Races
The Elven
The oldest of the races, at least as far as can be proved. The elven have a recorded history of just over 20,000 years. Prehistoric sites prove that the people existed long before that. Their language is spoken in one form or the other in over half the arable lands in the world. The elven occupy the northern continent of Sirana. Sirana is the second largest continent on the planet. The elven are ruled by a monarchy. There are twelve major noble houses. Their empire is known as the Cistian Kingdom for all that the continent spanning “kingdom” would be called an empire anywhere else. The political situation is fluid with the elven king in peril of losing his throne. By long tradition, dynastic power changes with the success of a civil war. The king commands forces equal to the combined forces of any three noble houses. This has never stopped four or more houses attempting to join forces to overthrow any king they oppose. The economic system of the elven is mostly based on serfdom. A rising merchant class is unsettling an already shaky political system. The nearest real-world equivalent would be the kamakura period in Japan. The average height of an elven male is 5’ 4”. This is primarily due to the shortage of protein in the serf’s diet. Population growth in the elven race is normally glacial given the long lifespan of the elven. The entire continent was only fully settled a thousand years before the start of the Elindari wars.
The Humans
The earliest ruins excavated by the historians of the Korvir Empire show that the first human signs of civilization were about 5,000 years in the past. As far as humanity is concerned it is inextricable from the Korvir Empire. The Hort continent is by far the largest on the planet. Subdivided by mountain ranges and deserts, dozens of small kingdoms developed. At least four language groups existed and further dialects from those. Religions on the continent ranged from animist, naturalist, ancestor worship, death cults, to full blown pantheons. As ever in human history the strong took the weak and so it might have remained a collection of half-baked empires squabbling. Then one smallish kingdom made the mistake of invading the Principality of Kor. A modest city, a dozen towns, and a few hundred villages, Kor was small by even human standards at the time. Landlocked and dirt poor, it was a tempting prize for any aspiring noble. Kor had exactly one thing going for it, and that was a well-trained army that fully expected invasion. When the neighboring idiot kingdom of Razal showed up with a force three times that of Kor’s all might have been lost. But, then Kor’s hard trained army showed how to carve up peasant levies and send the rest running. Kor never looked back, placing the rest of the continent under it’s rule as the Korvir Empire.
All owed to an iron handed army that forgot nothing and forgave nothing.The earliest ruins excavated by the historians of the Korvir Empire show that the first human signs of civilization were about 5,000 years in the past. As far as humanity is concerned it is inextricable from the Korvir Empire. The Hort continent is by far the largest on the planet. Subdivided by mountain ranges and deserts, dozens of small kingdoms developed. At least four language groups existed and further dialects from those. Religions on the continent ranged from animist, naturalist, ancestor worship, death cults, to full blown pantheons. As ever in human history the strong took the weak and so it might have remained a collection of half-baked empires squabbling. Then one smallish kingdom made the mistake of invading the Principality of Kor. A modest city, a dozen towns, and a few hundred villages, Kor was small by even human standards at the time. Landlocked and dirt poor, it was a tempting prize for any aspiring noble. Kor had exactly one thing going for it, and that was a well-trained army that fully expected invasion. When the neighboring idiot kingdom of Razal showed up with a force three times that of Kor’s all might have been lost. But, then Kor’s hard trained army showed how to carve up peasant levies and send the rest running. Kor never looked back, placing the rest of the continent under it’s rule as the Korvir Empire. All owed to an iron handed army that forgot nothing and forgave nothing.
The Tir la Noc
In all but hue of the skin, the dark elven or Tir la Noc is close enough to the elven to surmise a common ancestry. However, both races utterly deny it, all evidence to the contrary be damned. There are known to be six great noble houses in their southern continent. Rumors of extreme social stratification abound. Any information on the Tir la Noc must however be taken with caution as they consider all other races to be unworthy of anything but lies. Even attempts at mapping the continent of Sartin have been chased off or exterminated by the Tir la Noc. One undeniable fact is that the continent suffers from overpopulation. Serf rebellions are common due to food shortages and unremitting conscription to the large armies maintained by the noble houses. The government is known as the Assembly, a factious gathering of mutual enemies. Open warfare and assassination are common practice. Little is known of the history of the Tir la Noc but given that they share a common root language with a different dialect, it is assumed that it may go back as far as the elven. The Tir la Noc is the home of the necromantic school of magic. A history of invading any possible nation has made a plague more welcome to any nation than the Tir la Noc. Most trading by the Tir la Noc must be conducted through the Merchant Isles. The recent invasions against the Elindari has only reinforced bans on trade with the Tir la Noc.