A long time has passed since the Great War consumed the world. The victor established an absolute empire over the entire continent, and fearing that history would repeat itself, the Emperor abolished the fiefdoms. This decision enraged the old lords, who, unable to act openly, retreated into the shadows. They simply waited and waited for the right moment to strike.
The cruelty of the new order knew no limits. After the fighting, the Emperor turned his hatred against a vassal kingdom that had defied him directly: he annihilated its royal bloodline and exiled its people to a remote island. Yet fate is fickle. Years later, those exiles forged an anarchic but peaceful civilization on the seas. From them rose the **Caryacs**—the most feared pirates of the Vereda Sea, men and women growing in number, against whom even the Imperial Navy dares not fight.
Meanwhile, power consolidated in the capital, **Meoglen**. A vast and beautiful city, but one with a disturbing underworld where the Emperor holds no jurisdiction. There, the **Syndicates** hold sway—groups that govern themselves by their own laws, cultivating a power that the crown, locked away in its palace, cannot even imagine.
Steel was not the only thing that decided the war; magic was at the eye of the storm. The Emperor achieved victory through the betrayal of those who were supposed to protect the kingdoms.
The Blue Mages of Kanarian — From their fortress of orange stone, the tower of Mhuskul, they used their arts to sabotage their own army. When their king fell, they struck a deal with the invader to inherit the wealth of the vanished crown.
The White Mages of Genneian — Their king was the most powerful of all, the one most likely to win. Yet they were seduced by the Emperor's cunning. From the **Black Palace of Ocan**, they sabotaged their sovereign's final strategy, sealing his doom and the doom of all his allies.
In exchange for these deeds, the Empire granted them absolute control over magic and inquisitorial authority. Though both schools took time to coexist, fear of a magical war that might displease the Emperor forced them to work together. But their security was fragile, and they soon went to the throne to demand the Purge—against anyone who practiced magic outside their walls.
The Purge was merciless. First fell the Purple Mages, hidden alongside the Black Warlocks; their home, the great stairway of Meritdreth, was reduced to a ruin of indigo quarry stone.
Then fell the triad: the Red Mages, the Gray Mages, and the Yellow Mages. They had hidden themselves in The Lantern—a stone fortress spanning three islands in a deep archipelago within the White Wood. Despite an epic, all-out battle, betrayal found them. The school that had sheltered the last of their kind ended in rubble.
Only the Brown Mages remain a mystery. With no proof of their existence, their schools and fortresses came to be regarded as legends or inventions of popular folklore. And so the study of magic was restricted to just two schools of nearly impossible access—though rumor has it that, in secret, a small group still operates outside the law.
Today, the Empire is a nest of misery and hunger. While discontent simmers in the streets, the elites hunger only for more power. The imperial bloodline has passed down to the young King Micelo, a hollow monarch with no concern for his people.
While Micelo throws extravagant parties among the silks of his ancestors, he fails to notice that the air has changed. In the dark corners of the palace, his closest nobles are plotting a coup, slow-burning but carrying a force capable of reducing to ash everything the Emperor built.
One day at the fishing ports of Minorieth, a gathering was held—high officials and nobles planning the arrival of supplies for their distant, future war.
From among the common people rose historians and chroniclers who recorded the events that unfolded across this continent. Yet no one knows what became of them, or what happened to their writings.