Searching for Scholars [Aegis - Asulon]

[ScreamingDingo 16793]

 

Blessed be, those of the descendants under the care of our beloved Triumvirate. We of Wilven do seek those of the blood of scholars to fill our library. For our own shelves have laid empty since the Library of Dragur, held its departure with the destruction of Arcas.

 

What we seek is a true return to us honoring our ancestors and the times that they took part in, for the newer generation to absorb and understand the mistakes of the past. For this, I do ask for those of long life, or those that have recorded these events to immortalise themselves with their works. 

 

For our first collection of works, we aim to look for those recounting events from the era of Aegis and Asulon, outlining certain familiar eras that are iconic to the development of the nations that stand here.  

 

Specific areas of interest that we are looking to gather knowledge upon are below:

✎ The Fall of Alkhazar

✎ The fleeing of Aegis

✎ The Phoenix Rebellion

✎ The Death of the Wandering Wizard

✎ The histories/interactions with the Mori’Quessor

✎ The Chronicles of the Creation of the Holy Orenian Empire

✎ The Trial and Burning of Dawn “The Baker” Perea and the Salvian Histories

 

 

These are topics that we believe critical works and knowledge are missing within our libraries, important events that helped shape the lands that we now inhabit. For this, we are offering 100 mina for every work that is written on the topics present and 75 mina for every other work that will be used to help understand these lands. 

 

For submission, there will be an assortment of chests that will be at the Cloud Temple for us to analyze and gather. These books will need to be titled and your name should be presented for us to grant you an allocation of mina after reviewal. They will be under scrutiny and will be then immortalized within the Cloud Temple’s new library which is under development.  If there are questions, we do have an aviary at the Temple to ask questions. Do contact me there so I will be able to answer and respond to any true inquiries.

Shall the Sun, the Moon and Stars shine ever brightly above us, to guide us through the darkness that dwells in the edges of the world.

 

Monk Florencio, Keeper of Knowledge

Spoiler

 

[OOC]: 

This is an in-game initiative to create books and works that are surrounding the various histories of LotC. These can be written with biased accounts and can represent your own character's views, though we will only be able to have a limited amount of submissions so it will be first in, best dressed. If these are written on the forums, they will be later transcribed into minecraft books where they will be placed into a new library which will be developed in the replacement of the Library of Dragur. Focusing on creating history books and recollections for new players to absorb the past and understand the iconic events that define this server. This will be done for most maps and will either feature specific topics, or be broad in the nature of this to help augment the knowledge that players can freely explore.

Players who contribute to this will be ooc’ly acknowledged at the new library when it is built and retrieved in a special section, with the actual characters being plastered upon books and featured as experts in their fields.

 

The actual location of the drop off is near the monkey, next to the Wilven Monk villager. These will be collected and I'll sort the cash out once its been verified.

Thanks again,
ScreamingDingo

 

[subatomic 1095]

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[TeawithFrisket 2616]

Ember sees such missive. She begins to do what she does best, REASEARCH!!!

[bickando 3389]

Paul Salvian Temesch et Moere, Regent of the Commonwealth of the Petra, delves into his book collections. Two are sent forthwith; on the ancient realm of Seventis. Dusty, Arcasian tomes saved from the fall of the Empire. Others - they seem newer, perhaps secondary editions on past histories. Why did he have these...? Who originally wrote them? Who knows.

 

SEVENT ANTIQVE; ARMS OF SARVN

 

The houses of the Seventian Kingdom of Asulon were caught between the ancient traditions of Aegis and prior and the quickly-evolving political landscape that would culminate in their collapse and the rise of the First Empire. Those of Seventic heritage, and whom spoke the classical Seventian language, nearly always utilized Or, or Aurum, in their heraldry – a callback to their Aegisian capital. This is best exemplified by the coat of arms of Seventis itself, Chequy Sable and Or. The only exception to this rule was the personal arms and armor of Princess Maria of the House of Vallark, who used an inverted form of the greater Seventian coat of arms, and with her own House’s colors of white and blue. Notably the House of Drakaene, whose blazon is Gules a Falcon Or wielding in its beak a Cross Argent, did not use individualized coats of arms for its titles held in commandery; instead, these are beheld in nearly all surviving historical documents by imagery of the military coat of the House, Gules a Falcon Or. Of minor note, the County of Ascella retained the coat of arms of the County of Azar from which its rank was usurped, and the two that would come to rule over it in its post-capital era, Marcus of the House of Powell and Jullius of the House of Andromeda, would not change its armorial, but would instead take it as their own coats of arms for the duration of their rule.

 

The other dominant tinctures of the nation were Gules and Argent. Modern experts would take this as derived from the Auvergnat ducal coat of arms of the time – Argent, a chevron Gules inverted in the chief a Cat Sable. Those houses subordinated to the House of Gracchi, whom had risen in stature just as their predecessor, the House of Guivret, had fallen, and both of whom would merge in eventuality to become the House of Valois of Anthosian fame, nearly all donned this same tincture scheme in both their personal heraldries and those of the titles which they ruled. The exception to this rule, of course, comes from the barony of Pont Vert – for in those times, the rule of Human nobility was perhaps less solidified in Asulon, just as many social structures were not left intact from the ancient Kingdom of Oren, and so an Elvish ruler was allowed the rulership of the title. Whilst the Sintels were never raised to Seventian nobility, and instead held the title de facto in perpetuity, the coat of arms of the barony were altered from its original form to reflect their rulership. The furs and verdant green of the Elvish forest were chosen to signify the barony’s holder, and this coat of arms would not change until Seventis’ ultimate collapse.

 

The nation of Seventis was in many ways politically advanced in its formation, allowing only Human nobility and disallowing Human marriages to nonhumans (though documents such as the Memoirs of a Magnate are nearly uniform in their statement that, “...the First Lady Gracchi did by the day [daily] spend nigh Qente [Five] hours with her Sintel ally,” and may point to rather taboo events by today’s standards simply being ignored), as well as continuing hereditary feudalism (whereas the Salvian nation of the time had unmarried co-rulers in Dawn Perea and Enor Sheffield, Dawn originally made famous for her bakery, then her seduction of two generations of Orenian monarchs and eventual death by the Twilight Army, and the Hanseti ruled by a Hochmeister), titular precedence (as is noted in the Sarun roll, where only one title, the Duchy of Old Sevent, holds higher priority among duchies than its subordinates do among counties and baronies, likely due to its prior status as the crownlands), and holdings de jure marked as different from holdings de facto, wherein one might capture the land of another vassal, but would not then be noble themselves (as was the case in the Auvergnat-Green Point Dispute). While it was advanced politically, though, it struggled to outgrow its roots as a tribal domain; it lost battles even against bandits and mercenaries with unusual frequency, was wracked with internal strife, and found its Seventic ruling class simply not numerous enough to produce leadership on the level or at the scale of the Renatians and Hansetians, nor to be able to properly exert control on its peasant class. Such is why the Seventians were both able to wed a princess of theirs to Exalted Godfrey in Rose Amedius Vallark (and from whose womb would be brought such forebears as Pertinax the Dragonknight), but would be unable to protect themselves from simple Subudai horse-raiders; it is also why, whilst Seventis has graced the list of titles of every true claimant to the Holy Orenian throne, it will in all likelihood be unable to succeed at a national level even should one attempt to revive it.

 

SEVENT ANTIQVE; FROM ITS BIRTH TIL ITS COLLAPSE

 

As an entity, the Seventic ruling class of the Asulonian Kingdom can be traced from among the tribes of Northern Aegis; of those city-states within the wastes, two villages in close proximity would eventually go on to be known as “Seventian”. The first, known as Rykalos and whose people were known as the Rykalod, were said to be descendants of Shona, nation of intermixed Highlanders and Farfolk, and the latter, known as Aurum and whose people were known as the Norjuni, were of common Aegisian Highlander stock. From among the Norjuni was born one Dezios of Vallark [now known to be a somewhat primitive combination of ‘Valley’ and ‘Arch’]. Dezios claimed leadership of the tribe in Aurum and called for a show of strength within those wastes. In the early 1310’s, the Norjuni Invasion of Rykalos began, and by 1320 the Rykalod people are known to have submitted, their chieftain Symod-imi Drakaene laying down his spear. The integration of the Rykalods into the Norjuni, however, would be cut short by the Battle at Aurum, a conflict that disputed sources state occurred between Undead forces and Dezios Vallark’s newly combined tribes, causing the death of the ruler and the majority of the Rykalod footmen. Their defeat at Aurum forced them to flee south, where in time they would find themselves minor vassals of the Sheffield king of Salvus.

 

Their eventual migration from the Salvian capital of Solace in the mid-1300’s to the outskirts of the Temple Sanctuaries, and thereafter the founding of the towns of Azar [later called Ascella] and Seventis, would cause a rise to power of magnitudes previously unseen; later, this rapid buildup would be called proto-Sutican by historians of the Axiosian era, though it is this historian's opinion that it is far more likely the earlier Suticans based their ideas off of the Anthosian Salvians [far different, mind you, from the Asulonians of Dawn and the Sheffields, whom would be overthrown in the Twilight March], and the Anthosian Salvians in turn from the Seventians.

 

Whilst such conflicts as Mandarin’s March and the Usurpation of Ascella caused the burgeoning city-state to falter multiple times, and eventually to move their capital from Azar to the newly minted city of Seventis, the Seventic also began to gather international renown. Their alliance with the newly-resurgent Kingdom of Renatus for the legendary Battle of Das Boot would mark the beginning of a golden age for the small kingdom. It is said that silver lined the streets of Old Seventis, its people wove with gold, and that, when called upon by Exalted Godfrey for monetary assistance, a caravan of gems arrived in Arethor not a fortnight later.

 

This prosperity lasted for a decade and a half, around when the beginning of the famed Twilight Army began to sprout among the Salvian peasantry. The masses thinking their long-lived and beauteous Queen Dawn Perea a witch, they called the nations of Asulon to arms. Seventis, once supporters of the Sheffield dynasty, joined the war on the side of the crusaders and their close Renatian allies; long columns famously marched a hundred leagues from the Temple Sanctuaries towards the blood magick-plagued plains of Salvus. It was at this time that the Conversion of Seventis occurred, wherein the Vallark dynasts forcefully converted the pagan Seventic ruling class to that of the Renatians; those that rejected, like Damien the Heathen, were crucified, a punishment later made far more infamous by the White Rose inquisitions.

 

Seventis, however, would not enjoy this era forever. The city of Seventis itself, called Grata in Rykalod, bustled with activity – too much, some began to think, as it was also famed for being a slum-town, with a population triple that of Arethor in a third the space. Many among the Seventic nobility called for a new migration, for the beginning of a Seventian Empire in the eastern reaches of Asulon. Renati, young and ambitious, was inclined to agree, and so even as the beginnings of the Holy Orenian Empire could be seen on the horizon, Seventis abandoned its greatest strengths to found the city of Sarun.

 

It was said that Sarun’s walls reached the clouds and went thrice the length of Hanseti's; historical records note that while this may have been the case, Sarun only ever completed three such walls, as the planned sea-wall along its eastern shores was interrupted by the death of the city's chief architect. The wide savannah they had moved to lacked the necessary mines to construct a new capital in the same quick manner as had been done in Asulon, and soon major issues began to trouble the nation. The stone used to build Sarun's mighty walls and the transport needed to move the nation had run dry the nation's coffers, leaving only a tent-city and five manors within plains no different from without; and the invitation of Druids to revitalize its territories caused a slow souring of relations with the Renatian kingdom.

 

It was at this time, too, that the burgeoning nobility of the nation reached their greatest internal strength; where once they may have served solely as banners, they were now given vast swathes of land to rule as near-dictators – within such regions as Somnia, Green Point, and Pine Harbor, bannermen of such houses as the Drakaene and the power that the family wielded far outmatched that of the House of Vallark itself. Even in the city and capital province of Sarun, it was said that Symodimi Drakaene controlled the land, Cultor Drakaene the sea, and Renati only the palace.

 

Three primary factors caused the depopulation, and eventual collapse, of the Seventic State. The first was the Subudai War – constant Farfolk raids upon the colonizing nation collapsed the import-export businesses it had so relied upon to thrive in the Sanctuary lands and weakened its military forces. The knights Seventis fielded, once renowned as great allies of the Renatians, slowly deteriorated to death and old age, and soon only its vassal levies remained, the national army disbanding for lack of pay and board.

 

The second was the War at Midnight, a time of political turmoil between the Seventics, traditional leadership and nobility of the nation like the Houses of Drakaene and Centaurum, and the Tyrian, new-blood houses raised to balance against them aided by dark forces, namely Ursolon Ironheart, Relgard Sintel, and the Shade Sister. When this culminated in open civil war and great growth in the power of such Seventic nobles as Rhaegal the Cat, Kilgrim Mastersmith, Violet Frost, and Bitazity Shadeslayer, Renati would become a paranoid mess, furious at both the new houses and old and causing a general political stagnation within the kingdom. The half-finished Palace of Sarun was closed to the nobility for years at a time, and relations between the King and his once-loyal nobility collapsed.

 

The final, and by far the most famous, was the Doom of Seventis, known more widely as the Asulonian Plague. Thought to have originated from Subudai merchants, and, perhaps more often, raiders, the Seventic population was decimated by the initial outbreak of the Plague, reduced to but a tenth of its former size. Among the earliest casualties was King Renati, and the majority of the original Seventic people would meet their end along with him. In its place, a severely weakened rump state rested theoretically in Aerios Vallark, who was being tutored in the city that had once been capital of Salvus. His regency council, led by Bitazity Shadeslayer [previously made famous in the War at Midnight], was known to value their own vassal territories more than the health and wealth of the nation - thus sealing the trader-nation to its fate.

 

As Seventis fell, so too did its ability to defend itself – the power of both the royalist and vassal banners greatly diminished, Exalted Godfrey’s vassals became able to make demands. A force of Flay horsemen delivered the letter that would seal the nation’s fate – bend the knee to Godfrey, or face war. Young Aerios accepted, and, never coronated, pledged his servitude to a land he had never seen. As Renatus absorbed its once-staunch ally and began the war of conquest that would eventually culminate in the creation of the Holy Orenian Empire, the last remnants of the Vallark dynasty began to wither away. His sister, Rose, became Exalted Godfrey’s second wife [though upon his death she infamously disappeared - some claim that Orion the Black, known at the time as Horen V, had her executed for a vassal daring to call her as beautiful still as his new Empress], and he was allowed to keep the remains of the destitute Sarunyr wastes as the Duchy of Norjun. His vassals scattered to the winds, becoming nobility elsewhere in the burgeoning Empire or bandit-lords in the wide forests of the continent; he would soon lose all but de jure control of Norjun to those few that remained, and even that would be revoked in time.

[Morigung-oog 2283]

Valindra lamented as she recalled not being born until Axios. She waited for the call to publish works on that world and onwards. 
 

“History is best told by those who witnessed it firsthand.”