Mandelson Monday Musings 2 "A Kinda Brie ...

Mandelson Monday Musings 2 "A Kinda Brief History of Tycran."

Oct 04, 2022

For this week's installment of manic mind excretions, a prologue of one of my books!

Tycran is the setting of my fantasy book series on one of the fictional universes I am designing. I have been putting a lot of thought into it recently so here is a summary and exposition of the events prior to where I begin the book.

A thousand years before our tale, Tycran was home to no humans, but a multitude of other races. There were four main Elven clans with their own self-sustaining nations, Gor'nav semigiants to the north, four eyed green forest dwellers in the large central woods called Lokans, and a few other humanoid races in isolation from common civilized existence.

Around 900 years prior, four human tribes from a far off neighboring continent fled the impending invasion of a large conquering tribe. They contracted a Corzan nomadic human sea conglomerate to transport them for two years across the oceans to land they assumed was uninhabited.

The Corzan settled at the first landing site and immediately started lumber trade to a wood-starved cluster of islands to the southwest.

A community of crafters and hunters, the Horstad tribe journeyed the farthest and settled high up in the mountains of the northwest and began to build their village inside existing and manmade caves high in the mountain.

A group of farmers and modest magic users, the Duriel tribe ventured across half the continent and settle in a vast plain not too far south of a large elven flotilla city-state in the marshes. They begin farming and developing a relationship and rapport with the Elves.

A parish of religious zealots, the Ayazov tribe settles at a delta on the southeast corner of the Galen sea and build a grand stone monastery and offer refuge and food to all as a mission.

The last human tribe that immigrated was the Prezcht. A nomadic brutal society that treasured strength and power. After a short while, they begin raiding human and native citystates but stand ultimately unopposed due to their speed in pillaging in such excess force that cities could not mobilize a large enough defense to repel the attackers in any capacity.

A century after the humans arrive, elves in all four nations around Tycran begin dying from an unknown illness. Within a year, 40% of the Elven population perishes from the plague. Ayazovan alchemists develop an innoculation to the disease, but has a side effect of sterilization.

Over another year, 80% of the Elven population has perished. Those who have not been innoculated flee to the islands in the Galen sea and forbid any human contact. 15% of Elves remain in the mainland.

Shortly after, it is discovered that innoculated elves can still bear and sire children with humans. The Prezcht begin a massive scale hunt and capture of elves.

The Prezcht forcibly breed half human, half elven hybrids called Aqynites, and bind them with human enslaving magic. Over the next generation, the Prezcht creates a legion of age-immortal adolescent battlemages under their absolute control.

They then used this army of powerful teenage hybrids to capture nearly a dozen cities, a mix of Ayazovan, Corzan, and independent settlements. They garrison a large portion of their Aqynites in a captured northern coastal fortress on the Galen sea they rename Fort Prezcht.

The surviving elves plead the other human nations to assist them in liberating the enslaved elves and Aqynites. They desperately agree to teach magic to the Duriel and Ayazov in exchange for military aid.

At the height of their power, the Prezcht war chief suddenly broadcasts an order to all Aqynites to slaughter all Prezcht that aren't part of his family.

The generals at Fort Prezcht are able to jam the temporal orders with the Fortress's mnemonic defenses and modify the slavers magic to sever the connection to the war chief.

The Aqynites from the other captured settlements exterminate the human Prezcht on command and then march back to the war chief's oasis encampment in the deserts far south in Tycran.

The Ayazov and Corzan immediately move to recapture some of their lost territories while the remainder of the citystates keep their independence.

The innoculated elves see the weakness in the Prezcht and start planning to invade the Prezcht oasis to liberate the remaining captives.

On the day of mobilization, both the Duriel and Ayazov send far less troops than promised and keep the most talented magic users behind. The elves are disappointed but storm the oasis with an amateur army anyway. It's a slaughter on both sides.

Backed into a corner, the war chief executes the remaining elven captives. With no real ties to the Aqynites, the Elven morale shatters and they retreat. Less than 600 innoculated elves remain. Some of the most powerful magic users retreat to rebuild ruined elven castles on the western coast into societal schools of magic called the Vreem. The war chief secludes with his remaining 120 Aqynites and stays out of Tycran affairs.

A century or so after the Elven-Prezcht war, the werefolk outbreak begins. Were-Bears, Were-Gargoyles, Were-Gharks (Lizards), Were-Oryx (Centaurs), Were-Scorpions, Were-Wolves and Were-Cats flood the continent and quickly multiply.

The Ayazov begin training special agents to combat the werefolk. The Horstad begin hunting the werefolk for sport.

After a century, the Ayazov clear the werefolk south of the river that bisects the north and the south. They use this as an excuse to annex and convert smaller neighboring citystates and demand tribute for their protection. Were-Wolves and Were-Cats have been hunted to extinction.

While on a hunting trip, several members of Horstad royalty get bitten by feral Were-Bears and become werefolk themselves. Shortly after, hunting werefolk for sport is outlawed in the Horstad nation. The royal family offers an abandoned Horstad quarry on the northwest corner of the Galen sea as a refuge for werefolk not consumed by bloodlust. A community of werefolk build a large democratic settlement with the Horstad aid. The rest of the continent refers to the community as The Den.

A few decades later, a segment of rapids on the river between the Duriel and Horstad is drained to reveal an empire's fortune of gold and precious gems along the riverbed. A brawl between Duriel and Horstad workers breaks out over claim of the treasure. This begins a cluster of events that will be known as the 300 Year War.

The Horstad and Duriel fight off and on for centuries, making treaties over the bounteous riverbed, and then betraying trust leading to bursts of violence.

The conflict builds a strong nationalist belief system and social caste structure amongst the Duriel, and swiftly advances the technology of the Horstad.

Near the end of the war, about 60 years prior to our story, the Horstad have invented steam power, zeppelin airships, and a portable power source fueled by magnets, resonance, and fish oil.

The Verskil Mercenary Supernation has expanded their territory to the peninsula south of Tycran, and begins offering their services equally to the nations of Tycran. Thet relocate a few conquered people's to the barren plateaus in the south of Tycran. Among them are the southern Aqynites, now liberated from their war chief by the Verskil, the Kor'ikan four-armed semigiants, and a race of treelike flora humanoids called Sporighani.

Since 55 years prior to our story, the Duriel had enslaved an entire nation of Goblins that fled from a volcanic eruption that consumed their homeland. They have used Goblins and a few Vreem agents to combine magic and technology to create dangerous and chaotic, but uttterly devastating, weapons and infantry.

45 years prior to our story, the Goblins rebel and destroy the Duriel factory and weapons depot. The Duriel are now severely losing the war.

Facing desperation to save the nation, the Duriel ally with magic users from the Vreem School of Void Magic. They create machines and engines that "recycle" flesh from the battlefield, mold a creature from the flesh, and imbues them with a drone void spirit to fight on behalf of the Duriel.

The tactic works for a short while... but as the war dipped back into the Duriel lines and the military was nearly disintegrated, the void abominations turned against the Duriel and began to consume and "process" the remaining Duriel population.

The rest of the continent could only observe in abject horror while the Duriel nation consumed itself. The territory and the creatures within was then known as the moniker given to the abominations by their makers, the "Durok".

For the first time in nearly a millennia, the continent saw relative peace. The Ayazov continued annexing smaller villages without much bloodshed, and created a strong trade bond with the Horstad and Corzan. The humans are for once playing nice... but a human's perspective is limited.

The non-humans of Tycran are restless. Unlikely alliances and devious deals are being struck in secret between greater entities of the Void controlling the Durok hordes, the Lokan tribes, the Gor'nav semi-giants, the Pengir arctic birdman engineers, elven magibiologists, and three major Vreem Schools of Magic.

The Horstad discover a magic negating mineral and risk angering every magic user in the land.

The Ayazovan papal armies work to push back the Durok lines and clear the abominations in the West while also crusading against the werefolk refugee city-state in the North.

Catalysts are making contact, and rage is being weaponized. What will become of the continent of Tycran after the approaching maelstrom?

Thanks for listening! ✨💜✨

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