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A general rundown of world history.
Not much is known about the state of Zuros before the Gods arrived and to describe anything about this time period as known history is incorrect. The time before the Gods is best described as a confusing mix of history, myth, and legend. At best man has been told conflicting accounts from various Gods, with some of the original Gods saying they manifested into Zuros while others say that they traveled to Zuros from another far distant world.
However, something all original Gods constantly describe is the fact that strange primordial beings existed on Zuros before them, and a great war was fought over control over the world with the Gods comming out victorious in the end. It is said that most of the primordial creatures were slain by the Gods, but a handful of them did escape and either fled to other worlds or went into hiding.
Some time after the war between the Gods and the ancient primordial beings Zuros was left in ruins. After the dust settled new life began to emerge. Information given to us by the Gods has lead to many sages to the conclusion that life developed in several ways from this point on, with some life evolving naturally with the Gods only occasionally stepping in to nudge it in the direction they'd like, or just creating new life from nothing.
It is during this time that the Gods took notice of dinosaurs and their great power and potential. The Gods used their magic and influence to mold the dinosaurs into the first dragons.
Dragons quickly spread across all of Zuros, splitting into sever different variants and subspecies over millions of years. During this time the Gods began to notice that the dragons became arrogant and the race that they envisioned as great potential servants, started seeing themselves as superior to the Gods.
While no one is sure when exactly the Dragon War started, we do know that the fighting lasted longer than any mortal could comprehend, even lasting longer than the Gods original war with the primorials. It has been said by the Gods that they had to face off against millions if not billions of dragons who sought to replace the as the controllers of Zuros.
In the end while the dragons put up a good fight even better than the primordials, they eventually were defeated by the Gods. After the failure of their rebellion most if not all dragons abandoned the idea of defeating the Gods, this combined with the fact that many dragons subspecies started developing different outlook, philosophies, and general outlooks on the world resulted in them also fighting amongst themselves. With some dragons even becoming clerics and paladins for some of the Gods and fighting on their behalf. To this day another dragon empire has never risen again and likely never will.
The Gods after barely recovering from their war with the Primordials and then having to defeat the dragons were severely weakened. The Gods combined the last of their remaining strength to raise what is now Mt. Celeste and construed a home for themselves, a place they could recover and watch over the world in.
After millions and millions of years the world slowly began to settle again into a time of prosperity. Life once again had emerged from the destructions of one of the Gods wars and spread throughout Zuros, with the Gods yet again influencing its development. However, this time the Gods did so with a lot more caution, with humanity eventually emerging and resembling the Gods forms much closer than that of the dragons.
While one again intrigued by the natural life that developed on Zuros, the Gods who wanted to push the species of man forward gave man what is best described as small "nudges" instead of completely reshaping them like they did the dragons. Several Gods took man in many different directions, that combined with natural evolution gave us the many humanoid races we know today like Humans, Elves, Dwarves, etc. Some Gods were even inspired to create some entirely new beings.
The First Era, can be characterized by the rise and expansion of numerous humanoid empires across all of Zuros. While the world was covered in countless nations and states most have been forgotten through time, with only the three who rose above being known to most sages. Those being The Kaston Empire, The Four Nations, and The Grand Imperium.
The Kaston Empire was founded and ruled by a twin brother and sister, and was able to conqueror all adjacent lands the brother Godgrey's mastery of the sword and Atula's knowledge or magic.
The Four Nations was a confederation consisting of the four strongest elf nations. The Wood Elves, The Sea Elves , The Dark Elves, and The High Elves. These nations were mostly autonomous but did have a handful of overarching laws and a combined military force.
The Grand Imperium while the smallest and the least expansive, was a mostly Dwarvish civilization, while any other races were welcome into the Imperium the fact that most of their cities existed underground drove most other races away. Though later into its existence more evidence of Gnomes and Goblins being commonly throughout the empire rises up.
Several decades after The Kaston Empire was formed Godgry passed, followed by his sister Atula years later. Quikcly after they passed the empire began to crumble as the structure of Kaston's government was weak and till this point was held together by the strong wills and personalities of the Kaston siblings. Two Factions began to form, with one side wishing to follow Godgrey's image of the empire and the other wanting to follow Atula's. This resulted in Kaston splitting into two separate nations East Kaston and West Kaston, with West Kaston being ruled by those who followed Atula's teachings, and East Kaston following Godgrey's
The Great Was is the bloodies and longest mortal conflict in the history of Zuros. Over decades West Kaston grew bigger and bigger as it conquered more and more land, taking up the entirety of what is now The Everfree Forest and a large portion of The Desolate Wastes, relations between East Kaston and West Kaston while strained at times remained reasonably healthy until West Kaston ran out of small kingdoms and empires to conquer. As while East Kaston spent years of making Godgrey's dream of being able to stop fighting and settle down a reality and was able to move it economy to more than conquest, West Kaston kept following Atula's path of fueling its economy through conquest and now thay they were out of territory to fight over faced many hardships.
The upper class of society mostly comprising of retired generals and war heros looked for solutions to try and save the country but nothing they tried worked. Eventually with backs against the wall they devised a plan to save the empire. Through the use of powerful and dark magic that even the Gods don't seem to know the origins of, East Kaston was able to bring Atula back from the dead in hopes that she would know how to lead the nation forward, creating the very first Litch.
While she looked similar to Atula and had most of her memories the ritual was unrefined and imperfect failed to return Atula's soul. The warrior woman of honor was no more all the was left was her body flued by the desire to spread death and destruction across the entire world.
On the 23rd day of Todos in the year 569 West Kaston did the unthinkable and attacked East Kaston with an army unlike any other seen in the history of Zuros. It was an army of the undead, it is unknown how an army of such size was created and so fast and in secret in unknown and marks the beginning of The Great War.
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