History of Versura

Milennia have passed since Versura was created. Scholars divide this time into ages, seperated from each other by cataclysms catastrophic times of trouble and strife, each bringing lasting changes to Versura.

Creation

The world Versura lies within the All-Possible, an endless nothing filled only with possibilities. Fakul, the First and Only, the Eternal Dreamer, created realities and undid them with his boundless imagination. One day, he thought up five elements - fire, earth, metal, water and wood - that interacted with each other many interesting ways. After watching this for some time, he wanted to undo them again, but to no avail. They had taken a life of their own, independent from Fakul's thoughts and dreams.

War of Creation

Infuriated about this, Fakul conjured up his most vile thoughts and worst nightmares, creating the abberants, beings of an unspeakable and - for mortals - unthinkable nature. He sent them out to destroy his own creation. The elements fought back, creating five beings as embodiments of each one, now known as the Greater Gods. They also created an army, lead by dragons as generals with Dragonborn as soldiers. The war lasted for centuries without either side gaining a decisive advantage.

While Fakul had constantly dreamt up new abberants to bolster his forces numbers, the dynamic of the war, completely independent from him, started to intrigue him. When he saw that the elements started spawning more lifeforms than dragons and dragonborn, he started to become intrigued with his creation and his interest soon supplanted his hatred. He called his abberants to stop their fight to destroy creation, but they had gained a life of their own, too, and defied their master and carried on. Fakul tried to help by creating by an army of creatures infused with both the essence of the All-Possible and one of the elements, the genasi, which was lead by angels.

Yet it was not enough to defeat the abberants. In his desire to stop the fighting, he created the Sky, a dome designed to seperate the abberants from creation and to end the war this way. It worked, but not for all of creation. The parts not protected by the Sky were still threatened by the abberants and the war continued there. Over time, the elements would start to wage war among themselves as well in those parts of the world, creating the elemental chaos of the Netherworld.

First Civilizations

In Versura itself, an age of peace followed the end of the War of Creations. The emerging gods called the angels into their divine domains while they tasked the dragons to watch over the young world. The genasi and dragonborn adapted to a peaceful life while the other races and creatures began to thrive. Their lifestyles remained mostly simple, though, and only five races reached a certain grade of civilization.

Each of these five races has been closely associated to one of the five elements. The halflings, associated with wood, lived peacefully in the extensive woodlands of the east. The tieflings, associated with fire, reached a level of civilization only rivalled by the dwarves. The tieflings built great cities centered around magnificent temples where they worshipped Higonis and from where the priest ruled the society. The goliaths, associated with earth, started to live in clans and worship the spirits around them. The dwarves, associated with metal, emerged from the depths of Notthegor expanding into other mountain ranges where they mined minerals and ore and built vast underground cities where they lived in a caste society. The race associated with water remains a mystery. No records ever mention them. Some assume they were destroyed in one of the cataclysms, others think they have always lived and still live a secretive, secluded life at the the bottom of the Pirate Sea.

Fey Invasion

This age of peace ended when turmoil in the Feywild started to spill over into Versura. In a power struggle between its denizens, the jedanae, which would later split into Elves, Eladrin and Drow, were banished from the Feywild by a concerted effort of the other fey and thrust into Versura. Seeking to force their way back into the Feywild, the jedanae first sought to find allies, but few were interested in fighting with them. So the jedanae resorted to violence, starting to enslave tribe after tribe, people after people, meeting little resistance. Driven by the burning desire to return to the Feywild, their methods became increasingly ruthless and violent which started to alienate their own.

The House of Elf was the first to abandon the cause. Not only did they realize and accept that they would never be able to return to the Feywild, but they started to like Versura and adopted it as their new home. They sent envoys to the humans of the Heartland, the displaced halflings, the sturdy dwarves, and the fierce goliaths who were next in the path of the jedanae. After some initial misunderstandings, they managed to forge an alliance between the five races. The Alliance of Five beat the jedanae and its unwilling allies at the First Battle of Horishen Pass where many of the enslaved changed sides and the elves came from the nearby forest to deliver the deciding blow to their own brothers and sisters.

This battle turned the tide. The enslaved people began to throw off the yoke of jedanae slavery and the jedanae started to argue among themselves. On one side was the House of Eladrin, pleading to abandon what they saw as a lost cause and to stop the cruelties they commited. On the other side was the House of Drow, who were determined to win this war at all costs. As dissent among the remaining allies and slaves and the jedanae themselves grew, the House of Drow and it supporters grew increasingly merciless, executing people left and right and leaving destruction in their wake wherever they went.

Ultimately, the House of Eladrin and those who shared their views abandoned the Invasion, too. They retreated into the vast forests of the east, seeking recluse and isolation while coping with the guilt they had laden on themselves. The remaining jedanae could no longer control their minions and soon they were on the run from the allied armies. After years of chasing them down, the allies finally captured the House of Drow and their remaining supporters. The eladrin now sent wizards to the leader of the allies, a human named Shimiper, begging for forgiveness for what they had done and offering their help in dealing with the drow. With their help, the surviving jedanae were banished into the Underdark. The eladrin had redeemed themselves.

The Human Empire

Following the victory over the Fey Invasion, the allies proclaimed their leader, the human Shimiper, as their emperor. His authority held together the many different races and cultures of the empire, but it did not survive long after his death. Too vast its extent, too different its people. The orcs of the east were the first to leave the empire. The elves and eladrin retreated into the woods and forests. The dwarves went back to their homes. The tieflings, hit hard by the Fey Invasion, began reconstructing their cities and were preoccupied with their own affairs and followed the isolationist paroles of their priests. The goliaths slipped out of the empire's control clan by clan. Only the halflings, displaced from their homes in the east, stayed in the empire.

One hundred years after Shimiper's death, the empire was reduced to the five duchies that still form the core of the empire in the present day: Rajnam, Monsal, Derra, Ingas and Lingam. The Holy City Tencra remained an independent city state with close ties to the empire and the dwarves of Nutthosho remained allied to the empire. In the following centuries, the empire, once little more than an alliance of tribes, clans and cities under one leader developed into a feudal state.

Time of Temptation

The next cataclysm cast its shadow far ahead, but unnoticable at the time. Slowly, various forces started to corrupt individuals and whole people and laid the groundwork for the conflicts that would come. The final cataclysm did not come in the form of one vast conflict, but in the form of many conflicts.

The Empire

Throughout the time of peace, the title of emperor was inherited among the descendants of Shimiper, the first emperor, usually through sons, nephews or brothers. Then his descendants started dying out, many potential heirs started dying mysterious deaths, thinning out Shimiper's bloodline. At the same time, many powerful nobles married into the imperial family, setting their sons up as potential candidates if the trend continued. Especially the Dukes of Derra and Ingas were prolific in securing alliances and marriages.

When Emperor Dunus died young and without any sons, nephews or brothers alive as potential heirs, the empire erupted in a succession war all sides involved had long prepared for. The battles ravaged the land for almost two decades and if it wasn't for the attack of the tieflings (see below), it might have torn apart the empire for good.

It was Simuro, Dunus' younger sister, who lead an army to defend the empire from the tiefling attack which was deflected with help of the fire dragonborn who also fought against them. Simuro's accomplishments suddenly made her a prospective candidate to the throne as her victory over the tieflings made her extremely popular with the peasants, commoners and lesser nobles. A large army of volunteers assembled around her, determined to fight for their empress. After long fighting, she had defeated her most fierce enemies and secured the throne, becoming the first woman to rule the empire. Blessed with many children and a long life, she managed to give Shimiper's bloodline a new basis, heal the severe wounds the succession wars had caused and bring the empire back together. Long before she died at age 87 she was already called Simuro the Great, the only ruler of the empire to gain this distinction besides Shimiper himself.

The Tieflings and the Fire Dragonborn

After they split from the empire, their priests quickly seized control of the tiefling lands. In an effort to focus all forces on reconstructing their country after the destruction caused by the Fey invasion, they became reclusive and isolationist, all the way to outright xenophobic in later centuries. Their cities, although closed to outsiders, grew and blossomed to a splendor unknown even before the invasion. Especially in the field of arcana, the knowledge and accomplishments of the tieflings of this age are unmatched to this day, but unfortunately mostly forgotten.

During that time, the worship of other gods besides Higonis began. Most of them were dark gods, unheard of outside of the tiefland, and soon enough, it became it obvious that the tieflings had turned to outright demon worship. But the corruption of the tieflings didn't stop with that. They started to summon demons to walk among them and created a bloodline of tieflings infused with demonic powers, altering the tieflings' physical appearance to what it still is today.

The Greater God Higonis, once worshipped by the tieflings became concerned and send Salaman, one of his dragon generals from the War of Creation to go and see what happened to the chosen people of fire. Infuriated by his findings, he destroyed the tiefling capital of Vatra and with it the main temple of the tieflings. He tried to exterminate the demons on his own, but they nearly overwhelmed and killed him. Escaping barely, he reported to Higonis who ordered Salaman to assemble the fire dragonborn and the red dragons to fight the demons and punish their fallen worshippers.

In the meantime, the tieflings remained unimpressed by Salaman's rampage. They had been preparing for a war of conquest for a long time and it was time to strike against the empire. The eastern part of the empire fell quickly as it was unable to mount anything resembling a serious defense because of the ongoing succession war. Only the arrival Salaman's army changed the tides. The tieflings split their forces which allowed Simura to defeat the tieflings and the demons at the Second Battle of Horishen Pass. At the same time, Salaman and his forces won skirmish after skirmish, battle after battle, routing all tiefling forces and leaving a trail of total destruction in their wake. No city, no town was left standing, no tiefling, no demon allowed to survive. And following them was Higonis himself, searing the land and destroying the tieflands, leaving the Suva Desert behind.

The only survivors were a group of dissidents that had fled to the highlands called Hochland. They rejected the demon worship - although they had been infused with the demonic bloodline as well - and continued to devoutly worship Higonis while hiding from their brother and sisters and their netherworldly masters. As he learned of them, Higonis ordered them to be spared from his wrath. Yet they were to remain in the recluse of the Hochland. The Suva Desert, now littered with ruins, battlefields and the lost secrets of the tieflings became the domain of the fire dragonborn who continue to patrol these lands to this day, preventing anyone from reclaiming the secrets of this dark age.

The Goliath Kingdom

The goliath life was disturbed when Kuningas, the leader of the Vioittun clan, tried to subjugate other clans, trying to establish himself as the king of all goliaths. While they were no strangers to feuds and wars between their clans, something like a supreme ruler of all goliaths was alien to them. Yet they did not form a united opposition against him, but allowed Kuningas to defeat one clan after the other, slowly establishing himself as a ruler after the imperial model.

It seemed as he would not be stopped, but then hubris got the better of him when he declared the traditional animistic beliefs of the goliats invalid and tried to force them to adopt worship the gods as worshipped in the Empire, with one addition: himself as the highest god, only inferior to the Greater Gods themselves. The nemesis that punished him didn't wait long to strike. A series of river floods and earthquakes ravaged the lands. Many saw this as a divine sign condemning Kuningas, but he interpreted it as punishment for improper worship. Still, the opposition grew and a rebel army assembled to fight the Divine King. Kuningas himself lead his army against them and when they met in battle, it seemed like Kuningas would easily crush the rebels. Then a mighty earthquake, maybe the strongest of all time, erupted. A chasm opened and swallowed Kuningas and Kuningas alone. All who witnessed this saw this as the final judgment over Kuningas and as the end of his reign and his religion.

The goliaths returned to their traditional lifestyle quickly, although feuds over crimes and misdeeds committed during Kuningas' reign continued to be fought for over a century before the fallout of the time of temptation was dealt with.

The Dwarves of Notthegor

The time of temptation also had its effect on the dwarves, although they will not let other people know much about it. Their ancestral home Notthegor had always been the center of their civilization, the authority to turn to in legal and religious questions. During the time of temptation, however, something happened in Nutthosho that caused the dwarves to leave their homes in a hurry and sealing the entrances to their underground realm. Whatever happened remains clouded in secrecy, little written accounts exists and those are restricted to be read only by select dwarves. So even most dwarves don't know what exactly happened and most stories told are nothing more than speculation and legends.

The loss of their ancestral home and the closest to a central authority the dwarves had lead to a more individual development of the tribes that had spread out to settle in other mountain ranges. None of them ever succeeded in becoming a real replacement for Notthegor's authority; the closest to it would be Nutthosho, owing to its position at the edge of the Heartlands making it a hub for trade and spreading information between the dwarven realms and the neighboring lands.

Other Races

Other people were affected by the Time of Temptation as well. In some cases, its effects were not as grave, in other cases, not much is known about what happened.

The elves and eladrin report of the woods becoming corrupted with unholy, probably demonic forces. It required a valiant and united fight to contain and remove the corruption.

The races of the Wildlands, orcs, goblins, minotaurs and all the others, experienced a time of extreme strife and war between them, significantly higher than the "usual" fighting occurring in the Wildlands.

Many scholars assume that the lost race of water fell during the time of temptation or the events forced them into hiding.

The Age of Reconstruction

Following the events of the Time of Temptation, the surviving realms reorganized themselves. The Empire rebuilt itself during a long time of peace under the guidance of Simuro's heirs. During this time, the Halfshire was officially carved out of the western reaches of Derra and Monsal and became an autonomous province within the Empire where the halflings could return to their traditional lifestyle. The Empire also started expanding, founding the first of the Northern Cities and began settling the lands beyond Horishen Pass.

The dwarves overcame the difficulties that came with abandoning Notthegor quickly. The tieflings of the Hochland focused on weeding out the remaining followers of the dark gods. The goliaths returned to their traditional lifestyles. The gnomes, once thralls of the jedanae during the Fey Invasion, finally found a land to claim as their home after centuries of wandering.

Rise of the Beasts

The next cataclysm came in the form of an onslaught of wild beasts. Seemingly normal animal became feral monsters seemingly overnight. On top of that, the races of the Wildlands went on the warpath against the people of the five quarters and the Heartland. It was not a concerted effort and there was no united defense against it, but eventually the races of the central lands had weathered the storm. The aftereffects are still felt, though, as the races of the Wildlands remain hostile and launch occasional raids and many monsters still lurk in the wilderness all over Versura.

The current Age

The Empire remained at peace after the Rise of the Beasts. While its events had constituted a setback in its expansion, the Northern Cities grew and the settlement of the Eastern Marches, while still threatened by the denizens of the Wildlands, especially the orcs, continued. Explorers were sent across the northern ocean and to the borders of the known land to learn more about the world. Especially to the north, the exploration bore fruit as uninhabited coastlines were discovered and claimed for the Empire and the land of the Vikmen was discovered. The trade and traffic across the northern ocean gave rise to pirates, though, and gave the sea its modern name Pirate Sea.

Politically, the Ducal houses continued to intermarry with the Imperial dynasty and each other - to the point where the dukes all had legitimate claims to the Imperial Throne. Once again, a succession was impending, but this time the priests of the Central Temple at Tencra intervened and called the five rivaling dukes to the Holy City. They managed to reach a settlement by having them discuss and negotiate face to face until they agreed on one candidate as the one and only legitimate Emperor.

Since then, the Emperor has always been elected by the five dukes, although in some cases not even from among their own number. Over the last century, the Dukes of Rajnam have managed to establish their house on the Imperial Throne without much dissent. The current Emperor Methelsam is advancing in age and has yet to name one of his children as the heir to the throne. As a result, the nobles of the Empire have started positioning themselves for what might be the first contested succession in many generations.

The Future

The sages and mystics that study the history of Versura are certain that the cataclysms occur in regular intervals and another one must be coming soon. They cannot tell when exactly it will begin or what it will be, but they are urging the movers and shakers to prepare, although their pleas have fallen on deaf ears so far.

Since a lot of the mystics' teaching revolve about numbers and the number 5 in particular, some fear that the coming cataclysm is the fifth and final one, marking the end of the world. Others say that the War of Creation was not a cataclysm or that the world will end only after five ages.