This was the age of powerful empires and large armies. The population of the world had recovered to the point that nations could not grow without pushing out their neighbors. While alliances and marriages averted many of these wars, most of them were solved by the strength of arm and power of magic. People had gone too long without a large war and the nobles had forgotten about its devastating consequences.

During this age entire empires rose and fell, only to be replaced by the next one. Huge national armies marched across the land, swelling their ranks with the local peasantry.

The Irillian Empire, while very corrupt at its downfall, brought to the world many benefits. They gave the world the basis for a common language and monetary system. They gave birth to the idea of educating the peasants and raising a professional army. Land ownership began to pass from the hands of the nobility to sharecroppers and merchants. It saw the rise of the merchant class as near equals to the high nobility.

The Xianese invasion in the chaos that followed the fall of the Irillian Empire brought the worst to the world. Religious, Cultural, and racial intolerance were their motivations for war. Their powerful dromands and huge machines of war destroyed any that opposed them. Many of the nations were just recovering from warring with Irill and had very little strength to fight off the Xian. If not for the arrival of the Dakarian tribes and their dwarven allies the realms would have been plunged into darkness.

The battles to halt the Xianese invasion were the last of the great wars fought during this age. There were smaller wars, and many cities fell to their neighbors, but never again did large national armies march across the lands. The world had been bled dry and the peasants again set about to rebuild what they had lost.

This was the first of large empire to control much of the world. While its time was brief, just a few decades, it’s prominently mentioned as the first nation where the law was based upon the rules of magic. The Archmage Thaddimus La’Nocht was considered the leading mind behind the Circle of Eight, a powerful group of magicians. As purely an academic effort he proposed replacing the petty nobility with an academic elite, which would rule a new paradise.

For obvious reasons the nearby nobility rejected his opinion and sent their military to destroy his school. Thaddimus escape from the carnage of the midnight raid and was more serious than ever that the nobility feared true freedom of thought. Ten years later he rode at the head of his army.

Most academies, both mystical and mundane, were split on Thaddimus’s original proposal and gave it only a cursory thought. However, after his school was destroyed many wondered if the local lord was preparing to do the same to them. Fed by this fear they flocked to his banner by the hundreds.

This was the first large-scale use of this new magic in battle. While many armies had several academic advisors and a few magicians in their units — an entire army of magicians was an impossible thought. However, they left their studies based upon the fear for their lives and in the end only caused the peasants to turn to the nobility for protection.

Thaddimus’s army summoned forth specters, animated weapons, and cause the weather to turn against their enemies. The land was pulled up to form giant golems and the rivers were disrupted to deny their enemies sustenance. In the end, Thaddimus forged a land he could only rule by domination and hate. The peasants fled in fear from any magician and the remaining soldiers formed into small bands to resist his rule.

After twenty years on the throne Thaddimus took his own life after he realized he could never bring about his academic dream of paradise. A series of magicians tried to step in and regain order, but within a decade the entire structure had collapsed. The old nobility had been scattered and the nobles that regained control after the fall of the Sorcerers Kingdom barely had the power to maintain control of their holdings.

Irill was the most influential, and largest, empires to span the known world. Irill spread its law, beliefs, government, and religious icons across the world — often encompassing local traditions to further their own growth. Their influence grew at an exponential rate for much of the last part of this age.

The Irillian method of conquest was simple. It would gather its professional army, which was the first time any nations had a permanent standing army, and invade a nearby territory it wanted to control. Upon successful conquest they would bring in a military governor who would be responsible for getting the land up to Irillian standards.

Their soldiers were encouraged to settle down with the local women, marrying them into Irillian society. Anyone doing so became a member of the garrison and was granted a retirement bonus and plot of nearby land to raise their family.

Once the territory was settled the Irillians would build temples and schools. They freely taught the natives a proper language and system of numbers, the temples would interweave local traditions into their own religious ceremonies.

The expanded markets brought exotic goods from far-flung territories and capital goods to distant lands. It was the area of banking and financing were the Irillians excelled. They created the private stock company, shareholders, finance banks, and future investments. While the money flowed into the Empire, they continued to spend it expanding the Empire; however this cycle couldn’t last forever.

It was religious intolerance, and a stagnate culture, that doomed the Empire. Fat upon the profits of others the Empire only wanted more wealth. When territories became too distant to instantly squeeze for money, they overtaxed the local governors who squeezed their workers.

While in this cycle the church began to oppress the new citizens instead of welcoming them. It was the elves in Ellendar that started the rebellion that many followed. Within a few decades from the height of its prosperity, the most powerful Empire had been split after a decisive battle outside their capitol. The remaining territories fractured, with many of them either falling to the natives, or setting the local governor up as the new ruler.

Upon the eastern shores of the Realms there is an area that many would call a paradise. The gentle roll of its grassy flatlands spilt by clear rivers and deep lakes could easily be mistaken by many as the perfect afterlife. Living upon these lands were hundreds of small tribes called Carthins, meaning “People of the Open Sky.”

They were a hunter-gatherer tribe that had long since before mastered the skill of farming, but choose herding instead. It was during a particularly harsh winter storm when the Turanian’s landed upon their shores. The Carthin’s invited the strangers into their homes and shared their winter stores. The Turanian’s shared their love for strong wines.

By the spring many of the Carthins had sold their possessions to the Turanians for more wine. They turned their backs upon their ancestors and embraced the ways of their newfound friends. Those that stayed true to the old ways soon found themselves locked into a tribal war with their kinsmen. Rather than shed the blood of their kin, these Carthins trekked west over the mountains and into the desert.

Each year the remaining Carthins were forced to sell more of their grazing lands and best herd animals to the Turanians for their assistance. Their astrologers predicted the weather and their doctors cared for the weak and sick. The Turanians constructed large cities with marble mined from the Ancestor Mountains and topped with the purest gold, all built upon the backs of the Carthins.

Uhl, the one true god of the Turanians, had used his guiding hand to bring the people to this paradise. He provided abundant food, water, grasslands, and slaves to serve his people’s needs. The Turanians saw the Carthins as a people created to be controlled — they were strong in body, but weak in spirit. After only two small uprisings the Carthins that stayed with the Turanians were reduced to slaves.

The last of the great invasions came from across the Endless Sea. During the fall of the Irillian Empire, great black-sailed ships appeared off Griffons Coast. These strangers made landfall and began to set up villages within the borders of Ellendar. After a few brief confrontations these new humans called Xianese signed a peace treaty with the elves.

The treaty gave the Xianese enough land to found their religious colony in return for arms and assistance in pushing back the Irillian armies. The Irillians had been pushing at Ellendar’s southern border and the presence of the Xianese allowed Ellendar to move its southern army to assist in the push to the Irillian capitol.

After the Irillian Empire collapsed the Xianese made their true intentions known. They attacked Ellendar and set the few defenders back to their ancestors. The Xianese, supported by their fanatical heavy knights, fought a war of slash and burn against the elven homeland. Their priests called down the power of their god to lay waste to huge sections of forest.

After their initial gains, the returning elven army was able to slow down their daily advances. Still, most of the other surrounding human territories didn’t send any assistance for many reasons. When Ellendar struck at the Irillian Empire they didn’t care who they ran over — there still are plenty of stories of vile acts committed by some of their troops. At this time there was no love between Ellendar and the human communities.

In an act of desperation and blackest evil, Xianese Black Knights stuck deep into Ellendar and captured over a thousand elves, many of them children. They herded them to Silver Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the area. There, upon a stone alter large enough to set a city, they sacrificed all of their captives to their god. It is said that the Lillian River, which flows from Silver Lake to the Endless Sea, was thick with blood.

This act destroyed the surrounding countryside as anything that drew substance from the Silver Lake was infected with disease and rot. Within months one of the most beautiful areas in the Realms had been blighted. Pashwanna, the Ellendar City that stood upon its shores, now serves as a Xianese temple. Even today the Black Lake and Blood River, as they are now called, mean death to any that drink their water.

Demoralized by this loss the elven army was barely able to stop their retreat from becoming a route. The only thing standing between the Xianese and the Caragan Sea was three small human cities, formally jewels of the Irillian Empire. However, fate again twisted its bony finger, as a combined army of elves, humans, and dwarves marched south.

The Northern Army of Ellendar was tied down stopping the incursion of northern human barbarians from pushing into their borders. As the Xianese continued to advance, more of their strength was shifted south, giving up more lands to the humans. As things in the south became more desperate Kagon, Clanleader of the Bonecrushers, William, leader of the last independent tribe in Dakar, and Murian, Warleader of the Northern Army, forged an alliance.

Under this alliance the humans, backed by their powerful magicians, and dwarves would assist Ellendar in defeating the Xianese. In return, Murian’s troops would help bring all of the northern human tribes under the Dakan banner — together they would form a peaceful and lasting boundary. This combined army fell upon the Xianese flank as a hammer upon an anvil.

The advance of the Xianese army was halted, and they were forced to retreat to a stronger defensive position, but they were not routed. No peace treaty was ever signed, and the area still remains heavily fortified many years later.

• 398

  • Kingdom of Irill founded by King Akakios

• 845

  • Kingdom of Irill conquers the Kingdom of Myrto
  • King Nicolaus crowns himself Emperor of the Irillian Empire, First Empire

• 1158

  • Irillian Emperor Aulus Nicolaus Trainus dies without naming an heir
• 1130

  • Theoddius Vitae Nicolaus becomes new Emperor of Irill
• 1201

  • Jove, son of Theoddius Vitae, becomes Jove Thedonis Nicolaus Emperor of Irill
• 1204

  • Princeps Canicus Selcarius kills Jove and names himself Emperor of Irill
• 1216

  • Urianus becomes Nicolaus Urianus and Emperor of Irill after killing Canicus
• 1229

  • Livitus, son of Urianus, becomes Emperor of Irill when his father dies

• 1401

  • Irrishite temples purge paganism under official writ
• 1482

  • Nicolaus Veltorius II killed by Zenki Order leaving no heir
  • Maximus Magister Alaricus names himself Corpus Domini

• 1501

  • Lordrenites fall as the city of Rendarik falls to the Irillian army
• 1518

  • Zenki Order begins Selcaria Campaign to secure southern shore of the Caragan Sea
• 1714

  • Province of Selcaria secured by Holy Irillian Empire
• 1752

  • Zenki Order begins Dolmarian Campaign against Xian to stop their southern advance

• 1937

  • City of Valparia signs peace accord with Ellendar.
• 1949

  • Elven Army conquers port city of Kavasila
• 1951

  • Elven Army conquers Holy See city of Prima Dues, now called Arapis.
• 1952

  • Irillian Province of Selcaria declares itself independent nation.
• 1975

  • Kingdom of Dakar conquers all lands along the Zun River south of Celinus