History
Who?
The Althonian Empire lead by an Emperor or Empress. The people, the Indiegneous' origins lie from divine intervention from the Greater Good to create a world solely dedicated to peaceful and creative minds.
They started off as humans at the time of the Dinosaurs, their evolution wiped them out through their technology, They evolved to a point where they had no physical form, but their appearance was made up of energy itself. Their presence protected by Sirens, women who controlled walls of intense storms called the Tempest Barrier blocking anything getting in, destroying any vessel, killing nearly all the crew.
Where?
Their Empire was based in a Micro-Pangaea, a collection of small microclimate pockets. Forests, deserts rainforests, mountains, and plains, practically anything you would find in the outside world was there. People set up their own encampments and villages and cities in each of these different areas. However as they lived separately so their ideas developed separately, and the Emperor or Empress, that lived in the Crystal bastion in the centre of the Empire, watched as their known world dissolved into intellectual civil war.
Lighthouses?
Fighting would cause disturbance that the Greater Evil would find hard to ignore. So the Greater Good implemented a plan to sort his utopia out. He gave each different climate a lighthouse, a beacon to those who lived under it, a reflection of their ideals. and also a crystal table inside the bastion. When the people disagreed the island split apart at first into two separate factions. The Regency, a more self development devoted society and the Cassians, a more creative and collectivist minded society. As these peoples bickered it became apparent that some in both groups sought refuge from their own. These split apart from the two sides and became a third party, the Ohrianian Alliance.
If these people were to bicker further and war may break out each island would be removed from the Althonian Empire and placed among the outside world as a cooling off period. The lighthouses and the light that emanated from the jewel turned the people, the plant life, the animals and the buildings into something that matched their new surroundings. This gave each lighthouse the nickname of The Chameleon Lighthouses. These lighthouses would only be lit again after the first initial change when the people of that Island had calmed down and wished to return for peace talks.
Powers?
The Greater good had also blessed them with increased activity in the right hemisphere of their brain, the creative side, this unusual activity lead to an unexpected evolutionary advancement. With any creative endeavour, a seemingly magical happening occurred. Painting became part of reality, clay dolls came to life, water vases brimmed with water. Objects that were created out of the mind of any Indigenous seemed impossible, but they were real. Their world flourished.
Technology?
However the mechanics of their world seemed a little, well, dangerous. They first used crystals that occurred naturally around the islands. These acted as a focus for other forces depending what it needed applied and the shape, colour and design inside the crystal. However their uses were very limited. So they looked to progress and as their evolution and experimentation with new power sources brought about the extinction of the dinosaurs it also brought about electricity, which in time everything relied on. That was until a power plant blew up and all the electrics were fried and left many people dead. In respect this small nation never used electricity again. People now rely on animals, the wind and the sun as their technology, however some still belive that crystals hold more power than what was initially thought and so use them more frequently and is the subject of many research papers.
The Virulen Invasion
However this attracted the Greater Evil (not actually evil but a balance for good).
They created a counter, one man to stand up the Emperor at the time, Lord Lonargh, he was warlike and intellectual. For every person he touched he converted them to his own ideals against the Emperor and created Virulens. These people had their left side of their brain enhanced so much that they could generate powers cognitively and at will. Anything they wanted done they could do. He however only touched one person. His mistress Akaena.
She was using him. Not for good but for her own survival, if she was ever captured or imprisoned by the Emperor for an indefinite time, her experiments with the Virulen DNA sequence so that those she infected would turn completely Virulen and rescue her. She now had weakened powers and needed toping up by Lonargh.
This however was sometimes out of his own reach. He gave any of the followers he touched a small part of Virulen power, not enough to change them but just enough to give him access to their memories and to control them from orders via voice and thought. What he also gave them was a small power that grew inside of them, ready to be harvested whenever he needed. They were never killed directly only when Lonargh needed to give Akeana power would they drop down dead.
When eventual war broke out between the two encampments of Imperials, those who followed the Emperor and Virulens Lord Lonargh was defeated, and imprisoned in a stone tomb alive but unable to get out. With her existence tied to Lonargh she was pulled in unknown to anyone else, into the tomb. Her plans however failed, those who followed Lonargh were exiled to death, the sequencing had not converted anyone and so both lay in their tomb for over 5000 years.
The Emperor, Kalazura at the time, pleaded to the Greater Good for protection and was blessed with the ability to hand out specific powers to a different person. These abilities would become encoded into their genetics. These families or Houses would only have one power, but this power, in conjunction with their House symbol could be applied to anything and so their power could be used with, or on anything.
But what about now?
When the first humans evolved and started to explore their world they chanced upon the barrier and although their boats destroyed some made it to land. This was a huge problem. Most of the humans were used for anatomic study after they died but as the humans progressed from cavemen to intelligent explorers those who survived, or were completely missed by the Sirens could not be allowed back home.
The people of the Empire had to keep them there and the only way was to make families with them. However this seemed an impossibility as they were beings of energy not physical matter. After a decision by the Empress all willing people would have to give up their advanced state to mate with the humans and create families. These families inherited their developed brains. Powers however fizzled. Some had them,, some were just basic humans. Those with powers united under a man called Cedrik Valeo. Outcasted by their own society by jealousy they formed an underground group on each of the islands, surviving in secret. Those who own powers have only one and now seem only to be able to be activated in conjunction with the oldest sign of the Empire, that of the Greater Good, affectionately nicknamed the Valeon Eye.
The three provinces formed councils and a joint government, the Council of Provinces just out of reach of the Crystal Bastion and their Emperor or Empress and each had access to the Imperial guard, a large army of soldiers, who acted as police. However these people were more aggressive and xenophobic, not to foreigners from outside the barrier but to those who had powers and would arrest anyone who had them.
Of course for any one person who had powers there were five or six people who still believed in Lonargh. These people formed an Occult called the Ordination of the Virulens. These people murdered any Valeon in hope that their spilt blood would bring back their leader. However the blood spilt to release their leader was not by their own hand. Read here.. Their leader had returned and the time bombs that Akeana had set up for her own survival activated. However those eight who were turned into Virulens have no idea who they really are, and of those eight, only three have active powers. However one of those three was activated an exact year earlier, although not given proper credit, the Ordination stepped up their attacks and sacrifices knowing that this one girl proved the Lonargh was returning.
Misson Statement
Empress Althea having come to power in the 17th centuary selected the style of architecture and dress code of Europe of that time and it has remained since up and till today in 1932. The Council of Provinces is due for its annual meeting with the current Empress. However only the leader of the council, the chairman, is given access to her, and she is left in a room unguarded with him or her.
The man only known as the Chairman has abdicated his right and passed if over to the general public. Each province has selected a group of people who they belive are up to the task of meeting the Empress, so have the Valeons and the Ordination. This however is one too many groups and so a competition has been set up so that there would be only one group winner.
The Chairman has decided that each of lighthouses that unites the Empire would symbolically be the best way to portray he feelings and so each of those lighthouses need to be lit before anyone can talk to the Empress.
Your group must be the first group to reach each lighthouse and lighting it before moving to the next island. When the competition ends you gain a chance to meet the Empress. Be it for personal gain, to benefit your province, to show the corruption of the empire to the Empress or to assassinate her for appeasement to Lonargh. It is your chance to prove you are worth it.
