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A little creative piece:
The planet Enroth was created more than ten thousand years ago through the combined efforts of four Elemental Lords—Gralcor the Cruel, Shalvend, Pirannast, and Aqualandar—possibly under the influence of the Ancients. VARN MCMIV was sent to the planet on a long-term journey, during which three full generations could live and die. The Ancients left information for the colonists about the Creators and their monsters (prototypes of the Krigan) and general details about the Crossing (so called the colonization process) and the destination.
Enroth was a planet of considerable size, rich in resources. Shortly after its creation, VARN landed there. The ship's crew consisted of six humans chosen by the Ancients, possessing special abilities and authority. These were the Captain (ship commander), the Navigator (Captain's assistant), the Communications Officer, the Pilot, the Engineer (who commanded the technical staff group), and the Doctor. They lived in the main compartments of the ship (outside the biosphere) and supervised the colonists. Upon landing, all six went to the Control Room and each spoke an activation code necessary to begin colonization. Once VARN was implanted, the Ancients began the settlement of the colonists. It should be noted that at first, all inhabitants were concentrated in a small area called the First Settlement. It was located in a mountain gorge (and further into the mountains). In the First Settlement, the colonists lived under the direct supervision of the Ancients. The settlement was formed from five main cities of VARN MCMIV.
There is one small peculiarity associated with the location of the First Settlement. In a large compartment of VARN, the Spaceport (where three technicians, assistants to the Engineer, remained after landing), a spatial curvature was created, representing a kind of personal psychosphere that reflected the qualities and aspects of the personalities entering it and became especially active in the presence of several strong personalities. Physically, this psychosphere took the form of a small mountain valley. The gorge where the First Settlement was located was adjacent to it. This region was far to the southeast of VARN's Tomb, south of modern Antagarich, on the small continent of Alkmaar. The psychosphere received the poetic name Edge of the World. One could enter the Edge either from the Spaceport or from Alkmaar, which created a certain spatial bend. As a result, a traveler heading to the Edge of the World from Alkmaar would first end up in the Spaceport, and the gorge with the First Settlement was located for them at the eastern edge of the Spaceport. The Edge of the World was located in the Last Mountains to the north of the Settlement.
The First Settlement existed for a long time. It was a utopian world, never seen again on Enroth. The Ancients used it as a spacious field for social experiments. During colonization, the planet's Guardian, Melian, was placed on the eastern coast of Enroth. Under him was the Planetary Control Center, from which the planet and its colonies were managed. Communication with the Center was maintained in the First Settlement. Enroth became a very prosperous colony. Soon, various beings from other parts of the Universe moved here: from Xion—myself and Phalagar; from Vahn 4—the scientist Agar and the Necromancers Zam and Zom. All of them were either immortal (like me, Zam, and Zom) or extended their lives in one way or another (like Phalagar and Agar).
Agar opened his menagerie in the First Settlement, where a huge number of creatures and monsters were created, including prototypes of future minotaurs. Dragon clones from other planets were also grown there, becoming ancestors to many species of these intelligent and semi-intelligent reptiles. Phalagar was one of the prominent mages and trained a large number of legendary heroes. Zam and Zom established a monopoly on necromancy (which was strictly regulated by colony laws). I, chosen on Xion to lead the Reunion Control Hall and therefore most closely linked to the Ancients, enjoyed a well-deserved vacation after the completion of Xion (I became friends with Agar).
The Reunion of Xion was carried out shortly before the colonization of Enroth. It is worth noting that some time before the Reunion, two evacuation pods landed on the Dark Side with two Guardians, Corak and Sheltem, on board. Immediately after their landing, the shuttle Lincoln approached the Cloud Side, carrying the Desperate Adventurers, eight heroes chosen by Corak. The ship entered the upper layers of the atmosphere and nearly burned up there, but turned back just in time (the heroes thought that Corak and Sheltem had perished). The Desperate Adventurers set out to find the Ancients, but due to sustained damage, the Lincoln moved at near-light speeds, only occasionally making teleportation jumps; as a result, the ship became a victim of the twin paradox, and for the heroes, whose journey by real-world standards took millennia, very little time passed.
Around the year 3845 after colonization, the Ancients left the First Settlement, sending the colonists further to explore Enroth. The continent of Enroth was settled first. Based on materials brought from the First Settlement, the main cities of Enroth were created, such as Free Haven and others. They became the greatest cities in the world. The last of them founded was New Sorpigal, from where some colonists set out to settle the rest of the world. The elves were the first to leave Enroth, settling on an ice-surrounded island northwest of the southeastern continent of Erathia. The colonists themselves were not technologically advanced and the Ancients almost never visited them in person; however, the inhabitants of Enroth had the Celestial Forges at their disposal. One of the Forges was used, thanks to which the planet's society was comparable to a communist utopia. The planet was ruled by the Colonial Government, consisting of leading figures and the best specialists in various fields.
The Government was headed by Governor Padish, the former Navigator of VARN. Another crew member, Engineer Wilson, managed the Control Center personnel. Prominent scientists, who oversaw the Forges, became the founders of Enroth's first magical communities, which later founded the magic guilds and the wizard state of Bracadaun on Antagarich. The Center was the meeting place of the Government (there was also a special hall for celebrations and banquets); it was located in Free Haven, which for this reason was the capital of the colony. In the year 10070 after colonization, Enroth suffered one of the greatest tragedies in its history, the Day of Fire. As a result of this catastrophe, vast areas around VARN's Tomb were scorched and turned into slag, becoming the Dragon Sands desert. By unfortunate coincidence, the Day of Fire coincided with the Silence, due to which the planet's connection with the Ancients was severed.
The consequences of the Day of Fire and the break in communication had a detrimental effect on the colony. Disruptions occurred in the Control Center, and drone-bots revolted, killing the personnel. Chief Engineer Wilson sealed the Center, preventing the drone-bots from breaking out and thus saving the colony at the cost of his own life, becoming one of the greatest heroes. Without support from the Ancients, the nascent technological level began to fall; unrest broke out on the planet, and chaotic riots flared up. During the first century After the Silence, civilization degraded, the Colonial Government fell, and the Governor perished. Thus, the Age of Wonders finally came to an end. The population did not heed Melian's calls to restore the remaining technologies, perceiving the Guardian as a religious symbol. The Celestial Forges began to break down, and by the year 113 after the Silence, the last of them stopped working. During its erratic operation, one of the Forges created a low-level item kept by the same elves in a glacier on their island, which was called the Sword of Cold. The layers of the population that were least developed before the Silence eventually went wild, turning into barbarians and tribes of savages. To oversee them, the Guardian created the Ancestors, who were three personifications of various programs of his system, linked to each other. The Ancestors were revered as gods by the barbarians (mainly current Krylods).
Approximately one hundred and fifty years after the Silence, Captain Dizelisk's hired hive happened to find a world very rich in resources located in the spiral arm affected by the Silence. Most of the equipment was still preserved there. This was Enroth. The captain had neither a queen, mandatory in Krigan hive society, nor a full-fledged Krigan settlement. Therefore, he decided first to settle somewhere in a corner inaccessible to the planet's native inhabitants, scout the situation, then seize the planet with a single blow, and finally present the center with an entire captured resource-rich planet so that he would be allocated a queen and a reactor. All the time while the Bracadaun Empire waged wars with barbarians, while Rion Griffonheart founded Erathia, while in the endless forests of northern Antagarich and the bright groves of Tularia the elves formed their state AvLi, the Krigan accumulated and gathered information.
They settled in a network of caves long known as the "Underworld". There was nothing supernatural about it; even the Ancients once inspected it, wishing to establish some settlement there, but the caves were deep and vast. Local residents joked that they resembled an abandoned underworld, so this name stuck. By the end of the reign of the first king of Erathia, the Krigan began to act. It started with bandit raids, then moved to raiding villages, burning pastures and fields. Rion became alarmed and began a military campaign against the "demons," whom he managed to defeat and drive back into the Underworld at the cost of significant effort. Dizelisk (known in Erathia as the Duke of the Underworld) was blinded and since then remained in his estate in the deepest part of the Underworld, nursing plans for revenge. In addition to the Krigan, various underground creatures settled in Dizelisk's domains, as well as representatives of emerging necromancy, among whom was your humble servant.
After Rion's death, Dizelisk carried out his plan of revenge. He ordered one of the Lesser Demons, Jormu, to steal the king's soul, after which he lured Rion's daughter Queen Allison into the Underworld, whom he tortured in order to destroy the soul giving the daughter Rion's strength. However, the queen and king were saved by one of the knights, Tarnum. It should be mentioned that Tarnum was also known as the Barbarian Tyrant; it is he who is responsible for the fall of the Bracadaun Empire. When Tarnum was killed by Rion, the Ancestors did not let him find the peace of death, returning him instead to the mortal world for atonement of sins. Tarnum was necrobiotically linked to the Ancestors, which made him an Immortal Hero. Erathia's forces under Tarnum's command dealt with Captain Dizelisk and destroyed the Krigan settlements in the Underworld. During his campaign, Tarnum had a clash with me as well. The remnants of the defeated underground demons eventually emerged onto the surface, after which they were no longer heard from (much later I happened to meet several of them).
Over the following centuries, many events occurred on the planet that could fill dozens of volumes. At the beginning of the twelfth century after the Silence, a curious spatial anomaly formed on the eastern coast of Enroth. This rift connected Enroth with Vahn 4. It should be clarified here that CRON and its VARNs, after that incident when Sheltem almost dropped the ship into the sun, entered a state of restoring their previous course (they left the Minos system within three months of arriving at Terra). Because of this, everything inside them remained in stasis. Thus, centuries turned into millennia, and the inhabitants of CRON and VARNs were frozen and did not change an iota. And so, during flight through the system where Enroth is located, they emerged from stasis, and as they flew past Enroth, this portal opened. Through it, lords Morglin Ironfist and Kilburn arrived on Enroth with their closest associates, escaping from Ragnar, Morglin's brother, whom he had tried to overthrow. Morglin began a campaign to conquer Enroth.
But not only Ironfist and his associates passed through this portal. Crag Hack arrived on Enroth, a young human knight who was part of the party of heroes from Vahn 4 and CRON that saved the latter from destruction in the depths of the sun. Hack quickly adapted to the new environment, swapping the armor of a knight for the axe of a barbarian and starting a life full of adventure (which was meant to last very long, as the lifespan of the heroes was extended as a reward for saving CRON). Many other personalities also arrived. Among them was Lord Haart from CRON (also endowed with an extended lifespan), as well as Lord Slayer (also from CRON), who became the chief of the barbarians, and the heiress to the throne of CRON Lamanda, who became the queen of witches. The latter two were among Morglin's main opponents in the struggle for power. The third and most serious opponent was Lord Alamar. There is evidence that this is none other than Sheltem, who miraculously survived the clash with Corak and ended up on Enroth, hiding there and once again using his favorite disguise. Lord Ironfist's campaign lasted fourteen years and led to the emergence of the continental kingdom of Enroth, the most powerful on the planet.
Morglin ruled for twenty-five years, after which he died, leaving the throne to his sons, between whom a War of Succession began, lasting three years. I decided for some time to blend in with the surrounding environment of wild colonists for amusement and took on the guise of a humble apprentice mage and warlock Etric (not to be confused with another well-known personality, Etric the Mad, the first lich and founder of the planet's necromancy). I hid my true lich form with a cast illusion. Of course, I did not intend to stay with Etric for too long and later escaped from my "teacher" and participated in Ironfist's campaign and the War of Succession already as a Necromancer. Shortly after the end of the War of Succession, I went to Antagarich, where I attempted to seize power on the continent using the same state of necromancers Deia and two sets of powerful necromantic artifacts, but was defeated by four warriors, including Crag Hack.
At the beginning of 1162 after the Silence, the Night of Falling Stars occurred; Krigan invaded Enroth. This significantly changed the social and political situation on the planet and ultimately led to its destruction in the cataclysm of Reckoning. This catastrophe happened as a result of the crossing of Armageddon's Blade and the aforementioned Sword of Cold and led to the resettlement of surviving inhabitants of Enroth to another planet.
By the way, a practice similar to Melian's creation of the Ancestors was also applied on another planet, Axeoth. The fact is that this world was colonized just before the Silence. At this time, the Elite Guard—select forces of the Krigan fleet consisting of specially genetically and cybernetically modified individuals—split their forces and attacked "young" worlds of the Ancients to find Web Gates on them, through which the Krigan would gain access to a node station of the World Network and could strike directly at the central world of the Ancients. And everywhere they suffered defeat. An Elite Guard detachment also arrived on Axeoth, for which a Guardian had not even been assigned yet. It managed to capture the planet, but by that time the Guardian arrived on Axeoth. By cunningly luring the Elite Guard contingent into the dwarf city Dvergalhalt—for the Krigan believed that the desired Gates were located there—he used the Staff of Blue Light to move the city into an out-of-phase state, cutting it off from the mortal world. Some Krigan, however, escaped this unfortunate fate and did reach the Gates, which potentially would have given them access to the Web of Worlds if not for the timely initiation by the Ancients of the Network's rupture and, consequently, the onset of the Silence.
The Guardian had not yet had time to fully assume his duties and, because of the Silence, never did. He passed the Staff of Blue Light to Svalin, the king of the dwarves. "I know not if this is a worthy price for a city, but it grants your people power and knowledge," he said. "But know that one day a Guardian shall descend into this world and demand the Staff be handed over. And you must obey his word, for such is the will of the World Creators." With these words, the Guardian personified part of his systems to oversee day and night the Elite Guard Krigan imprisoned in Dvergalhalt—now known as the Tomb of a Thousand Horrors—thus creating a pantheon of so-called Gods of Axeoth. These Gods were Kron, God of Might and head of the pantheon; his spouse, Fre, Goddess of Life; Skrelos, God of Death; Green Man, God of Nature; and finally, Handl, God of Order.
These manifestations settled on the Astral Plane near the Tomb of a Thousand Horrors, where they erected a majestic city—Arslengard. However, unexpectedly for them, a new deity emerged from universal Chaos, and his name is Nyam the Malevolent. It is predicted that in the future a great battle will take place between Kron and Nyam, in which the head of the pantheon is destined to perish, and those shall be the Twilight of the Gods. Therefore, Kron collects the souls of great warriors who will later form his army in the final confrontation with the embodiment of Chaos. Kron and Skrelos judge the deceased strictly and justly; heroes and valiant warriors go to Hallenhalt, where they shall remain until Judgment Day, simple mortals find refuge in Arslengard itself, while sinners and those who perished ignobly are granted the eternal peace of the Afterlife.
Besides the distant southern lands, about which laymen essentially knew nothing, two continents existed on Axeoth: the southern, Lodwar, and the northern, Rish. And if the lands of the first were essentially desolate and sparsely populated (except for the southern regions where the kingdoms of Devonshire and Merlion—the domain of sages and wizards—resided), then the second could boast a rich history stretching back through the ages. Long ago, on its territory, from a number of states and communities that preserved small traces of technologies inherited from the Ancients, the famous Ursan Empire was formed, which was destroyed after the Great Cataclysm.
As for the elves inhabiting Axeoth, they always kept themselves separate from other races and duly paid tribute to the Empire just so it would leave them in peace. It was rumored that they came from another world destroyed in a conflict of certain universal forces. Strangely enough, elves were one of the few ethnic groups that did not resist integration into the Ursan Empire. Rather, the opposite... Their kingdom was called Etendar and was located south of Verhoffin Tower. In total, thirteen elven clans were known to exist, each of which was in turn divided into subclans called sili. There were also rumors of a fourteenth, vanished clan—A'Rikdun. Numerous records regarding the history of the elven nation, made on special paper—kuni, were kept in the central settlement called At'rann, meaning "utopia". If ancient maps are to be believed, this city was located 400 leagues south of the tower of the wizard who caused the Cataclysm, and today it is apparently at the bottom of the Verhoffin Sea. After the destruction of Etendar in the chaos of the Cataclysm, elven clans scattered across the world, secluding themselves in forest thickets and founding druidic orders. Some settled on Lodwar, others founded the kingdom of Arbor'al in the western reaches of Rish.
The unexpected Reckoning that occurred on distant Enroth tore many Threads of Fate, and its stroke will be reflected on Axeoth as well. For it is here that portals opened through which the Enrotians who escaped the hellfire of Armageddon stepped into a new world. This was made possible thanks to the planetary evacuation system integrated by the Ancients during the Crossing. For the most part, these settlers ended up in the virgin lands of Lodwar, although some were cast onto Rish.
New kingdoms are being raised, new conflicts flare up and the Twilight of the Gods, foretold at the dawn of time, draws near, draws near...
From Sandro's book "Essays on the History of the Empire of the Ancients",
Merlion,
September 1209 after the Silence (Year 555 after the Cataclysm by Axeoth reckoning)
