< Scavenger Lands | Hundred Kingdoms | Wyld Reaches >
Some 91 years after the end of the Great Contagion, there was a Kingdom in the Far Reaches of the East known as Andorsia. As Kingdom's go, it was a small one and it had barely paid any role in the fight against the Scarlet Empress some eight years ago. No great heroes were born within this kingdom, and not 16 years later, it fell to a upswelling horde of Barbarians that burned most of its cities to the ground. Yet, within this Kingdom, there is a town that was worthy of note and that exists largely unchanged to this very day. It is called Heaven's Gate, for this town contains a portal to the heavenly city of Yu Shan. In the early years after the Great Contagion, Heaven's Gate had boasted a vast assortment of divine refugees. Those divinities that had escaped from parts of Creation now destroyed, who had come to the town hoping for refuge in Heaven, and been rebuffed. Still, the City had fared better than most, being defended by a small horde of Gods and a sizable contingent of Celestial Lions.
After the crisis ended, gradually, things began to return to normal in Heaven's Gate. Those gods' that could manage to attain entry into Yu Shan left, and most of those that could not drifted off elsewhere, hoping to make a future for themselves here in the East. Enough remained, however, for the town to form what could only be called a Divine Ghetto inhabited by cast off divinities with absolutely nothing to live for but too much will to simply cease to exist. Instead, they lingered. One amongst these Divine Bum's was a former power of the far extant of Creation, now consigned to Chaos, who was called Savoth the Life-Giver. Since being denied entry to Heaven, he'd spent the 91 years since the rise of the Scarlet Empress trading away blessings for enough alcohol to make everything melt away into a drunken haze and sleeping most nights in the ally just outside his favorite Tavern.
The people of Loriane, a little known prefecture of the Shogunate that had been all but dissolved by the Fair Folk, had spent the last century wandering from land to land and struggling to find a place. They had the strength and numbers to avoid being cast, as a whole, into slavery but not the armed might and organization to actually conquer a new homeland for themselves. So they had traveled the East as mendicants and beggars, living as they could until they were inevitably driven away but usually not before losing a few of their number to the twin perils of slavery and intermarriage. They halfheartedly worshiped their god, a grasping creature known as Kulan of the Fearful Eye, a creature that seemed to hate them only slightly less than it hated everyone else. They placated their god with prayers and sacrifice and he in turn kept them safe...but only to a point...while promising them a land of their own but never seeming to deliver.
Then, the people of Loriane entered into the lands of Andorsia and passed near the town even then called Heaven's Gate. Savoth the Life-Giver, who had managed to acquire some Celestial Cocaine the night before and was nigh passed out in his favorite alley, was mistaken for a layabout by a pair of Loraine youth and mugged at (blunt) knife point. Far too shocked (and, okay, hungover) to simply smite the children, he charmed them enough to make them think he'd actually given then something and then followed them as they returned to their people. He wasn't sure why he followed them, then, was it to attain revenge or for some other reason? In the years afterward, he pondered if it wasn't perhaps Destiny? Regardless, he spent the next two months secretly observing the people of Loriane as they suffered under their own hardships and the uncaring ministrations of their God.
The people of Amanton don't mention, specifically, what happened to Kulan of the Fearful Eye. When they left Andorsia, however, it was under the more benevolent guidance of Savoth the Life-Giver. Unlike their former Patron, Savoth walked with them openly and whenever anyone tried to threaten his new-found people they found themselves faced with a very powerful and very angry divinity. Before the year was ended, Savoth had been married to the Crown Princess and the people as a whole considered him more than just a God but also their Leader. When the Princess Mi-Lora gave birth to sextuplets, each bearing the mark of Savoth, the future of their people seemed more secure than it had since the beginning of this new Age. Only eight years after finding their new God, the people of Loriane had made their way to the part of the Scavenger Lands then known as the Wyld Reaches and begun to build themselves a home on the ruins of the First Age City of Maloria. Their new home was not a safe place; the Wyld Tides had only receded recently and the area was still infested with Raksha and worse threats. Yet, under the guidance of their new God and the ones he drew into their service, the people felt safe and reclaimed the area for Creation.
In RY 107, Savoth proved his power and benevolence to all the people of the Wyld Reaches when he marched with his children and those of the Dragon-Blooded that he'd drawn to his side into the heart of the Wyld and slew a Prince of the Fair Folk called the Song of Serenity. Returning to the shattered state of Dalton, which the Raksha had razed to the ground, he is said to have wept upon the stones and vowed to protect all the Wyld Reaches from the Wyld.
So, thus, was the Protectorate of Amanton founded.
Thus did it guide and shepherd the Wyld Reaches for nearly 500 years.
The murder of Savoth the Life-Giver in RY 579 shook the people of Amanton to the core, and utterly destroyed the great Protectorate that their God had made and that had kept the Wyld Reaches stable and safe from the Raksha (and each other) for so long. The murderer has never been identified, but most suspect that one of the Fair Folk that had only recently been defeated in their invasion of the Scavenger Lands was somehow responsible. The god of Amanton, and many of his children, had fought side-by-side with Lookshy and the Mercenary Companies out of Lookshy for the entire seven year campaign and many Fae had reason to hate the God going back to the destruction of the Song of Silence so long ago.
The massive state funeral was widely attended, attracting people from all over the Scavenger Lands. No few Gods' attended as well, not least of them Great Fork's Patron Goddess "Shield of a Different Day", while no few members of the various Dragon-Blooded Gentes of Lookshy even attended to show their respects. No doubt over the objection of their Immaculate chaplains.
After the end of the funeral, the matter of what was now to be done had to be addressed. No thought was given to appointing a new ruler, with most people simply looking to the God's Bloodline for guidance. A few of Savoth's God-Blooded children tried to stop the inevitable slide into chaos that accompanied the death of their father but proved insufficient to do such. As a result, more than a few of them died as well in the various brush fire wars that sparked up around the Wyld Reaches. Eventually, the City simply closed it's gates and grew determined to weather things as best they could. Though a few armies tried to conquer Amanton, the walls of the city never fell and the people never suffered as places such as Budan or Meloria.
(note, lots more stuff to come later...)
Stryck Wiki