This one is a bit longer.
I had trouble finding a good place to break it except toward the beginning.
The Rise and Fall of the Vampire Lord
In 4227 PI, a man named Lurnuran was born to the son of a Meron, a general of the nation of Mondaed. Luranan joined the army when he was fifteen, and quickly became an officer.
He rose though the ranks, gaining renown for his tactical savvy and his brutality. Soon he was hailed the shining star of the Mondaed military.
When Lurnuran was twenty-eight, his father died in an accident. The rumor of Lurnuran?s responsiblity were never proven. About the same time the king made Lurnuran a general of Mondaed?s army.
Over the next two years, Lurnuran solidified his control over the military. He built strong bonds with his men, starting rumors that the king tried to send them on suicide missions or harsh, horrible duty. In these rumors only Lurnuran protected the men from their own king. Before long, the men were more loyal to Lurnuran than the crown.
Once he?d assured his backing he informed them that the king intended to march them against the dragons of the En?r?z. After his men had time to work up a proper fury, he announced that they would instead march on the capital.
The battle was quick and for the most part bloodless, but the atrocities committed inside the palace are legendary. When the smoke had cleared, Lurnuran held control of Mondaed.
He did not rest there. After solidifying his hold on Mondaed, Lurnuran began moving against foreign powers. He conquered the neighboring kingdom, had the royal family butchered, and their bodies displayed publicly.
This made the assimilation of this new nation more difficult and four years passed before he was in a position to move on his next country.
It fell before his might. This time he kept the royal family alive. He began performing blood rights on them, maintaining them like cattle until he deemed it time for them to die.
Over the next several years, Lurnuran continued to conquer countries. All the while, he grew increasingly convinced that his blood rites made him more powerful.
Meanwhile, a group of priests located Lurnuran?s elderly grandfather, Meron. They helped restore his health and returned with him to Mondaed.
Upon finding out about his grandson?s atrocities, he sought out Lurnuran and confronted him. Lurnuran received a mortal blow, but at the very threshold of death, the Nopheratus sent Lurnuran back with a terrible thirst.
Lurnuran awoke with Meron kneeling over him. With a lightning strike, Lurnuran drank Meron dry.
His troops marched across the world, reining everyone he could under his power. The only thing that saved the world were Lurnuran?s own ambitions.
Over one hundred years after he was born, Lurnuran conquered his last kingdom. He ruled the Humans of Belkan?th and beyond, and yet he found that ruling the living held no further interest for him. He began to explore other pursuits.
Lurnuran became interested in more esoteric pastimes. He set himself up in a castle, ignoring his kingdom for decades at a time.
No one is certain what he did with his time, but his lieutenants ruled his nation with an iron hand. Meanwhile, his spies traveled everywhere, allowing him to crush every rebellion ruthlessly.
Lurnuran?s bats and wolves kept careful watch. He discovered every plot against him and visited the ring leaders, converting them all to vampiric minions.
During the rule of Lurnuran, the non-Human nations tried their best to withdraw from Human society. The Dwarven kingdoms shut their gates. The Elves withdrew and defended their borders.
One of these Elves was Aurend? a ranger who lived in the forests her entire life. She dedicated herself to fighting beastmen (and sometimes Humans) who defiled her beloved woodlands. In her war, she often attempted to trap her foes rather than harm them.
She died, burned alive by a band of Lurnuran?s beastmen. After her death, then entire forest rose up against the transgressors. Insects attacked, bears went on rampage, the water turned foul for them and them only. After two terrifying days of vengeance, not one single beastmen remained.
Other than Aurend?, few people effectively resisted the might of Lurnuran?s armies. The world suffered under two centuries of tyranny.
But eventually one of the many assassination plots came to fruition without his notice. These final conspirators managed to beard him in lair.
The final battle destroyed Lurnuran?s palace and all of the conspirators. Lurnuran almost certainly died. His kingdom fell.
The world was thrown into chaos, but the Humans recovered quickly. Soon the provinces had re-formed themselves into a new set of Human nations.
The Almian Protector State
In the wake of the fall of Mondaed, nations paid renewed attention to their own longevity. New dynasties formed.
The Dwarves worried again that their seed grew too sparse. Therefore, the king of Uzar?g selected the mountains to his north east as a new bastion of Dwarven might.
He sent his second son, Rabal, to found a kingdom. This kingdom was known as Zurag-Zath?r, and it prospered in its mineral-rich peaks.
Meanwhile, the other races looked to forge new alliances and treaties. In an unprecedented move, a Human named Atheod fell in love with an Elf maid named Ivareth. Both came from noble families and they married.
Their families hated the union, but both gave the couple bordering lands. The couple combined the lands into one nation, naming it Almia.
Relations with the Elves and Atheod?s parents were strained at first, but relations with other nations were good, and Almia began gaining a gaining a reputation as a level-headed and savvy nation.
But the two, of differing species, could not produce children without unwholesome magics. Instead, they took consorts and concubines, and when the first daughter of Ivaneth and the first son of Atheod were born, they married each other and when Atheod died, they took over.
The king renamed Almia a Protector State. The royal line was called half-Elven (although this is more a poetic truth than a biological one), and they maintained this by marrying the first children together over and over again, the Elf stepping down when the Human died.
In time, Almia increased diplomatic relations with many honest and honorable countries. In times of turmoil, they offered troops to support these nations.
At first, people hesitated to allow foreign troops on their soil when they were too weak to defend themselves, but slowly requests came to Almia for aid. Almia answered all of them.
Almia made troops its chief export. Unlike mercenary nations, they didn?t charge for service, they merely allowed nations needing their forces the opportunity to feed, supply and pay the wages of their army. Even this wasn?t required.
Not long after the first nations accepted Almian aid, a famine hit one of the nearest Human nations, Ceruan. The resulting chaos and economic collapse put Ceruan onto its death bed. Nearby nations rallied troops to invade.
They petitioned Almia for aid. Almia sent troops to Ceruan and secured their borders. They sent food and aid to the beleaguered nation. But none of it was enough.
In 3894 PI, Ceruan formally petitioned to join the Almian Protector State. This put Almia into an awkward position because they shared no borders with Ceruan.
The neighboring Elf king took pity on Ceruan?s plight. Sharing borders with both nations, he ceded a ten mile strip of his border from Almia to Ceruan. The Almian Protector State gained its first member nation.
This started a trend over the next years as more an more nations joined the Protector State. Some joined because of disaster, others to keep nations from invading their borders. Still others overthrew their own governments so they could join the Protector State.
Membership became extremely desirable. Citizens rights were unparalleled. Wealth and prosperity grew under the shield of the Protector State.
In 3847 PI, the Lord High Protector of Almia issued the Decree of the Pursuit of Knowledge. This decree entered the government into the arena of intellectual patrons. The Decree set aside a portion of taxes to fund magical research, but soon academics from all walks of life gained the patronage of the High Protector.
This greatly increased the knowledge of the world. A half century after this was enacted the mage Felendor began research on the Great Roads. These Roads were supposed link the Protector State with magical causeways. The exact nature of these Roads is lost to history, but it is known that Felendor was successful in his research. The Great Roads went into construction in 3763 PI
Increased hobgoblin raids led to more and more chaos over the following years. In 3692, the Lord High Protector began a war of extermination against the Cambions of the world. This quickly expanded to include all nephilim as well.
For almost eighty years, Almia waged this genocidal war. Finally, the Lord High Protector realized they had long since stopped the raids. Now he was just butchering a downtrodden people. In 3614 PI, the war ended.
It took a century for these wounds to heal, but eventually, the Cambions and Nephilim saw the value of joining the Protector State. Despite having to curb their brutal habits, they joined the Protector State in 3602. The laws of the Protector State left enough leeway in the structure of member states to allow them to govern themselves. The Cambion and Nephilim kingdoms were brutal, but not brutal enough to cause Ulcers to form in their lands. Other nations complained, but the Lord High Protector maintained that as long as the citizens were happy with the government, they wouldn?t interfere.
By the end of the 3600's, Almia grew into a giant. The lion?s share of Human kingdoms were member states and nations joined faster than the Great Road project could keep up. Finally, by the end of the century, all member nations were connected and the Lord High Protector petitioned the various Elven and Dwarven nations to allow the Roads enter into their borders. Soon, the Roads were everywhere but within the Dwarven kingdoms and even they relented after a time.
In 3551 PI, the Great Roads were complete. Almian troops could reach anywhere in the world overnight. It is said that the Elves and Dwarves held keys that could lock their kingdoms away from the Roads, but this is mere speculation.
The Almian capital was not well-positioned to rule a nation that spanned most of the continent, even with the Roads. Because of this, it was moved to a place more central to the Mortal Realm.
The Lord High Protector now guarded the world. Those nations that were not members of the Protector State feared and respected his power. He turned his eyes to problems that did not involve the might of armies. The first of these was obvious.
Dragons.
Evil dragons attacked where they would, wreaking unbelievable damage. The Lord High Protector decided that they had to be stopped.
So he formed the Order of the Dragon Slayers. The Lord High Protector added the title Dragonbane to his name and brought terror to the dragons themselves.
The Order of the Dragon Slayers was very successful. Over the next few decades, they harried evil dragons into seclusion. As long as they didn?t raid civilized areas, they were left to their own devices, but the moment they emerged, the Order would descend upon them again.
For the next decades, things progressed without much incident. Member nations fought wars, political coups overthrew governments, disasters and times of bounty came and went. But overall, the world stayed as it was.
In 3473 PI, the Lord High Protector finally turned his eye to the Fallen Elf problem. In the intervening years, several minor wars had broken out with the Fallen Elves, who became increasingly bold.
The Fallen Elves allied with the Fallen Dwarves to strike out at the Protector State. They formed the Army of the Fallen and began a new reign of terror on the surface.
Despite Almia?s increased attention, the Army of the Fallen waged a successful war of terror for almost a century. Something had to be done, and the standard troops were not enough.
Therefore the Lord High Protector formed a new military organization, the Order of the Holy Saints. The sole purpose of this order was fighting the Army of the Fallen. They were specially trained and equipped to fight a war against terrorists and take it back to the bowels of the earth itself.
The Order of the Holy Saints was successful. Before long only the Fallen Elves supplied most troops in the Army of the Fallen, the Dwarves having lost heart.
With that problem more or less in hand, the Lord High Protector looked for other problems to solve. He realized that there were things his armies and dragon slayers didn?t handle.
So he formed a new order, the Order of the Knights Errant. This order was entrusted with the task of roaming the world, looking for problems. They were lone adventurers and troubleshooters funded and supported by the Lord High Protector, with all the authority that entailed.
The Knights Errant were popular and successful. With their advent, the commoner could truly sleep safe and secure in their beds at night.
And now the world had entered a golden age. Magic was cheep, learning encouraged, and travel easy. The world was a safe, invigorating place. This left the next Lord High Protector looking for the next great evil to fight.
But great evils became scarce.
So the next great work was the formation of the Order of Relief. This organization?s primary task was the aid of the sick or injured. They were funded by tax coin, and their task was to grant succor to any person in need.
It seemed that Almia would never fall, and life within the Protector State would just keep improving.
And it didn?t stop there. In 3184 PI, the Lord High Protector decided that there weren?t enough checks and balances in the legal system. For years, the Knights Errant had been given the job of righting legal injustices. Now it wasn?t enough.
As the Almian bureaucracy bloated and grew, more and more corrupt people took power. Shady officials and judges flourished, and the Knights Errant couldn?t keep ahead of it all.
So the Civil Defense Union was formed. This was a group of beadles and reeves charged with defending those who couldn?t defend themselves and acting as internal investigators for the legal system.
Already the golden age showed cracks, and it is a matter of much historical debate about how things would have ended if they?d run their course. However, forces were now moving in the world.
In 3151 PI, the Fallen Elves decided it was time to end this once and for all. The Army of the Fallen had faded to a mostly symbolic force, but the Fallen Elves had not given up on their crusade to end the Protector State. By this time the Fallen Elven society had stratified until entire Warrens were dedicated to the extermination of Almia.
So the Fallen Elves managed to contact all of the most power evil creatures in the world and organized them into a union, called the Coalition of Darkness (by the Almians, of course). They had only one goal, the destruction of the Protector State.
Two decades later, they attacked. Assassination after assassination wracked the Almian royal family. The guerilla assaults began with renewed fury. Almia rallied under this siege, and many of the remaining neutral countries threw in to help them.
These attacks did not succeed as expected. The graft and corruption in the Protector State dropped off as the Almian people united against this external threat.
Troops launched into the Warrens, and entire houses of the Fallen Elves collapsed before this onslaught. They retaliated with a force of dragons and the En?r?z fought them off.
In the final days of this war the royal family changed at least three times as entire lines of noble blood died.
But every attack merely made Almia stronger.
Almia seemed to be too powerful to destroy by normal means. They simply became more and more flexible, more in touch with the ideals that initially forged the kingdom
This went on for years, and many consider it the most brutal war in history. In the end, troops were not enough to end it.
The Fallen Elves hatched a plan. It is generally attributed to House Alvrera, and the matriarch Ilarra. She decided that the only way to destroy Almia was to destroy the center of its power, and to destroy it completely.
The ritual was massive in proportions. Ilara performed ten-thousand sacrifices. Not slaves, as was typical, but actual Fallen Elves died under the knife. Ilarra sacrificed her own favorite consort to complete the ritual.
It was more successful than they?d imagined.
On the anniversary of the founding day of the Protector State, in the year 3118 PI, an Ulcer of massive size opened inside Almian capital. Chaos ensued.
The golden age had begun in love. It ended in fire and cold.
