State of the World
On the back of the First Empire Wars the kingdoms rebuilt, setting measures into place to ensure a conflict of that magnitude could never happen again.
The Council of Vathis and the Vathis Sentinels were created from these measures to keep the peace between kingdoms and prevent further global warfare from occurring. The Council was created as means to mediate global affairs, and the Vathis Sentinels came to be as a response to the massing airship pirates born from the fall of Elessar. The Sentinels facilitate trade and harmony between the nations while simultaneously protecting those nations and their citizens from the attacks of pirates and crimes of man. After Elessar fell the trifecta of the skies came to be, which includes the Vathis Sentinels, the Pirates, and the Outlaws, former citizens who made the hard choice to live outside of the law and separate from the protection of the Sentinels. The outlaws willingly take up the cloak of ‘Free Company’ in the name of ultimate independence, a useful decision for some, as outlaws can perform actions that others cannot without worrying about the ensuing repercussions. The pirates families came together in response to three factors: the discovery of eldria, the rise of the airships, and the utter annihilation of Elessar. Their place in the world as a lawless force was solidified in the wake of the introduction of the Vathis Sentinels, who the pirates believe are more like prison wardens than true honest protectors of the people.
The greed of one man set the world spiraling, and a series of events born from his actions led to the most destructive war ever fought.
Brought to this realm from the Scar Tear, a portal found deep in the bowels of Vavaire, great evil entities known as vandiels came alongside their minions to replace key advisers to the Vavairen Emperor. The vandiels disguised as advisers instigated a war of religious purification against those who worshiped the old gods. The worshipers were round up, tortured, and used as templates for nefarious magical experimentation. The experiments of the vandiels eventually succeeded and turned the old worshipers into a new race of shape-changing humans, called noir, who were psychically linked to their vandiel masters. Utilizing the abilities of their noir spies, the vandiels convinced the Emperor of Vavaire to declare war upon his neighboring kingdoms. The Second Empire Wars raged on for over six years, but when the true identity of the vandiels became known, the world was plunged into a greater fight for survival which would come to be known as the Darkest War. Only the actions of heroes and a mortal goddess herself were enough to push back the Shattered Hand, as the armies of the vandiels were called. The heroes of the world closed the portal from whence the fiends came, chasing their leader back to the lower planes of his domain. Though the war is now considered over, the remnants of the Shattered Hand still roam. Over forty percent of the world’s population was killed before the closing of the Scar Tear, leaving great swaths of our world in ruin. While winning the war was an impossibility, the people of Vathis did the only thing they were capable of. Surviving.
