Reader, allow me to speak. I come to you as Ayjor, weaver of history– first of Kosim and Axim. I come to tell you the stories of my home and the family my elders have obtained.
Our world is heavily similar to yours. The atmosphere breathes with stories untold and holds life we’ve never seen. Yet differences exist, of course. We have less planets and have never seen the space. We hold the powers of our creators to help push our earth forward in stages of evolution.
Among this land stands history within its wars, stories that lay as legends within the journals and old handwritten books of what is learned. Though the destruction left behind the centuries of onslaughts, cities still stand tall, but its earth, for some areas, has taken a heavy blow. Some lands are unable to hold life while others strive and live powerfully with lush greenery and acres of plains. Some countries have been blighted with storms that have eradicated homes and smote their people.
Lands are heavily protected by the hands of the holy, even when the land is defaced and left poor. Kings, Empires, Monarchs alike sit powerful among their droves of land upon continents that it eventually is seen how much they really care about the state of their homes. The deserts need no tending, but the forests can stay to whomever claims it first, be it the angry poor or the aggressive highwaymen.
However, the stories I come to tell are limited. Despite several other continents that float within our waters I will tell just a few– Barrowlea, Versaile, and Elonna. The Treaty of Lions sits as the most important document within the world that it holds the top three strongest leaders and for novels sake, should explain why the destruction of this would lead to such destruction.
So, I welcome you to our earth. Our home.
The explanation of the stars come from a mixture of science, curiosity, and the Gods above. Among this land stands history within its wars, stories that lay as legends within the journals and old handwritten books of what is learned. Though the destruction left behind the centuries of onslaughts, cities still stand tall, but its earth, for some areas, has taken a heavy blow. Some lands are unable to hold life while others strive and live powerfully with lush greenery and acres of plains. Some countries have been blighted with storms that have eradicated homes and smote their people.
Lands, here, are heavily protected by the hands of the holy, even when the land is defaced and left to die, those with love for their homes come to restore it with pride. Kings, Empires, Monarchs alike sit powerful among these massive swaths of land, many unsure of how to re-connect with the world around them and leaving cities deforested, while others still keep true to heritage and incorporate it into the way of life around them. There is love for nature here among those still loyal to the land.
Volnyea, properly known as Barrowlea (/ bæroʊlæeɪ /) is one of the oldest countries based in the dead center of the northern hemisphere. Volnyea is the name given by the original settlers meaning “The Dead Black [Earth].” It’s estimated that the name was given due to the lack of light the continent obtained as a whole. Though the soil was rich, food was almost impossible to grow, animals were scarce, and if there was light, it was fairly dim. This was later understood to be the density of the trees that encapsulated the area, shielding it from direct sunlight. However, through the forces and races that live beneath the thick canopy eventually developed an evolutionary trait similar to tapetum lucidum to see in the darkness.
It brought a split among their people: Volnyea, Agreja, Surjol, and Creveyan. It brought alliances and rivalries detrimental to a cause deadly. There were Kings here, some powerful and others not. They sat as clan heads and tribesmen within a land none of them truly cared for—but the power struggle was intense. They wanted land for an inch of light but could give no more than just a room or a corner. But that’s what the history books claim of the start of a proud nation. They speak of how they fought to climb the arms of trees to find an end to bring a light to prove they were the better leader that it led to wars in the dark, where hundreds of thousands died in the vast nothingness of their dark home.
In 0D, Volnyea began to fall. The people’s trust toward one another became weak and frayed. Anarchy reigned until the Light came to snuff out the dark.
A pit in the field.
One momentous in scale and teeming with a heat so thick onlookers could barely breathe. But there, they held a shine that blinded them and a shade of color they had never seen before. Whilist seeing the sight of an emerging figure, strong and tall.
Dangerous and deadly.
Wielding the light for her own whim.
The beginning starts the same across the globe—quiet, bland, dark. Lands were dead or dying. Here there was no true beginning. No mark to track the age of man, but it’ll always be seen as the stories describe, grey skies and black mud. No grass, no trees. No miles of seacoasts. Rivers were scarce and food even worse.
Among the land live nomads of all kinds. They were folk wise enough to lead their people deeper into unknown land in search for food, with high hopes that the inevitable never had to come… though it was the only way to “bury” their dead, sick, or elderly.
Legends circle of an event that came simultaneously. Lights bright in the haze of the sky that left them watching and waiting. Will it land? Will it bring harm to them and their children? And yet, over time, the light died away into the grey after lighting up the world with warmth stronger than the fire pits within the camps.
Months pass and the lights return, now just a couple over a few. Then again, in the middle of the coldest night, just several months after the first sighting is one, darting across the sky with glitter at its trail and a permanent sight of a white orb forever above the muddied land, unmoving.
But the morning comes.
And the orb is bright and warm.
Here marks Year 0 – The end of the Era of Dark, but also brings the beginning of life within the oasis left behind of the creature that crashed into the lands.
Year 1 brought life. Fauna and wildlife that left the First nomads in awe. There were fish in flowing rivers, clean water that stretched for miles, big game that rested easy in the grasslands or hunted in the thick forests. This sat as the home many of them hunted decades for when it sat as fever dreams that were ridiculed and seen as myth.
With time, life settled. By Year 5, villages were established. By Year 10, farms and trade grew among routes unknown. Come Year 18 comes the first sight of “magic.”
As years pass and ages come, the First have not been forgotten and many of their history is still being translated.
Depending on the continents, laws are vastly different. Though explained in detail later, magic is seen as a grey area for it is not inherently dangerous as much as it is not always good. Magic has been seen as a power to help assist in areas where it is needed, whereas it not learned, it leaves many weary of its user. The history and information of the magic of Barrowlea, albeit common among the land, is vast and will be explained later.
As for the rest, power, bans, laws, are all greatly different and are handled differently across the country.
From the void comes the spark; a light that glitters across the blackest blanket of the world, delivering a shine the First had never seen before. And then she comes. And then she claims.
And then she conquers.
-CREATIONS CHAPTER 1 – SILENCE.
The world held no light here. It stood with a cold silence that left its people in a mute colorless life for ages. Voices were nonexistent.
The Empire of Barrowlea has fallen to a bloody battle of “Who is the strongest?” After the death of the First Emperor, All-Mother Kularis Xanathari, the throne became a power struggle. It followed quickly with her husband, Pythadeus Beril known by divine title Elmannon and otherwise known as “The Red King” or “The God of Moths.”
The Barrowlean people worship quite vengeful Gods. Kularis, the all mother, was a woman of beauty, but she burned with distrust. Though she had been the mother of the most powerful, she led armies with a deadly fist. After witnessing the fall of her homeland from the hands of one of the ancient eastern Kingdoms (due to treachery), she made a vow to bring down the monsters who slew her faithful leaders. Though this brought on more disasters after the last. With her back turned, she was slain by her daughter Donis and lover Felmat as a way to rip her of her power and her throne as gift to her father.
However, death did not sit with her long. Once the Kingdom had been overturned and the cities ransacked for their goods, Kularis returned with an army of the dead, commanded by the children her daughter and lover had slain. They had committed a grand offense in her eyes– an act of murder, treason, as well as conspiracy– and this was to deliver swift punishments the best of her abilities.
And that was to raze the country and start anew.
Knight Einar Wyndhel (I) was first to chase the throne outside of that of nobles.
[author's note: missing information – add in the power struggle of her children eventually warring over the throne before the first of the Wyndhel clan takes over. there's so much i just haven't typed it out. don't look at me--]The throne has been within the Wyndhel lineage for more than several centuries. Before the rule of Emperor Einar Victor Wyndhel II, the country of Barrowlea had once been under siege as one of the most dangerous lands to cross. It was once teeming with heavy criminal behavior and undesirables that upon entering the country, those of seeming wealth were known to be robbed at the border by children posed as poor refugees.
It was at this time where Emperor Wydhel (II) decided to take matters into his own hands by encouraging that all matters be dealt with by faith. Laws were now to be handled by word of their bible– and their bible was not kind.
Emperor Wyndhel (III) took this to heart. With the numerous amounts of assassination placed on his head and the crime that made their homeland unbearable to live in, he knew the conditions must be altered for their countrymen to be safe in their own homes.
Almost everything had been made to be punishable by death or maiming. Drugs– if not legalized by the government themselves– was made illegal by marring of the skin, be it branding the prison marks to the dealer’s body or breaking the bones of the seller. Theft came with broken hands by means of torture or hammering. Murder came with… well, murder.
Within Barrowlea, they are kind folk– mostly farmers and traders, nothing too fancy. However, with the mess of how their land used to be, no more than 50 years prior, everything was made in a strict manner. If a person is maimed or made comatose, the person caught is given the same disfigurement. If another is murdered, the guilty party is given quite the surprise.
They do turn the other cheek when it comes to those whom have once committed a crime within another Kingdom/Empire and come for penance. As long as one is planning to rebuild themselves into a better person, they are given free will to stay in Barrowlea– even if they are fleeing from another government or prison.
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