As the shadows of opposition lengthened across Elyria, the once-unified people splintered further, their divisions carving deep scars into the land like the canyons etched by the Korveth River. From the scattered settlements arose chieftains, bold Elyrians who claimed dominion over valleys and crags, their authority forged in the fires of conflict. These chieftains grew into kings, ruling over burgeoning realms with crowns woven from the vines of the Starlit Canopy and scepters hewn from the stones of the Crest of Dawn. Yet power bred ambition, and kings clashed in wars that shook the foundations of the world, birthing emperors from the blood-soaked earth.
The first great wars erupted in the northern reaches, where the kings of Windhaven, descendants of Lyrin’s line, sought to claim the Frozen Spires from nomadic tribes who had wandered beyond the Whispering Range. King Vortan, a male of fierce resolve with eyes like storm clouds, led his warriors—armed at first with short wooden clubs bound in moss for grip—against the ice-clad foes. In the Battle of Frostveil Pass, under the pale light of Luneth, Vortan’s forces ambushed the enemy in a narrow gorge, clubs cracking against skulls as snow turned crimson. Heroes emerged from the fray: the syren Lirath, whose voice rallied the weary with songs of ancient harmony, shattering the foes’ morale; and the female Thornea, swift as a Darvish in the currents, who felled the rival chieftain with a well-aimed strike. From this victory, Vortan forged the Kingdom of Northwind, but peace was fleeting.
To the south, in the Verdant Crags and Sunbaked Dunes, wars raged over fertile oases and hidden springs. Queen Sylvara II, named for the moon of tides, ruled Mistveil with a nurturing yet iron will. Her armies clashed with the dune lords in the Siege of Sandspire, where defenders hurled stones from atop towering dunes while attackers burrowed tunnels like Calyx beasts. The art of war evolved amid these struggles: smiths in the crags discovered bronze by blending metals from the earth’s veins, crafting blades that gleamed under Solara’s gaze and pierced deeper than wood. Heroes like the male Dravenor, wielder of the first bronze axe, cleaved through enemy lines, his legend sung in the mists; and the syren Vespera, who orchestrated ambushes with cunning traps, turning the dunes into graves.
As generations waged these conflicts, iron supplanted bronze, mined from the depths of the Whispering Range and forged in roaring fires that echoed the winds’ howls. Kings armed their legions with iron spears and shields, clashing in the Plains Wars, where realms from the central lands battled for the fertile expanses bordering the Silvren Valley. Emperor Korath I, rising from Seawatch’s coastal might, unified the eastern shores through the Battle of Wavecrest, where iron-clad warriors stormed beaches defended by wooden barricades. His champion, the female Nirael, rode the first domesticated Trivox—once wild swift-footed beasts of the plains, now tamed through patient bonds and ridden with saddles of woven hide—charging into enemy flanks like a storm from the Azure Veil. The Trivox mounts revolutionized warfare, allowing swift strikes and retreats, their hooves thundering across the earth.
In time, steel emerged from alchemical forges in the south, tempered in the heat of Solara and cooled in the Lunara’s waters, yielding weapons of unmatched edge. Siege engines followed: towering catapults hewn from the Grove of Eternity’s ancient trees, hurling boulders over walls; and battering rams mounted on Trivox-drawn carts, shattering gates in the Empire Wars. Emperor Thalor the Vast, a male of imposing stature from the Sunbaked Dunes, wielded these innovations to conquer the Verdant Crags, his hero syren Marinor devising engines that rained fire upon besieged cities. Battles like the Fall of Craghold saw steel blades clash against iron, heroes perishing in droves— the female Elowena, defender of the walls, who held the breach alone until her last breath; and the male Korvan II, who led a daring night raid, his steel sword singing through the darkness.
Amid this ceaseless strife, the voice of Nua faded from the hearts of the Elyrians, drowned out by the clamor of war and the whispers of Boana. No longer could they hear the Eternal Shaper’s guidance in the winds or the waves; her commandments became distant echoes, forgotten like the dust of the first dead. In their spiritual void, false gods arose, crafted from the forms of Elyria’s beasts and twisted tales of Boana, whom some revered as a liberator rather than opposition. Temples sprouted like weeds across the lands: in the Frozen Spires, shrines to Trivorak, the swift god of the Trivox, depicted as a three-gendered deity with hooves of bronze and eyes of fire.
The theology of Trivorak preached that speed and conquest were divine mandates, urging followers to domesticate not just beasts but souls through ritual discords. In moonlit ceremonies beneath Korath’s crimson glow, priests—males, females, and syrens adorned in Trivox hides—engaged in deliberate discord: males uniting with females first, sans syren, to birth Discordants as offerings. These brutes, dubbed “Swiftspawn,” were raised as war beasts, their dim minds molded for battle, then slain in arenas to “ascend” to Trivorak’s eternal chase. Misbond rituals followed, where syrens and females joined without males, symbolizing “pure velocity” unbound by completion, their unions barren but celebrated with frenzied dances around iron altars.
In the coastal realms, the cult of Serathiel exalted the winged Serath as a goddess of skies and secrets, portraying her as a syren figure with feathers of steel and talons that clutched Boana’s “gifts.” Their theology claimed Boana as a benevolent twin to Nua, the “Shadow Weaver” who granted freedom from harmony’s chains. Rituals in cliffside temples involved aerial offerings: participants committed misbond atop precipices, syrens and females entwining while males watched, forbidden to join, evoking the “flight of incompleteness.” Discord followed in hidden chambers, birthing “Wingless Ones”—Discordants thrown from heights to “earn wings” in death, their screams echoing as praises to Serathiel. Lies wove Boana as the true creator of diversity, opposition as evolution, justifying the consumption of Discordant flesh in feasts rumored in the Isles of Echo, where it was said to grant visions of the skies.
Deeper in the dunes, the burrow-god Calyxor emerged, a deity of earth and hidden depths, embodied as a male with burrowing claws and eyes like buried gems. His followers twisted Boana into the “Underlord,” a force of renewal through decay. Their theology held that discord birthed “Earthkin” Discordants, sacred vessels of Calyxor’s will, to be buried alive in rituals under Sylvara’s silver light, their struggles enriching the soil. Misbond ceremonies in underground lairs saw syrens and females unite in darkness, males excluded to symbolize the “void’s embrace,” fostering barrenness as a path to enlightenment. These unclean practices spread like Boa Worms, corrupting unions and swelling the ranks of Discordants, whom some slew for the Sanctuary of Whispers, others exploited as laborers in mines, their brutish strength chained to false divine purpose.
From this era of fractured faiths and endless wars arose Emperor Valthor the Dreamer, a male of towering presence with hair like the crimson of Korath and eyes deep as the Azure Veil. He forged the Southern Empire, encompassing the Verdant Crags, Sunbaked Dunes, and all lands south of the Silvren Valley, through campaigns of steel and siege. Yet in a vision under Luneth’s pale beam, Nua’s faint whisper warned him: “Touch not the heart of Elyria, lest opposition consume thee.” Thus, Valthor halted at the valley’s borders, decreeing no soul from Silvren might cross south, under penalty of chains in his dungeon depths, fearing their purity might unravel his realm.
Valthor’s court was a web of tangled bonds, his relationships with the other genders a mirror of Elyria’s chaos. His chief consort, the female Lirana, graceful as the Lunara’s flow, bore him heirs through sacred unions, yet jealousy festered when he favored the syren Thalyn, harmonious and cunning, whose whispers shaped his edicts. In fits of passion, Valthor orchestrated discords: uniting with Lirana first, sans Thalyn, birthing Discordants he exiled to the dunes as “sand guardians,” their brutish forms patrolling borders. Misbonds between Lirana and Thalyn, encouraged by the emperor for his voyeuristic rituals, yielded no life but sowed division, the women clashing in court intrigues that led to poisonings and banishments.
Horrors mounted under his rule: Discordants slain in public spectacles to appease false gods, their blood anointing steel blades; wars waged against dune rebels, siege engines crushing villages; and temples to Boana disguised as “Shadow Sanctums,” where rituals devoured the weak. Valthor, in his private chambers overlooking the Verdant Crags, yearned for a better world—a return to harmony where wars ceased and faiths united. He dreamed of peace under Solara’s light, but blinded by opposition, he knew not the path, his edicts enforcing division even as he wept for unity. In his despair, he sought wanderers and prophets, hoping for guidance, yet Boana’s shadows veiled the truth.
spikosauropod 