The Fallen Empire of Amaritia: Off the coast of the Eastern Continent, on the edge of the Thunder Seas, is a vast land that was once home to the greatest warriors Zenita had ever seen. For ten millennia, the Amarites slowed the advances of the slave trades in the East. However, Amarite pride would not allow their nation to unite with the Federation, the alliances of men who sought to abolish slavery. Without an alliance, there was little hope of ending the Slave Wars. As a nation of women, Amaritia was a matriarch society that abhorred a world they found to be repressive. “We will no longer be the whores and slaves of men,” announced Estra, the first queen crowned under the new regime after the old government fell. “We will no longer be ruled by men. We will show the world how weak and useless men have become, and that we do not need them to thrive.” The Amarites came to despise men, needing them only for what they could provide— daughters. All sons born to an Amarite mother were sent to the nearest city across the ocean, Paladia. Abandoned and never to be seen again. Paladia became an entire nation born from another. The Paladians took these discarded sons and trained them in the holy fighting arts of the paladin. In the centuries that followed, the unwanted boys of Paladia grew to a society who came to loathe the Amarites. The rumors spoken all across the Eastern continent drove their hatred further—that the Amarite’s land was magic and that their strength stemmed from the mystical Pools of Landaloo. And so, the Paladians made a bold decision—invade Amaritia. Their hatred for the Amarites was so vast that they united with the scourge of the East, the Vulkarians, creatures of darkness thought to be the sons of Avera, daughter of the one true God’s enemy, the Gmorgon. The Paladians had once been a people of faith, devout followers of God. For the Paladians to unite with the Vulkarians was be seen by the Federation as the ultimate betrayal. The siege of Amaritia lasted for nearly a year. When the city fell, the Vulkarians turned on the Paladians. Half-starved and their numbers decimated from the siege, the Paladians were forced to retreat. When they did, they were met by the Federation and crushed. In the chaos, some of the Amarites managed to escape, riding upon the backs of golden dragons. Though the Amarites have never been seen again, there are whispers of them in the West. That somehow, they survived they journey across the Thunder Seas or the Zenitonian Mountains and built themselves a new home. The East would not be the same after the Amarites were gone and the Paladians desecrated, branded as traitors to the one true God. Undisclosed Author, Bearer of the Seeker’s Mark 4,112 of the 16th Age |
Altered Illustration of Boris Vallejo's "Flight of Dragons"