AXIOM: Beyond the Abyss
"When we were at the peak of our ignorance, God cast us down. All of the power we'd built over thousands of years from sweat and blood became nothing, just... play-toys." - King Richard IV of Fraxen
The First Year: Emergence
The world was washed over. Records of previous civilizations, their ancient technology, everything -- it'd all been destroyed. There was a great flood, that is all that we know. Some may claim that God was the one to wipe out Axiom, but secular society only teaches that it happened, leaving an explanation at the door. At the beginning of the world, there were only three races: the humans, the mermaids, and the pagans. While the pagans had been washed up against the shore, the others seemed to almost . . . spontaneously appear. They did not know why they were there, or the identity of their creator, but nonetheless they thrived. They developed languages within only a generation, and learned how to create fire and craft spears to hunt with.
The progress of humanity, in particular, was astounding. However, it became apparent that there were, in fact, more than three races.
The One-Hundredth Year: Monsters and Pagans
A group of men had been sent into deep caves to secure lodging for the cold. If a fire were to be built out in the open, it would only be washed away by the rain and the freezing air. The tribe would all die this night if they did not find a proper place to stay. However, there could be another tribe in this cave. There could be animals or venomous insects; it was unknown. So, of course, they were sent to kill whatever was already in there. What they found was the sleeping forms of many strange creatures, ones they'd never seen before. They looked horrid -- monstrous, like things out of stories. The men could only jab at them with their spearheads, but it did nothing. After great persistence, the monsters awoken. They broke them in half, ate them and tortured them. Some of the monsters fought out of necessity to survive, but some seemed to fight purely for their own enjoyment. It was sick, macabre. When the men all lay dead, the monsters came from their cave, and slaughtered the rest of the tribe.
There were thousands of them, a horde of beasts flowing out into the world. The fairly peaceful civilization of people and animals had been completely marred. It wasn't long before half of the human race was wiped out, and even the Mer beneath the sea, with scaled drakes ripping them apart. With no way to fight these creatures of far superior strength, hope had been totally depleted. Humans learned to migrate constantly and to hide rather than expand, but they had superior senses and could always find them. In one particular case, where a monster had found a fairly large tribe and meant to make them her meal, one of the people of this tribe stepped forward to fight.
This was human's first exposure to a supernatural creature. The man wielded flame in both of his hands, and he launched the fires forward to burn away the beast. He butchered it with his bare fists, and then turned back to his tribe, bloodied and covered in smoke. The sight of his feat was what formed the first religion, a pagan worship, believing that man was a God. His name was William, of the North Fraxon. His tribe quickly became the most powerful of them, and they dominated a large trek of territory that quickly became known as Fronta.
The One-Hundred and Fiftieth Year: The First Civilization
Eventually, others like William emerged. They, like him, had supernatural power and superhuman strength. They never aged and never grew tired, and all of this could only lead the lesser to believe in their divinity. They made many more tribes. Thedonia made the Vas Prasha, up in northern Pronta. Achaemid unified the tribes of Nev Lumae, what we know as Nocturne today. There were many more cases like this. Civilizations began to rapidly spring about, all led by these God-like figures with immortality and the ability to kill monsters. There were in fact many who feared them, but all knew that without them, humanity would've been wiped out a long time past. So, with this debt acknowledged, they followed these supernatural beings into battle, again and again. Through war, some tribes grew larger and many died out. Pagans killed each other off left and right, their numbers dwindling. However, the less pagans there were, the more unified humanity became.
William, the leader of the Northernmost Frontan tribe, was eventually challenged by a woman named Sevilla. They were, without a doubt, the two strongest creatures on the planet at the time. Their battle had razed mountainsides and scorched the plains. And at the end, Sevilla emerged victorious. The Kingdom of Fronta came from the unification of South Fraxon and North Fraxon, with a small town in the south quickly becoming crowned as Fraxen City.
The Two-Hundredth Year: Kings and Queens
Eventually, people grew with unrest. The flimsy peace between the "Gods" of each region brought them fear and discomfort. Humans began to develop culture, which made them differ from each other. The more they differed, the less they liked each other, and the more reason to kill one another. Another race of supernaturals had also become prominent; the Elves. More and more things began to stack on, and from the increasing fear and anxiety, a man sprung up in Fronta and challenged the authority of Sevilla. He questioned why she would rather enamor herself rather than soothe her people, who worshiped her. The woman knew better than to become a tyrant, so she didn't attack him. Instead, she ignored him and continued on, telling him to not question the will of a Goddess. But he did question it, and he continued to.
His name was Lensley, the first revolutionary within the human race. He had heard tales of how two Gods up north had come to battle, and one of them died by being thrown into a flaming pit. He remembered tales of the battle between Sevilla and William, and how she shrugged off his fire and his brutal fists. But there was one thing that she always made sure to avoid: lightning. It made sense, all men and women feared it. It was a divine message from above, of wrath and terror. Any struck by it would die instantaneously, and often only a charred corpse remained. These thoughts and ideas bred treasonous ideas into his mind, though ones he did not act upon until much later down the road.
Eventually, Sevilla became too infatuated with herself to even fight off monsters like people had praised her for. Men and women died left and right, and the Empire would begin to crumble if not for her intervention. So, she trained a few men in court on how to use magic, and let them govern over the districts to fight off the hordes. Lensley was not one of them, as he had questioned her authority before, and she always remembered that. However, his friend was. She had taught him the element of fire, which was the most potent in offense. He even knew how to teach others, and so many more learned, with Sevilla's permission. While it was still difficult to fight monsters, and often times many men and women died in the field, it was doable. This meant that their dependence on Sevilla disappeared. Many of them acknowledged this.
However, fire, water, air and earth could do nothing to her. They never challenged her power. Instead, they plotted in the shadows; they wished to learn their own magic, created by man to kill a God. And Lensley, he did it. He created lightning, which could fall down from the sky. Finally, the strongest of mages in the Kingdom challenged their Goddess. She reveled in the opportunity to flaunt her power, so she accepted the challenge and came to face six of them in open combat. This battle was where Lensley, the future King of Fraxen, showed both his power and also his cunning.
The five other men had all been allies, but ones with uncertain motives. They all held influence, and he heard whispers of them planning to take the mantle of Fronta for themselves, or even create new Kingdoms. Some wanted for the south and north to break apart like before. He allowed them all to die before unleashing his new magic, a vicious torrent of lightning being hurled against Sevilla's body and destroying her. When the battle was over, he became named the King, Lensley I of House Genesse.
The Three-Hundredth Year: Vaet Nocturnum
The humans of the south were content with their power. In Fronta, they reigned supreme with growing technology and proficiency in magical spells. In the north, the hold of the pagan lords only grew more tight. The lands had been divided into six sectors to be shared by the strongest of pagans, and they refused to teach mortals either magic or any form of physical combat. Many still loved them, as their whole culture and identity was defined by these "Gods". However, it would only take a single challenge in order to ignite the mistrust that people had in their lieges, and soon enough you'd have a repeat of Fronta. This challenge came in the form of Kala, who was . . . on a level far beyond any pagan, even all combined. This force, that had simply appeared in the night sky, was unknown. She first came over Nocturne, bringing nightmares and insanity into the residents there. The entire nation was shrouded in darkness during the time she had spent there, though when she passed, light returned and so did pleasant dreams and rational thought.
What she left behind, however, was a new form of monster. It was not something that could even be distinguished from a regular human. When these creatures finally did present themselves, hundreds of people were often left slaughtered in seconds. This beast was known as the demon, and they in fact came to Nocturne for a purpose greater than just killing or raping its residents. They corrupted a man, a great mage who had been wandering the nation. They told him that they would give him their own demonic power if he did them a favor, which he was eager to do. Using some of the energy gifted to him by them, he cast a blanket over Nocturne. Similarly to when Kala loomed over them, everything grew dark and they became anxious and afraid. However, the difference was that this cloak would never again leave.
By far, this was the most powerful and wretched spell cast in human history. An entire nation of millions would quickly be cast into chaos and war; absolute anarchy. The name of this magical ability was "Vaet Nocturnum", which meant, in Demonica, eternal darkness.
With darkness reigning over, crops would not grow and people were unhealthy. The sun's light was a necessity to keep men and women alive, in some form or another. They would have a few months before their stored food would run out and the entire nation would grow dead of population. This reality only made things worse. Many people fled south, only to be killed off by the pagans of those regions. The ones who stayed knew they were to die soon, so they unleashed all of their human nastiness and performed unspeakable acts. Rape and murder was commonplace. Many challenged Achaemid, their overlord, blaming him for this drought of light. In response, he slaughtered them by the thousands. This certainly did not help. However, he too had lost the ability to rationally think.
Eventually, the food stores ran out. Everyone, even the richest and most noble, was starving. One of them in particular, Azazel, had grown maddened by his hunger. He was possibly the greatest warrior and advisor beneath Achaemid, but even he was not given the luxury of food. There was nothing to give him. He set out to go south, eat with the Prontans or the Elvish. It didn't matter -- he'd go by sea, to avoid the pagan wrath. On the way there, however, he encountered a grey-skinned man, with glowing red eyes. He wondered just what it was, and so he approached it. It spoke to him, and then he remembered that language, the tone of voice. It was demonica, and that meant that this was a demon. This creature was surely responsible for the pain and decimation of his people. He challenged it to a fight, and in this battle, they both died. Azazel ripped off chunks of the beast's flesh to eat, and drank his blood as his own life signs faded away. He remembered feeling a sense of extreme elation as the demon's blood went down his throat.
He was only dead for a little while before he . . . came back, and as something completely different. He came back as the cure, the solution to Nocturne's problems. A creature meant to dwell in the darkness, one who did not need food, and one with enough power to survive against demons and monsters without the need of a God. He was the first vampire, and the first human truly corrupted by a demon. The man went back to Vas Kaham, the capital of Nocturne at the time, and challenged their leader for leadership of the tribe. Easily, he defeated him, showing superior strength, speed and magical ability. The pagan was exiled, and Azazel reigned supreme. He began to convert people into vampires, creating about ten of them at first. They were his generals, and he instructed them to make more. Soon enough, Nocturne had hundreds of thousands of vampires, more and more people turning each other. Their human illness, hunger, and weakness disappeared. They all grew maddeningly powerful, and the changes in their body drove them wild with joy. And thirst.
For years, the vampires would leak out into the southern nations and slaughter humans and other supernatural creatures, desiring their blood. The pagans who ruled those nations were easily overcome, bringing about a new era for the world. You could say at this point that Axiom had been led by two people. There were two sole rulers for the north and the south, with the north being ruled by vampire-kind, and the south by humanity.
The Three-Hundred and Twentieth Year: Azazel and Judie
It is said that in the north, demons spoke to Azazel. When he went to sleep, he'd sleep with them, dream of them and immerse himself in their being. He grew more and more powerful, and increasingly more deranged. Eventually, he declared that there be a new edict of Nocturne, a religion known as Vaet Nocturnum. This was the worship of demons, and of Kala. They were the ones to give the formerly boring and ugly mortals beauty and immortality, and so they were to be praised. Vengeance against them for the pain they wrought was replaced with both fear and love. This new religion, which preached freedom and chaos, only increased the vileness of Nocturne. Surrounded by mountains, a city was to be built in the name of their new faith. Many from all over the nation grew excited about this, and they flocked to the region in which it was being built. The great migration of the people revealed to everyone just how wretched they'd really become.
Murder, sex, and ritual was all they were. Azazel himself had become truly bizarre, always wearing a mask made of wolf bone and engaging in orgies, sacrifices and masses of cult-like chanting. While the vampires reveled in their filth, the werewolves were enslaved. They were a race of creature that also emerged from Kala's terror, claimed to be blessed by a demon that appeared in the form of a wolf. However, they were inferior in both influence and number, so they were controlled. That was the fate of any who was not a vampire. You can imagine that the races they'd come to rule over from the southern nations also met similar fates.
In the south, things were different. There was essentially only one race of any import (if you exclude the isolationist elves), the humans. They had been living peacefully for the last hundred years, which allowed them a golden age of economic and technological growth. Their population eclipsed the rest of the world combined, their education and understanding of nature grew constantly. The only one thing they did not understand was why the world had come to exist in the first place. They too searched for religion, and without any obvious indications pointing towards any direction, they began to worship the Gods of the north. Kala, as wretched as she seemed, had shown herself to humanity. There was evidence that she was real, and that she was all-powerful. They too practiced the ways of the northerners, falling into anarchy. Within years, the nation had grown weaker and more despicable. The people who once loved and trusted each other began to hate one another, and wars were waged in vengeance.
But things changed, and quickly. You could say that the south had their own divine intervention, like the north did with Kala. Michael himself came to them, from inside of a vessel. It was a young lady known as Judie, the current princess of Fraxen. In an instant, all of the wars within the nation ceased. The people looked to Fraxen City, and they all flocked to hear divine word. The young girl told them of the truth, of the angels and the demons. She spoke, through Michael's will, of Vangelism. When her words were over, Michael left her body and never spoke again. But that was all it took. The southern people unified into one, and a supreme peace reigned over them all. It was a utopia, for a time.
Judie, who had become deified as a prophetess of God, was loved by all the people. Her father, who reigned as the King, was nothing in prestige or influence compared to her. The council went to her for guidance and for final word rather than him, so you could consider her the princess regnant. She was wise and beautiful, sought after by many men. Songs and poems were written for her. She was heard about from all around the world. The mage who had cursed Nocturne, a man who'd festered in his own misery for years before then, heard of her and came to a resolution: that he would protect her. Many others felt the same way, and they all proved themselves to her. She enlisted a new council of seven people, including herself, to lead Fraxen and protect its religion.
However, Judie was not the prophetess or pure spirit that everyone knew her to be. This became apparent within her new council. She was slothful, vain and manipulative. Many of her councilmen grew wary of her, as she had a habit of disposing of those who came to know her less benevolent half. It became apparent that the longer she lived, and the more she aged, the greater that "half" became. Eventually, the darkness inside of her eclipsed her entire vessel, and she became an angry, malevolent she-witch. Even those who continued to love her and have faith in her, like the mage from the north, had come to fear her. The paladins who served her spoke of assassinating her in the night, but they were stopped by one simple truth: despite her wretchedness, she was indeed a great leader. With her sitting on the throne, the people would always be strong and at peace. She was their living angel. It would be foolish to put that to an end. It would bring chaos into the nation, possibly destroying it. And any who were responsible would be torn apart.
In the north, Azazel became the same. Just like her, he grew to be hated by his close advisors, though he as well was a sort of prophet. He was the father of both Vaet Nocturnum and vampire-kind, and so many deified him. They could not afford to overthrow him, even as he became less of a leader and more of a royal whore.
It was clear that the power both of them held became too great. It had allowed them to grow too arrogant and self-absorbed. Soon enough, the problem would grow so far-spread that it would consume them both. And it did. Azazel began to hear whispers of what his progenies said of him. He learned of their conspiracies, their doubt in his leadership. So, he challenged them all to a battle. He was far stronger than any of them, though challenging them all at the same time was severe. While he managed to kill off the majority of them, he was eventually put down, his reign ending. Nocturne was a nation of people who believed in strength above all. When it was evident that Azazel was not, in fact, a God... they did not weep.
In the south, things were different. Judie eventually became so infected by her own glory that you could say she literally went through . . . a change. People claimed that when they passed by her bedchamber during the night, they'd hear two voices. Hers, and one extremely deep, ominous. Some of them believed it was Michael, talking to her. Some believed it was some lesser angel. Many believed it was a demon. Eventually, the mage who had come to love her used a spell to watch the contents of the room at night. He saw Judie on her bed, speaking to a black figure. His skin was a pitch darkness, he wore grey chains and some bizarre jewelry all over him. He was extremely tall and quite muscular, and atop his head was a golden crown. His eyes glowed white. The mage saw this form for only a few moments before it appeared before him, grabbed him by the neck and threw him onto the ground. Don't interfere, the creature said. His voice alone made the mage go mad, and he began to attack him, flinging spells, everything he had. It all did nothing.
The castle, that night, became a slaughter-house. All of the men and women there died. What was left . . . was a new evil.
The Three-Hundred and Thirtieth Year: The Sins of Man
The seven members of Fraxen's royal council had all been twisted, shaped by their most prominent inner face. The princess became Lust, her younger sister Envy, her wizard Pride, her knight Wrath, her steward Sloth, her trader Gluttony, and her treasurer Greed. They then all leaked out into the world, corrupting whatever they touched. The peaceful and loving nation of Fraxen had lost all of their leadership at once, and they were replaced by seven horrible monsters who only wished to do others harm. Just that knowledge was enough to wedge into the hope and pride of the people, and the strength of their nation and their religion. Their seven leaders had become just like the hedonists of the north. Many of them followed suit.
Pride - The mage ended up as the most powerful of the sins. The reason for this is uncertain, but there are three likely reasons: either it is because he was the one to discover Judie's visitor, or it is because he was initially the strongest of the three, or it is because he was the first one to be turned into a sin. Whatever the reason, he without a doubt was on a level much greater than any other creature at the time (save for Kaminae, though the land-carers did not know of her). Because of this, he proclaimed himself God, much like the pagans did in the past. He would take over small cities through violence or fear, and would force them all to bend the knee and worship him. So worship they did, though he always wanted more. He grew tired of their bowing and praising, so then he made them into slaves over his will. The ones who were too weak were either killed or exiled, depending on whether he liked the look of them.
In a short time, he came to conquer a solid third of Fronta. He was, in fact, the only one of the sins who sought to be a conqueror. Again, there are many possible reasons, but the likely one was that the others would not dare challenge him as he continued to expand.
Envy - The younger sister of Judie had ended up as the second most powerful of the sins. However, despite her power, she was possibly the least harmful towards the lesser people. She tried to live like a regular human lady, disguising herself and refusing to speak of her background. However, whenever she saw a beautiful lady she grew extremely jealous. She grew enraged. She would ask tons of men whether they found her more beautiful than the one she'd been envious of, and of course all of them tried to be gallant, so they always said that Envy was the better looking of the two. However, eventually, one of them did not lie. He was one of those harsh, critical types, and so he told her the truth. What resulted was that lady being murdered in plain view, Envy ripping her into pieces and screaming like a wild animal. From that point on, she began to slaughter all of the pretty girls and the beautiful women she'd come across. The ladies of Fraxen began to scar themselves to avoid death, or hide their faces behind black veils.
No matter, she'd tear open the veils and rip them apart.
Wrath - It is undecided where he'd rank in strength, compared to the other sins. However, it is known that he was the last one to really flip out. That might seem ironic, but it is true. It took a while for his once-human mind to become devoured by sin, but eventually the anger took over him and he became a wild beast. At any one thing, he'd flip out and you'd find a trail of corpses at the site. Someone bumping into him on the road would merit their head being cleaved off. He was extremely violent and vicious, though his infamy was in less of a large-scale than some of the other sins. Considering no one who was nearby when he was angered would ever really live to tell the story, it was unknown how he looked or who he was. It instead seemed more like towns were being raided by monsters or something of the sort. That was, of course, far from the case.
Sloth - Basically didn't do anything or impact history in any way. He really just slept around all day.
Gluttony - Gluttony took the form of a rich aristocrat from Fronta's northern city, Gallahan. He started off fairly slim and even attractive, but for some reason his immortal form quickly shifted based on his abnormal voracity. He was also quite lustful, always surrounded by prostitutes and money-leechers. Most of them disappeared when he became obese and revealed the more monstrous side to his form, however. Gluttony honestly didn't impact the world much, as he was sort of just your typical fat playboy.
Greed - A kleptomaniac. She would do anything and everything to amass more money, gems, anything of worth. She didn't use manipulation to profit, however. She would much rather prefer to go hunting for treasure and skillfully stealing from safes and other things. Her main ambition was to steal the jewels of the man that had turned her into a sin. She eventually became fully dedicated to this dream, and disappeared from Fronta to pursue anything of him she could find.
Lust - Lust, strangely, disappeared from society when she was turned. She initially tried to continue to rule, but it didn't work out very well. The ones who used to love and deify her began to call her a whore and a demon-witch. She became hated by all, and so she could only flee. Her entire body was filled with many strange desires and emotions; the desire to feel pleasure, the desire to make others feel the same, and the desire to control. She gathered a handful of men and women and brought them into a great and hidden place, and tried to form a society of people who simply wanted to be elated all the time. However, she was eventually found by a demon. It is known that she and the demon unified, and produced a child named Eklopyter. From this, Incubi and Succubi were brought into the world. This could be considered her greatest feat from within this sinful state, and was her largest impact on the future generations.
Regardless of what the sins did, they were hunted. For dozens of years they were chased after and attacked whenever seen. Eventually, a powerful group of paladins learned how to seal a sin away. They found a structure in the north that was connected to the energy of a pure-blooded sin. They rounded up all of them, and brought them to this tower, hoping to seal them inside for all time. This was done in cooperation with the Elves, who had also come into contact with the sins. The King of Fraxen and the Emperor of Kuladhan came into the agreement to keep people away from the Tower of Sin. This was their pact.
The Four-Hundredth Year: Maghlya
The Empress of Kranila had dedicated the last fifty years to protecting the secret of the sins. All of her philosophical and magical research had been centered around those seven creatures, and she both feared and admired them. She developed a great number of spells based on the energy surrounding the Tower, and used these spells to further advance her Empire. Recently, her husband had died, and so she was left to lead alone until the day when her son had come of age. That day would be a century from now, and so she acknowledged that it would be a century of hardship for her and her people. Even so, the men and women of Kranila were very peaceful and loving. The supernatural races here were unified well, and the constant war against the vampires had only strengthened their bonds with each other.
Empress Maghlya was the name of their leader, who they revered as a woman of virtue and wisdom. She was a dark elf, a powerful mage on the level of the sin Pride. There were few in the world who could contest her in battle, though it was known that her magic was mostly defensive. She was not a fighter, but a defender. And that was perhaps a lucky thing. It was perhaps what kept her race alive in the coming years.
Everyone always figured that protecting the sins was something that would be easy for the elves. They had so much power and knowledge that pretty much no one could do harm to them. However, there were some creatures that even the elves could not answer to. For example . . . the one who created the sins. That same black figure, who appeared to Judie in the night, came to Maghlya. Immediately, she sensed his energy, and she knew that he was a creature of immense power, far beyond her. She grew fearful, but tried to keep her resolve strong. She asked what he wanted. It became apparent that it was not words that he wanted -- only death. He attacked her, and she defended. A particular spell of hers came in handy, one that could cancel any spell being cast, regardless of its strength. She continued to hold him off using this, but he came to use his brutal strength to break her bones. In an instant, she was on the floor, her legs removed from the rest of her body. She fell unconscious, and then the creature began to wreak havoc on Kranila. The entire bustling Empire was destroyed in less than a few hours. The capital city, Kuladhan, was reverted to a smoking ruin. The beast who tore them apart then resolved to finish the elves off, and cast a great spell that would do the trick. With the last of her energy, the Empress protected her people, before her body fell cold and she died. The elvish, the beast-folk... they never really recovered from this attack. Their peaceful nation was torn asunder.
The Five-Hundredth Year: Aramil and Amaranthine
Fronta, in the year five-hundred. There was no better word to describe the Great Kingdom of Fronta than... ambitious. They were, by virtue and right, incredibly ambitious. They reigned as the most powerful nation, and they had come to own all of the land in the known world save for Nocturne. Yuran was theirs, its mostly human population desiring to become a part of the great Holy Kingdom. Kranila, after the elves were killed, became a place of dispute. The vampires and the humans fought over this land intensely, though the humans had a natural edge. In their desperation, the elves called to their human allies for protection against the vampires. The humans agreed, but they also requested rites that were "necessary for the protection of the elves" that later came to be very advantageous for Kingdom of Fronta. First of all, they asked that their people be able to live and own residence in Kranila and be treated like citizens. This of course had some specific clauses to prevent an overflowing horde of immigrants into the forest Kingdom. However, they were lenient, as the elves were desperate, irrational, and in need of aid.
The vampires never really had a chance to actually keep the land. While it was easy to engage in quick raids against non-nocturnal settlements, actually keeping the sunny land was difficult for them. And engaging in long battles was nearly impossible, as the sun would eventually rise to flay them all. They sent in werewolves, promising them the Kingdom of Kranila and a united Empire of the vampiric-were kind. However, the werewolves were not enough to win them a losing war, and the elven magic proved fatal for many of the beasts. Nocturne was pushed back into the tundra, and Fronta had successfully repopulated Kranila.
With humans. Colonials. The elves were but a minority in their own lands, Kuladhan city being essentially run by humans. Eventually the humans demanded an elective leadership, and then they demanded human rulers. Kuladhan was renamed to Kusana, after Princess Sana of Guyen, the heir to the throne. This enraged many elves. Elves who were already enraged, intimidated, and made to feel strangers in their own homes.
In the east, a discovery was made. It was an island, a massive paradise with great mushrooms as large as cities and lakes and jungles covering all land. Many who came to hear of it dreamt of it, they dreamed of freedom from the warmongering of Fronta, they dreamed of an escape from the vampire raids and a new land of their own. Eventually, an initiative to colonize the new lands was launched by the Fraxonian naval committee. This brought great happiness to the people, who wished to sail and see the new world. After years, and great trouble as well as loss, the first great colony of Aramil was landed. There were about three thousand settlers living on the coastal city of Eastfraxen, which grew greatly in time. After about thirty years passed, there was also another discovery.
Many ships were sent even farther east than the island of Aramil, but they never returned home. Many wondered why that might be; did they find the end of the world, sail to heaven, encounter barbarians from an unknown land? Did they sink? Did they simply never want to return home, after what must've been the sight of a utopian ideal? People continued to search, and to sail, believing that whatever the answer was, it would be worth the endeavor. Eventually, a ship manned by many great warriors found the eastern continent and marveled at what they found. It was a whole new world, with a completely different climate. It was nothing they had ever seen before.
Desert. An endless sea of sand. Monsters, all over again. Humans had not had to deal with monsters en masse for hundreds of years. Small little groups would arise from the shadows every now and then, and sometimes the navies would have to deal with large sea creatures as well. Nothing like these monsters, however, had ever been encountered before. What many of them lacked for in quality, they repented for it in quantity. There were thousands in just the first few miles of the desert. The men exploring the new and dangerous lands were overwhelmed with fear, but they also desired to find something greater.
However, they could not make it. Knowing that they would not last longer if they ventured deeper, the remaining soldiers -- hungry and injured -- returned to their ship and sailed back for Aramil. However, the fact that a ship returned from the journey brought about an entirely new aspect to this colonial quest of Fronta: a great mobilization of settlers and fleets, known as the Human Prerogative.
The Five-Hundred and Fiftieth Year: The Human Prerogative
Fronta, due to the ingenuity of its people, had become all-eclipsing. Every last living being knew of them, and feared them. Even the monsters in the far-east came to flee with the great ships sailed to their shores. They owned every inhabitable spot of land they could find, their population overflowing and their resources enabling the infinite migration of their people. The western coast of this new continent had began to bustle, many thousands stretching across the land they had cleared of monster-kind. Eventually, a successful expedition of the desert was completed, and a great city was found that would only further expand the immensity of Fronta's wealth and prestige. At first they moved miners into this city, then settlers to continue the generations of endless exploitation of this new world's resources. Eventually a large amount of people came to find wealth and glory, and they volunteered for a quest to scour and populate this new land. Men and women both prepared their swords and spells to kill monsters and carve out an Empire to the east.
Fraxen was supreme. They had endless wealth, their monarchy was infinite in power, and their technology had surpassed that of vampire comprehension. There was no threat to them.
Then, they declared war on Nocturne, set to see vampires expunged from world. Their long time rivals were no longer rivaled to them in strength, which meant they were another stone to be stepped on. They marched hundreds of thousands of troops into the mountain tundra, and surprisingly enough...
They lost. They lost battle after battle. The soldiers of Nocturne were ready, they had trained, and they were all incredibly powerful. They had ended the slavery of were-kind, and the united power of the two races led them to greatness. They trained hard together, and the rivalry between the demon-born bloodlines only made them stronger. Each vampire or werewolf was worth ten humans, the vampires ageless and wise and the werewolves brutal and unprecedented.
When Fraxen surrendered to Nocturne, granting them a large gift of money in reparations, the people of the Great Kingdom began to realize what this meant.
It meant that their leaders were weak, arrogant, and unprepared. It meant that vampire raids would return. It meant that Vangelism had failed them, and that the ideals of human strength had failed. The supernaturals, and even many humans, began to revolt to take back what was lost. Simultaneously, Aramil, Amaranthine, Kranila and Yuran all revolted to be split off into an independent realm.
On this day, the Great Gates began production. These gates prevented any army from marching onto the homeland of the Fraxons, They were so incredibly large that they could fit a whole army of troops, which they did. They had a garrison manning these gates to top it all off, making the fort impenetrable. All attacks would have to be by sea, but that was impossible as Fronta had a navy greater than all of their territories combined. So, this meant that no matter what, they would not allow the war to be taken to their own grounds. They were free to invade other nations and claim them for their own, but in no way could they really "lose".
The vampires, however, were not eager to allow Fronta to stay unified. They joined the war of independence on their own terms, and discreetly destroyed small fleets and battalions when the opportunity struck. Eventually, the Great Kingdom was sufficiently weakened and surrendered. The only managed to keep Amaranthine, which they continued to colonize and expand for the next few hundred years. Their three other Kingdoms had been removed from their grasp, setting in motion a time of great change, and great war.
The Five-Hundred Ninetieth Year: The Cull
In Kranila and Yuran, humans were a large portion of the population. They represented about 45 percent of their respective racial groups, meaning they were in demographic nearly the ruling body of society. They had also covered most reaches of government, and possessed a large amount of the military power in both the forest nation and the mountain nation. However, simply enough, the other supernatural races did not like them. They blamed them for their hardships, pointing the finger at the human aristocrats and then back at the starving supernaturals. The supernaturals in these kingdoms, collectively, began to blame literally every one of their problems on the humans. Every single thing that went wrong in their lives was somehow linked to their "overlords".
This was the beginning of the end. In the years to come, the supernaturals of these two nations led a genocide of the human people. Nocturne then warned Fraxen that if they mobilized to assist, that it would be breaking the treaty they had set up with their former-territories, and that Nocturne would declare war on Fraxen, as well as assist in the cull of the human people. The Kingdom, at this point, was enraged and the people expected their Queen to act. Sana, who had become old and fragile, told them that they could only pray, and hope for their people to stay safe. She said to not underestimate the power of humanity in its greatest perils.
Well, a few years later, the human population of both nations had been carved in half. By then they were so incredibly abused, ravaged and persecuted that the people who began the culling could no longer believe in their own "free the people" ideals and stopped supporting the genocide. During these few years, about twenty-three million people died.
It was a great loss for humanity, and while the men and women wept, they also grew angry. They pointed their blades north, and reminded the Queen that the treaty was over. It was time to march.
The Six-Hundredth Year: The Rise of the Beasts
Kiranu, Waktu, Siren, Draconian, Lyca. These five races had never had a moment in history where they shined. They were eclipsed by vampires, pagans, elves and humans. Their time to shine was now. Kranila and Yuran, the two nations of beasts, formed an alliance. They sought to free themselves from the endless exploitation by their neighbors, and so Kenai formed. It was the united federation of Kranila-Yuran, and it quickly rose as a great powerhouse. These five races ruled the great nation, brought to unite with each other against the aggressors of the south and north. During this period of time, Nocturne stayed out of the fray, and only continued to operate against Fronta's interests. They allowed Kenai to act as they desired, which led to a stalemate between the realm of beasts and humans. This was, of course, ultimately advantageous for the shadowy nation that quickly rose to stand over the world stage.
This war panned out to be the longest conflict in Axiom's history, all of the emerging conflicts lasting for a total of 86 years. During this time, Nocturne continued to grow, as well as Aramil and Amaranthine, which eventually declared independence from Fronta.
The rise of Kenai changed the way the world worked. It was no longer a battle of Vangelism and Vaet Nocturnum, a battle of man and vampire. It was a battle of every race, every single form of creature all converging into one ultimate state of war. What followed this was a constant degradation of society, and the morale of all people.
The Seven-Hundredth Year: The Claim
Nocturne, the sleeping dragon, had awakened. Despite what many people believed, they were not simply idle in these conflicts. They had been scheming for generations a way to dismantle Fronta and Kenai from within. To do this, their ruling dynasty, House Naxos, had managed to place a young werewolf onto the throne of Yuran, which was one Kingdom within the Empire of Kenai. This were was of their own dynasty, and this meant that the same house led both Kingdoms; two relatives sat on different thrones, destined to unite. This changed everything.
First, we'll explain how Naxos was put onto the throne. The eventual realization that this was going to occur pushed the great houses and aristocrats of Kenai into open mobilization against the ground, which only worsened the inevitable fruition of Nocturne's plot.
Elessan, a Princess of the ruling Yuranian dynasty, had been married to Prince Dagon of Naxos. She was not set to inherit by any means, as she was both a woman and only the third child. However, by successive plotting and mastermind scheme, Nocturne had managed to murder off literally every one of her brothers and sisters. By the time her father died, Naxos was ready to inherit the throne, and he did. She, who loved her charming and wildly attractive husband, allowed this to happen. While this disturbed the balance of Kenai, and of the rest of the world, it disturbed the peace and morale of the people of Yuran the most. Ultimately, it threw the Kingdom into chaos, which caused for Nocturne to invest a large amount of resources to stabilize the realm once again.
This offered Fronta a strangely gifted opportunity to finish the war with Kenai, defeating the forces of Kranila and restoring human governance to the nation, though it retained its independence. The aftermath of this treaty caused another great rift in the nation, though this can be elaborated upon later.
Focusing back on Pronta, instability continued for many years to come, and the beast-folk proved that they could scheme as well.
The King of Yuran had been maimed by assassins. They did not take his arms or legs, but his reproductive device. He had never created an heir with his wife, which meant that his use to the nation had ended. His own dynasty shortly afterwards killed him and forced his wife to wed another young werewolf of their dynasty, though that didn't pan out well either, as his wife was too old to bear children, and frankly she grew to despise Naxos over time.
The house of Naxos, frowned upon by their people for the ridiculous usage of resources for a failed plan, was quickly growing weaker and less influential. Using Nocturne's own people, the great lords of Yuran murdered prince after prince, princess after princess. The ruling house of Nocturne was replaced by a minor noble family, not particularly loved or powerful, but neutral to the conflict of houses that had grown to dominate Nocturne.
The weakness of this nation and the loss of faith from its people had allowed, then, for the rise of a great and terrible King.
