Fantasy The Decline Lore

[Archie]

To be constantly updated

• Magic
• Religion
• Countries

• Terris is one of three planes known to exist, the other two are the Altern and the Nether. If the Nether is "hell", the Altern is some warped version of "heaven". The Nether is a dark, dreary place filled with creatures the people of Terris consider abominations, while the Altern is essentially a never-ending Sun where only dragons are known to live.
  
  All magic is based on opening channels from the Nether or from the Altern, but the way this happens is different. Altern portals are created by speaking incantations in Drasi, the ancient language of the dragons which is taught to fire priests in Adar. This seems to suggest that there is some kind of "God" in the Altern which receives these prayers and "decides" to open portals on their own account. There is no such being in the Nether, so all channels tapping into the energy of the Nether have to be opened "manually".
  
  Ability to open channels to the Nether depends on sensitivity of someone to magic, which is heavily related to the sensitivity of their nervous system in general. This has led some scholars to conclude that the Nether is influenced by, or entirely created, by the thoughts of living beings, given that the people who are best able to channel it are those with the most dense nervous system. For this reason, magical power and physical prowess are usually inversely correlated - the most powerful magical beings are also the most sensitive to pain and fatigue, while tough, career warriors who have endured dozens of wounds are unlikely to be the kind of people with any magic at all.
  
  Altern magic is badly understood and really can only be used to burn things - the most common application is to breath fire. Nether magic, in contrast, can be used for everything from enchanting to casting spell shields to connecting with the forests and talking to animals. This is because the Senate of Caria at one point stole the Arcaneum, the founding text of all magic, from the Kraken, the Lord of the Nether.
  
  
• Alithianism
  
  Inequality and civil war in Caria led to a decline in confidence in the Senate, which led to the rise of Alithianism, founded by the Dark Elf Alithius. Alithius blamed (with some truth) the troubles of the world on the Senate stealing the Arcaneum, which led to retaliation from the Kraken in the form of demons deployed to Earth. While this charge is true, the extent to which the Alithians fear "demons" is not. Abominations are actually quite rare on Earth and most people have never seen one. However, Alithians believe that the Kraken is literally part of the minds of mortal beings - a devil urging them to do bad things - and that evil actions are commonly caused by demonic influence and possession. Because of this, they see demons everywhere.
  
  Nowhere is Alithian control tighter than in the Mages' Spires, where all children discovered to have magical abilities are sent to study under watch. They are watched by the Exalted Knights, whose have "blood worms" in their bloodstreams that allow their bodies to regenerate to a point and for them to withstand more damage than an ordinary person. This allows them to be a match for a powerful mage. Each spire has an "upper level" where the most dark experiments are carried out under the trusted watch of the local Rector.
  
  The Alithian Sanctum is run by the Archrector, who is elected by the High Rectors when the last one passes. Local "churches" are called sanctums, and pay tithes to the central authority in Caria. This money is used to fund the Exalted Knights, and bribe lords to take up arms against nobles that defy the Sanctum.
  
  Interestingly, Alithians do not believe in a single God but rather in the power of the masses, when organized under religious authority, to fight God. The Kraken is decried as the ultimate evil of the world, and only through obedience to the right institutions - namely the "experts" - the High Rectors of the Sanctum - will the people of Terris be able to resist the apocalypse the Kraken intends to wring for them. Alithius is elevated to sainthood, and many godlike feats are attributed to him, but fundamentally Alithianism is a religion that focuses more on its "devil" than its "God". Instead of offering people a higher being to save people from evil, Alithians urge them to obey in order to be properly regimented into formations that can fight evil. Its outlook is fundamentally grim - the supernatural forces are evil, and we mere mortals can only organize properly to fight them if we don't question our leadership.
  
  Dark Alithianism
  
  In 152 AA, after numerous disagreements with the Archrector Favellian, Emperor Hyrcine V of the remnant Carian Empire operating out of Yarosinople (sometimes called the Yarosi Empire) led the latter to create his own Sanctum with his own puppet Archrector, known as the "Dark Rector". The doctrines of the religion are basically the same, but operationally the Dark Sanctum is far more permissive in exploration of "dark magic" than the mainstream Sanctum. This is necessary for Yarosinople to survive in its constant war against Adar.
  
  Mansodianism
  
  Founded by the Dragon prophet Mansod in 2,500 B.A. (before Alithius), Mansodianism is more of a history and a philosophy than a religion, stating factually what most Dragons remembered life in the Altern to be like. According to Mansod, the Altern is ruled over by a One True God who hears the prayers of Drasi-speakers and opens portals. This god was originally referred to as the "great worm", an asbestos-skinned giant worm that is believed to be the ancestor of all dragons (who themselves are asbestos-scaled so as to not take damage from heat). Since the takeover of the Adarian Plateau by humans, he has since been renamed the "Great Serpent". In practice, the Great Serpent is probably a stupid, non-sentient creature which opens portals simply as a reflexive response to Drasi incantations and has no mind of its own. It seems perfectly content to burn its own followers in the throat if they speak the wrong incantation. However, it is very powerful and apparently can hear Drasi spoken anywhere, in any dimension.
  
  Original Mansodianism, as it can be imagined, was not a very inspiring religion, so the Dragon Shahs, and subsequently the Human Shahs of Adar, "spiced it up" considerably. The Great Serpent is the "Big Good" in Mansodianism and speaks directly to the Shahanshah (King of Kings), his vicar on Terris. The Shahanshah executes his will, and needs not explain himself because he is simply speaking for the Serpent. The Serpent controls all the fire and sunlight in this world, but the evil God Itrash (probably a metaphor for the Kraken which has since spun far beyond the original tale) controls everything else, including shadows, the night, and life forms.
  
  Asbestos, the most fire-resistant cheap material on Terris, is holy to Mansodians. Rich Mansodians dress in cloth made of asbestos and smoke asbestos cigars. Adarians today genuinely believe that humans, like dragons, have throats made of asbestos, and that is why they are able to speak Drasi in a way that (sometimes) does not burn their throats, while other species are not able to do so. Actually, humans simply have not taught "refined drasi" to people of other species, and only became the ruling race of Adar after they killed the dragons because they were already the dragons' "middlemen" in ruling other mortals. However, mere details like these have not stopped the government from espousing its racist beliefs.
  
  Hyralism
  
  Hyralism is named after the Elven prophet Hyral, a mage so powerful he was rumored to have been able to sprout entire forests in a day. The real Hyral, according to Carian sources, was debilitated by his magical power. As this was in the pre-Arcaneum days, and Nether magic requires immense neural sensitivity to the other plane and to this one to function, a mage as powerful as Hyral was catatonic most of the day. Bombarded by intense stimuli around the clock, Hyral by most non-Elven accounts was entirely unable to function, being in immense pain even from stepping into a breeze. Dying at the age of 25, extremely young especially by Elven standards, Hyral was nevertheless deified by the Keeper of the Elven Suyosh tribe, who manipulated him to cast spells against the other tribes of the Sythalian Forest, and elevated to virtual godhood. Despite his flaws, Hyral, due to his immense connection with this world and the Nether, was able to see images that no other being had, and often mumbled what he saw in his catatonic stupors.
  
  Hyralism was essentially the collection of Hyral's distorted ramblings, made coherent by "editing" from the keeper's scholars. The "parables" (false conversations) of Hyralism stated that there was an immensely powerful being in the "Mindworld" (often interpreted by Alithians to mean the Nether) who was the collection of all evil thoughts from magical beings, and that magic itself was "created" by a lost civilization. He further stated that all species had previously lived "on their own globes", and were brought to Terris as a "prison" by the "Sun-worm", but that the Sun-Worm was no longer able to do any harm. Warning that all magical beings created abominations through their own bad thoughts, Hyral advocated that all people attempt to purge themselves of bad thoughts towards one another, and solve conflicts through love (literally) or by giving up on the dispute instead of pursuing it.
  
  Hyralism was once a tolerated religion in Terris, but has since been persecuted by the Sanctum. It is still widely practiced in remote areas and the forests.
  
  
• Rideaux
  King: Irault Stormcloud
  
  The dominant power in the West, Rideaux was founded by Junois Stormcloud, former imperial Zal Kabar (the military’s martial art) champion. Junois, then an officer in the imperial legion, had not received pay along with his men for months, and in 109 AA revolted to create his own kingdom. He renamed the city he captured, Orova, Junovia.
  
  By all counts, Junois was a great ruler and a genuine hero. The same could not be said of his sons, who fought civil wars over the inheritance. These civil wars were ended when Junois’s great grandson Irault defeated his enemies and seized the throne in 19. Irault mandated that all noblemen send their sons as hostages to his court. The sons of noblemen he kills or imprisoned are not then released or killed themselves, but suffer a much darker fate - confinement to the Black Keep. A dungeon with limited beds and food, the Keep forces its residents to fight for scraps. The “losers” are dragged in front of the court bi-weekly, and flogged - sometimes personally by Irault for being “weak” and “pathetic”. They are then somehow expected to go back into the prison and win their next fight.
  
  Some believe that Irault, himself an excellent knight and champion of many tournaments before his Kingship, is trying to make a philosophical point - that those who disobey him confine their offspring to this horrid existence, and that he and he alone picks winners and losers (often times, heirs who were winning in the Black Keep are “made losers” by Irault, who broke them both with his whip and his words). Most, however, believe he is simply a sadist. In recent years, the Black Keep’s population has expanded to include servants who disappointed Irault and random orphans on the street.
  
  Ironically, Irault is loved by the common people and merchants, as under his reign the government has become much more efficient due to the curtailing of the powers of the nobility.
  
  Carallis
  King: Aslan V
  
  Founded by Gathrank, son of Aslan IV, the Khagan of the Southern Orcish Horde, the Kingdom of Carallis was the assassin of the Carian Empire. Following the Junovian Rebellion in 109, Caria’s government fell to a coup by Gathranak, who installed a line of puppet emperors (not being of Senatorial blood, he himself could not become Emperor). By 120, he tired of this and just declared himself Emperor. Gathranak reigned by most accounts justly if not cynically. He built a large bureaucracy around himself to administer the Kingdom with precision, and exterminated entire lines of noblemen who defied him. He worked with the Senate and the Sanctum - who were both based in Caria - and integrated them along with his Orcish atabegs (nobles) in the government.
  
  Gathranak’s death in 160 brought a much darker creature to the throne - his son Aslan. From a young age, Aslan had been experimented on by mages in the Sanctum’s employ (this seemed to be part of the deal of Gathranak giving them a place to operate from) to become by all counts supernatural. He possessed superhuman strength, magical abilities, and allegedly the ability to regenerate his body (though the latter ability seems to have come with the defect of regenerating imprecisely, and giving him deformities, as Aslan always wears a full suit of Gold Armor covering his whole gigantic body).
  
  Hocronus, upon taking the throne, adopted the regal name “Aslan V”, implying direct succession not from the Kingdom of Carallis, but the Southern Orcish Horde. This was insulting to Carian nationalists, who were quickly purged.
  
  Carallis today is run by Aslan’s ministers with very little intervention from the King. They are often corrupt and are always rapacious, demanding higher and higher tax volumes. The King himself is surrounded by an immense walled palace he almost never leaves - there are questions a to whether he is even alive. Carallis fights frequent wars with its neighbor Junovia for dominance of the West.
  
  Yarosi Empire/"Carian Empire"
  Emperor: Hyrcronus VII
  
  The remnant of Caria, based out of its eastern port Yarosinople, the Yarosi state maintains the imperial traditions of Caria under a new face. Currently ruled by General-turned-Emperor Hyrcronus VIII, who allegedly poisoned his rivals at dinner. Ruling over arguably the largest city in the world, the Orcish Hyrcronus is in a perpetual war with Adar, which is not going well.
  
  In order to activate “dark” magic in their struggle, the Carian remnant has created its own Sanctum, termed the “Dark Sanctum” by all other Alithians, which obeys only the Emperor.
  
  Adar
  Shahanshan: Khosrov III
  
  Once known as “Drakanshahr” (literally, “Domain of the Dragons”), Adar was initially a multi-racial mountainous plateau where many races were enslaved by the Dragons that came out of the Altern. Humans were privileged over the others and called themselves “sons of the Dragon” (Adar’s origin myth on humanity is that it was a product of dragon-on-elf reproduction).
  
  Forced to wage war against Caria at its peak, the Dragon Shahanshah (King of Kings) Nehamuz ordered that an army of human fire-breathers be trained. In theory, all one needs to do to open a portal to the Altern and therefore bring excess fire into the world was to chant certain incantations in Drasi, the Dragon language. Unfortunately, humans, unlike Dragons, did not have asbestos-lined throats and often died in the attempt. This led Drakanshahr to develop an increasingly complex and precise vocabulary in Drasi which humans could speak safely, which concentrated on generating just enough heat as a heat wave moved up the throat to avoid damage.
  
  Unfortunately, humans made poor “sons” and at the end of the Fifth Carian-Drakanshahr War revolted and killed all the dragons with their new power, becoming the rulers instead. Inheriting the racial supremacist ideas of the dragons, the humans of Adar saw themselves as a race superior to all others whose rightful place was to rule. They subsequently fought a centuries-long series of wars with Caria where the frontline barely moved until the Empire’s collapse.
  
  WIP