's public makes it clear that anyone can write their own interpretation of the world, I'm not offended that I did so.

And in case anyone didn't know it, Kassandra Ohne Gnade is supposed to be a Landsknecht. Not that you needed to know that of course, but I thought I'd say it.

Oh yeah, finally, in case anyone is curious, this whole thing, as well as my hatred for elves at the time, was inspired by Darkest Dungeon, and I wanted to use the anachronistic timeline of that game to inspire stories, but I did a shite job at the details.